Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Redefining Happiness, Acceptance and Manhood | Actor, Josh Peck

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

This week’s conversation is with Josh Peck, an actor, comedian, author, Youtuber, and television superstar. Josh rose to near-instant fame when he starred for four seasons as the comedic center of Nickelodeon’s hit show Drake & Josh. Since then, he has spent the last two decades establishing himself as one of Hollywood's rising talents – he has starred in several feature films and is currently on set for other major projects, such as Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer alongside industry legends like Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Robert Downey Jr. However, Josh’s quick rise to stardom didn’t come without consequence – in his new book, Happy People Are Annoying, Josh opens up for the first time about his coming of age journey under the spotlight and the struggles that came along with it.And that’s what this conversation is about - learning, growing, finding bright spots in the scary parts of life, and the life-changing freedom that comes on the other side of acceptance._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with Josh Peck, an actor, a comedian, author, YouTuber, and as you'd recognize his name, a television superstar. So Josh rose to near instant fame. It's like bang, right out of the gates When he starred for four seasons as the comedic center of Nickelodeon's hit show, Drake and Josh. And then since then, he's doubled down in his Hollywood profession. And he starred in several feature films and is currently on set for other major projects, such as Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. However,

his quick rise into stardom didn't come without some scar tissue, some consequences. And in his new book, Happy People Are Annoying. Yes, that's pretty funny. Josh opens up, you know, for the first time about his coming of age journey under the spotlight and the struggles that come along with that. And that's what this conversation is about. It's about learning and growing. And then maybe more specifically, in the scarier parts of life, knowing how to find the bright spots. And I'm thinking about Leonard Cohen, the musician, and he's got an epic line. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

And that idea speaks to human potential. It speaks to high performance, and it certainly speaks to despair and anxiety and depression. And so knowing that there are cracks in everything and then having the skill to be able to find that crack and embrace that that is there, even in the darkest and the scariest of times is real. I hope that you can embrace that level of optimism that is grounded and rich and deep. And there is life-changing freedom that comes on the other side of knowing how to find the crack, and just simply sometimes knowing that there is a crack where the light comes in with that. Let's get right into this week's conversation with Josh Pack.

Josh, how are you? Oh man, happy to be here. Thank you. I'm excited to have you for a couple of reasons. And we haven't had somebody with your history, with your body of work on the show. So I'm thrilled to learn from you. And maybe what we can do is can you just kind of give a quick flyover of where you have been in the last couple of decades of your life, what you've been doing? Oh, baby. Yeah. I love a summer. of where you have been in the last couple of decades of your life, what you've been doing. Oh, baby. Yeah. I love a summer. Started acting when I was eight years old, doing standup comedy all over New York. Turned into moving to California to be on my own TV show called

Drake and Josh. That was one of the biggest kid shows for its run of six, six years. Uh, in that time I lost a hundred pounds, um, got sober, continued to work, pivoted into, uh, creating the social media and speaking business, which then turned into this book that I just wrote called happy people are annoying. And then in a roundabout way, came back into acting and, uh, you know, have had a couple things I'm pretty proud of. I was recently shows like Turner and Hooch for Disney+. I met your father on Hulu

and working on this movie, Oppenheimer right now with Chris Nolan. So I've had a weird, weird, weird life, but it brought me here with you. So, you know, I won't. I've got to tell you, like, I can't wait to drill into almost each segment that you just highlighted. But when I got your book, the cover, I know you did this purposely,

but the cover is like, it's like, Oh, he's totally playing on how annoying the, the zeitgeist of self-help is. And the cover in and of itself has that annoying feel to it. It's really funny, dude, what you've done there. And so was that purposeful? Totally. Thank you. And if you look at the back of the book, there are these awards I've created with the feathers around it that you'd see for an indie movie that it got in a can or Sundance. But it's a word such as most punchable book cover, most likely to not make the New York Times bestsellers list. Who asked for this? I yeah, I I think that I certainly have

this persona. I say in the book, like you can't pick your hits. It's why Billy Joel won't play Uptown Girl anymore. You know, you can't pick your hits. It's why Billy Joel won't play Uptown Girl anymore. You know, you can't pick the thing that sort of breaks you through into the zeitgeist. People marry themselves to the first image that they fall in love with you as. So I knew that there was something deeper that I wanted to say more, that there had been a lot that I had sort of obfuscated or omitted of my story because I felt the need to sort of project the showbiz Josh to people. So I wanted it to be a bait and switch. You see this cover, you think, I know that cheesy guy. And then you open to page one and you're like, oh, what did I just sign up for? Yeah, that's exactly right. So here's the lead of why I wanted to have this conversation with you is because, one, very few people grew up in the spotlight like you did.

That being said, most of us recognize what it feels like to be in a spotlight. Now, your spotlight was national, international. And for many of us, it might be the dinner table spotlight, or it might be a boardroom spotlight, whatever the spotlight is, we know what that feels like. And for some people, it's small, intimate conversations with new people that that spotlight feels overwhelming. And we abandon ourselves in those experiences and we contort to be favored by the other. We change the way that we speak. We change the values propositions we have because we're looking to fit in more than we are to be authentically ourselves. But you did it while you were developing your identity and you did it on a

national presence. So I'd love to just pause there and see how do you respond to just the beginnings of what we're talking about here? Gosh, that's so well described by you. And I know that to be true. It's funny. I have this acting teacher and she talks a lot about sort of forward energy. She hates it. She thinks it's weak. There's a pleading to it, a people pleasing, this leaning in. I'm guilty of it right now,

but it's just this idea that there's something so powerful and strong about being on your heels, having your shoulders back, taking a breath. I love when standups say they get to a point where they're so comfortable in their act where they're okay with the silence, but it roots down to something even at, you know, at our most core level, which I think you're kind of getting at is that, am I enough? Am I, you know, me at my base level without dressing it up, without, you know, all my special skills, all the flourishes, all the great stories that I've accrued throughout my life. Am I enough in this situation, in this boardroom, at this meeting or in front of 10,000 people? And I think we all we all wrestled with that was there a moment where it came crashing down on you when

you knew that you were you know leading with a persona that was not durable or sturdy enough because it wasn't authentic do you have any moments that come to mind for you that you're like yeah okay this was pretty brutal? Well, I think there, gosh, there's so many moments, but specifically, I remember, you know, and I'm sort of jumping ahead, but I sort of become famous as this 300 pound funny fat guy in this kid's television show. And while I'm incredibly grateful to have this very specific and unique experience, there are two things that are haunting me, which is, A, I don't want to be overweight. I don't want to become known as this guy. I don't want to be famous in this body. every you know zendaya there are thousands of kid actors who perpetuate the stigma that we have

the stereotype of like they're going to crash and burn you know they'll rise quick and flame out and so i wound up losing 100 pounds i wind up getting some roles as an adult and like becoming very close to being respected now as an adult actor which is so rare for someone like me and I booked this gigantic movie which is a remake of the movie Red Dawn because there's so many great ideas in Hollywood that you know we love a reboot I've been in five this year I'm not above it but I um and I remember suddenly I was sort of faced with this idea of like I got everything I thought I wanted and now I just had to become, I had to fake it till I make it.

I had to present this idea of who, what I thought an alpha male was. And I'm playing Chris Hemsworth's brother in the movie, and maybe I need to be him. And I say in the book, my imposter syndrome became so severe that I allowed it to turn me into a fraud because it just perpetuated everything fraudulent about me. And I completely deviated from anything that had ever worked, any of my natural sparkle. And in trying to project what I thought the world wanted, what I thought I wanted, I had one of my biggest face plants of record. So and I just wanted to say one extra thing, you know, my life, most of my auditioning for me was I used to go into an audition and perform in a way that I believe they wanted the character to be. What I thought would make them happy, when I write something in my head, I've created a problem.

And I need the actor to solve that for me. So in many cases, we don't actually know what we want. We want you to come in and have a very specific take on it. maybe it'll be right. Maybe it'll be wrong, but don't try to read our minds because in many cases we don't know. And it wasn't until I had the guts to say, I have a take on this. I've had enough experience where maybe my take will be right. Maybe it'll be wrong, but it's a value and it's all I can bring to it is my unique set of abilities. It wasn't until then that I truly started to feel free in auditions. All right. So that is materially important for all of us, which is if I play back, what I heard is that I was going into a situation, your situation in

particular is an audition, but I was going in trying to contort, I'm going to use that word again, to be fine for them to find me favorable as opposed to me walking in being like, listen, I know how I want to do this and, and have it work from the inside out rather than from the outside in. And so can you talk about how do you, how have you come to understand working from the inside out? I think there's a couple qualifications that I have to make in what I'm doing. And I'll keep it just in a professional sense, let's say. Whereas I need to not feel rusty. Because as an actor, we are the instrument.

It's a corny thing to say but you know i love aaron sirkin has that quote of you know last night's meal won't keep you fed and a great lie i told myself for a very long time was i was once great once in my life i was able you know there were times where I could summon the alchemy that it took to be great. So maybe if all the things align, this will happen too. Instead of realizing that acting like everything else, even though it is creative and artistic and does sort of exist on a level that it's, you know, it's not exactly ones and zeros, there are fundamentals, there's preparation, you do the work required, and then you give it your best shot and hope that things align. So for me, it's about A, knowing that I'm

doing the maintenance on myself to keep me ready. And that means acting class. It means living an interesting life and continue to consume source material going out and living a full life with real people i find you know when you see an actor who has like a moment and they really pop in a part and everyone's talking about it and then after a couple years you just go what happened to him he was so good in that thing and you know privately I always think in my head I'm like I bet he's been at Chateau Marmont too much like I bet you he's been at too many industry parties and around too many one percenters and has you know but he's

not playing that in movies you know you're not playing agents and managers and people who get free dinners, right? You're playing blue collar, real people with real jobs and real problems. And how can you ever hope to do that if you're never having interaction with those types? So I think that's really the two most important things is knowing my preparation is sound and also feeling like I'm living an interesting life. What gets in the way of you being your very best? I can certainly be, you know, I can be lazy in these weird ways and it's not, you know,

I'm not slothful, but I can know that I have an audition to prepare for's not, you know, I'm not slothful, but I can know that I have an audition to prepare for and think, you know, I really got a vacuum and then I'll get to it. It's like, I can make myself busy with things that if I'm being honest, don't require my immediate attention. And so it's not prioritizing the work that's necessary. And yeah, and it is that I'm trying to think, you said it so well, and I find myself falling back into that is like trying to read other people's minds

and to change my behavior in which to please them always gives me this, like, I just got broken up with energy. Please, God, you know, I swear I'm a great date. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday. What you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for

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You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Let's parse those out because I think that second one is so, such a powerful common thread that unless addressed, unless felt the pain of that, that we end up riding that for too much of our lives. But on the first part, which is, you know, the busyness, I'll actually add a texture to it is that,

let's say you've got audition prep that you need to get to, but you're vacuuming, that it is not uncommon to have a non-taxing event or set of activities to be able to almost muse a little bit, not even really thinking about later, but it's just kind of literally, it's physically organizing your life, whether it's your desk or your, or vacuum or whatever that allows you to escape into what's called the theta brainwave, which is something pretty mundane,

kind of like an, kind of like an ADD type of dullness to it. And once you're done with that, literally your space is a little bit more inviting or nicer and it feels like you have maybe been putting off something but you've actually relaxed and down regulated your brain so that you can fire up with high intensity to do the thing and then the other piece is that it also compresses time so that it forces you procrastination is a forcing function to have some adrenaline to have some deep focus and that's why people say well i do my best work when it's crunch time well it's because your brain is now gone from from a theta which is that dull kind of state out like the tv watching state that i was you know that we all are familiar with into a beta alpha and these are

all brain wavesaves, specific waves where it's like high alert, deep focus, and a sense of calm. And if you can find that it's, it feels magical, but I bet one of your practices is to vacuum or clean the desk or clean your shower or, you know, and if you, if you just flip that little narrative from, oh, I'm being lazy to, oh, okay, well, I'm just going to, this is what I do. This is part of my process. And do you find the procrastination, the time crunch thing is also part of like, have you heard of like, I think it's Parkinson's principle about that work,

work sort of expands or minimizes within the time that you give it. So it's like why deadlines are so important. Because if you give yourself a month, it'll take a month. But if you give yourself a week, somehow you'll figure it out. Yeah. I haven't heard Parkinson's principle, but that principle that you just described, yeah, it's good. And so much so that DARPA, one of the super innovative military organizations, they would purposely create artificial time constraints to solve like a world problem. And they're like, listen, let's solve A, B, and C, or let's solve A within six weeks. And you put a bunch of really bright people in a room and they're like, six weeks. Jesus, how are we going to do that? Well, okay, we're just going to have to go to work. And so like, it forces you to get right to the post vacuuming intensity that comes after the procrastination. So yeah, I think there's

something to it. And all that being said, it's like, the bigger part is like, when you're at your best, do you feel calm and highly focused? Or is it more erratic focus or is it more mellow focus? Like what is, what is the energetic state when you're at your best? I don't, you know, it, the thing about when I really know that I've done the work is that I, I it's, there's a trudging energy to it. You know, it's not because it's not mysterious anymore. Like I know what happens when I do the correct work. I know how it should feel.

And I basically, if, if I really do that work and I just slog through it and specifically and it's the easiest for me is to to apply it to acting because it's sort of like my my first my first discipline is when I'm really asking myself the questions for every part of a script because some things will just come naturally like in anything right you're just like I know how to do this this is very intuitive and then it'll present itself there'll be a turn in the script there'll be something where I'll go oh that's interesting and did I do the not sexy work which is like should I read the script one more time because I bet you that if this is good writing they've given me a clue somewhere in this blueprint to figure out how to deliver this line, which right now seems a mystery to me.

Or if I'm playing a real person, what don't I know about this? Like, for instance, right now, I'm playing this, you know, and I have an incredibly small part, but it's in this big, fancy movie. And I'm playing this physicist in the forties, which couldn't be any further for me, a no good actor in Hollywood. Who's a millennial. But I, I, I love the self-talk here. Yeah. Right. We'll have plenty to dig in on.

But I think about this guy and I'm like, okay, well, you know, he was in his thirties and he gets brought to New Mexico and he's from the East Coast and he brought his family with him. But like, you know, and he's got this high calling, right? Like he's literally his country is calling on him to help win the war. And he's probably feeling very virtuous while also being like, I want to be with my kid. You know, I want to be home. Like my wife's mad at me because I'm, you know, I'm sitting with Oppenheimer for 15 hours a day.

Like, and suddenly there's like these human connections where I'm like, I know that. I'll never know what it is to understand atomic theory, but I know that kind of emotion. And I know this. But that only comes, like I've literally read the script 10 times and watched a bunch of documentaries and it's just like time in. Did I spend enough time with it where I could make those conclusions? And they just don't usually happen rapidly in my experience. Okay. All right. Part of the process. I get it. That's your training, you know, so that you can metabolize all of the different bits of information and make it

something that feels uniquely aligned with that person and who you are. Does that sound close? Yes. Okay. And so that's, that's the, the answer to the question of working from the inside out. And then I think it feels like when you put that preparation in, you get to speak to yourself a certain way. Yes. It's not that I'm a no good millennial actor, right? What does it feel like or what does it sound like when you are speaking well to yourself? It's just very, it's very clear clear you couldn't have done any more you've you've worked to the best of your ability and your capacity and if something doesn't work out from here on it was

outside of your control okay now take that and then this inner narrative inner dialogue and go all the way back to when you wanted to lose 100 pounds. What age were you? And then what were you saying to yourself about yourself before you were about to lose weight? Well, I had always sort of been an overweight kid, but between 13 and 17, I probably put on 80 pounds. And so that was when I was at my heaviest. Wait, okay. So what was, what was happening? Well, I think I had always used, um, food as, as, um, to narcotize, to anesthetize my feelings. Um, you know, my, my, my brain wants me uncomfortable. You know, I always say my disease rests in my dis ease. I have my default settings put me in a place of discomfort. Now, I don't think

that that's specific to people like me. I think that's probably pretty human. I don't mean to project, but I think there's a lot of people who feel those things. I happen to have found these things originally with food and then with drugs and alcohol where they forced me to a place where I had to deal with it. I had no choice but to deal with it because my life, you know, whether it was that I was getting so overweight where it was becoming incredibly unhealthy and then eventually sort of the trappings that come with the other stuff. Hold up, but let's do this. Let's go back. Let's go to the inner narrative. Sounds like it was an addiction to food and you had difficult emotions that you

didn't know how to work with. So you were numbing it with dopamine and food and kind of the the feeling of satiation okay yeah so what was going on like what were the difficult feelings what was the stuff that was so hard to deal with for you i think deeply insecure um you know but school constantly teased this is at a time where there was really no sort of body positivity. It was open season to talk about people and their weight. I think people thought, I think in a weird way, people thought that if they shamed you, they might wake you up into losing weight. Like maybe he doesn't know he's so big. And so, yeah, I think it was deeply insecure. And then, you know, I have this incredible mother

who's this, you know, tigress and gave me so many of the things that a child needs. And yet, you know, there was a lot of financial insecurity and only having one parent that I think, you know, that level of instability weighed heavily on me. Okay. High stress, right? From single parent money was a challenge, but I still don't understand. And I'm not trying to be dense or rude about it, but I'm not understanding what was the hard part before you put on the weight. I was always heavy. Oh, you were always, I thought you put on 80 pounds between a two-year period. I did through a four-year period, but that was just environmental.

I was older. I had more, I think it was expedited that now I was on television. So I was becoming more public. So there was added stress and I had more access to just eating the way I wanted to. Gotcha. Okay. So there was the underlying stressors that were taking place. You already were overweight. And then when you had more access, you really got high with food. Yeah. I mean, mean you know you work on a tv show it's a nice snack table yeah i know same in sport like an elite sport like the buffet line is ridiculous you want oh my gosh it's like what hold on it's not going out of style here like this is it's gluttonous in many ways i watch that show 24 7 i love it love it. Or Hard Knocks on HBO. And gosh, when you see those team meetings, it's like, you know, they're going, I mean, these guys drinking Gatorades. I'm always so jealous. I'm like, the problem is I should have been born a Samoan offensive lineman. And I would have been, I would have had the perfect environment would have supported. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. So did you take on oftentimes

people that are in single parent families? They take on they try to take on the role of the other. And so did you take on the role of dad? I don't know if if dad is the right word or just like you. I say in the book that my mom and I were like a startup. My friends who had traditional family systems, it was like the parents were upper management and the kids were the lower employees. And with my mom and I, we were like a startup. We had to constantly pivot. pivot yeah that's very cool all right so there's a different relationship with you and your mom that other that you saw other kids have and then when you were getting all this attention did you have a narrative that well i need to stay heavy because that's part of my package i knew that there was it was said to me verbatim like you're part of my package? I knew that there was, it was said to me verbatim,

like you're part of a very small class of performers who you fill this role. And yes, you'll be relegated to probably two things, the bully or the best friend, but this is a very sort of, you're part of a legacy here. There are people who have done this before you, and they would compare me to Chris Farley or John Candy,

but they weren't comparing, you know, those guys are geniuses. They weren't comparing my ability. They were just comparing my size. And also, always failed to mention that they sadly had somewhat tragic endings. And so all those things combined, I, I certainly think people were like, if you lose weight, you're going to be auditioning against Jake Gyllenhaal. I mean, not really, but you know what I mean? They're like,

you're going to enter the ranks of where there are thousands of guys who want one role. And right now you're against three but that never that never had any i have to say i never had i remember deciding when i started to lose weight that like if i had to stay the size and be a a movie star, I, I wouldn't do it. And if I had to, if I could be thin and have just, you know, be a normal person living, working a normal job, I would pick that instead. Did you have a moment where you got sick and tired of being sick and tired as the phrase goes, goes or was it a slow transition that took place totally i i i think that when i was i think sort of the moments that instigated it were like i wound up making this movie actually called mean creek when i was 16 and i played this the part of a bully but it was the first time that it was like this really

three-dimensional character. And you come to learn about the bully in the movie that he's this tragically flawed guy who's got learning disabilities and desperately wants friends. And, and the movie won, won an award at Sundance. Reviews were incredible. And I was hooked because I love the deep, the deepest capital T truth about me is I love acting. And and I was hooked because I love the deep the deepest capital t truth about me is I love acting and so I was like oh this is what I want and I know this isn't coming again for another 10 years like a part like this for a not typical leading man type of actor the way I am so I think there was like a the vanity I I liked being liked and I liked that I was good at this thing and I wanted more opportunity to shine. And I felt like if I didn't, I knew that I had missed out on being a teenager. And I thought the longer I wait, the more of my life I'm going to miss out on because I could feel myself holding myself back. Okay. So it wasn't a crash and burn, the bottom dropped out, a new low happened.

I wouldn't say that. No, it wasn't that. Your bottom is when you decide to stop digging. And so I was 300 pounds in a very unhealthy place. And I was emotionally, yeah, I was not pleased with what my life was. So could I have been 500? Sure. But we're dealing with pretty disparate circumstance regardless.

How did you work with the trade winds? So you started losing weight and then there was, there was going to be forces back on you saying, what are you doing? You're losing weight. You know, there'll be certainly people in your corner like Josh, awesome. I hope you're feeling healthy, you know, like keep with it. But I would bet that there was other people that maybe for whatever reason, because they had you, they had given you the narrative and they wanted you to stay with that narrative. And now you're changing the narrative that there would be some trade wins. But can you, can you talk about those types of forces against the change you wanted? Yeah, I don't think i i think you're right most

people were very supportive and i think inevitably the trade winds became more of well you'll always be this though like you know as soon as you're done with your with your tv show you know you've got to find another sitcom like you you have this lane so stay in this lane it works for you and my thought was like but i've i've been studying to be like a real actor and i love this but i would love to not be limited to one thing and everyone who would kind of roll their eyes and say like, Hey, be lucky that you're even good at this. And that was always a drive deep within, which was like this deep seated need to, to prove people wrong. And I don't know if that was just installed from not having a dad and constantly wanting to be like, I'm valuable. I'm worth it. Don't leave. I mean, I'd love to

ask you like, you know, how many high performance athletes are who they are today by admonishing fathers who were too hard on them? Oh, gosh. I mean, the line is long. Right? The line is long, or the father that wasn't there. Right. Yeah, to your point. And so, so much, you might find this interesting, Josh, is that in elite sport, it's actually a relatively in male sport. It's relatively well understood that if somebody grew up in a family without a male figure, that the way that we coach them, and'm using a broad brush was very different than somebody that grew up with some with a an athlete who grew up with a male figure because the athlete

that didn't have the male figure wasn't used to the loud booming alpha male voice and so when you get loud with that athlete there's a recoiling and there's a posturing and either they like, they need to protect mom in that case, when there was a loud voice, they needed to raise up because it was something that maybe was so new that it's like, what is this? And so there's a posturing to it. And I'm being, there's a broad brush I'm stroking here, which I know is very dangerous for the most part. Sure. But there was a, there's a broad brush I'm stroking here, which I know is very dangerous for the most part. Sure. But there was a, there's an insight underneath of it, which is like, okay. If there was a male in the family and they're used to that tone, their brain is used to that tone,

like no problems. Okay. Like you can be loud, but if they're not, there's a posturing that takes place and it usually ends up doesn't it challenges the relationship in unhealthy ways so um i don't know if you ever had that experience at all where if somebody was like all of a sudden big and loud and large like another alpha male that it was like oh my god what do i do with this energy like this is overwhelming i'm interested I, it's a slight tangent, but I think it's worthwhile because I'd love to hear your take on this. So when I was 19, or I'm sorry, when I was 21 and I got sober, I had been sober for six months going to 12-step meetings. And it was suggested, and these were, you know, mixed meetings, the way you see them in portrayed in movies and television. And it was suggested to me by a friend of mine. He's like, you know, I go to something called a men's stack, which is an all men's meeting of 12 step meeting. Why don't you, why don't you come try it? It's a great group of guys. And I said,

okay. And I wound up going and, you know, anything all male to this point really turned me off. You know, I just felt like it was a, you know, a testosterone fest. And it was just like a lot of people posturing for position. So I go in there and again, it's these, you know, gruff guys with long-term sobriety, anywhere from 10 to 30. There was one guy, a World War II vet who had, you know, 60 plus years of sobriety. These were tough guys. And this wasn't the kind of meeting where they wanted you to cry on their shoulder. This was like, no, no, no, sit down, shut up and listen. Like your best thinking got you here. So you're going to be quiet and you're going to listen to guys who've walked the path before you. And it wasn't like a hierarchy. It's just like, we were there. So let us share with you how we walked through it and stayed sober doing it. And I equated it to eventually like man school,

like you want esteemable acts or you want self-esteem, do esteemable acts. Do the right thing and don't get caught doing it. Restrain of pen and tongue, you know, surrender, acceptance, gratitude, all these tenants, these things that, I mean, I had, I have a great mom. Of course I learned this. I knew how to be a slightly respectable member of society. And yet it was like finishing school. It was like rearing, you know, there would, there was always a guy we would laugh who would somehow get your phone number. And then he would call you when he would like call

the new guys who were new to the meeting. And if you didn't call him back, he'd corner you at the meeting and go, a man calls someone back. And I found I loved it because again, I was like, oh, if this is what being in quotes a man is, I'm learning. This is what I was attracted to it. And I found that the men, to your point, who had had a healthier, or maybe not healthy, a traditional mother-father figure,

they'd usually drop out. They'd be like, I don't need this. I'm going to go to a different kind of meeting. This isn't for me. I have a dad. It's interesting because it was very attractive to me. Maybe the first meeting, I was a bit scared and put off, but I couldn't stop going back. I was like, oh, this is, I've needed sort of patriarchs like this. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft.

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what you're describing is something that in the Western society, let's just talk about the United States here, is that our rites of passage to adulthood, man and woman, and for men, is compromised. It's not clear as it once was. And so this rite of passage of becoming a man is socially almost even at some point taboo to even think about, like, what do you mean? You know, because the old, older, let's call it 1990, 2000, even older older like definition of being a man definitely has some some upgrading to do and um i would love for you to just say like how do you think about being a man like what does it mean to be a man to you well i i've been really lucky to have some you know male figures in my life one of them is a big brother that i've had

from the jewish big brothers foundation since i was eight but he's been in my life for almost 30 years dan he was the best man at my wedding and you know and also my father-in-law um are there two men who like they it's a good a good life as a result of good living that they are witness to their bad behavior that there is it's not about karma anymore right like i cannot live with impunity anymore because i'm awake and so it's not about getting away with a lie or a cheat or a steal like yeah maybe no one's gonna to find me guilty, but I know I'm witness to my misdeeds and I'm not willing to sacrifice my mental state, my level of contentment to, you know, to get a little bit further faster. And, you know, and I think like alphas got a bad name for a while and we started like sort of like embracing this idea of the beta male.

I think that's so wrong. I think a natural alpha are the ones who care about the group and lead with a quietness to them that you don't even know they're leading. And I always say this about my father-in-law of one of the millions of things that I respect about him at a family dinner, if it's like banquets style and we're all getting plates and filling our plate, he always eats last. Everyone eats before my father-in-law and it's just a thing about him. And that kind of is a metaphor for his life. He takes care of the group. That's really cool. My father-in-law, same thing. Yeah?

Yeah. And I don't even bother. It's a moment of deference too. Like, you know, like I'm going to go before you. So I love how you're redefining alpha, which is this idea of people won't follow if the best interest of the masses or even the individual isn't considered. And so you can scare people for some sort of time into following, the benefit of the, of the group, and then working to create a rising tide, you know, for everybody, you know, when you're in the presence of an alpha, you know, and if you don't know it, maybe you are it. I don't know. But you know when there's an alpha in the room, it's like, oh, okay. And there is something to be said about somebody who can yield that much internal power. The shortcut is 6'9", 265 pounds, 6% body fat, you know, like looks like the absolute,

you know, warrior of a human. But they're not always alphas. They might look that way, but they might not be able to lead anybody. And so they can't influence the psychology of a room. And so that is what I consider to be alpha. They can influence the psychology of the room by the way that they hold themselves. And you can be five foot zero and hold the psychology of room and completely can, you know, shape shift it. And all that being said is when I'm in a female sport environments and they have their unique way of doing things as well, you know who the alpha is. And yeah, I love this conversation. their unique way of doing things as well, you know who the alpha is.

And yeah, I love this conversation. And I'll just say the last thing and I'll get off of it is that, you know, to be a leader, the model that I use is like, you got to have a brightness inside of you that is so bright that other people are naturally attracted to it. And the second is the tone of leadership. I'm much more interested in the hand that leaves the pond without a trace. I think that's a really cool way of leading. There's a brightness and then the hand that leaves the pond like, how did this happen? Oh, when you look back and you interrogate it, you're like, oh, but while it's happening, it feels very different so i was um i i was starting this show last year called turner

and hooch and and it was you know proper like disney plus i had been the lead of things before but never like with a really healthy budget and you know when you're the number one on a call sheet it is a leadership role because if you're having a bad day everyone's having a bad day and i remember asking my father-in-law for advice because he was a quarterback in the NFL for many years. And it's a natural sort of leader if he had any advice. And he said, just make sure that you make the wins everyone's and the losses your own. And I just, you know, it was so simple, but you know, this idea, because I'm constantly, you'll know it's sickening when you get on a set and you see the way that people placate

to the number one on a call sheet. And like, you know, they just want to keep them happy. And if it's like, you can be constantly spreading that out and not assigning blame, even if someone else, you know, if someone else messes up, it's like, well, where can you pick up some of that to lighten the load on them? Cause they're having a totally different experience to you. I was part of the Stratos, Red Bull Stratos program. And one of the, I think he was four star, older, kind of crusty, seen it, been there, understands leadership at scale, passes a note to one of the performance directors of the program and it says, success that is not shared is a failure.

Like, yeah, there we go. Look at that. So good. What you just described is actually the opposite of narcissism. So narcissists, they suck all of the success out of it that it's theirs. And when there's failure or mistakes or something, they quickly turn the gaze on blaming other people. So what you are working from is a non-narcissistic approach. Yeah, it's super helpful. And I love watching people who just are able to sort of take the group together and they don't need to. I've seen plenty of leads or people in a position where they create a problem so they can solve it. And because they want everyone to see how crafty they are. And it's like,

there's not an issue. We all just want to go home a little early. You're awesome. And you're okay. Like sending that message is really important. All right. So when did you start to notice that you, that adults treated you differently? So this is back to childhood again. Was there a point in your life where you're like, wait a minute So this is back to childhood again. Was there a point in your life where you're like, wait a minute, this is like adults are treating me differently than they're treating other kids. And what ends up happening is those kids, you, whatever the age was, I can help dial in a little bit more, start to wear too big of shoes, too big of, you know, pants, because you don't really fit from a

developmental standpoint to be able to run adults. And so I'm wondering if you started to notice that at any particular age. Well, I think at a young age, really young, and I don't know if it was real or just perceived, I think it was both, right? right because and my wife gets mad at me about this where still to this day sometimes i'll get annoyed and be like that person's disrespecting me and she'll say you're taking it too personal there you you might have been in sort of the um in the splash zone of their bad behavior but but it wasn't so directed. It's not that personal. And so as a kid, a lot of people were treating me in the way that you treat kids. They didn't

know that my circumstance was specific. They didn't know that I was the man of my house and that I had been, you know, promoted to a higher level of responsibility from as far back as I can remember because our situation was so specific. So can I, you know, it took a really long time for me to realize that on one level, yeah, I used to hate it. I would hate when people would treat me like a kid or feel like I was being pandered to. But inevitably, I think most of the time, it was just people who were clueless of my situation. What are you trying to solve now in your life? You've got this really large platform. You've got a community of people that want to be part of your community what are you trying to

solve such a good question and i don't i think i would fall victim to giving you some platitude if i tried to answer it without really really thinking but i know two things i i want to do good work because anything worth doing is worth doing well. And I believe that the virtuous part of what I do has only occurred to me in the last couple of years of that being a storyteller is probably a skill. The storyteller of the tribe is probably something that has occurred for thousands of years. And it allowed people to forget at night when they're warming up by the fire, you know, the 14 hours of hell that they probably just experienced in most cases. And now as the storytellers, you know, we allow for people who live these real challenging lives to lose themselves in these worlds that we create for half an hour, an hour, 90 minutes. And that's a value. You know, it's not just about playing pretend and putting on a costume.

So I want to do good work that gives people that kind of escape. And then with any sort of money and influence that I'm able to sort of procure, it's like, where is the charitable arm of that? I mean, I do it in smaller ways, but what's that charitable arm where it's either partnering up with someone or making that, you know, I'm 35. Like I'm getting to that point where I really have to become clear of how do I pay this forward? How do I give it away? Because I'm really overpaid and my life is, I've been incredibly lucky and it's, it's time to help the people who haven't been as lucky as me.

What are you searching for or what are you aching for as a, as a young man? There's not a lot of search and ache as far as, I mean, professionally, I talked about this the other day. I had this great year of work last year. And then when this year started, I said, let me get back in acting class because I know this about myself. Then I'm going to get rusty and I'm going to rest on my laurels and just think that last year was just a preview of more good to come. So I get back in acting class and I'm doing my first scene and my acting teacher watches it and she goes, did you consider this? Or you kind of totally missed this. And I just remember thinking, oh God, like this thing I've been doing for 20 years, I still can't master it.

Like I still, I still miss things. And so it's like this puzzle that I'm obsessed with and it never gets old. Like it's this video game that I keep playing and I, I love it. And I continue to just want to get one more, you know, an inch further every time. So, yeah, I think that, yeah. How do your friends describe you? How's your wife? How's your wife describe you?

That's a better question, right? Because like, you mean good friends or less good friends? My wife, I think she would describe me as like a good man, good dad, good husband, neurotic, needs to be himself more. But sweet, kind, and funny. Is there a moment that stands out in your life that like really captures you know you you're like this moment just it just resonates deeply in my life you know they're like the classic ones of my kid being born and like we you know i think those are perhaps like slightly easy, but yeah, I think, I don't know. I think the, the moment where I told my mom that my wife was pregnant and it was just her and I at lunch and I, it was, I think it was her

birthday coming up. And so I got her a birthday card, but like that a grandkid would get their grandma. And I put the, the ultrasound picture in there and I kind of wrote it from, and she like, couldn't, I wrote it from my son who, who, you know, my wife was only three months pregnant then. And she didn't get it for like the first 30 seconds, but when it like sunk in, it just was like, because I just, you know, I am my mom's son and i know what she had to fight to make this life for me and now that i'm getting to give an even better life to my kid it was like

you know our work had paid off very cool very cool how do you finish this thought it all comes down to um work life is work and it's good it's good bad but it's work and it's uh yeah i i'm not i'm not a big, I don't know what this idea of like enjoying is. It's like I enjoyed the work and I think work comes in all forms, but I think you have to continue to keep growing and keep moving and keep challenging yourself. Very cool. I am? I am pleased to be here i am uh i'm uh i'm i'm i'm doing my best most of the time relationships are everything because that's that that's the last thing to go.

And even those will go. The real struggle is? Between you and you, you are the fish you're trying to catch. The good news and the bad news is that you're the love of your life. You're everything you've been searching for. The fork in the road for me was? The fork in the road for me was, oh boy, this is a good one too. I think it was being willing to give 100% of myself,

knowing that it still might not be enough. If people knew what I knew, they would. If people knew what I knew, they would, they would eat less trans fat. No, they would. They knew what I knew. I don't know. I, I, they, would uh they knew what i knew i i don't know um i they if they knew what i knew they might not be better or worse but uh they might laugh a little more above all my mother taught me how to be decent and and how to hold yourself to a higher standard

above all my wife has taught me and how to hold yourself to a higher standard. Above all, my wife has taught me. That family doesn't leave. My son has taught me. Help your fellow's boat to the other side, and yours too will cross. So good. Why are happy people so annoying? I mean, these people that like don't,

you know, insatiably scroll Instagram all day and call you back when they say they're going to call you back and have the proper number of lines or the proper number of items in the express line at the grocery store. I think I was always annoyed by people who seemed that they were at a default level of happy because I believe that happy was reserved for elite athletes and people who were generationally wealthy and attractive people.

And it just came naturally to them. And it was only through facing challenges and walking through them and acquiring new skills to deal with the next thing and walking through challenges with grace that I found a little bit of that happiness that I'd always been seeking. Awesome, dude. Josh, there's a freshness to you, which is really relieving with all the success that you've had and the experiences that you've had.

There's a humility that you lead with. There's a kindness that is part of your DNA. There's an understanding that you've earned. There's an openness. There's a kindness that is part of your DNA. There's an understanding that you've earned. There's an openness. There's a conscientiousness. You have that interesting balance between agreeing, but also having your own point of view, which is an important blend. And I don't get this neurotic Josh. So I bet neurotic Josh was earlier. So you're kind of tempering that a little bit with some of your introspection work that you've done. And so you've had to experience what I'm experiencing from you. The ability to dance between the light and the dark side of the human experience, you have to earn that. And you earn it by deciding not to dig anymore. Like,

okay, I've reached the bottom. And then all of the work from the 12 steps, I think is paying forward in the conversation I'm having with you, because I don't know if you've worked all 12 steps, but the 12 steps you have, you're nodding. The 12 steps are so powerful, whether you have an addiction you're working with or not. Those 12 steps are radical. Bill and Bob, you know, Dr. Bill and Bob, like, wait, did I get that right? Dr. Bob? No, Dr. Bob. Dr. Bob. Yeah. And Bill, like what they did is like, I mean, it's outrageous. So I just want to say thank you for presenting, you know, like a breath of fresh air from an industry that breeds narcissism. And so I just want to just really enjoy it.

I'm wishing you like fantastic success in the next phase as a dad, you know, as a continued as a husband and as a person who helps people laugh. And so thank you for entertaining the way you do. And thank you for presenting the way you did today. Like it literally, it's a breath of fresh air. Oh, I love chatting with you. I can already just tell from this conversation, how good you are at what you do. If you were to name this episode, what would you name it?

Wow. Who's Josh Peck? Good job, dude. All right, legend. If there's anything I can do to be a service, please let me know. And I've really enjoyed this conversation, Josh. Me too. Thanks for having me, man. Such a pleasure. All the best. Awesome. You too. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Awesome. You too. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding

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