Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Shazam!’s ZACHARY LEVI: Being Woke vs. Awake

Episode Date: January 11, 2022

Never disappoints! Zachary Levi (Shazam!, American Underdog) joins me this week to catch up on how he’s holding up mentally and what the process of shooting a football biopic over the last couple years was like with American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story. Zach delves very deep into what it means to love oneself and how that not only affects our own lives but others as well. We discuss relationships with our mothers, the imminent return of Chuck, and the difference between love and like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Reading, playing, learning. Stellist lenses do more than just correct your child's vision. They slow down the progression of myopia. So your child can continue to discover all the world has to offer through their own eyes. Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at SLOR.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLOR Stellist lenses at your child's next visit. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum.

How are you guys? Happy New Year. I freaking love that you're still listening to me. There's so many podcasts out there and you choose to be here. Or maybe you're here for Zach Levi and that's wonderful too. But maybe you'll like it and you'll go, hey, this guy is not a complete schmuck and listen to me. It's important whether you're listening on Spotify or Apple or whatever, please write a review of the podcast. It helps the podcast substantially.

So if you like it, at least you can do is maybe. write a review for me the old man here you know um happy new year to everybody i hope you had a happy and safe uh holiday right now with me ryan's in hawaii so sitting in for him is our editor jason nielken is it nilken right nilken's correct no king's correct how are you bud i'm good how are you i'm good jip and you thank you for editing the show i love editing the show you do it's my pleasure oh dude he's great he just came over today i hadn't met him in person and he came in my office I was showing them around, showing my toys. I believe I farted in front of you.

You did? I did. I apologize. Nice pad, man. No, that's fun. Thanks, man. It's kind of like built for a child, a man child, isn't it? That's how it should be.

That's how it should be. Adults are just grown children. Do you have a girlfriend? I do have a girlfriend. You do, I don't. I know. Ryan does, you do. We know.

Bryce does. He's married and I'm solo. That's okay. I'll find one. Yeah, I wouldn't be so hard on yourself about it. How old are you? I'm 29. Oh, man.

You're just a kid, dog. I can be your dad. Yeah. I'm 49. Yeah, you would have, it would have been some sort of, you know, accident situation. It could have been an accident. Accidents do happen. Yeah.

Guys, I love you. Thank you. We're going to get to exactly by in a second, but just make sure you follow us on the Instagram at at Inside of You podcast and the Facebook at Inside You podcast. And please follow us on Twitter at Inside You pod. Also, you can go to the online inside of you store. You can get. smallville lunch boxes you can get inside of you tumblers brand new inside of you hats i got a new

yield script from smallville called lexmas which is a lot of people's favorites you can get one of those signed by me tons of stuff um the inside of you online store also you can go to sunspin.com my band and get a zoom with me and there's so much cool merch stephen emel and tom welling always wear my sunspin hats and shirts and uh i appreciate it so if you want to copy them feel free to do it also i can't uh say enough about my patrons those guys you know you guys if you don't know what patreon is go to patreon p a t r eon dot com slash inside of you this is a group of people that give back to the podcast they believe in it they love it and without them i don't know what i do so if you love the podcast and you want to give back i can give back anything it doesn't matter it

helps substantially and uh you know i love them i just did a zoom with all the top tiers um you know, and we all zoomed together and talked and got to see their faces. That was cool. But it's become a real close family, the patron family. I think, you know, a lot of people have said, God, I've made so many close friends to this, this Patreon. And it's cool. It's cool. There's so many perks and things like that. So check it out, patreon.com slash inside of you. I'm also on cameo. I want to say thank you before we get right into the interview with those that supported echoesof hope.org for foster youth. those that supported food on foot.org for the homeless situation we have in Los Angeles,

all of the world, and, uh, and Ronald McDonald House. If you gave any money or if you thought about them during the holidays, I really appreciate it. I know some of you did. And it makes me feel good. It makes me feel good that you guys are supporting me and supporting all these great charities. Um, that's about it, man. Uh, New Year's resolution. Uh, it's been five days. I'm not vaping anymore. Uh, I quit sodas. no candy no like no chocolates no chips at night i'm trying to get in shape i'm trying to be better to myself are you doing anything for new year's resolution i have no new year's resolutions you have none uh yeah i just uh you know uh all year you know resolutions are for the whole year for me well mine

starts five days ago and it's it's gonna hopefully continue i'm gonna try and stay i think you know with anxiety and things like that if you cut out all the crap and see where you're at when you cut out all the crap you'll get a better idea of who you are and how much better you can feel by not doing all the crap does that make sense definitely achieve equilibrium achieve equilibrium and then see where you're at i like that achieve equilibrium let's get inside of zach levi it's my point of you you're listening to inside of you with michael rosenbaum Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience. How are you, my friend?

Oh, man, I'm really good. Today I'm a little, I'm dragging a little ass because I had a lot of fun. And by fun, I mean, tequila at the premiere party last night for American Underdog. That was just last night. American Underdog, the Kurt Warner story. You play Kurt Warner. I do. Yeah.

And this premiered last night in Los Angeles. where man Chinese and how much fun was it it was super fun i mean you know i mean you you you you go and make a thing you believe in it you hope that it all comes together i've seen it i i feel like it's all there you know i'm proud of it we made it in the middle of the pandemic and all the craziness and um and then you go and do all the work and doing the press and then it and then it's here and then you're like okay well i hope and it's not even really open right so it's like you know we premiered last night, but it doesn't open until Christmas. So I still won't really know what critics or people or whatever think about it, but...

Right, this will have aired. This will have aired by the time. By the movie will be out. So if you're listening to this, folks, I hope... The movie's out. The movie's out. And hopefully you've seen it. And if you haven't, please go see it.

And if you do see it, I hope you enjoy it. And if you don't enjoy it, then... FU. No, then, you know... No? I mean, people are allowed to enjoy things. Yeah, I enjoy it. I was going to go a different way with that joke.

I wasn't just going to like lambas, but... people for not liking my fucking movie idiots if you don't like it if you don't like it what and then kick rocks then watch shazam no i don't know then yeah then watch jazam there you go watch jazam um do you feel like when you go to a premiere because i know i feel this way when i have a premiere for something uh that's a project that i've been working on you're not getting a real uh a real response a visceral uh a real audience response because it's all people that are there the studio they're your family, they're your friends. They're like, you are great.

Yeah, yeah. That's what it felt like last night. It's weird because I watched it. I didn't, I actually didn't watch a screening last night. I went and had some dinner. I'd already seen it. But when I watched it, I did. I felt good about it.

I felt like, oh, okay, I felt good about what I did. You know, normally we're our own worst critics. And so I think everybody is. I think artists particularly are that. Or maybe, I don't know, maybe not. Maybe generally all people are just as much. But as an actor, being critical of yourself, you go and watch your mug projected up on this massive screen.

And first of all, I have such a hard time just not destroying myself, looking at just my face, being like, oh, you got bags under your eyes, or this or that, or, you know, looking at my posture, constantly picking up, picking myself apart from just the aesthetic of how I stand and how I hold myself and what I'm doing with my hands. So you're not even enjoying, you're critiquing. It's so hard. It's so hard. Yeah.

So if you can get past that. Do you get past it? I'm getting better at it, I think. I think a lot of therapy and medication has helped out. I mean, I'm not kidding. Yeah, yeah. You know, I've watched so many things I've done. And I just, it's so hard for me to get to the other side.

When I watched Suzanne for the first time, I, I genuinely thought people were going to hate me in it. I couldn't. Why was that? I don't know, because I was looking at all my choices and things that I made as an actor and in the character and was like, oh, my God, do I just look like a big idiot? Am I just being a big idiot? And people are going to be like, who is this big, dumb idiot? You know? Right.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case, and it worked out. And, you know, but it also taught me yet again, like, hey, you can't trust. I mean, we're going to dive into so much mental health in this anyway, but just to tangent into it really quick. It's like, you can't trust your own mind, which is very terrifying in some ways, but also very comforting, I find. You know, because we are, I love this quote, we are not the voice of our mind. We are the one who hears it. And that the truth. And it's from the untethered soul, which I have yet to read, but I've read.

But you like the quote. I love the quote. I love the quote. I'm a horrible reader. I just don't get to books nearly as much as I need to. Is it just a little ADD? Oh, certainly more than a little, yeah. But, oh, I don't know. Also, I think, you know, coming up as a kid in the 80s, like my stories were video games. I didn't, like I like a good book. I couldn't put, when I was in high school and I read a Brave New World, I could not put it down. Isn't a soap opera? No. A whole new world. Well, no, that's a song from Aladdin. Oh, yeah, yes. Bold and the Beautiful. That's what I was thinking. That's a beautiful. Right, right, right. But you couldn't put that book down. No, man. And, you know, in a lot of other books, I just like, I cliff notes that stuff because I just couldn't stay in it. But Raven New World, like, rocked me. And we're also kind of witnessing it happening in the real world right now in some ways. We can get to that later. Anyway, so yeah, man, eviscerating myself on screen all the time as an actor. But then again, you know, I've grown a lot. I've done a lot of therapy. We've talked about a lot of that therapy. We've talked about medications before. And that's been very helpful. And so, you know, watching American Underdog, I was able to, I think, get through some of that. weird you know criticisms and kind of shut all those voices up enough to just get see through all that

and be like i you know i didn't totally hate myself it which then was a great it was like great i must be great i must be great if i didn't if i didn't totally hate myself yeah so i don't know i mean i'm proud of it i really do think we made a a good little movie and it's got so much heart heart and and and hope i mean it and faith and you know it's it's it's a very inspiring story true story. Kurt Warner, you know, he was, he was this, you know, good old boy from Iowa, always wanted to be the next Joe Montana, and then didn't get a lot of play in college in Northern Iowa University. But he got just enough where he got this last minute, you know, a tryout with the Packers, right out of college. And, and he, I mean, he mifted. He just,

he couldn't step up to that occasion. It was, it was way too much for him in that moment. Wow. He was a great player, but I mean, there's a lot, you know, he was watching far throw passes in front of him, you know, as they're going through like training camp. He's like, what is this? This is insane. So then that doesn't happen. And then he kind of just, he goes and wanders in the wilderness for a while. He had met Brenda, his now wife. He wanders in the wilderness. He just takes away, he goes away from football. Well, yes and no. So like in the midst of all this, he meets his now wife, Brenda. And she's such an integral part of their entire story. And, you know, he, he in large part became the man that he is, the leader he is and the quarterback that he was because of her love and

her faith in him and his love and her faith in her and her children she uh had two kids at the time her oldest son zach and their and her baby daughter jesse and he took them on and he took them on as a 21 year old you know college kid essentially because you just he felt he felt this compelled yeah he felt this love for them and he and this compulsion and yeah absolutely and i think you know very much god i mean their their journey is so incredibly blessed in the ways it's all kind of worked out but ultimately you know she was this 24 year old divorcee with two kids and her oldest son, or her oldest, her son, Zach, he was dropped as a baby on his head by her former husband, and he ended up having intellectual disabilities. And so she was quite a package,

you know, as a young mother. And I think, you know, partly because Kurt grew up also with a single mom, you know, a lot of his life and he and his brother. And so I think that there was this, you know, that story was always kind of being laid, the groundwork was already being laid a little bit in his heart and his mind. And he could recognize that and see that. It's amazing that he could be that strong at 21. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. I'm 49 and I, you know, I can't take on a, yeah, can barely take on a dump in the morning. Yeah, yeah, we know. But no, yeah, it blows my mind that he, you know, he valued, he saw value in that. He wanted to keep seeing how that road went. And then they kept falling deeper in love. His relationship with Zach right out of the gates. I mean,

And the first day he goes to like basically surprise Brenda at, he had just met her at a honky tonk, like at a bar doing line dancing. He's like, I want to hang out with you. And she's like, you don't want to hang out with me on 24. I got two kids. You know, blah, blah, blah. And then he finds out where she lives. And he goes and just brought her flowers.

And she was like in the middle of something. And her son, Zach, opened the door. By the way, intellectually disabled, also blind. And he opens the door. And he loved radios. It would listen to music all the time. And he opens the door. And Kurt's there.

And he grabs Kurt's hand. I mean, the details in the movie versus what actually happens in real life are very, very similar. I'm not sure that we got them, you know, to the point. But essentially, this little boy leads him into the house and because he needs help with this radio. He needs his radio needs batteries and he can't get anybody to help him because his mom's getting ready to go to school or work or whatever. And he goes and gets Kurt to go find him batteries and puts batteries in. And then he like wants him to lay down on the cool of the bathroom floor and just listen to music with him. and like that really happened

and it's really in the script and I remember getting to that point in the script and I was like I've never seen something so pure like that seems like such a pure moment to have on a screen and like the love that that starts building and the love that he starts building with Brenda

and anyway their whole journey is amazing and then ultimately he yeah he wasn't playing football he couldn't play football there was no football to be played he was trying to figure out how to get another shot in the NFL they were super struggling you know scraping change

out of car doors to put gas in tank like that those types of you know things that a lot of us can relate to going through some harsh iowa winters and all that stuff and so he started stocking shelves at a grocery store yeah the high v and he did that for i don't know six months to a year or something and in the process of that this arena football had started to kind of pop up but he was he kept it at an arm's length because he felt like and i totally understand too i could totally understand his mentality of feeling like well that's if I go do that then I'm giving up on the real thing this is the this is the JV so this is whatever that is but but I'm you know what I mean like this is where guys end up if they can't play

NFL or they're done with the NFL right and I don't want to believe that and I you know I think there was just so much interesting up and down and both he and Brenda's journey and their journey together that there was a lot of just you know I don't know humbling almost in some respects right because he gets to this point where he's like I don't want to stock shelves anymore and I make better money and i get to do a thing that i i really love doing that gives me purpose which is to go have a ball in my head like football football basketball yeah he he did it all but football specifically and uh and so you know he he gives in to the uh to this guy who had the arena team um the iowa barnstormers in in iowa in the local arena team and he'd been bugging kurt like come on you got to come

play for me he saw him playing college or whatever knew he got a shot with the packers but didn't go anywhere and kirk kept like no no no no no no no and then fine it's like okay fine let's I mean, this is such a compelling, amazing story. Yeah, it's insane. It's, it's one of those things where, well, hold on it, it gets better. Well, you know the story, right? You know the end of it and all that jazz. No, that's why I'm ready for the movie.

So, you know, don't give it away. I don't really know the end of it. I know he makes the Rams. Yes, but you know what happened with the Rams. Well, he ends up winning the Super Bowl. Yes, and he won, and, well, hold on. Anyway, so point is, he goes and plays arena, and in doing so, he actually gets some looks now, again from the NFL and ultimately does get this opportunity with the Rams. And he was a,

you know, his first year in the league, he was like 27, very old rookie. You don't have rookies coming into the NFL. 27, 27, I think, yeah, 27. And then the next, and he didn't play at all. And he was like a third backup quarterback. Second season, second backup quarterback or something like that, I think he had made it up to the number two spot. Trent Green is their number one, who was a very talented quarterback at the time. And everybody had a lot of high hopes, high hopes for him. And Vermil was their head coach. He, it was like his kind of Cinderella story, too,

because after Philadelphia, he kind of went off and into his own wilderness and came back. And so he's head coaching. Mike Martz is the offensive coordinator who has this incredible offense he's worked out with all of these incredible tools in this team. And the Rams, like, really have a shot. And then Trent Green in preseason down injury, in season injury. season ending injury. Wow. That's how he got a shot.

Well, yeah, but here's the thing. I mean, the Rams also like, they were calling around. They were like, is there anybody because, you know, this guy was still this untested 28-year-old now rookie. We've got Kurt Warner in our pocket. Yeah, let's get someone else because he can't carry it. Yeah, and look at the end of the day,

it was Kurtz because no one else was available, nobody else worked. It was all. And they're like, and so Dick for Meal, and there's this famous, yeah, very famous press conference. Because there was a lot of heat also like the media was like what are you there was all these you know um stories and things going on like ESPN like who's this are they going to you know put the whole the weight of the team and the and the season on this guy's shoulders this guy who just came out of the arena league and all

that so there's all that narrative going around and then dick for me he has this press officer he goes we're going to rally around kurt warner and we're going to play good football i mean it's this really great it is it almost seems fictitious it does it does if you tell us you know when when when this all happened in real life when then kurt steps in and then basically leads the team as a 28-year-old rookie with very few snaps that he ever, you know, he takes the team all the way to the Super Bowl, wins the Super Bowl, he wins MVP of both the season and the Super Bowl, and was making league minimum when he did it. Like there were guys who- League Minimum, what's League Minimum back there?

I don't know what it was back then, but it wasn't a lot of money. No, but I know that there are people in the organizations, the football organizations that like tend to the, and by the way, it's a very big job, tending to like the fields, right? like the Greensman for like to take her sure some of those people I believe I heard and quoted some of those people make more than what he was making as league minimum so the guys that were you know tending to the fields were like cool this guy who is this guy and what's he doing inside of you is brought to you by quince I love quince Ryan I've told you this before I got this awesome $60 cashmere sweater I wear it religiously you can get all sorts of amazing amazing

clothing for such reasonable prices. Look, cooler temps are rolling in. And as always, Quince is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last. From cashmere to denim to boots, the quality holds up and the price still blows me away. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll wear non-stop, like super soft, 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just 60 bucks. Yeah, I'm going to get you one of those, I think. I like to see you in a cashmere. Maybe a different color, so we don't look like twins. Their denim is durable and it fits right. And their real leather jackets bring that clean, classic edge without the elevated price tag.

And what makes Quince different? They partner directly with ethical factories and skip the middlemen. So you get top tier fabrics and craftsmanship at half the price of similar brands. These guys are for real. They have so much great stuff there that you just have to go to Quince. Q-U-I-N-C-C-E. I'm telling you, you're going to love this place. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long-lasting staples from Quince.

Go to quince.com slash inside of you for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash inside of you. Free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash inside of you. Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money. I'm going to speak to you about something that's going to help you say. money period it's rocket money it's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings this is just

some wonderful app there there's a lot of apps out there that really you know you have to do this and pay for and that but with rocket money it's they're saving you money you're getting this app to save money i don't know how many times that i've had these unwanted subscriptions that i thought I canceled or I forgot to, you know, the free trial ran at Ryan. I know you did it. That's why you got rocket money. I did. Yeah. And I also talked to a financial advisor recently and I said, I had rocket money and they said, that's good. This will help you keep track of your budget. See? See? It's only, we're only here to help folks. We're only trying to give you, you know, things that will help you. So rocket money really does that. Rocket money shows you

all your expenses in one place, including subscriptions you forgot about. If you see a subscription you no longer want, Rocket Money will help cancel it. Rocket Money will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. The app automatically scans your bills to find opportunities to save and then goes to work to get you better deals. They'll even talk to the customer service

so you don't have to. Yeah, because I don't want to. Press 1 now. If you want... Get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts, if you're close to going over budget, and even when you're doing a good job. Rocket money's 5 million members have

saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions. With members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features, cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Download the Rocket Money app and enter my show name inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum in the survey so they know I sent you. Don't wait. Download the Rocket Money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show. inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum, Rocket Money. Inside of you is brought to you by Rocket Money. If you want to save money, then listen to me because I use this.

Ryan uses this. So many people use Rocket Money. It's a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions. Crazy, right? How cool is that? Monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. And you know what's great? It works.

It really works, Ryan. Rocket money will even try to negotiate lowering your bills for you. The app automatically scans your bills to find opportunities to save and then goes to work to get you better deals. They'll even talk to customer service. Thank God. So you don't have to. I don't know how many times we talk about this, but like, you know, you got it and they helped you in so many ways. And with these subscriptions that you think are like, oh, it's a one month subscription for free and then you pay.

Well, we forget. We want to watch a show on some stream. and then we forget, now we owe $200 by the end of the year. They're there to make sure those things don't happen, and they will save you money. You know, Rocket Money's 5 million members have saved a total of $500 million in canceled subscriptions with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Get alerts if your bills increase in price, if there's unusual activity in your accounts,

if you're close to going over budget, and even when you're doing a good job. how doesn't everybody have rocket money it's insane cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket money download the rocket money app enter my show name inside of you with michael rosenbaum in the survey so they know that i sent you don't wait download the rocket money app today and tell them you heard about them from my show so things changed obviously after he won the super bowl yeah well they got a payday hopefully yeah yeah i don't know i don't know that you know you know that you know don't know that part of it. Who knows? Who knows? You know, but at the end of the day, it was just this incredible thing. We all happened, you know, we were watching it happening in real time. I was. I was 19, living in Ventura, watching this crazy shit go down. I was like, this is history happening in our lifetime. Like, what the heck? And then also because, you know, being a person of faith and he, he being a person of faith, there was that spiritual kind of connection to and even more inspiring

in that regard. And so, yeah. And that was. Are you guys close? I would say we're pretty close at this point yeah was it was it weird in the beginning because it's like i'm playing you where you kind of like you know i want to do you right man i'm you know this is i'm only as good as this script here i'm gonna give you some personality what fears did you have going into that i mean the fears that look when we take on a fictitious character there's nobody that can really hold us well a real character oh you're saying you're example exactly yeah example no kurt is very fictitious he's very fake he's a fake person He is a phony man. So, so, yeah.

But yeah, we take on a fictitious character. There's nobody, there's nothing to really hold us accountable to some expectation. It's really what we get to do. Unless there's some canon, like, you know, I'm actually grateful, like with Shazam. I'm grateful that Shazam wasn't as well-known a superhero. Because if you go take on Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, whatever, everyone in the world has an idea of what you're supposed to do with that character. I don't envy any of the pressure that Cavill or any of our Batman. or Brandon Brother Affleck or now, you know, Gal with Wonder Woman,

anything that's so... Embedict. It's iconic. It's like, there's a lot more. Shazam, I got a little more, I think, creative license with it because there are also a couple different... Well, every superhero has a lot of different iterations of them by this point with all the different, like, universes and multiverses and dimensions and yada, yada.

But I had some real fun latitude in that. As Kurt, as a real person who, by the way, you know, this isn't like... Like, this is not Daniel DeLu is playing Abraham Lincoln, who's well dead and there's no footage that you can hold up. Right. You know, I think maybe I heard once that there's maybe some crazy recording of his voice a little bit you can hear somewhere. I don't know. Right. But there's no real, you know, content that you can hold that person.

So like you said, you're not held accountable. So it's easier. It's a little easier. But perhaps, perhaps. And by the way, Daniel DeLewis is a god among men when it comes to acting and all his incredible talent. So I don't think he could, he'd crush it either way. Yeah. I just knew that stepping into being Kurt Warner was definitely going to be this thing where, you know, there's going to be that extra level of people going, I didn't know Kurt like that.

Do they look alike? Do they talk alike? Do they act alike? Do they, you know, what is there? Sure. Plus how many footballs have you thrown? Not many, bro. Certainly not well.

I mean, I got like a two month quarterback crash course. Did you feel like you really improved? Oh, definitely for sure. Yeah. Like you were like, I can throw a football. How far can you throw a football? I could throw a pretty far football man 40 50 yards at least yeah I think

I'm not at least but I mean yeah I think I could I could hit that I think I was throwing a 60 actually and relatively accurate sure but like I also had incredible doubles right like I had one double we have so many takes and so much football to be played and all those throws need to be dimes like perfect because the camera is coordinated it's like it's like choreography many of your throws probably no no I think I actually got quite a few in but what I'm saying is that I could throw 60 and I could hit that, but how consistently, if you need that to be the exact shot over and over and over again,

right? And you've got full-ass men, grown-ass men that are playing actual real football on the field, essentially. Like, they're really hitting each other and tackling each other and running full out. So, you know, you want to make sure that everyone is coordinated and everyone's getting the best pieces that they can get. So you want to have that guy who's your, who's your sniper, who can be in there and take care of that. And then also, I had, so I had basically, I had two doubles, Will and Deke. and Will was my, you know, kind of more of my physical double and arm double. Deke was, he was the truck, man. He got all the hits, like all the heavy, heavy, heavy.

Like, I took some hints and I wanted to take some hits because not that I'm super method or whatever, but I was like, I can't be a quarterback and never be tackled and never like know what that feels like or whatever. How does it feel? It sucks, of course. What do you mean? Honestly, the worst part about it was just like, I'm not used to the whiplash of my head going back and hitting the ground.

And with the weight of the helmet on. And so, like, the next day after I, you know, hit, stiffness, heavy stiffness. I was like, why is my neck hurt so bad? And I, and I let it put it together because I'm wearing this weight on my head and then getting snap back. But whatever, dude, it was so fun. It was so cool. And my hits were like, you know, half hits, quarter hits, whatever.

Did Kurt come up to you after the movie? Was there a moment where he said, thank you or you did me right? I mean, yeah. Well, we all saw it kind of separate. We saw different early, like, screeners, you know, like he was. was with his family in Phoenix and they got to see it and I got to see it uh I think I was in Atlanta and um yeah man and we've done a whole bunch of press now together and we and they've asked that question like did he do you right did yeah yeah I think look at the end of the

day it all it all did him and Brenda and the kids and the family right you know I think obviously there's going to be some people out there who are naysayers or people saying oh it didn't go down exactly like this or that or that or whatever but they don't understand that this is what the heart of the movie is we you only got two hours to tell a story and you can't put A life story, a life. Well, yeah, well, at least a part of life. You know, it's like from, you know, him from 21 to 28, essentially. Right.

And they hired this 40-year-old, this 40-year-old guy to go and be a... Well, you know, you shave, you give it some makeup on. You look younger. You know, you dye the hair. You die the hair. It goes a long way. I don't think people were worried about that. It was very long, no, no, no, no.

It was fun, though. It was a really incredible experience, and I learned a lot, and I grew a lot. So where can they watch this? Well, in theaters, exclusively right now. I don't know. Exclusively in theaters and you don't know. It's not a day and day. There's no streamer that I know. I don't know that there is one, like, what the next window is going to be. I think Lionsgate just really wanted to commit to doing like, it's a Christmas Day proper theatrical release. And, you know, we'll see how the variants, how the, oh, my cron, all the, oh, my cron. Oh, my cron. But movies like this do well. You look at movies like Invincible with Markey Mark, Mark, Wallberg. With Wallberg. And, I mean, the movie did really well. Football movies tend to do well. Well, true stories. True stories in general, true sports stories and true sports

underdog stories, you know, these Cinderella stories, they're all great. And they tend to be, you know, first of all, they're great just because your source material is so already inspiring, right? It's like, people even know the story and they still want to watch the movie. Yeah. Of course. You know what I mean? It's like you want to. So there's that. But then, you know, fortunately a lot of these movies, and I think ours included have been crafted by really, you know, talented people and leaders and a collective of talent that, you know, makes something that's special, you know, unbreak, no, it wasn't a breakable, what was it called? Invincible. Invincible was a well-made

movie. Hoosiers is a well-made movie. You know, Rudy. Remember the Titans, yeah, you know. So you've got great ingredients, but then you've got great cooks that, you know, then putting that all together, because I'm sure that there's some other, like, true stories that are like, that wasn't so compelling. I don't know. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, how's your stress level? like because you know you're we talked before and it always feels like you know you need to be working you need to be working and you were working on being okay when you weren't working and that was a big part of you but how is it when you're like jumping from like I talked to you and you're like I'm like when are you in town again you're like well dude I'm in town right now so I'm like we'll

get your ass over here because you're going to be going to shoot something else I go are you not done with Shazam you're done with the football movie I'm done but you're on on on you're on to the next thing. You just don't, like, you're not a guy that just wants to sit around for too long. No. Can't happen. Well, so. What are you working on in terms of, not you, not work, because we'll get to that.

But like, yeah, no, well, like, they're talking about personally. Personally, how are you, how are you feeling? How are you when you get a role like this? How are you doing Shazam? How are you taking care of yourself? Kind of a broad question. Yeah. But, no, great question.

Multiple questions and one. I mean, in this exact moment, I'm, you know pretty groovy man honestly pretty groovy i i feel very loved and then that starts with my own ability to love myself like i feel like you're really doing that practicing it as best i can man absolutely i think it's it all has to start there everything really i and we can we'll dive down in that too but sure it's it's it's it's you know one of the greatest analogies or metaphors i've ever heard for it it just stands up so well it's like you know you're losing eyes If the cabin pressure drops and a plane and the masks drop, you put yours on first.

You have got to put yours on first because if you start trying to help other people, you're gone, you're out. And you might not even get to them. You've got to handle your business. And part of handling your business and taking care of your shit is really genuinely understanding that you are infinitely lovable. It doesn't matter what the fuck you do. It doesn't matter what you succeed in or accomplish or don't accomplish or anything else.

you exist you are therefore you are loved end of story and and i i put my faith in that because that's i really believe that there is a god and i really believe that that is god's commitment to an agreement with us who are extensions of god extensions of god's light and love you know so who yeah and you're yeah so i so i feel like you got a little emotional yeah you know but but so but I feel like I can really believe that it does start there. It does start with us loving ourselves. Not, by the way, not like, I think there's a lot of

Insta therapy, like, and by Insta Therapy and like Instagram, and by the way, I post things all the time that I try to, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, no, not just those, but like, you know, like, I don't know, other people's memes or things or quotes or, you know, inspirational thing. Yeah, well, or sometimes, yeah, they're just specifically about therapy and taking care of your stuff. but insta therapy like instant therapy can i think lead a lot of people into confusing self-love

with narcissism which is unfortunate and you know and i also don't i think the word narcissists gets thrown around far too much as well and also everyone has at least a touch of narcissism in them like we are capable of all the things we do all the things even with all the work that we do there are still you know these whatever these little inklings these whatever the in with within our being soul and our unhealed traumas or whatever they are, everybody can struggle with this shit and everybody does. Some people just struggle way harder in certain areas on that mental health spectrum, right? And we have to have grace with all of that stuff as well. But I just want to clarify that, you know, self-love can be and we need to be careful about not confusing

it with, you know, just being more self-centered and like none of my problems are my problem. I'm loving myself and my problems, therefore, other people are the reason why I have problems. You can love yourself and hold yourself fucking accountable at the same time. And you need to do that. We all need to do that. How can I be a better person? How could I do things better? How could I like myself more by doing things that are altruistic or whatever they are?

But that also requires first and foremost being aware enough that you're unaware. And that's tough for folks. Until you've really been humbled enough in life, you still think that you got to. it i got it i'm aware i'm woke i'm whatever it is yeah but we need to be awake we actually need to wake the fuck up we need to do it i wake up how do we wake up i mean by starting starting with loving ourselves starting with recognizing that we don't yeah and i know you didn't for a long long time i didn't for 37 years of my and even in the last you know four years i've still struggled with it i only found out four years ago that i barely even liked myself let alone love

That's what I'm kind of dealing with. Yeah, exactly. Starting to start and like yourself saying, hey, hey, this is a good quality. Recognize that. You have some good in you. There's a lot of good in you. And what's the things you don't like? Well, let's work on those. But let's not. And forgiving yourself of those things. See, that's one of the biggest problems that we have right now. We don't forgive. We don't forgive ourselves and we don't forgive each other. We have no grace for ourselves and each other. And you don't. And it's this reciprocal kind of symbiotic thing. You will not have grace for yourself if you do not grace for others because if you're not practicing it with other people you won't even be able to identify what that means with yourself and vice versa if you're not practicing grace with yourself

and really understanding what that means to give yourself some fucking slack cut yourself some slap give yourself a break love yourself and go hey you're doing the best with the tools that you were given up to this point in your life that's what you're doing i agree but i do think that sometimes we do things that we hate about ourselves and we repeat those things and we do them over and over and then we feel like you know what you keep doing this yeah you keep doing these things and why and you don't deserve love you don't deserve it because you're punishing yourself but michael that's the lie we punish i know that's the lie that's the lie that's the lie god is love and love has nothing to do with that shame what if you don't believe in god well i think the you then the universe energy

source energy, karma, all that stuff's tied into that. Sure. Yeah, whatever. Dude, I have no idea. Look, I have a lot of, you know, journey as a Christian in my life and my faith is still very much tied to a lot of the bedrock of Christ and his words and I think so many of the things that he stood for. But I would never, ever be able to tell you with any certainty at all that I know who and what the entirety of God is. Anyone who's selling you that, I think really needs to take a hard look at their own hubris. I think it is ridiculous as human beings that within one sentence, within one breath, we can both say there is a God and I know everything about them. Right. If there's a God, you know fucking nothing. God is everything and everywhere. We can't possibly know all that. So I think everybody needs to check themselves on that level a little bit. You know, let's still dive into our spiritualities and go find as much of God as we can.

And I think it's evidenced all over, you know, the Torah, the New and Old Testaments, even the Quran, you can find really, truly evidenced places where there is, I think, recognition of this incredible entity, Buddhists, Hindu, there's all a recognition of, guys, we're not doing this alone. There is something that is way bigger than all of us and we need to be humble to it. Right. You know. And you're saying that God has helped you in most of that of learning to love yourself for you. Well, because a lot of people, there's some people that don't believe in God. Like, I believe in God. I'm not religious. I believe in God, though. I think I'm kind of spiritual. But for people who are sitting there going, well, I'm so glad that Zach

found God, but I haven't found God, but if it's not God, what do I do for myself? I understand. And what I'm saying, and that's why I said earlier, I'm grateful for the faith that I have and ultimately what I truly do believe, because I'm able to pin my need, desire and power of self-love onto a concrete foundation of actual love, which is God, which is God. So because I believe, even in the most abstract, anybody can believe in the most abstract form of God and still believe that, because there is that, you can, you can say, okay, I believe that then. I believe that I'm worthy of love.

What you're asking, which I totally understand is, well, if you don't have that, how can you then still, where's the foundation? Where's the foundation for you to say, I am absolutely, unequivocably, uh, worthy of love just by being? And what I would say to those people who are listening out there, watching or whatever is, you're still a goddamn miracle, man. You're still a miracle. Even if this is all some random... You're here. You're here. If this is all some random thing that just happened to blow up in this big bang or whatever that is, and we've evolved doing all of these things.

By the way, I actually think that the story is a lot of all of that. I'm not a Christian who believes there is no evolution. I think, I go, why the hell not? Okay, God's God. If God wants to like do things and evolve animals along the way to make all the things that God wants to make. Rock and roll, you know? Like, I don't know. There's also, like, Christians, I know

that are like, you know, super like, oh, I don't know astrology. I go, I don't know. Who's to say that God didn't do all of the things and also, like, made this whole universe to, at least in part B, this cool celestial clock that makes us all different in cool ways?

Like, who are you to say what God is doing with whatever God wants to do? But what I like about what you just said, but you, if you rewind just a little, you said, you're here. You're here. You're a miracle. So you're a miracle.

You're a miracle. You're a miracle. Of whether you're a miracle or not. Even regardless, you're here. No, you're, well, so even on this, that's still a miracle. It is still a miracle. No, no, no, Mike, no, hear me out. You can be a miracle and connect that to some spirituality.

You're also just a scientific miracle. The odds of you existing, the odds of this planet, doing what it's doing. And that all of us, all of our individual spirits and energies, whether that's an energy that's connected to each other or a bigger thing, or it's an energy that's just exclusively with in you. You have actual energy, glucose and all that shit flying through your body, the coffee that we're drinking, the sunshine that we're feeling. That's all real energy. That's all real science. And that's all a fucking miracle. This is a miracle place. So you can either decide I am worthy of love because I was created intentionally by an incredible artist and architect.

Or I'm a miracle and I'm worthy of being loved because I've fucking made the lot. Guys, lottery. Hey. Right. My life force happened. to exist right now just randomly whoa that's crazy yeah but also the fact that you're here and while you're here if we only have one life why not make the most of it and why not at the same time why not try to accept who you are and appreciate who you are and just become a better person certainly then that's how you're going to learn if you don't make changes in your life to me you're never going to love yourself if you don't love yourself now if you don't make changes if you're doing the same thing you know that whole thing that if you repeat something that's not working as insanity yeah

doing the same thing over and over right right expecting so exactly i think that you know you have to do something and what that can do to learn to love yourself is altruism to to to be helping other people to being a good person to being the best person that you can be certainly you're right but But start with you. Yeah. You have got to, you got to radically love yourself. Radically, man. Like, that's accepting everything, accepting that you are exactly where you are.

And that's okay. Radically accept that the life that you've lived up to this point, you did the best that you fucking could. You have to, we have to do this. We have to radically love ourselves. A lot of people will say, I didn't do the best. I could. I could have done better.

No. And I would say no. Because you haven't. Because you haven't. And that's okay. And you haven't, not because you're a bad person, but because you literally have synapses in your brain that were programmed, completely unbeknownst to you or your parents or any generations prior to this. We're just now learning right now how our behaviors are so unbelievably wired into our minds, our bodies from, by the way, also generational stuff that predates even the nurture, just nature stuff that's in our DNA.

and we science is is showing us all this stuff which is even more reason to give yourself a break we are not we do not we our my i mean gosh our minds alone the the way that our minds can get so hijacked by just little bits of hormone changes in our bodies and we and we think that we're absolutely operating at our highest ability to do the best that we can all the time give me a fucking break no we're not give yourself a break you were doing the best if you were doing the best if were abused as a child and you've got all this unheeled trauma in you, chances are you're going to do a lot of shit that you aren't proud of or regret later or whatever, or still doing it. And guess what? It doesn't, this does not, by the way, this is not a license to go do stupid shit or things that are

hurtful to yourself or other people. We have got, there is still accountability that people need to understand that, you know, but we can hold people accountable. We can hold ourselves accountable and hold others accountable without dehumanizing them in the process. We dehumanize ourselves in our subconscious and the way that we talk to ourselves, our self-talk, that we learn from our parents. My mom and stepdad were harsh in the way that they talked to me. I know they also loved me in the best way that they could. I've gone to enough therapy to recognize that they were fucked up because they were

fucked up by their parents. And it's this generational thing that's handed down. Yes, because you have to because you have to. It's not that they weren't wrong. because unforgiveness is not about them anyway. Unforgiveness is like drinking poison, hoping that the other person is going to die. You're holding on to this thing

that's just festering in you and killing you. It's darkness and it's a lie. And yes, you are therefore not being able to even practice the best self-love on yourself because you're hung up on this person and your inability to love them. And I'm not understanding.

Or your feeling of their inability to not love you, if that makes sense. Sure. Does that make sense? I think so. In other words, in other words, their inability to love you, like you can't control things. There's certain things we just can't control.

100%. But again, that's all part of the radical acceptance of it all. It's like, that's one of the first steps. I forgive you. You'll never understand me. You'll never be the mother or father that I want. But I love you. And then that's it.

But I can also have boundaries. Right. You know, that's, again, one of the big weird things that I think human beings don't understand. Like, you can both absolutely love someone and absolutely. not want to hang around them ever or have anything to do with them or like the way that they handle themselves in their life right love is not just amplified graduated like like in love are two very different things i always say that feeling in love feels like a high like which but again

feeling in love and actual practiced love are two very different things and i think that's important for everyone to understand for myriad reasons not the least of which having healthy romantic relationships but even how you handle your family, your friends, how you handle yourself. Do you set your boundaries for yourself? Can you love someone and not like someone? Yes, that's what I'm saying. I mean, honestly, like really dislike someone. 100%.

I have things where I'm like, you know, I told my mother once. I said, mom, I love you. I love you. But I don't like you. I don't like you. I would never hang out with you if you weren't my mother. What was the context of this conversation? Were you having a fight?

No, I think... We don't have to get all down into it. No, I think it was just more of an honesty. Like, you know, I don't like the way you act. I don't like the way you treat, you have treated me or behaved. I don't like all these certain things, but I do love you and I do forgive you and you're my mother, but I don't necessarily like you. There's a wrestler.

I don't know what I'm saying this, but it just makes me laugh. because we're getting serious. But there's a wrestler, and his name was Brother Love. And Brother Love used to look at Hulk Hogan and say, Hulk Hogan, I love you. But that don't mean I like you. Well, yeah, there you go. I mean, there's something to be said about that.

The things we learn from the WWF. Ontario, the weight is over. The gold standard of online casinos has arrived. Golden Nugget Online Casino is live. Bringing Vegas-style excitement and a world-class gaming experience right to your fingertips. Whether you're a seasoned player or just starting. Signing up is fast and simple. And in just a few clicks, you can have access to our exclusive library of the best slots and top-tier table games.

Make the most of your downtime with unbeatable promotions and jackpots that can turn any mundane moment into a golden opportunity. at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Take a spin on the slots, challenge yourself at the tables, or join a live dealer game to feel the thrill of real-time action, all from the comfort of your own devices. Why settle for less when you can go for the gold

at Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem call connects Ontario, 1866531-260, 19 and over, physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. wonder how dark the world can really get?

Well, we dive into the twisted, the terrifying, and the true stories behind some of the world's most chilling crimes. Hi, I'm Ben. And I'm Nicole. Together we host Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast that unpacks real-life horrors one case at a time. With deep research, dark storytelling, and the occasional drink to take the edge off, we're here to explore the Wicked and Reveal the Grim.

We are Wicked and Grim. Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. By the way, Ryan, do you love yourself? Yeah, sure. You do. Sure. You didn't even hesitate. Why is that?

Why do you love yourself? What's the first thing you can think of when you say that? Jesus, man. I don't know. You love yourself? Why? Do you think you're a good person? I think I do okay.

I think I'm a good person. I think I care about people. I love, I know what I'm good at. and then I love the things, when I do good, I love that I can do it well. Okay. That's fair. Yeah. That's fair.

I think, by the way, Zach, what do you do? So what are some of the exercises you do, like even today that you have instilled? Like, do you wake up? Do you say your gratitude every day? Do you pray every day? Do you? No. You don't.

I mean, sometimes I do. I actually just listen to this really incredible podcast, this guy named Andrew Huberman, who's like this awesome, very intelligent scientist out of Stanford, I think. Like neurobiology, ophthalmology. Anyway, I learned so much from podcasts like him when it comes to like hormones stuff, like serotonins and dopamines and how the body works basically. And he had this really interesting podcast recently about gratitude and how incredibly powerful gratitude is in our lives, but also how.

the gratitude practices that most people have been doing kind of, you know, writing down, one of my grateful for or five things you're grateful for, they've done laboratory studies. That type of gratitude practice has maybe some positive effect, but not nearly the effect that they discovered, which was if you are even told a story or see something go down in front of you or tell a story yourself to yourself of like essentially literally a story like a little narrative of like you know I or if you saw if you saw an old lady you know trying to cross the street acts of kindness well but not even necessarily acts of kindness although I think they're always kind of intrinsically tied to the gratitude someone shows someone else so if you

watch someone be grateful and they and say thank you and you see see gratitude happening And so, yes, if you go involve yourself and be around, seeing gratitude, seeing gratitude being felt. Absorbing. Yeah, well, absorbing, but essentially witnessing it, you know, like that you're, that you're witnessing it somehow. Like, for instance, on Instagram, you see somebody like saving a dog who's on the dog tracks and the train's coming.

The guy runs out of nowhere risks his life and saves me like, oh my God. Well, no, no, but again, it's not the act of kind. It's like watching that dog jump all over that person like, thank you thank you thank you thank you that is what does it watching again it's an old lady trying to cross the street and and you know traffic and stuff and she has some bags and these guys come up like hey we'll help you help her get across the street make sure the traffic doesn't hit her get her to her car that's all great and again the more you associate yourself in those types of situations as we all should we should all be helping each other all the time as much as we can right right so the more

we act in these acts of kindness then therefore the more opportunity there will be for or displays of gratitude and the more other people, including ourselves, can see these displays happening, the more deep our own gratitude practice becomes and the more positive effect it has on our body on a literally a physiological level, bro. It is mind-blowing. So I would highly, everyone should go listen to this. Andrew Huberman, he talks about gratitude practice and stuff. So if you're going to listen to another podcast, check it out. Come back. Come back. But listen. Anyway, so, so that's the long way around of saying, you know, what my daily, my daily practice, man, it's, it's evolved so much, you know,

depending on where I was in my life and where I felt my mental or emotional or spiritual or physical well-being are at in any moment in my life. And right now, I feel very stable. I feel very solid. I feel, I feel very connected to God throughout the day because I try to be very cognizant of the fact that God is everywhere all the time and very much a part of my life and everyone else's. And you can recognize that in nature and each other and opportunities. And, you know, I mean, I'm reminded of God literally every time I go and do a promotional thing for American Underdog. The fact that I've even got to do American Underdog was completely faded. Like, I felt God's, you know, I used the term God's fingerprints. I felt God's fingerprints were all

over it. I wasn't even supposed to do that movie that I wasn't going to be available for it. I was going to be shooting other stuff and they were going to be making that and then the pandemic and then everything got wiped and then all of a sudden I was available they were wanted to spool it up they were like you were one of our first choices

would you want to do this? Read the script already knew the story I was like this is incredible let's go make this movie and it also helped you know genuinely like going back to the beginning of the conversation work work work work and I have had a hard time sitting in that pandemic

I had a real hard time sitting in that pandemic my mental health went way way down the drain again and I call you I'm like hey what are you taking right now does it work and we talk about like like different things we're taking and trying to get the right concoction or the right recipe to help us a little bit for the things that we're doing 100%. So I thinking my mental

health was much stronger and then not and then sitting and not working and it's not even my fault. Right. So like if I wasn't working because I wasn't booking things or auditions or whatever, you can kind of be like it's on me. So then I can then you can rationalize blaming yourself. Right. Right. But I'm sitting there feeling like I'm failing my life because of nothing I did, just because of a thing that happened and I'm not working and I'm not doing the thing that again, I was deriving so much of my identity and worth out of, which was not good and a good check to me to recognize that that was a whole bunch of work that I still had yet to do and still continue to do, right, obviously. But coming out of that, going into making these really

amazing little films in American Underdog and this other one, Unbreakable Boy, back to back in Oklahoma City. And finally, for the first time, having enough friends and my therapist convinced me like, yo, you should try some help, some medical, like some pharmaceutical help. It could really help you to get, just get out of this, the darkness and the fog that you find yourself in when you hit these deaths. And, you know, my therapist, um, who, uh, here in L.A., who I, um, see when I'm in L.A. or still, you know, we'll do Zoom, Zoom appointments here and there. But he, you know, I was talking to him. He's like, listen, you know, imagine you're in a pitch black room. I'm sure I've even talked to you about this, but imagine you're in a pitch black room.

You know that there's a light above you and a switch right on that light. And you know there's a stool right next to you. You can feel it. Right. And you know that if you get on that stool, you'll be tall enough to reach the light and turn it on. But you need the stool to do it. Think of it like that. Think of if you need to go and get on some help with some, you know, antidepressant or whatever.

Think of it as this stool. You need it for right now to turn that light on. To get your head above the darkness and look around you. Oh, oh, some perspective. When you're, we have no perspective when we are in super deep depression or anxiety. Another therapist that I once had told me, it's another great analogy. It's like, imagine putting put your hand all the way up to your face and you're like, well, you know, what does that look like a hand?

Well, not really. It's all blurry and you see like, you know, 20 different fingers that you know what I. It's like, can you identify exactly what it is? No, if anything's this close to your face, you can't identify what it is. You just have to pull it back a little bit. And you go, oh, that's my hand. And that's another kind of analogy, if you will, like you just, you need to. get that perspective. And if you're still stuck in depression, hardcore depression, you have very

little perspective. And well, you have perspective. It's just completely fucked. Right. That's where the lies can really get to you. That's why if you start believing things that are not real. And that, again, like understanding just how much our bodies can be hijacked. Have grace with yourself. If you're stuck, guys, if you're listening or watching this right now, if you are stuck in a darkness right now, have grace with you. Your mind is not working the way it is supposed to work. your serotonin levels are down your dopamine levels are down your neuropenephrine levels are down whatever is down that can be that can be balanced that can be helped that can be helped through uh through therapy talk therapy all manner of different therapies i can also be helped through psychiatry and getting some type of medicine

that can help stabilize you so you can help feel and see yourself and the world and how you fit in it more clearly have a semblance of normalcy in your life and also you know what i will say about that is like it takes time you know i've been going through some different meds because you know my body reacts differently yeah and so you know i the last thing i was on i just was constantly fatigue i felt like a zombie yeah and i'm like all right well that's not the you know you can't let it get the best to you i'm like all right what's the next thing yeah let's see if there's something else that i can work with that's just you know uh so i think that that that is is important to know too it doesn't happen the first thing like oh i got on meds and this this is terrible

Yeah, no. Because, you know, it's like, you've changed meds. No, when I finally, yeah, when I was finally, when I finally let go of whatever the fears of the stigmas of like being a person who needed, you know, medication to help him emotionally, mentally stabilize. You know, and this, I've been talking about mental health for years and I, I, all I want to do is destigmatize it. And yet, even for somebody who talks about it, I still feel those stigmas in those fears.

We all do, you know, particularly when you have poor mental health, you're not thinking clearly. You're not seeing clearly. You're not feeling clearly. So those stigmas and fears become giants instead of just being like, no, what am I talking about? That's ridiculous. That's not at all. Because there are so many people that require this assistance. And by the way, something my therapist told me, he goes, listen, once you're on the stool and you turn on the light and you look around, maybe you don't need to stand on that stool anymore. Maybe you're able to step down and the light stays on and you're good and you're good. And and, but furthermore, and also maybe Zach, maybe you need to stay on that stool for a long time or forever. Who knows? Because you can't be judging

yourself for that. Does a diabetic judge themselves because they have to stay insulin for the rest of their lives? I mean, maybe if there's diabetes brought on to themselves, maybe some people feel, you know, self-shame in that or self-deprecation or whatever. But if you're born with diabetes and you need insulin for the rest of your life, that's your life. Are you good, should you judge yourself and shame yourself? Because that's how you're built. That's your DNA? Absolutely not. And you know, and mental health is like dental health, man. It should be treated the same. We get these little cavities of stresses and anxieties and depressions and lacks of self-love or value or whatever it is, these little, little teeny mental cavities. And we don't do the

work to eradicate them when they're little. And then they rot and fester and rot and fester become full on needed root canals later on, but still fixable, still fixable. You can still get there. You can still do it, you know. Good analogy on that one. Yeah, cheers. I mean, I think about it a lot. I like that analogy. That's really good. But at any rate, you know, in therapy and meditation and prayer and and medication, all these things, these are ways for us to blush, blush, blush, you know, and talking these things out. And so anyway, going up into Oklahoma to go do these incredible films that were really life changing. I was now going on to medication, really for the first time in my life. And so, yeah, I started on Prozac. And that really, it did help me.

That's an SSRI. That's more of a serotonin, you know, kind of, um, uh, powered situation. What is this? S S S S? The serotonin reuptake inhibitor, but I can't remember the, the first S. Anyway, anyway, most, most antidepressants, um, that I know of. I'm not an, uh, an expert or authority on this, but most that I know of are SSRIs. They are serotonin focused, um, antidepressants. But there are others like well, buterin, which is what I ultimately, you know, uh, uh, switch to, which is a, um, uh, that, that's kind of focused on more of a dopamine. It releases dopamine. It's one of the only drugs that releases dopamine. I think, or one of the only antidepressants. But again, I don't, we're not close here. We're not giving anybody medical

advice. And, but since we are talking about this, I, but I would encourage everyone out there. If you are struggling with a consistent depression or anxiety, please do not hesitate in trying to get some medical help. There is nothing wrong with it. There is no stigma about it. And I'm telling you, I am living proof that, you know, I feared it. I felt, I feared the stigma. And I felt, oh, it's not going to work or it's going to make me a different person or whatever. And I am so grateful that I made that decision. And I, but I'm also not suggesting that everyone go try Prozac or Lovutrin.

These are all very different experiences for very different people. So please contact. If you do feel like you need it, go get it. I encourage you with everything in my heart. Please go, go get that assistance if you need it. But talk to a psychiatrist. Yes. Hey, license professional.

Tell them what's going on. Yes. And be patient with it because, as Mike was saying, you know, sometimes it doesn't work right out of the gap. First of all, it takes about a month to even really kick in with a lot of antidepressants. So you got to give it time. And in that time, like when I started on Prozac, so one of the reasons I was having, you know, a lot of anxiety and anxiety attacks and things that would then also kind of tie into my depressions and all these things. And so some SSRIs are also very good at, you know, helping to cycle down your anxieties and then therefore helping with the depression. So I believe Prozac is known to do that.

So I was taking that, but with a lot of pharmaceuticals, some of the side effects are the very things that you're trying to battle. So like with Prozac, you can get, you can get like a higher anxiety. I was already having high anxiety. And then I started getting some really high anxiety. And it was gnarly. But you got to, you got to be very patient. Give it time. You know, be in a space where you can do it and have the people around you, but also remind yourself, as my therapist reminded me, he goes, you have to tell yourself. This is just your brain. Remember, this is your brain you were not there's nothing to actually be anxious about this is this is a great reminder of how your body can hijack your mind and you're like oh my god i'm on pins and needles i got so much anxiety it's

like oh my no i'm not there's nothing wrong in my life right now it's this thing that is essentially affecting my body in the way that it's affecting it you are you know biohacking it right and so then on the other side of the anxiety that that did dwindle and then i was in a much calmer state of the serotonin you know reupte um in inhibited inhibition um in inhibition um and inhibition i I don't know. Whatever. And I felt much better, much more stable, calmer, but more lethargic, more tired. Labita was all messed up.

Like all, you know, things that, you know, there are these other things that sometimes, you know, are not what you want. But, but ultimately, it got me out of the darkness enough where then I could start actually thinking much more critically, much more, I could see reality with more perspective. Sure. And then in that, and diving deeper into now all of, you know, these, these, you know, Huberman podcasts and things and learning more about my body and how it works, I became much more aware of what I think was going on in my life, which was a massive dopamine deficiency. So that's why I thought, maybe I should go.

trying to what yeah and and sure enough man like it i just i think it's like what you ultimately hope for with something like this which is that you don't feel anything other than normal and i feel kind of normal the most normal i've maybe ever felt in my life for the first time in my life at 41 yeah yeah because i didn't realize just how much anxiety depression i was suffering through my whole life man like until i didn't know that this kind of constant, which turned out to be anxiety, this constant feeling in me of being like walking on eggshells, which was no shocker. I mean, that was my childhood was very much like that. So it builds those patterns in you. You are, your mind, those synapses are created. And then all of a sudden,

you live a life that is accustomed to how you survived as a child in your household and in your community. That's an ego, guys. That's how that works. It's a, it's an incredible, like, safety device life raft suit of armor that we get but it but it's not the end all because then you at the end if you don't go actually work on the traumas that you suffered that your ego allowed you to suffer through and survive

if you don't go work on that then you end up this crippled contorted this you know this this this um armor is now crinkled it on you and crunching you in and you know you think you're walking around and you're fine but you're really all messed up inside yeah because all of these, you know, hits and, and, and, uh, so anyway, I, I think that, uh, I think diving into all of that stuff and, and recognizing that more and recognizing what I, I, I really believe was in my childhood and in my traumas, I was constantly going toward addiction, really. I mean,

dopamine is, uh, you get dopamine from almost any addiction. And I didn't realize that, like, my video game playing is a kid, which was extensive and still, I play games now. Like, I, I always, you know, you always kind of know, like, yeah, I guess I was, you know. Guess I was a gamer. Well, no, no, no, meaning like, yeah, certainly a gamer, but no, I guess I was, you know, running there to get away from my problems or whatever. But what you don't realize is that you're not just distracting yourself. You're actually addicting yourself to a thing.

And by the way, that can be so many different things. Right. I mean, drinking sex. Drinking, sex, drugs, all that stuff. But also, like, you know, compulsive buying, like there's a lot of collectors, you know, a lot of people that love collecting things. And guess what? Part of the reason why people are hardcore collectors is because you get a little hit of dopamine every time you get that thing. That's true. My mom was a compulsive shopper. And part of the reason why is because it was one of the only way

she felt like she could succeed. Dopamine is this incredible drug, bro. Like, we need it evolutionarily. The reason it is both, it is the reward and encouragement drug in our life. So if we don't have dopamine, we don't continue to go like try and challenge and, you know, it was essentially, I'm, and again, I'm not the scientist here, but from the things that I've read and listened to, you know, evolutionarily, we needed it in order to push us to go run miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles to go find praise somewhere out there that hopefully wouldn't kill us while we tried to kill it and then bring it miles and miles and miles and miles and then find a new location and a new location and a new place to set up camp. Without dopamine, we wouldn't get it because dopamine, so I'm going to go on this dope. And you could be and you could be deficient, surely deficient on dopamine. And a lot of people are deficient on dopamine. dopamine that don't know that they're deficient. Yes, yes, because, because essentially dopamine has diminishing returns, like almost every, you know, thing, every drug, every, every hormone. If you, if you're hitting it too hard, it eventually stops doing the thing you want, it's, you know, at its highest level. So then what happens is, and I think this happened starting early on as a child and also

moving up to the Northwest when I was in middle school, which was, that was the first probably clinical depression I ever had because I went from being in sunny Southern California and a Cali kid and up to Seattle and I was this new kid and super nerdy and all the kids like did not like me and oh man and I and it was like the seasonal depression stuff like for four years I was living in this gray dreary oh man it was hard but again I didn't recognize more than my parents because they weren't tuned in enough that I was clinically depressed at that point like hardcore clinically depressed and I was also in this very traumatic household when my mom and stepdad fought like cats and dogs a lot of dysfunction so much dysfunction and so I would go to these video games or rollerblading

Oh my God, it was a huge rollerblader when I was in middle school. No wonder all the kids loved me. And so, but I would do these things and these would give me my dopamine and I was very addicted to these things. I had to go and do these things. Well, eventually what happens and you don't know it is that you need more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more and more just to get the same kind of feeling that you started with. And eventually that, you have to pay the piper on that. So this is one of the coolest things I've learned.

Dopamine kind of works on like in this. lever in our mind, if you will, like a seesaw, okay, right? And it's this pleasure pain seesaw. Now, pain, by the way, is not just physical pain. It's really just kind of any anytime you're under duress, creative duress, mental duress, physical duress. Like if you're trying to solve a problem, that can be the pain side of the lever. If you're in physical pain, that can be the pain side of lever, things like that. And the other side is pleasure. It's the dopamine and serotonins and think, well, specifically dopamine. And it's this feel good. it's a reward so when you go work hard your body then feels good so like runners high going to

the gym and lifting weights you're really putting your body through it and you feel great on the other side of it right i need dopamine it fit right well so check it out i need dopamine ryan so check it out so the way this lever this this this this back and forth works is when you push down on one side of that you push down and you push down like let's say you're pushing down on the pain side So you're working out of the gem real hard, and you're running five miles, and then all of a sudden now you stopped, now you're on, the duress is over, and now your body then flips to the other side, corrects for how much it was pushed down on this side,

and then corrects over on that side for whatever amount, and now you get the pleasure out of it. Now the dopamine gets released into your body. But here's the trick. If you push down on the fun side, if you're pushing down to get the dopamine, so you're just playing video game. I mean, not that you, not that there's not some duress.

You run out. Well, no, no, but yeah, you start, you start, well, you, you, you have to pay the piper on the other side. If you're, if you're just drinking or just doing drugs or you're doing sex or anything that is not essentially earning the dopamine, earning the reward, you're just playing video games and giving yourself the reward, you're just doing that. That still has to balance back the other way. And people don't know that. That's why you feel horrible the next day after you've gone out partying too hard. or when you've gone and had sex with somebody and it was soulless and it didn't mean anything. You're like, oh, my, you know, why do I feel so horrible about this?

Well, part of it is that. I mean, part of it is a spiritual thing, but also part of it is your body was like, didn't earn it. You didn't earn it. You know, it's really interesting. So, so then if you'd end up doing that a lot and I'd do it and I've self-medicated in so many ways for so long in my life, I still do in ways. You know, I mean, it's, but I think I'm at a much healthier place in my life. And again, I feel very good about who I am. you're aware more aware far more awake absolutely but the concept is crazy and it's real and i think

that if we can understand that better we can love ourselves better and understand that hey don't go after the cheap dopamine go after the good stuff go and go and go and take care of your body go take care of your mind take care of your heart take care of your soul take care of each other those those things are all a little accomplishments waking up in the morning you know like um you always say you know first thing in the morning you want to wake up and make your bed. It's not to have a cleaner room. It's because you get your first hit of dopamine. You get your first little hit of dopamine. And you want that because it's a, it's kind of like a, there's a momentum to it. The more dopamine you can kick in earned in these little accomplishments. You know, you know, like I'm so envious of people that are

always so like, they wake up in the morning and they are so on it. And they're like, they got a checklist. And you can sense it. They are happier people. I mean, some of them are incredibly like anal or whatever. I don't understand them. But that aside, to be able to be like so into accomplishing the things that you want to go out accomplish and you earn them. And you definitely feel more. And also it makes you feel like you can accomplish more. That's part of the encouragement part of dopamine.

You get the reward, but it also encourages you and more and more. You can do more. This is why you could keep running from one mile to two miles to three miles. Ryan's nodding. Yeah. He's like, yeah. Yeah, dude. It's real.

It's real. Write this down. And this is all important stuff. I need to make my bed. Yeah, it's all the important stuff, man. I know I started making my bed over the pandemic. That helps so much. It does.

It's a little, man. It's a little accomplice. You know, it's amazing how when I talk to you almost, I'm like, oh, my God, we've talked for an hour. And it doesn't even feel like. Have we not talked for an hour? I don't know. Yeah.

An hour and five minutes we've talked to, right? And I want to, listen, I always learn so much from you. I really do. You're just so open and giving, and I feel like I want to have you on the show every year. every year you have to come on because you're so you know you help me you help people you're you're genuinely a good guy you're genuinely a good guy and i think you've worked hard on yourself and i'm so glad that you love yourself i'm trying it's a daily practice bro it's a daily practice but you got it by the way and just going back to that for a second you know when you had asked

why you loved yourself of course that the thing that we go to the most is what we think about oftentimes like these are things I like about myself or what I've accomplished or you know whatever those types of things like I'm good at these things try to I think this is important try to forget all that and and understand what it means to love yourself without all that because there are no qualifiers imagine radically loving yourself and other people so much that you don't even need the qualifier of well I like this about me or I did this well or whatever because that still does not stand in the way of you being infinitely lovable.

I like it. Do you understand? I do. Okay. This is called shit talking with Zach Levi. These are a couple of questions. You could have spitfire fast. Oh, are we going to the end of the podcast?

Well, not necessarily. I mean, sort of, yes. Our episodes are an hour. We like, you know, we don't. There's some people that have three hours and I'm just like, I can't, I can't do it. You could have got to the meaning of life here, but no. Rosie's got other things to do.

No, but I think we are talking about the meaning of life. Don't you? I think that's exactly what we're talking about. For sure, for sure. Lisa H. Favorite beverage. I mean, to be perfectly honest, at this point of my life, as it probably should be, water, I guess. I mean, but if we're talking about other than water, if we're talking like alcoholic beverage, tequila soda, a repasada, a nice reposada. Tequila gives you boners, too. Keeps boners. Yeah, tequila's good for boners, I think. Anyway. Was I unaware of that. Uh, Raj, describe your 2021 in song lyrics. Uh, uh, that's, that could be, that could be really, that could be really fun. Oh, man. Um, see, here's part of the problem. I, no, no, part of the problem is that I'm one of those guys who always knows the melody, but almost never knows all the lyrics. Like, I know, tell me, tell me, though, and I'll see if I could help you. No, I don't, well, I don't know. Like, he's asking for lyrics. I'm not, I mean would be, have you never been. mellow have you never

try what's the long is that it's Olivia Newton John Olivia Newton John oh man she's oh okay I got one it's the end of the world as we know it

and I feel fine yeah something like Amy B have you ever had a paranormal supernatural anomalous anomalous experience if so what did you experience Hmm

Um I don't know Paranormal Paranormal Paranormal experience Supernatural Yeah Anomalous

Anomalous Is that what the word is? Anomalous Well I do feel like I might have seen Some kind of UFO Once in the sky Yeah yeah yeah But I feel like everybody might

Oh yeah They exist And we were testing rockets And we go Oh it was just rockets But really it was all aliens the whole time. By the way,

there's so many new documents coming out talking about like the government's like, yes, oh yeah, there we don't even get me started. We don't know what to do. Don't get me started on this.

There's so much shit coming out. We can talk about that for hours. Bob K. What breed of dog best describes you? Well, I'd like to say the breed of my dog, which is like a Queensland healer, like a blue healer.

But that's probably not. I don't know. Most people would associate me more to like a golden retriever or something. I can see a lovable golden retriever. It's happy. Happy and bouncing. People would consider me a gold retriever. Happy and bouncy. Leah asked favorite thing about living in Texas and least favorite thing. A favorite thing, I mean, I don't know. it's super groovy.

I mean, particularly Austin. I just think it's a group. I live out just outside of town, but I still get into Austin a good bit. And I just, I love my friends there. I love the community there. I love the art scene and the vibe and the food and very, very big on Austin and all that jazz. The thing I would probably say I least like is just when the weather is not cooperating, you know. And sometimes that can be because it's like super hot.

Sometimes it's because it's because it's like super raining or, you know, rainy or windy or. It's certainly not Southern, like probably other than my friends and family and community that I had to leave behind here in L.A. The only thing I really miss is the weather. You know, everything else you guys can happen. You can happen. Leanne says not a question, but a comment. Thank you so much for all you do for promoting mental health awareness. Really appreciate all you do. Amen. Always. Michelle Kay, what can you do today that you were not capable of a year ago or maybe two years ago? What's different? What are you capable of doing now? Well, I'm capable of throwing a better football, which I appreciate it. Good. But, you know, yeah, I mean, I don't know, going back to

literally what we were talking about before, I am more capable of loving myself now than I was a year ago. And yes, and therefore two years ago or, or, you know, three or four, whatever. I think every, again, you know, every day we're the only person we're competing with is ourselves from yesterday. That's it. If we're competing with anyone or anything else, then we've lost the plot. You're just trying to keep daily, gradually, granularly working on yourself and loving yourself more in every single moment where you would normally you do a thing and you're embarrassed or you're ashamed or all just stop and go hey you know what yes i need to learn from this yes this i should probably not do this thing but i understand that i'm this is a this is a

manifestation of unhealed shit in my life amen and it and that doesn't excuse it but it can give you grace with yourself it can give you patience with yourself and you can do it in that moment one two three four five mil robbins is that who she's got the five second rule whatever count to five and in that moment say love yourself more love yourself more than what you're than what you're about to do right now and remind yourself yeah so i do i that's i'm better i love it um this is a quick question i want to know you know there's been so many revivals of like you know buffy or whatever they're doing going back and doing like six episodes of party down and this and that uh reno nine and one do you think if they ever asked you to do a chuck like kind of like a little five episode thing or

something you consider it well they're talking to you about it you're smiling so so i've been trying to make a chuck movie since before we even finished the show like i i i was always like you know for almost no money budget and no time we were basically making a mini action movie every week anyway right and so if you had like a little more budget and a little more time we can make i think some really killer little chuck movies you know and put them online whatever the heck i've been literally trying to do this since 2012, whatever. And, uh, dude, I feel like the time is, is, is nigh. It's nigh. Yeah. I, I've had some very good, promising conversations with, uh, producers.

Well, with, with, uh, the creators, uh, Josh Schwartz and Chris Fiedack. And we had a really lovely get together and catch up. And, you know, I, a few, well, but during the pandemic, we did, we did a, uh, Chuck Reunion Zoom, you know, a deal. And it was so great. I mean, I think it was a great reminder for everybody, like just how special

and magical our little family was and everyone was just like right back into it. It was really great. And I think Josh and Chris, you know, and they've built entire empires for themselves now and it just, and the time is, I think is good.

So hopefully, I don't know, we'll see. For all the Chuck fans who are listening to this right now, this is not, well, maybe I'll, I don't know. I don't know if this is a, an official announcement? Yeah. I don't know if this is an official announcement or not,

but I will tell you that for all of you who have been patient, thank you for your patience. I have not stopped trying and I will not stop trying. I've joked that I will, you know, even if I'm a six, geriatric chuck. We're going to do it one day. But yeah, man,

I think we're close to making something happen, which I'm super excited about. And I think it works perfect because now, you know, like it's a Warner Brothers show. It's owned by Warner Brothers. And, you know, and I think that, you know, with all the streamers now and, you know,

HBO Max. I mean, you know, like that we could easily just start making some movies and putting them there and just let... I want a roll. I want some role in that. Oh, we'll work on that. We'll work on that, dude.

Lastly, I mean, I know this is kind of a dark subject, but I know you lost your mom in 2015 to cancer. Yeah. And I know it's been... No, no, no, not to cancer. No? Also, I appreciate that, but not dark. It's not dark.

I... I just want to know how you... How you deal with that because there was a lot of dysfunction and I know you loved your mother and I know there was a lot of... It was tough. But do you feel like you still think about it? Do you still deal with it?

Is it something that you'll always deal with? Or you feel pretty good about it? No. No, I don't know, man. I mean, look, in the midst of all of the insanity that was my relationship with my mom, you know, for the last, you know, 13 years or whatever, we didn't have a relationship. I attempted to help her in as many ways as I could without enabling as much as possible, which is very difficult sometimes, you know.

Like, I mean, you know, at one point, she was, she was basically going to go to jail or go to, or be homeless. And, you know, like, you don't know what to do because your mother is very mentally unhealthy, very mentally and emotionally very unhealthy. And unless somebody like that sees like a really hard, like hits a real wall, are they ever going to recognize that they need help? And so you're putting this weird gambit, really. It's like, well, I don't want my mom to be homeless. but I also don't want her to keep being the thing that would make her homeless, like in her in her unwellness. So we, we danced for, you know, 13 years of trying to do the best, I was doing the best I could, you know, but, uh, in that time and even after, you know, when she died, I, I, I, I wept for three days super hard and then I stopped and I didn't cry anymore after that until I went to therapy, you know, not two, two years after that, thinking I had dealt with that all the time. Like I didn't, even, even, when my mom was still alive, I would be like, you know, I don't, I don't hate my mom. I don't hold

anything against my mom. Well, I was suppressing so much shit. So I, you know, if you're not metabolizing that, then you think you've dealt with it because you've done some mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you have, but you have to go feel that stuff emotionally. You got to actually feel it. And so it wasn't until I went to therapy and I, you know, was in Connecticut, those three weeks that totally saved my life, really. And one of my assignments was write a letter to your mom to your dad. And I, you know, it took me 10 minutes just to start. I was crying so hard when I first started to write this. I couldn't, 10 minutes went by. And I couldn't, every time the pen would go to paper, I'd be like, okay. I mean, it was gnarled, Barclay. And then, you know, and then finally

I started writing it. And the whole front of this piece of paper was, fuck, like, I can't believe you did all these things to me and the girl, my sisters. And why did you do this? And you did this. And you did that. And you're just really kind of venting and getting stuff out. And I flipped the page. And this was not even an intentional thing I was thinking to do or whatever, but I flipped the page and literally something just flipped in my mind. And all of a sudden, it was empathy that poured out. And I was like, oh, buddy. It was just like, but I know, I know that you did all these things because they were done to you because you were abused as a girl. You were abused as a kid. And I said, you know, I just recognize, like, and that's why I think it's so important.

We have to, we have to look at each other. Our parents are the rest of our family, our friends, society, our worst enemies, the people that you would see as the most evil in the world. And you have to see the child in them. We have to stop and look at the child in that person that was abused. They got different programming. They came from a different world and go, okay, you're not evil. You are just, you can't, you, your journey was entirely different. And maybe in your journey, you were so fucked up.

You were so abused. You were taught that killing people is good or hurting people or stealing from people. That's why people do these things. It's not because they're monsters. It's not because they were once abused themselves. So all of a sudden, that was like the whole second half of this. to my mom. Forgiveness.

Forgiveness. Radical love, radical acceptance, radical, radical forgiveness, man. It's necessary for all of us, for this world right now. I agree with you 100%. And thank you for being so open about that. I mean, it's beautiful. I went through the same thing with, I did a little EMDR up in Connecticut, and I remember saying, I'm fine, I'm fine.

And every day, she was like, yeah, I don't think you're, I don't think we're not going to do this today. Like, okay, when are we going to do it next day? Now we're not going to do this. and then one day I just had this this thought I go I go oh yeah this happened blah blah blah blah blah and let's talk about we're going to do the MDR right now and I go whoa whoa whoa and we started doing it and I started crying hysterically like oh my god what's happening it's uncontrollable and it's coming out it's like why did you do this why did you do this why was this why why couldn't you be more patient

why couldn't you be and all of a sudden I just said but I first forgive them. And I just started crying. I don't even know why I said it, but subconsciously, I did. It came out like you just said in the writing. I forgave. And that, there's something to be said about that, that feels good, that you're like, you did the best you could. I forgive you. I'm not giving them, you know. 100%. But I do think that in order to get to actual true forgiveness, because I think a lot of us think, we're practicing forgiveness with a lot of people, including ourselves, and we might be on some level, but there's still something, there's still some judgment in us of, but they did this to me, you know, you know what I mean? And the only way to actually fully get rid of all that in you, which is that's poison that we drink hope and the other person. In order to get rid of all of it, you've got to radically accept it there is no i i i'm not an expert in this i've done a lot of therapy i've read a lot of things and listen to a lot of people that are way smarter than me and i the only

thing that i can point to that can get us there and this is with ourselves with our families with with our country right now the polarization the the politicization of everything that's going on every way that we keep getting ripped asunder as human beings and as a society we have got to look at other people and radically accept them and where they came from. And that's not just forgiving them. I think a lot of people are like, well, I'll forgive you for doing that thing, but you're still an asshole. And again, they might be an asshole, but for you to be, that's just for you to recognize

that they're doing asshole stuff and have boundaries, but to sit and have this, you know, but that asshole, the way we all roll our eyes and look down our nose and all these things, the sarcasms that we use with each other. Look at the fucking news, man. Like, journalists don't even report news anymore. where all they are are opinion machines. They're opinion machines. And they in,

we don't want to know what you think. On all sides. It doesn't matter what the political spectrum is on all sides of it. They're just sniping each other left and right. And there's so much disdain. There is so much hubris there. It makes me sad. It makes me sick to my stomach that this is the way that we're being led as people.

This is the, this is the narrative that's being spewed forth. The people's minds continue to be essentially more programmed by. It's more hate and it's more fear. Instead of looking across the island saying, listen, I completely disagree with you. But I know that you're still, I mean, whether you believe in God or not, you're a creation of, I would say, child of God. It doesn't matter who you are.

You are, if you were alive, you're an extension of God. And that should be valued. It should be valued. We should value people on that alone. Anyway, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. I love you. I love you too. This has been fantastic.

And this is, by the way, just so you know, this is probably the longest podcast I've done in a while. never do more than like 55 minutes an hour. And I can talk to you forever. No, you, you take me. Go the distance. I am so. Moonlight Graham. I love you. Have you thought about the lyrics finally of the song? Yeah, it's the end of the world. That's we know. That's the one you're going to go with. And I feel fine. And you feel fine. And I feel fine. And I feel fine. And I feel fine. And I feel fun. Thumbs up. Thumbs up for Ryan. Thumbs up for me. Zach Levi, you're an extraordinary human being. A great man, a good friend, great friend. And you're always there. You're always there. And I appreciate you coming on again.

Bless you, man. I receive all of that. I echo it right back at you. Thank you for having such an incredible forum for people like myself to come on and talk about shit that we think is important. Man, he got emotional, didn't he? He did. Did you get emotional when you were watching a little bit? I mean, it's hard not to.

It is, man. Especially when you're in the room and you're interviewing him and he starts talking about this and you could see his eyes well up. And I got emotional. I got a little emotional. I tried to hide and try to be professional, but I really commend Zach for opening up like that. You know, he's a sweet guy.

And if you came here again for Zach Levi and you like the podcast, I hope you'll stick around and just come to listen to me, talk to people and watch people open up. And I think it helps humanity. I think it helps, you know, when guests open up or they say, I always learn something from them. There's always, you know, you'll get, It's something.

Sam. You know, as long as they open up and usually they do. Everybody, you know, has something going on in their lives. We've all faced adversity. So thanks for tuning in. Again, the At Inside of You podcast on Instagram and Facebook, follow us and then in Twitter at Inside of You pod. Go to the Inside of You online store if you want awesome merch.

Sunspin.com if you want merch and you want to Zoom with me. We're going to do a stage show January 29th. January 29th at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Please get tickets and listen to the band. We're going to play live virtually. It's our first show in a couple months. We're really excited and awesome. So I'm going to read the top tier patrons. Ready for this? These are, go to, if you want to become a patron, go to patreon.com slash inside of you. I love these guys. They really support the podcast. Nancy D. Leah S. Sarah V. Little Lisa, U. Kiko, Jill E. Brian H. Niko P. Jerry W. Robert B. Jason W. Kristen K. K. Amelia O. Allison L. Raj C. Emily S. C.J.P. Jennifer N. Stacey L. G.N.S. Jimal F. Janelle B. Mike E. Eldon Supremo. On a Zoom, he puked when I was talking to him. It was beautiful. Crazy guy. I love Dan. 99 more. Ramira. San Diego M. San Diego M. San Diego M. San Diego M. San Diego M. San Diego M. Chad. M. Chad. Chad. Chad. Chad. Chad. Chad. Chad. Chad. Jan. Jan. J. Janine R. Maya P, Maddie S, Belinda N, Chris H, Dave H, Spider-Man Chase, Sheila G, Brad D, Ray H, Lillian A, Michelle K, Talia M, Betsy D, L. L., Chad, L, Rochelle, N., Nathan E, Marion, K., Janelle P, Dan N, Big Stevie W, Angel M, Rian, C., Corey K, Super Sam, Coleman G, Dev Nexon. Dev Nexon. Dev Nexon, L at the...

What did he play? He'd play at the... Who's the band? The Palladium. Dev Nexon next Tuesday night at the Palladium 8 p.m. Get your tickets now. Peladium. Dev Nexon. Michelle A. Jeremy C. Sebastian K. Gavinator. David C. John B. Brandy D. Yvore. Camille S. The C. Joey M. Willie F. Christina E. Adelaide N. Omer I. Lina N. Eugene and Leah. I got to meet all these guys. We did a big Zoom with all the patrons, the top tier patrons. And I got to see a lot of faces. It was really nice. I liked it. Chris, Chris Peeved, Nikki G, Corey, Patricia M, Maria Ann, Heather L, Jake B, Bobbitt, Ed A, Ed A, Ed A, Ed A, Ed A, Ed A, what's up, Ed A, have all you, mate. Ed A, Ed A. It's Ed.

Ed, yeah, guys, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting the podcast, and we got another great podcast coming up episode next week. Thank you to Jason. Thank you, Jason Nelkin, our editor, who sat in for Ryan today. great job great to be here great to see you love it great to fart in front of you earlier love it um thank you ryan my wonderful engineer and uh thank you bryce our producer thank you cumulus agnes katrin teresa kelly uh you guys all rock i love you and i appreciate you if you're listening if you're listening to the podcast but uh thank you everyone for listening and uh be good to yourself if you have anxiety if you have shit that you're dealing with talk to someone man

get some help i mean better help brian goes to better help i don't know jason do you go to therapy i don't but i need to you will you'll go to therapy everybody should everybody should we need to talk our shit out yeah check up on your body check up on your brain yeah yeah yeah betterhelp.com better help dot com yeah is that better help i think you put the code word inside they're not even a sponsor on this episode i don't know but i'm giving them credit because i like these guys yeah shut up better help why not better help they're rocking um all right michael rosenbaum from the holly Hollywood Hills in California. Jason Elkin, also from the Hollywood Hills in California.

Wave to the camera, Jason. Guys, thank you for allowing me to be inside each and every one of you. Until next week, be good to yourselves. I'll try to be good to myself. Jason, be good to yourself. I will. Good. Hi, I'm Joe Sal C.

Hi, host of the Stackin' Benjamin's podcast. Today, we're going to talk about what if you came across $50,000. What would you do? Put it into a tax-advantaged retirement account. The mortgage, that's what we do. Make a down payment on a home. Something nice. Buying a vehicle.

A separate bucket for this addition that we're adding. $50,000, I'll buy a new podcast. You'll buy new friends. And we're done. Thanks for playing, everybody. We're out of here. Stacky Benjamin's, follow and listen on your favorite platform.