The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett XX
[0] With Drake and Josh, I felt pissed that I, that started this whole mess.
[1] Josh said, ladies and gentlemen.
[2] He's an actor, comedian, one half of Drake and Josh, a staple of my childhood.
[3] Hark me, brother!
[4] The headline of the first 10 years of my life was single mom, never knew my dad, didn't have enough money for a slice of pizza.
[5] 15 years old, Drake and Josh, one would assume that you'd be like set for life.
[6] There was no residuals, and I'm as worried about next year's financial status as anyone.
[7] else i don't have that security and i do want to say that i was not properly appreciated for my work if i wanted to at will i could blow that up 18 years old you lose 127 pounds yeah one would assume that dropping 127 pounds would make you feel different about yourself i dealt with the effect but i didn't deal with the cause it was anger at my dad it was anger at my circumstance everything was going right and i still didn't feel like enough substituting what i used food for with drinking and with other substance, at 21, it all came barreling down on me. I hurt relationships and work.
[8] I worried the people that love me, and I realized that I needed to do something.
[9] And what you do in that moment decides what's going to happen next for you.
[10] You cannot think your way into right acting.
[11] You have to act your way into right thinking.
[12] Is there anything that's really helped you that you might recommend to someone listening at home?
[13] Yes.
[14] Josh.
[15] Josh, having read through your story extensively, it's quite clear to me that the most pertinent part of your story, and really like the through line begins, the sort of dot in that through line begins with this dynamic your parents had when you were very, very young.
[16] Can you take me back to 1980s in New York to give me the context that I'll need to understand to understand the things we're going to talk about today?
[17] Sure.
[18] I was born in 1986.
[19] I was born to a single mom and I never knew my dad.
[20] I was sort of the result of a, I guess what you would call a fling.
[21] My mom always says you were a surprise, not an accident.
[22] So I like the way she, the messaging, she's attached to that.
[23] But basically my mom and dad knew each other sort of through business.
[24] They had a nice.
[25] night and nine months later it came me. So sort of so many different, especially now having two kids of my own, knowing how the process of creating life can be tenuous and random and arbitrary and it can be incredibly easy or incredibly hard to know that they were together once and it just sort of happened that way is kind of crazy.
[26] It makes you believe like, oh, maybe I'm meant to be here, at least that's what I tell myself.
[27] But yeah, I was the result of that and my mom who was 43 at the time knew that she'd always wanted to have a child but wasn't sure she ever would and immediately took it as sort of this gift.
[28] And my father who was in his 60s at the time and had a whole other family looked at it differently and decided not to be in my life and I wound up never meeting him.
[29] And so my origins were very much my mom and I sort of navigating the world together.
[30] At an early age, did you get a feel for what your mother's perspective was on your father?
[31] Did you feel the emotion of that, her perspective on him?
[32] My mom was weirdly unemotional about my dad.
[33] I would say it was, almost like the fog of war, or I remember when I interviewed Laird Hamilton and I asked him the very corny, cliche question of when you're on a 90 -foot wave, what's going through your head?
[34] And he's like, you know, your body will sort of give you a bit of amnesia.
[35] So I really can't tell you.
[36] When you're in extreme circumstance, your body is a way of like washing your memory.
[37] And we see that phenomenon too with like childbirth, right?
[38] Because if those hours during childbirth really were as strong as they are when you were experiencing it, we'd all be only children, right?
[39] But the brain has a wonderful way of washing that away.
[40] So my mom did a really good job of presenting all the good qualities of my dad, that he was a great business person, that he was charming, that he was handsome.
[41] I, you know, he was like the Jewish James Bond walking the streets of New York, this handsome raconteur, I say in my book, you know, he seemed pretty sterling.
[42] His only sort of negative was that he really didn't want anything to do with me. So I think it wasn't until I got older that my mom sort of elaborated a little bit more with details.
[43] What was the, what was the emotion between you and your mother and the emotion in the household at the time growing up?
[44] I know money was tough and things were slightly difficult, especially because your father had chosen not to be part of your life.
[45] But what was the emotion in your household, you know, below the age of 10?
[46] The emotion in my household growing up, if I had to, if I had to find a headline, right?
[47] Because sure, if you zoomed in on any moment, I could have been bullied at school or feeling insecure or feeling less than than my friends who had traditional family systems or how come I don't get to experience that surely there there was plenty of that but if we're talking about a headline of the first 10 years of my life it was a very extremely loving childhood um not without its challenges and we would sort of isolate between moments of of being extremely middle class and then having not enough money for a slice of pizza between us but inevitably even through the struggles we were there was a level of comedic relief.
[48] You know, we were always taking the piss out of ourselves.
[49] My mom's a natural comedian.
[50] Her being a self -made businesswoman, especially in the 70s and 80s when she had to be, forced her to be extremely funny and extremely savvy and sort of puckish about the way in which she navigated the world and men and institutions.
[51] And so I would say, that most of the time we were laughing and there were certainly times where we were we were crying but but it was mostly laughter when you um when you talk about your mother is the words you use almost make it sound more like a partnership than a mother -son relationship it sounds like you were like yeah partners certainly we were partners i mean a single mom and an only child you are immediately elevated to co -pilot whether you like it or not i always say that traditional families growing up were more like I viewed them as close corporations and the kids were employees and the parents were upper management and the upper management was sort of beckoning down orders from the top and maybe there was seniority because there was an older sibling but inevitably everyone sort of had the same pace structure and then for my mom and I we were more like a startup right so one day I was pitching the clients and she was sweeping the floors and most days it was the other way around.
[52] So, yeah, I was, I was the man in my mom's life.
[53] Yeah.
[54] Did you have any, you know, when you start talking in your book about the pain that you were experiencing, that led you to food and that, you know, ultimately led to bullying and all those things, what was that pain?
[55] Well, I think I could make it, I'm going to speak generally as, a reflection of something specific that went on with me, but I dare I project that we're all in a certain level of pain.
[56] The veil of adolescence falls for all of us at different times in our lives, where we realize that the world is unfair, or we become more attuned to where we are not enough in certain areas.
[57] And the universe having a beautiful level of balance, It's inevitable, right?
[58] I don't know of any of Tom Brady's shortcomings, but he's got to have one.
[59] He's probably hiding it from the world.
[60] But there's always something that for us is a challenge or something that's uncomfortable.
[61] And I think you'd be hard pressed to zoom in on any kid and especially preteen and teen who doesn't feel like ultra -sensitive, that the world is unfair, wrestling with their, place in this world, their identity forming their identity.
[62] So for me, I just feel like that was impressed upon me at a really young age.
[63] What's particular to me is I was really young.
[64] And I think that was because of the dad's stuff.
[65] I think that was because I was overweight.
[66] So I just knew that life was going to be more challenging with these set of circumstances that were at that point felt like sort of thrust upon me. I didn't know that I was sort of eating in an unhealthy way.
[67] I just felt like I eat fruit snacks like every other kid.
[68] I just, you know, do it in an excessive way.
[69] So I think that pain was just borne out of what we all feel is that it hurts to be different and it hurts to know that life is going to be challenging.
[70] Earlier on you said the word comedic relief when you were talking about the relationship with you and your mother, comedic relief.
[71] The word relief almost makes it sound medicinal, like some kind of medicine in your household.
[72] What role did comedy play in your early years?
[73] Comedy is, for my mom and I, it's everything.
[74] It's everything we loved watching movies and television together, sitcoms and stand -up comedy.
[75] It was a release.
[76] It was a superpower.
[77] It was something that came to both of us naturally, I'm sure as a byproduct of my mom's rearing and upbringing.
[78] And she even talks about her dad, who I didn't know my grandfather, who sounds like a pretty deeply imperfect guy, but was a showman and did love to tell jokes and be funny and a bit of the center of attention.
[79] And so for us, it was a currency.
[80] It was something that worked immediately.
[81] And it could control the energy of a room.
[82] It could endear people to you.
[83] So you could really use it to your advantage.
[84] But if anything, it was a wonderful distraction.
[85] The other thing you describe as a distraction is TV.
[86] Yes.
[87] You referred to it as an escape for you at that time in your life.
[88] And you said in your book, How People Are Annoying, that sitcoms were your favorite.
[89] why were they your favorite well sitcoms especially at that time I talk about how my best friends growing up were the fresh prince of belair and billy madison and happy gilmore and um sitcoms had some universal sort of qualities in my experience it projected a healthy family right so it was family matters it was I guess full house was sort of, was a healthy sort of, um, non -classic family, right?
[90] Because it was the dad and the uncles.
[91] But these were people that, these were families that I wanted to be a part of.
[92] And then there was a justice to the comedy in the sense of you didn't have to interpret it.
[93] It was an objective, or I'm sorry, it wasn't subjective, it was objective, it was clear what worked and what didn't.
[94] It got a laugh.
[95] And at that time, it was a live studio audience, so you know something got a laugh.
[96] And I would just lose myself in hours of watching these television shows.
[97] And I was absorbing the rhythms and the qualities through osmosis.
[98] I didn't even know it at the time.
[99] But it also served as this wonderful escape.
[100] And I say that becoming an actor was like for me going to work for the hospital that cured my disease.
[101] You know, it felt like my way of saying and thank you for taking care of me during that time.
[102] What was the disease?
[103] Well, I...
[104] I know it's a metaphor, but...
[105] Yeah, it's just like sort of a metaphor for my discomfort, for having a lot of time on my hands because I was an only child, because my mom had to work a lot to support us, because there was some financial insecurity, just sort of all of the discomfort going on in between my ears.
[106] was sort of muted when I was losing myself in those shows.
[107] One of the other things that we've touched on briefly that you describe in a medicinal manner.
[108] I think the quote in your book is actually, I didn't know it at the time, but obviously I was definitely medicating something deep within.
[109] For me, when I think about my childhood, the singular powerful and all -consuming memory that comes to mind as being fat, it wasn't a habit, it was a love, my first love, when you're talking about food.
[110] Oh, yeah.
[111] Well, that's how you put on the weight.
[112] Yeah.
[113] Food is great.
[114] I mean, you're a very fit person, but I imagine you're a fan of food.
[115] I love food.
[116] Everybody does.
[117] The whole world does.
[118] You know, it's not like the biggest food guy?
[119] Who?
[120] John Stamos, and I don't mean to drop names here.
[121] But we did a show together, and he's like, you know, I could eat a turkey sandwich and be okay with it.
[122] Like most 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 it and I'm like I don't identify with this you and I are are built differently John well we know we know John Stamors is built different um but yeah I mean the whole world's obsessed with food I was obsessed with it in a way that led to me being very overweight when you say very very overweight how much is that in I guess the metric here is pounds isn't it I can give you kilos.
[123] No, I can't.
[124] But what's kilos?
[125] About two and a half pounds.
[126] You're asking the wrong pounds.
[127] You want to do stones?
[128] I know you're from the UK.
[129] Pounds.
[130] I'll do stones for 14, 15 stones.
[131] Yeah, I think, well, like basically it's funny because I was just kind of like a normal sized human till around eight or nine.
[132] And then I got kind of chubby.
[133] And then I put on a lot of but it was only from about 13 to 18 where I was about 100 pounds overweight.
[134] I was about 290 pounds.
[135] Okay, which is 130 kilograms.
[136] Probably.
[137] And you're 9 or 10, you said?
[138] No, I really put that weight on probably.
[139] Around 9 or 10, I was probably 180, 190, but I was only 5 foot.
[140] And then as I got a little bigger and older and also could, you know, go to restaurants or grab fast food by myself, I put on the pounds.
[141] I've come to learn over the years.
[142] Actually, quite recently, the role, the link between how I feel and how I eat.
[143] Yes.
[144] You know, I mean, there's lots of these links in our lives.
[145] You know, one of them is how we feel and money, how we feel and how we eat.
[146] I'm sure there's many, many more.
[147] But these are all like psychological tools in many respects and medicinal tools often.
[148] Was there a point when you realized that the link, between your relationship with food and how you were feeling.
[149] Yeah, I mean, it came later understanding the nuance and the correlation.
[150] But I mean, this is why actors smoke, right?
[151] Like traditionally, whenever you see movies where 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 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 maybe they're going to use the take where you kind of sucked and you're full of emotion and you're unsure and you're insecure and there's a table of food waiting for you right beautiful craft service like you've never seen hot and cold and then but instead you're like what can I do to give me that sort of dopamine hit without you know giving me the calories so you know people go outside and smoke obviously now smoking's not as in fashion, so you see less of it.
[152] But I remember once I was working with this actor, Paget Brewster, she's just a gem, brilliant actor, and she played my mom on this TV show.
[153] And I'll never forget once they were serving pizza as sort of like the late -night meal.
[154] She were working long hours.
[155] And I remember her pulling the cheese and like pepperoni off the top of the pizza and eating it.
[156] And she just sort of said, this is the actress pizza.
[157] right without the bread and I was like how perfectly said right and so yeah I think we we all run to food because it's represented to us as this it's a celebratory thing it's also something you do when things don't work out it's a cheat day but like think about those words right we reward ourselves with cheating right it's a funny sort of corollary but But, and it's ubiquitous, it's holiday, it's pumpkin spice season at Starbucks.
[158] Like all of these, every great event is accompanied by a meal.
[159] Even the worst events, right?
[160] Like, what do you hope for after a funeral?
[161] Well, there'll be a nice spread.
[162] We'll go back and we'll have a nice spread.
[163] When you say you were medicating something deep within, it seems like your relationship with food was a little bit more.
[164] unique, shall I say?
[165] So I think a lot of, I don't think a lot of people would say that they are using food as a way to medicate something deep within.
[166] Well, they're probably using it in some version of, to medicate, but maybe not, I did it in excess.
[167] Right.
[168] I did it to an extreme, in an extreme way.
[169] Yes.
[170] There's a paradox there, which you highlight in your book where you say that like, you were doing it to ease pain, but it caused more pain.
[171] which is um i guess is the is the case with a lot of things where we have a unbalanced relationship with them where like they there's the short -term reward of the dopamine hit that you describe but then the long -term punishment is like the critique right and the self the self -talk i guess and the the teasing is you you refer to it in your book that's you you experienced that that they're kind of like short -term pursuit of the dopamine short -term pain or I'm short -term gain long -term pain yeah yeah I mean it's a paradox of addiction right it's it's us running to I heard it said once someone in in recovery said my disease lies in my dis -ease I become uncomfortable in my coping mechanism the thing that my brain is trained to do is to go to these things that numb the feeling.
[172] It's another great term, numb and run, you know.
[173] It numbs the feeling.
[174] It coterizes it temporarily.
[175] But inevitably, it never deals with the underlying issue.
[176] So that continues to grow and push the boulder up.
[177] So it requires more and more medication.
[178] And thus, you know, it makes you more and more unhappy.
[179] So, you know, whether that's food or drug or drink or smoking sex you know gambling debt whatever your thing is it's i mean it's it's just whatever's triggering i would i would think that dopamine serotonin sort of response it's pretty crazy that at like eight years old you were already doing stand -up yeah that's that's boggles my mind at eight years old i was doing nothing productive i bet you are doing it Probably the things eight -year -old should do, like times tables and geography and Yeah, stuff like that, like kicking a ball against a wall.
[180] Yeah.
[181] On my own or with a friend, you were doing stand -up at eight.
[182] You know, I had a, I had a couple of comedians on this podcast, and they all, there's this ongoing kind of like stereotype that, like, a comedian is depressed or something.
[183] And one of the comedians said to me that, um, a better question to ask, I think it was Jimmy Carr.
[184] He said, a better question to ask is like, which one of your parents were you trying to make happy?
[185] Ah, Jimmy Carr's so funny.
[186] He's funny, isn't he?
[187] What a super, like he's like a Jedi.
[188] He's on another level.
[189] Sure.
[190] What parent are you trying to make happy?
[191] What girl are you trying to impress?
[192] I just think that we know that most assets are born out of feelings of being not enough.
[193] You know, how many great athletes were created because they were trying to impress their fathers, admonishing fathers help make very ambitious young men, and young women, I don't mean to gender it.
[194] The problem is the duality of that because inevitably, once hopefully you've achieved that, you realize that there's no there there, that there's no perfect moment that's going to heal that relationship with that parent or worse, you don't attain those things and then you're left to wonder, well, what could it have been?
[195] And I fell short.
[196] I wasn't enough.
[197] But comedy is one of those more specific things because there is, there's a justice to it.
[198] It's not a lot up for interpretation.
[199] It's clear.
[200] It's more like boxing.
[201] I think Chris Rock akin to boxing, which is why they call it a punch line.
[202] And you know it's on the cards.
[203] That punch connected.
[204] That one didn't.
[205] You get a point for that.
[206] You don't get a point for this.
[207] And yeah, I think it's just borne out of, you know, being funny usually comes from very unfunny reasons.
[208] And, you know, growing up, and I don't mean to say this, even now, like when I'll meet someone who's like really, I'll just name names.
[209] It's like, and he is funny, but it's like sometimes when I watch like Ashton Coucher go like in a really hard comedy and he's done some really, really funny things.
[210] I know this is what you're going to clip.
[211] Me like Trashing.
[212] I want to be Ashton Coucher.
[213] I look up to him.
[214] I love you, Ashton.
[215] I'm available for friendship and I love your wife.
[216] I love them both.
[217] But it's like sometimes it's hard for me to reconcile how someone can be that gorgeous and handsome and also funny, right?
[218] Like sometimes I do feel like, no, funny's got to be reserved for us.
[219] you know, who weren't necessarily that because, yeah, it was used as a defense mechanism.
[220] Did you know you wanted to be a comedian or an actor?
[221] And if so, when did you, when did that idea become cemented in your brain, that that's the path you were going to pursue?
[222] Being an actor professionally didn't seem like a reasonable career path.
[223] Sometimes it still doesn't.
[224] but here I am 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 very sticky mother do you know this word stick yeah okay like I have a mom who loves a bit and she's a natural performer as a beautiful singing voice but no literally no connections to show business in any way so it was not reasonable to think that there would be any opportunity to do it professionally And then I was in sixth grade, and my mom and I were having a really tough moment financially.
[225] We're living in an apartment on the east side of Manhattan.
[226] It was like a studio apartment, and we would sort of switch off between the bed and the couch.
[227] One night I'd get the bed, one night I'd get the couch.
[228] And I remember my mom saying, you know, there's a performing arts high school that you should audition for.
[229] And I said, but I'm going to go to the high school in my district, like where my elementary.
[230] true school was.
[231] She goes, you don't have a district anymore.
[232] We don't live there anymore.
[233] And I realized, okay, well, yeah, maybe I'll give this school a shot because I'm not going to be in high school now with my friends who I grew up with.
[234] And I auditioned and I went and I got in and suddenly I'm walking the halls of this school, the professional performing arts school, which is in the theater district in New York near Times Square.
[235] And they had a luncheon like Alicia Keys and Jesse Eisenberg and Claire Daines.
[236] And they were all older than me, but all of a sudden I'm seeing kids who are in Broadway shows, TV shows, and they're studying, but they're also successful on this like grown -up level.
[237] And it seemed possible that you could make a living doing this thing that I loved.
[238] So I remember that was the first time where I had a suspicion like, oh, this this might be a long -term gig and eventually then once I basically once it became a way out of my circumstance and it allowed me to sort of contribute to the family financially I was I was all in it just seemed like an escape and you were what age then like 12 16 I think I was 12 yeah 12 and then by 16 a chance meeting with someone from Nickelodeon sends things in another direction no that was 12 oh when you were 12 I used to audition like every other day um at Nickelodeon their their Viacom headquarters was in Times Square I've been yeah yeah yeah I know the one yeah and I auditioned for a movie I got it they fly me to Canada never been out of the country now and if you're gonna go out of the country for the first time making Canada because it's lovely.
[239] And I'm sitting there one day in Calgary, Canada, making jokes to some 40 -year -old guy with a great laugh and a huge parka.
[240] And my mom sidles up to me and she goes, you know who that is?
[241] You were making laugh.
[242] That's the president of Nickelodeon, a guy named Al B. Hecht.
[243] You should tell him that you want to be on all that, which was kind of S &L for kids.
[244] at that time was my dream.
[245] So I told him and nine months later he called and said, Josh, I'm going to move you and your mom out to California to go be on the Amanda show, which was the spinoff for Amanda Binds from all that.
[246] And that was kind of what changed my life and brought me out to LA and gave me my first TV show and kind of started this whole mess.
[247] This whole mess.
[248] Interesting way to describe it.
[249] You were doing that at 12.
[250] I don't even know how that's possible for it.
[251] You know, it feels like there's a lot of other things we're meant to be doing when we're 12.
[252] You were working, essentially.
[253] Yeah, yeah, I was.
[254] What did you miss?
[255] Did you miss anything in hindsight?
[256] A lot.
[257] I mean, you can 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, right, did you?
[258] Yeah, I did.
[259] Yeah.
[260] Yeah.
[261] Yeah, so like school stuff, like the prom and playing football and with the team and, you know.
[262] Primary school?
[263] Primary school as well, yeah.
[264] Figuring yourself out more than anything.
[265] Uniforms.
[266] I wish I went to school in the UK.
[267] It seems awesome.
[268] Yeah, it's not bad.
[269] Yeah.
[270] I loved Matilda.
[271] Room for improvement.
[272] Oh, Matilda's dope.
[273] It's dope.
[274] It's such a classic.
[275] I, um, yeah, I, I miss down on a lot.
[276] Absolutely.
[277] Um, you know, it's funny.
[278] People love this question, it kills me. I don't know why.
[279] Because now I have two sons of my own and they're always like, you're going to put them in show business?
[280] Like, it's weird.
[281] I don't know why that is.
[282] I don't know if people say to lawyers or carpenters like, is your son going to hit nails?
[283] Like, are you going to like read your son depositions?
[284] I guess because the idea is that why wouldn't you want them to?
[285] And while I would love for them to, if they love performing to find some, joy in it, my upbringing, my circumstance was so specific.
[286] It was inevitable that if this was meant for me, that it was going to be meant for me. And I mean that as we could move 3 ,000 miles because it was just me and my mom.
[287] You know, we could uproot our whole life.
[288] I was an overweight kid, so I didn't get a lot of self -esteem from the traditional systems that people, the kids gain it from.
[289] But I found this performing thing.
[290] So of course my mom goes, well, I'm going to nurture this the way I would if it were a little league or it was an instrument.
[291] So my environment, my upbringing allowed for me to go on this really non -traditional path.
[292] My kids don't have that.
[293] They have a very different experience.
[294] They have like a very rooted household.
[295] They have a huge family.
[296] They have a mom and dad.
[297] And it's not necessarily that one's better than the other, but it's just like their experience will be different.
[298] And 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.
[299] But maybe his circumstance won't lend itself to start that early.
[300] It's so interesting.
[301] But it makes so much sense, you know, that circumstance and struggle are factors that orientate us towards our mission.
[302] And it's so, you know, I think we often understate how, like, trauma and things we'd never wish on a child end up creating their brilliance.
[303] You think about, like, the brilliance you've created, the work you've created that is brilliant.
[304] So much of it has a throughline way back to things that you would never wish on your kids.
[305] Yes.
[306] 15 years old, you start filming the pilot for Drake and Josh.
[307] 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 very, very well.
[308] in the UK, off the back of it, one would assume that you'd be like set for life financially.
[309] Yeah.
[310] And you write about how that's like, that's, that's, that was certainly not the case.
[311] Yes.
[312] And I do want to say that my first Kids Choice Award was won at the UK Kids Choice Awards in London.
[313] Now I had been nominated a lot.
[314] It's not sour grapes, but allow me to continue.
[315] you.
[316] I was not properly appreciated for my work in the American Kids' Choice Awards, but it took you brilliant people in the United Kingdom to appreciate my overweight but wonderfully comedic work as a young actor.
[317] So I want to thank you.
[318] Yeah, I think, look, I'm so pleased to talk about this stuff with you, someone who's like, has wonderful insight into the book and is interested.
[319] And it felt like the book for me was sort of like I don't, I really, I don't do a lot of this anymore because the book felt like sort of a chapter ending in my life.
[320] It was me editorializing my life.
[321] It was commenting on the things that I felt were perhaps misunderstood or didn't have enough clarification or description.
[322] And also in an effort unknowingly to sort of say like, and now I'm going to talk about it less.
[323] And if someone is interested, like they can, you know, read the book and it's now, you know, in the library of Congress.
[324] But and so to that point, I felt the need because over the years, people would either say it in a cheeky way like, oh, well, you don't have to worry because of the residuals.
[325] Or they would say just something random like, you know, it would actually, you know, it would actually be part of decision making or something that it would apply to me. They're like, well, Josh doesn't have to worry.
[326] And I was like, well, I'm not complaining, but I'm as much, you know, worried about next year's financial status as anyone else because I don't have that security.
[327] So, yeah, with Drake and Josh, there was no residuals and kids' CV didn't have that at that time.
[328] And I got really honest and I sort of broke it down because Ryan Holiday, my friend and sort of advisor on the book was like, if you don't, he's like, it's gross to talk about money, but if you don't actually give a sort of exact picture of what it was, then people won't understand.
[329] And so I sort of talk about that, you know, while doing the show, we made about $100 ,000 a year for the four years we were making it, which is great money in a lovely middle class lifestyle, but no one would assume that once you stop working, that you never had to work again.
[330] So I just wanted to to give some clarity to that to sort of explain the choices that I made after and why I was so passionate about finding more work because I had some people to take care of.
[331] Makes perfect sense.
[332] And I think it's really important context because you're right, it's very easy when you don't know entertainment contracts, especially for a young person, that's 15 odd years old, to assume that they made millions and millions in perpetuity from that piece of work.
[333] And then a lot of the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, decisions and the choices thereafter don't have a lacking in context.
[334] Yes.
[335] So when I read that, it was like, I understood.
[336] Of course, if you make $100 ,000 in the United States, you're living in California, whatever it is for five years in a row, you do need to go back to work.
[337] And after Drake and Josh ended, was there like a pivotal moment where you realized that that show was big?
[338] It wasn't until much later, funny enough.
[339] I think because when we were making it, it was only popular with kids who were sort of younger, who I didn't, other than if I was at a mall or at a theme park, I didn't have a huge amount of interaction with.
[340] And then I would say that the power of the show, to its credit, was that it was slightly timeless because it had a very sort of classic through line of any sitcom.
[341] It was about a family.
[342] And a lot of kids' shows can be more fantastical and have more of a sci -fi bent or something more fantasy or whimsical.
[343] This was just like very straight down the line, two brothers who are very different, trying to get along and an evil little sister.
[344] So because of how much it was rerun, more generations would come to the show.
[345] And these people grew up.
[346] So it wasn't as though it was this moment in time.
[347] it was every year we were picking up new fans because there was what 60 episodes or something yeah just 60 it was so much more i know it's weird why is that i guess because reruns yeah it played for so long after drake and josh ended and as you go into like you you know the next chapter of your life 18 years old you lose a lot of weight i do a lot of weight hundred twenty seven pounds yeah how does that's not an easy feat how does that's not an easy feat how does that happen i certainly made a decision that i was ready to do it um i think i just i always knew that i was going to do it and also in writing the book it's when you put pen to paper and i know you're a writer yourself.
[348] It's amazing how these, I feel as though we make these, um, everything in our brain is sort of shorthand, right?
[349] It's like these picture memories that are connected, uh, and sometimes they're connected by these really strong connections and sometimes it's just like short little hits.
[350] But when you're forced to actually explain it on a page, it makes you look at it differently.
[351] And I was like, wow, I was only heavy from like 13 to 17.
[352] Of course, they're the years that have been enshrined in television history forever so it feels much bigger but had i just been like a normal kid i would have burned my yearbooks and sworn my family to secrecy and i'd never ring it up so i think it was a number of things i was ready i think naturally like my body was ready to let go of it and i just knew that i i felt like because i was so insecure I had missed out on a lot of my teenage years.
[353] It wasn't without lack of opportunity to go out and be a knucklehead and experience life.
[354] I just didn't want to do it because I didn't love the body that I was in.
[355] So I felt like if I didn't, if I didn't act now, I was going to lose some really important years.
[356] Is there a process that helped you?
[357] Because I'm thinking about how you referred to it as being like medicinal, your relationship with food.
[358] And that's like deeply psychological.
[359] So to like upend that deep psychological force or that relationship with food is no easy feat.
[360] So like what's the process?
[361] Is it therapy?
[362] Is it what that makes your, that kind of upends that psychological force or replaces it or?
[363] I think it was I had been, I've, I've had a therapist that that I've gone to since I was 15 and I still see here and there.
[364] So my mom kind of knew, I think she saw it in me early on that there was just a lot going on.
[365] be it my dad or the weight stuff and then I think I would just in the way that that change is born you 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 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 anger it was anger at my my dad it was anger at my circumstance and I just remember I was 17 years old.
[366] My mom and I would drive back to New York every year for like two months and we would just go and see family and hang out in the city.
[367] And I just started to walk.
[368] And up until then I would do these really intense, you know, attempts at keto or these extreme diets on a Monday and I would fail by Wednesday morning and then it would be back on again.
[369] But this time I said, I'm just going to try to make a small change every day.
[370] And I would walk the city for miles, and I would listen to music, and I would dream of what my life could be.
[371] And I started eating better.
[372] And slowly but surely, that summer, I lost like 40 pounds.
[373] And then over the next year, I lost another 40.
[374] And then over the next year, I lost another 40.
[375] In chapter five of your book, you say you had a new body, but the exact same self -hating mind.
[376] One would assume that, you know, dropping 127 pounds, one would naively assumed that dropping a hundred and twenty seven pounds would would make you feel different about yourself yeah well it's um it's sort of the themes that you've mentioned throughout this interview it's it's cause and effect right like i dealt with the effect but i didn't deal with the cause and unfortunately there were some issues at play there was some um unresolved pain and work that needed 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 was helping to keep those feelings at bay, they reared their head and I needed to find something else.
[377] I didn't know that it was going to be in the form of, you know, drinking and sort of alcohol's cousins.
[378] But I just knew that when I finally did find those things and I did sigh that bit of relief that I'd been looking for, I think.
[379] think there was even a moment in that first night when I went out with some other kids my age and really tied one off and thought I was having like a proper teenage time.
[380] I remember this, this voice in my head being like, oh, this is it.
[381] Like, this is what we've been looking for.
[382] Drinking.
[383] Yeah, the drinking and drugs.
[384] And I think I say something in the book of like, if you've been carrying this invisible bag of stones around your whole life, a weight vest with 50 to 100 extra pounds, I mean, I quite literally was, but let's just say it's like emotional weight vest.
[385] And eventually you almost forget that it's on.
[386] You just know your knees hurt.
[387] You know you're exhausted.
[388] It's like, why am I so tired?
[389] Why do things feel tougher for me than it does for my friends.
[390] And then if in an instant that weight vest is lifted off of you and your knees hurt less and you're walking around and you're like, oh, you wouldn't question it.
[391] You just be like, whatever just took that weight vest off, I'm in.
[392] And that's, that was the reaction that I had.
[393] Such an interesting analogy.
[394] The weight vest, you know, you said the term self -hating mind.
[395] for someone that has an experience to self -hating mind, what is that like in detailed reality?
[396] Is it literally thoughts that you can recall that are saying being pessimistic?
[397] I probably, if I could edit my book now, I would be probably less, I'd be less revealing.
[398] No, I would be less.
[399] I would be less, I would be less, I would be a little harder on myself and say it's self -centered if we're talking about the root of it I remember when I got sober people would say you're self -centered and I would say self -centered that's reserved for people who think highly of themselves that's reserved for the quarterbacks the models the good -looking the self -absorbed people to me felt when you would see that in movies it was someone who was staring in the mirror and perfecting their hair, and they would say, no, if you spend all your time thinking about how great you are or how shit you are, all you're thinking about is you, and you are self -centered.
[400] It doesn't matter whether it's great or bad.
[401] So I would, yeah, I would substitute self -hating with self -centered.
[402] I was obsessed with self.
[403] My trauma was real.
[404] My challenges were real, and that played a part in it.
[405] But I was just so wrapped up in my feelings of feeling less than and uncomfortable and not, proverbially, not at the cool table, that I, you know, found myself in a place to numb my feelings because those thoughts were unrelenting.
[406] nothing in life nothing in life is free and so even a temporary lifting of the weight vest comes with a long -term cost as we talked about with food what was that that long -term cost of temporarily getting to lift the weight vest once in a while i just became a cliche quick i i hurt relationships and work i worried the people that love me i i just started to accrue a lot of wreckage quickly it's it's funny i interviewed hillary duff on my podcast asked good guys the other day, and we made a joke.
[407] I was asking her about, like, she brought up something about, like, oh, I love an alcoholic beverage, and she kind of looked at me and said, sorry, Josh.
[408] And I was like, no, I love an alcoholic beverage, too.
[409] Unfortunately, whenever I drink, it leads to my other favorite beverage, Perkissette, which is a very popular painkiller in this country.
[410] and I remember people sort of saying like they were so sort of they just didn't know sort of my they didn't know that part of my history right so it was something that I it was this thing that I was sort of navigating and balancing kind of how much I would sort of talk about it and reveal and then also sort of this balancing of like the things that I also wanted to keep private.
[411] When did you realize that you had a problem with alcohol or an unhealthy relationship with alcohol and drugs?
[412] Was there a, because at the time, I imagine you don't, the first time you do it, you don't know, it's not a problem then, is it?
[413] But at some point you must have maybe got some feedback or something indicated that this was not.
[414] Oh, and I'm sorry, I forgot the point was trying to make with the Hillary thing, but, oh, someone wrote a comment on that clip, on that video said, damn, Josh Peck got sober at 21.
[415] He really went for it.
[416] So to answer your followed question, yeah, I mean, I think that I basically was substituting what I used food for with these, you know, with drinking and with other substance.
[417] But it was all sort of connected.
[418] So it wasn't this four -year run.
[419] It was really like, since I was nine or ten years old, it just was, again, validating and reconfirming this idea of like, you overdo things.
[420] And nothing is going to fill up this hole in the soul, no matter what you try to fill it with.
[421] And even like the things that our world tells us is a value, even success.
[422] isn't going to do it.
[423] Even if girls like you, it's not enough.
[424] And so I remember at 21 having a moment like that when it all sort of came sort of barreling down on me. And I realized that I needed to do something.
[425] Now, I think people have those moments and they don't do anything and they lose another four years or five or ten or twenty.
[426] But I do think the world and life catastrophe, challenging stance, some version of a bottom, whatever you're going through, being fired from something, a health scare has a way of temporarily waking you up.
[427] And what you do in that moment decides what's going to happen next for you.
[428] You said that happened for you at 21 years old.
[429] Was that, was that in the wake of the film The Wackness?
[430] It was.
[431] Yeah, that was certainly a moment.
[432] Tell me about that moment.
[433] Well, again, I had accrued plenty of wreckage, but I remember I I had done this movie, The Wackness that I was extremely proud of with my favorite actor, Sir Ben Kingsley, you know, and I mean, literally my favorite actor, like getting to, you know, have my rookie season with Michael Jordan.
[434] And it went to the Sundance Film Festival, and I was so proud, and we got a standing ovation, and it just felt like such a confirmation for me as an actor that there was going to be, that there was going to be opportunity, and there was more to come for my career, that it wasn't just this sort of anomaly that I did this one show and that that was sort of going to be it.
[435] But I remember in that moment, all those similar feelings, that mind that had gotten me in trouble so many times before was still yelling at me. And all those feelings were flooding in.
[436] They weren't there during the 90 seconds of the standing ovation.
[437] They 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 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 so short -lived and it just confirmed this idea of like oh like even at your best even when everything's kind of going right because it's easy to use when when life those who challenges is a reason to sort of you know co -sign your bad behavior but everything was going right and I still didn't feel like enough and I knew at that point that I needed to make a change or I might never do it that next day after the standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival you talk about you know how you might have felt standing in the coffee line or the next day when you woke up etc is this are those are these specific thoughts or is it just an emotional state you know what I mean is it just like a lowness yes it's totally emotional and it's ugly like the way like how we're all pitiful in those moments i i don't think you have to be um suffer from addiction or it's just like when we realize that our way isn't working anymore and a change needs to occur and so yeah i i certainly it's taken 15 16 years to articulate it correctly i think it was just a feeling you you you your solution to that feeling appears to be, you know, when you hit that proverbial rock -border moment to be getting some help.
[438] And that's where you turn to AA, I'll call Alcoholics Anonymous.
[439] What is that, like, what is Alcoholics Anonymous?
[440] And like, how did it help you turn things around and get sober?
[441] Well, you know, it's sort of in the name Anonymous that there's an anonymity portion to it.
[442] So I always want to make sure it said that I'm in no way sort of a representative or ambassador for it in any way.
[443] It's just how I have found a way in which to get and stay sober over the last 15 years is through a 12 -step program.
[444] And it's just a way.
[445] It's ancient truths repackaged to make sense to a guy like me. It's the best way.
[446] It helps to me. It helps mitigate the worst of my character defects and it's just age old um it's just a sort of for me an age old way of of cleaning up your past and and looking at bad patterns and habits in my life and making amends and trying to implement things that through history we have known to work gratitude, surrender, acceptance, if you want self -esteem, do esteemable acts, restraint of pen and tongue, you know, just like, you know, it's not, you know, your higher power is up to you as long as you know that you're not God.
[447] That one's helpful.
[448] It just presented some ways in which for me to apply things to my life that helped me to get and stay sober.
[449] So I think if the efficacy wasn't there, if I didn't see quickly that I started to feel better, then maybe I would have sought a different way.
[450] This was a way that happened to work for me. And you've been sober for some, what, 13, 13 years?
[451] 15.
[452] Recently, yeah, just February 15th.
[453] Congratulations.
[454] Thanks.
[455] It works for me. Yeah, it's incredible, incredible achievement.
[456] You know, everyone's got their own relationship with alcohol and whatever else, but it's always incredible to hear someone being able to turn a corner in the direction they wanted to turn it that's the way I can describe it thank you 2013 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 understand who your father is you're 27 at this point so almost 30 years old and your father passes away and you make the decision at that point having not met him before and having not seen a picture of him until you were 24 years old to figure out who he was.
[457] What did you learn about him and how did that change your perspective of him?
[458] Well, I remember I had always sort of toyed with this idea of meeting him and yet I think I knew deep down I never would because my creation of him in my head, the way that I sold him to my friends or the way I would portray him to people felt like my weird cosmic consolation prize.
[459] Like, I don't get to have him in any way, but I can present him to people in the way in which I choose.
[460] Not that I was telling people that my dad was, you know, the first man on the moon or anything like that.
[461] It just was like, you know, my mom knew that he was Jewish and that he was Sephardic, which is a type of Jew that tends to be from, even the Middle East or from Morocco or French or it can be South America, Mexican.
[462] And so for me, I would just like ping pong where he was from.
[463] You know, sometimes he was from Spain.
[464] Sometimes he was from Israel.
[465] Sometimes he was from Morocco.
[466] Like, I just would kind of present it as I so fit.
[467] And it felt like if I ever met him, well, then I lost even the illusion or this creation of my dad that I wanted to make.
[468] So I, but when I found out that he passed away, it also felt like a little bit of this thing that I'd been carrying around, this emotional grenade that I could, you know, I had the power in the sense that I could show up and he had this whole other family and these grown kids and a wife.
[469] And if I wanted to, at will, I could blow that up for him.
[470] If in theory, he never had told them anything.
[471] I was never going to do it, but it was nice to know, right?
[472] Like whatever version my head was telling me, like, to keep me warm at night.
[473] So when he passed away, I was like, oh, damn, he won, right?
[474] Perfect record.
[475] He set his mind to something, and he stuck to it.
[476] He's like, I'm never going to meet that kid, and he didn't.
[477] And I never got that moment to sort of say, like, how dare you, I don't know if it would have been that.
[478] Probably wouldn't have been.
[479] It probably wouldn't have been like, hey, I'm your kid.
[480] It's up.
[481] Like, do you want to get a coffee?
[482] Um, but, you know, all of that was sort of taken away from me. So, I felt I felt pissed that I had to mourn this guy that I never knew and that I was morning like mourning is in theory sort of the worst part of it's sort of the other side of love right it's it the gift is you get to love and the embrace of someone and then what comes with that is that eventually if they're not here anymore you have to mourn them you have to mourn what was And I was like, there was nothing.
[483] And I still have to get the crappy side of this.
[484] It doesn't seem fair.
[485] But it forced me to do something that inevitably led to my mends and my amends that I gave myself, which was I randomly looked up his kids on Facebook.
[486] My friend figured out a way to, my friend, a buddy of mine basically was looking with me and was like, oh, there was a connection between him and my sister.
[487] They had attended a similar workshop or some kind of like education program.
[488] He's like maybe under the guise of that, I could become her friend.
[489] And like, then, you know, I could see if on her profile she has any photos to your dad, I had never seen what he looked like.
[490] She accepts it.
[491] And I am immediately given this like treasure trove of photos of his life.
[492] And I'm seeing him at their bar mitzvahs and weddings and all these events.
[493] And I'm seeing these beautiful tributes that his friends and family are making to him after he passed away.
[494] And it made me realize that like what my dad was for me wasn't the only part of him.
[495] You know, it certainly was a real part of him.
[496] But he also was this great dad, just not to me. And that's not valid.
[497] That's not valid.
[498] That's a part of this imperfect man. So it gave me a little bit of forgiveness for this guy.
[499] And it made me realize that he was probably scared and he had probably had this great perfect record with his family and then this blemish occurred and he did the best that he could.
[500] So in a weird, way, seeing that he was good to them, made me a little more okay that maybe he wasn't great to me. And then, of course, having a son of my own and being the dad to my two boys now that I wish my dad was for me was sort of like the ultimate amends to eight -year -old Josh.
[501] What's that journey been like, you know, from, I almost view it as like an emotional journey on like some kind of like graph or something, almost like a roller coaster, from when you were young to where you are now in terms of the perspective of your father and the relationship.
[502] You know, was there resentment at one point?
[503] You seem to have gotten to a better place with it now.
[504] Yeah.
[505] But what's that journey like?
[506] The resentment, I think, at its highest, is showcased in me being 100 pounds overweight.
[507] Right.
[508] Or, you know, my struggles after that.
[509] I think that was certainly, it was all that resentment and anger and frustration and unexplored feelings.
[510] things presenting itself as, as whatever that was, as those addictions, right?
[511] They were in the manifestation of a deeper issue.
[512] They were a symptom of a deeper issue.
[513] I was just pondering because I know people that haven't had a relationship with their father.
[514] Obviously, nothing is definitively causal.
[515] Like, it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to turn it any other way.
[516] But one of the trends you tend to hear about is when, is that connection between not believing you're enough and your father not being around?
[517] Are they connected for you?
[518] Do you know what I mean?
[519] I'm saying, does the absence of your father, did that ever leave a thought that said he left, you know, that means I'm not enough because he chose not to be here?
[520] It must.
[521] Right.
[522] I don't see how it couldn't be.
[523] Right.
[524] But what we, what I've also learned in being sober this long and hearing a lot of other people's experiences, is that my, my story, my feelings are not.
[525] rare, but they're not a monolith.
[526] They're not singular.
[527] I've heard plenty of stories of people who had like pretty idealic upbringings.
[528] And they just happen to suffer from this thing where they do too much.
[529] And this particular mental bend that makes them look at life or makes them seek out a way of numbing their feelings.
[530] So what I know now is that certainly I think you're right.
[531] It was part of my story, but it's not the only way.
[532] I think I've kind of grown in that trend in my mind has grown a little bit because I spoke to Gabel Matte who's there's a lot of childhood trauma stuff and one of the things he said is that as children we're narcissists.
[533] I've never been able to forget that and we think everything is about us.
[534] So right if the father leaves for example instead of thinking well that's because he has another family or because he's scared or whatever it's that's about me when you when you're younger.
[535] And then you as you say you had your own boy.
[536] Yes.
[537] Now two boys.
[538] Crazy.
[539] Two boys.
[540] You have kids?
[541] Not yet.
[542] I can tell because you're in such good shape.
[543] Were you scared to become a father of your own?
[544] Terrified.
[545] Because I just didn't, I didn't have any work life experience.
[546] Yeah.
[547] I just didn't know.
[548] Look, I'm a, I'm a formerly chubby musical theater kid from New York.
[549] York.
[550] Like, I don't, I never thought, anything that was masculine, I never thought I had the prerequisites for that, that was like inherently dudeish.
[551] I've always been like a guy.
[552] Like, I love boxing.
[553] Like, I've always broed down.
[554] I've always, you know, had all those inherent qualities, but those things that felt, felt like presentationally macho or dude -esque.
[555] I was just like, oh, I don't, I don't have that.
[556] and so yeah I wanted to have a girl and then when my son was born my wife and I didn't find out the sex and so you know at nine months in 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 I was like oh of course because it was required for me, you know, my life turned into man school, you know, especially in sobriety.
[557] I had to learn, and I don't mean to make it this blanketed definition, for 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 great my mom was, couldn't give me because she was just limited by what one person can do.
[558] the things that I learned from my big brother, Dan, I've had a big brother in the state of the Big Brother Foundation.
[559] I've had a big brother since I was eight years old and things that I learned from him.
[560] And then eventually my father -in -law, who I really look up to and all the great men in my life and all these assets, these tools that I had learned, you know, when I had my son Max, I was like, okay, here's my opportunity now to implement that and see everything that I've collected, what I can give him.
[561] And it just felt perfect.
[562] It felt like God's way of like having a laugh and be like, you knew this was going to happen, right?
[563] You married Paige.
[564] Yes.
[565] You had the two wonderful children.
[566] I had a guest on the podcast quite recently who said, who described somewhat of a similar upbringing where the father wasn't around and him and his mom acted almost like pilot and co -pilot.
[567] And he, one of the times he said to me, I can't remember it was something, something ancestral something.
[568] I know that 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 indirectly or inadvertently offloading some of the emotional energy around the parent that's not there, it can make your own personal relationships difficult.
[569] Yeah.
[570] Can you relate?
[571] I can accept that I think that everyone is bad at relationships and I think just like I believe that even if you have a perfect parental structure we will self -parent there's always going to be gaps in our rearing there's always going to be spots that were missed as a result of your upbringing and your circumstance in 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 growing up, right?
[572] To even know what those gaps are first, right?
[573] For you, what were those gaps you had to fill in?
[574] Well, I think it was with the dad's stuff, it was about in relationships up into my wife, 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 any sort of adversity or any kind of, I mean, at this point, right, like I've dealt with the dad's, stuff and then I've been in show biz till you know since I was 10 right which is the ultimate rejection right you're you're being you're going on a job interview at best even if you're on a TV show you're interviewing for a job once or twice a year and if you're an out of work actor you're you're interviewing for a job four times five times a month sometimes more during pilot season right so you really have to calcify or uh calcify yeah like you have to become uh callous to rejection.
[575] It's like if you ever talk to a doctor like about death, they have a very interesting bent on it because they can't be overly emotional about it because it's a part of their job.
[576] So until this point in relationships, if anything went south, I just would go, this is a preview of more bad to come.
[577] This isn't natural growing pains.
[578] This isn't natural discourse or just like the natural arguments that you get in and then you get through them and you become closer, I would just go, this was great, I'll be fine without you, thanks.
[579] And I would just go, leaving people in my wake to feel like, what the hell happened?
[580] How did you reverse that to the point that you were able to find someone and get married?
[581] Luckily, I was in a state of doing the work.
[582] I was willing to be, I was not doing that specific work, but in general, because I was in a recovery reprogram because my mom had put good people around me and 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 certainly work to be done here but it wasn't until I had a woman like my wife in my life who taught me a better way who came from a family that doesn't leave and she reiterated that so when we 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 what like no like I'm not going anywhere and neither are you we can be mad at each other we can be mad we can go to bed mad I love that when people go you don't go to bed mad I'm like I don't know not in my experience like you can go to bed you can be mad for a couple days usually doesn't last that long no one wants to be that piss that long but it's like but when we work this out I'll be here because I'm not going anywhere because my siblings never went anywhere my mom and dad never went anywhere like we stick around through the good and the bad and that was a revelation for me i can so relate in so many ways i have the same avoiding attachment stuff for various reasons and then i met a person i always say that like got over the wall you know like yeah you know and changed you from the inside um definitely so i can totally totally relate where that's why you have to have a that's why if if it's for you You have 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 with incredible podcasts like this and we're in the age of optimization and self -realization and everyone's listening to a dozen podcasts at a time and wants to be their best version of themselves.
[583] And that's great.
[584] But we can't be Faberge eggs, right?
[585] Like we can't be these perfect, pristine things and then we get jostled around a bit by life and we shatter.
[586] And so to me, I think there's 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 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 well you better otherwise this thing's not going to work but you meet someone of value and you do the work and it reveals itself to be worth it and it gives you a deeper understanding and then once you guys get really perfect you throw a kid in the mix and that's little jerk makes you go even deeper and work even harder and become even more selfless hopefully and less self -centered and again new truths are revealed and new ways of living are revealed so yeah on all the things we've talked about today's the the mental talk the voice in your head the feelings of um you know quote unquote self -hate self -esteem happiness where where are you as you sit here today on that journey.
[587] I'm in a wonderful place.
[588] My life, you know, is a reflection of, how do I say it?
[589] My life is that of a good man's.
[590] Now, I say that not in like some big self -congratulatory way, but I just did the things that I was told to do by people whose life I wanted.
[591] You know, I surrounded myself with the people.
[592] people who weren't telling me the things I wanted to hear, but their life looked attractive.
[593] And it wasn't because they had a nice car or they had an impressive job.
[594] Those things don't hurt, but it was because they seemed deeply decent, that they had a good spiritual life and that they were good partners, there were good fathers, there were good sons.
[595] And that was attractive to me. So I implemented that into my life on a regular basis, and the byproduct of that was a really good life that I'm completely overpaid to have today.
[596] And I still, just as much as I say, I rarely wake up in the morning in the mood for a salad.
[597] I usually want French toast.
[598] I wake up in the morning most times.
[599] It's usually not the morning.
[600] I am a morning person.
[601] It's usually at 4 a .m. at night or 2 a .m. or 5 in the afternoon when I'm overtired and I had too much sugar when my mind starts going just remember it's all going to be bad you know that right but I have tools you know I have ways in which of dealing with that to get out of those thoughts to break that bad cycle so it's just the voices are never gone but the volumes turn down I have to ask you I've got one last 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 know that there's someone at home who can completely relate and they're sat there thinking, Josh, what are the tools?
[602] Is there anything that's really helped you sort of turned down the volume on that that you might recommend to someone listening at home?
[603] I would just say, and my friend John, aka Wheels, his motto was action is the magic word.
[604] And you cannot think your way into right acting.
[605] You have to act your way into right thinking.
[606] and I always felt like I'm reasonably articulate and I've, you know, I've prided myself on having what I thought was like a good mind.
[607] I've got to be able to think my way out of this thing.
[608] Like I have to be able to impress my will on this thing and wrestle it to death.
[609] Like I just can't believe it.
[610] And it's the duality of these things because didn't I get myself this far?
[611] didn't me taking my life and my will 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 it that that but maybe you got that in spite of it you know maybe the truth is is that these things you know they need to be governed they need to be throttled because inevitably they'll pervert they will they'll ruin you know that I just learned this they say a couple bad apples but the next part of that is a couple bad apples ruins the barrel right so it's like I have to be careful with those thoughts and those feelings because they can ruin everything so what I would say is when when I take the action to get out of self when I become in service to others when I do some reading when I listen to a great podcast like this about people who are seekers who are trying to better themselves if you take the action something will change.
[612] If you sit and you try to wrestle it, in my experience, it'll never work.
[613] Amen.
[614] The question left for you.
[615] Who is the one person in your life that deserves the greatest thanks?
[616] And if you were to give them the thanks today, what would you say?
[617] Well, I almost don't want to because it almost like because she loves she loves her flowers but yeah I got to give it to my mom it all starts and ends with my mom and we have a deeply imperfect relationship because we're too deeply imperfect people but at its core she did more than I could have ever imagined and especially being a father and seeing what how challenging it can be with all the help in the world and she did it all by herself and I just give her all the credit and the world.
[618] So much of why I'm here today is because of her.
[619] So thanks, Mom.
[620] I hope you don't watch this.
[621] But thank you.
[622] I love you.
[623] Josh, thank you so much.
[624] It's been an honor to meet you and learn about your story.
[625] And I'm a big follower now of your YouTube channel.
[626] So please do post a lot more because it's enjoyable to watch.
[627] You bring an important energy to the world.
[628] And your book is one of the most vulnerable, revealing, but wisdom -laced books.
[629] I've had the privilege of reading in my research for a podcast.
[630] So I recommend everybody to go grab a copy.
[631] I love the title.
[632] Happy people are annoying.
[633] It's a truly important book.
[634] Thank you, Josh.