Modern Wisdom - The Brutal Side of Making It In Show Business - Zach Braff - #1107

Episode Date: June 6, 2026

Zach Braff is an actor and director. How do you make it in Hollywood? Zach Braff might have the answer. From leading one of the biggest TV shows of the 2000s to directing iconic episodes and acclaimed films, he's spent decades mastering the industry. So how did he build a career that lasted decades in one of the toughest industries on earth, and what has he been up to since? Expect to learn what it was like bringing back Scrubs's newest season, what it takes to make it in Hollywood, how to stay locked in and avoid distractions, why some great actors haven’t broken through to stardom, what it takes to stay ambitious, what reinvention looks like in a career that’s already peaked in the public eye, and much more… Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: ⁠⁠https://chriswillx.com/deals⁠⁠ Get a Free Sample Pack of LMNT’s most popular flavours with your first purchase at https://drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom Get 160+ lab tests for just $365 and save an extra $25 at https://functionhealth.com/modernwisdom Get 35% off your first subscription on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom Get up to $50 off the RP Hypertrophy App at https://rpstrength.com/modernwisdom Get ChatGPT to explore ideas, solve problems, and learn faster at ⁠https://chatgpt.com Timestamps: (0:00) What Makes Theatre So Special? (2:08) The Doctor Career Zach Never Had (6:45) The Unsung Heroes of Movie Sets (11:18) Returning to Scrubs (15:30) Why Reboots Shouldn’t Rely on Nostalgia (18:25) What Scrubs Means to Zach Today (21:04) Can One Great Role Become a Trap? (29:00) Turning Your Biggest Weaknesses into Strengths (35:39) The Hidden Costs of Success (42:33) Why Going All In Changes Everything (51:57) The Surprising Appeal of Being an Influencer (56:54) What Are Detectives Like Behind Closed Doors? (01:01:35) The Most Effective Detective Strategies (01:05:09) Has Television Lost Its Edge? (01:10:41) Why Game of Thrones Became a Phenomenon Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: ⁠⁠https://chriswillx.com/books⁠⁠ Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: ⁠⁠https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom⁠⁠ Episodes You Might Enjoy: #577 - David Goggins - This Is How To Master Your Life: ⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠ #712 - Dr Jordan Peterson - How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs: ⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠ #700 - Dr Andrew Huberman - The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain: ⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: ⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx⁠⁠ YouTube: ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast⁠⁠ Email: ⁠⁠https://chriswillx.com/contact⁠⁠ - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As somebody that's basically a Philistine and has seen maybe two or three theatre shows in his entire life. Yeah. Of a career of being a spectator. And obviously, a person who kind of understands the art form as well, what are the ones that stand out to you as this is, that was really, really special? Well, I'll tell you, lame is Rob, which is probably a very common answer for people. I was like 13 years old and I had never really been moved to tears by art before. I had never seen something as a young person so beautiful in my life. I was so moved by the music. I was so moved by the stagecraft. I was the story was thrilling. So that was a real seminal moment in my young life.

You know, my dad had been bringing me to see all the plays. I lived in North Jersey. So my dad would bring me in, you know, took 45 minutes. He loved theater. He got me into it. So he would bring me to see all these plays. A lot of them were sillies. A lot would go over my head.

but I loved it. And then Le Mies Rob was the first one where I was at the right age to feel emotion, to have tears streaming down my face. And that's when I was like, what is this? This art form is something that is so powerful. And so that I went on to see like so many productions that both musicals and dramas and comedies were there was just so much joy for me in seeing it happen live and having it be different every single time.

And the shared experience. with people around you who are also swiping a tear or laughing, that's just something's really magical. When it's great, when it's great, it's just so fun. What about when it's bad? When it's bad, it's really bad. And, you know, I never leave an intermission just because I'm an actor myself and I feel too bad to do that.

Yeah, it can be, it can be horrible. But I try, you know, I do, I do filter what I'm not, I'm not going. to see things totally blind. You're not going in blind. I don't go in totally blind. No, that would be, that would be, I'd be lying if I said I was just going to any random show. I definitely go to what I've heard my friends say, you got to check this out. I've heard that you wanted to be a doctor at one point.

When I was in high school, there was a program in my high school with the, the town had a volunteer rescue squad. I guess that that's just the way it works in some towns in New Jersey, at least. I can only speak to that, is that the town. town has a volunteer rescue squad of people who are EMTs who donate their time and there's an ambulance service. On serious calls, the paramedics come in a separate ambulance from the hospital. And they had a program for kids that were 17 and up to volunteer and get trained and go on calls. And I went on many calls with the ambulance service. And you know, you're mostly doing the grunt work. You're carrying gear. You're moving the stretchers. You're, you're, you're, you're

taking blood pressures, but it was thrilling. And I think there was a moment there where I thought, wow, what an exciting career path to be, not that I could necessarily stand the education to become a real doctor, ironically, but maybe a paramedic or maybe something in the field. And then I just never really excelled at the classes that, you know, biology and chemistry and all the things that you need to be really great at. I just didn't have the interest or the skill. The fun bets were fun, but the technical bets got in the way.

Adrenaline was fun and coming to the rescue was fun and I loved all that. I loved coming to the rescue. I loved the adrenaline of it and feeling like you help people. And you felt really good. Also, there was a volunteer aspect of it that I'm sorry. That was an important part of it too. I felt great that I was doing all of this and volunteering. In service.

Yes. Interesting. you get the three emergency services, right? You've got ambulance, fire, police. There's an issue going on. The ambulance turns up. Everybody's grateful. There's an issue going on.

The fire service turns up. Everybody's grateful and turned on. The police turn up. People get a little bit suspicious. Unless you're the very person that needs it, everyone immediately gets on watch. And I always feel bad for police officers. They're doing a thing.

They're still doing a service. And in many ways, they're in the line of fire. They're dealing with much. more kinetic situations, I guess firefighters too. And also, I'm sure I'm going to, but you think, fuck, like police officers really, you know, they're being shouted at and there's all of these potential stuff and they're looking over the shoulders. And no, that must be hard. It must be hard to be a police officer when you look at your fellow, you know, of the three branches that you could have gone down on emergency services, like people sort of clap and applaud and there's a lot

more heroism around that. And the public perception, I think, of police officers has had a rough run over the last decade or so. Absolutely. And there's a lot more nuance to, rat profession than fire and ambulance. Stop fire, get cat out of tree, or keep person alive, as opposed to do one of like 50,000 million things here. Yeah. Yeah. But there was a burglary, a home rot invasion on my street this week. And it's scary. I was certainly happy that they were there. Home invasion, like a robbery while they were in the house and held this woman and stole her jewelry. And We're in no rush to get out of there. It was scary.

That's not only. Yeah, it was gnarly. Yeah. It's an interesting one thinking about what jobs you would do if you weren't doing what you did. I was thinking about this the other day. Obviously, you maybe didn't have the chops to do the... I didn't have the interest in school enough to get into medical school. Or the SAT scores or the grades.

I mean, you really have to love school. I love design. I think I'm really into architecture and design. And I think that kind of overlaps with what I do as a director because you're hiring and collaborating with extremely talented craftspeople who are the best at what they do. And you're saying, I have this rough idea. Will you help me execute it?

And then you put together this team of insanely talented in the case of film cinematographers and production designers and costume designers and actors and everyone comes together and they help you execute and to me if I wasn't allowed to work in entertainment for some reason that's something that really lights me up

because I do love architecture and design. Who's someone on a film set or on a production that makes a massive difference that most people from outside of the industry don't even consider? The cinematographer, I mean, I think, is the number one collaborative person the director has. That is his or her right-hand person. What's their role for people that don't understand?

For people that don't know the way that this, everything is photographed, the lens choice, the way, just for example, that this interview is being lit, was lit by a talented cinematographer who chose where to put these three lights and what lenses he was going to put on the cameras and how in post-production it was going to be colored. So much of that makes a difference. I would imagine a lot of layman think that that's all the director.

The director is sort of the conductor of the orchestra. If the crew is the orchestra, the director's the conductor of the orchestra, and if the first violinist is, let's say, the most important person in the orchestra, I would say that's the cinematographer. And the director is there going, I can't play the violin like that.

I can't play the bassoon like that. You guys are the best of what you do. My job is to go a little more of this, a little less of that. And yeah, the other position that I'm sure most people not in the business, I'm sure most people in the business don't know anything about is the first AD,

who is the first assistant director who's running the whole set. In theater parlance, that's kind of like the stage manager, but, you know, the director is in charge of overseeing the creative aspects of what we're making. But someone is marshaling this oftentimes enormous crew and all the background and all the actors all around.

And the head of that department is the first assistant director. And that's a very stressful job. They stereotypically die young because it's so stressful. No way. Yeah. Trading the lifespan for good productions. They are. They always laugh about it.

They're always like, you know we. They always have a. They always laugh and go, you know, we serotypically die young. But it's a very stressful job. It's hard to do. They're the people that make sure it doesn't go into overtime. Yeah, they're managing how much time you have. So when you make a schedule for, we shoot scrubs, for example, in five days.

And so they're... Hang on how many episodes in five days? We shoot one episode at five days. Right. And so they... Always? Always. Even back in the day, yeah, five days.

Oh, okay. It's kind of crazy. The new streaming comedies have The ones that I direct have Have sort of moved to six and a half days Which is a lot Which you think only is a day and a half more But it's a huge difference

In terms of executing it In a relatively sane way We're talking about a half hour of television Doing it in five days Especially a show like scrubs That has these surreal set pieces And you know the fantasies and lots of moving parts Lots of moving parts, like camera being a character, and also not to mention that, you know, 60 to 100 background every day.

So it's a lot to, it's a big cruise ship to move around. And the first AD is in charge of making that schedule and telling you like, hey, we're sort of fucked for time. You got to move on. Yeah. Wow. So that means that there's some scene that you aren't quite happy with and you're like, dude, it's done. like you're done with the scene? Well, you as the director are the ultimate

decision maker and am I going to spend more time on this and then say fuck that next scene I'll do that. I had a lot of good ideas about how I was going to shoot it. I'm going to shoot it way more simply now because this isn't working yet. You're the one who's in charge of the time has been allotted for that day

to do these scenes. You have to do those scenes. Of course, occasionally you have to do those scenes. Of course, occasionally you have to punt one. But for the most part, you have to do that. And you're constantly watching the time and going, okay, fuck. And what we do is I get a special call sheet that only certain people have, the producers and the AD, and that has little times written into all of the schedule. Because you don't want everyone knowing that you're behind or you're ahead.

It's not a good leadership thing. I don't believe. It's best that you just... You do your job, I'll tell you when it moves. Exactly, yeah. Yeah. How does it feel to be back in an old production? I love it.

It's a whole new responsibility for me because I did this show as a young man. I was very green. I learned so much doing it, and now I'm back in a leadership executive producer role being the boss. And the guy who taught me everything I know is not really there. And he's there to advise me on the phone, and he's there to get involved when there's a fire that needs putting out. But I'm back now in a capacity as the leader, and it's a whole lot more stressful than just showing up and being funny.

Talk to me about the challenge of going from, I just need to show up and do my lines, to I need to show up and do everything and do my lines. It's extraordinarily stressful. Did you want that? Did you not just want to go back and have fun? That wasn't going to work. So Bill Lawrence created the show,

and Bill, it was his sort of one-person vision. It was a very specific vision. The reason it worked so much, it was so unique. It was comedy, it was drama, it had surreal fantasies. It had the setting of a hospital, which has infinite possibilities for comedy and drama. These seven main characters that audiences really fell in love with and followed them for eight and half years.

But Bill has many shows happening right now. So as much as everyone wanted Scrubs to come back, including Bill, he certainly couldn't be writing it and micromanaging it. So who would do that? There's someone who runs the writer's room as the head writer. Her name is Asim Batra. She was a writer on the original Scrubs. But the writer's room is here,

LA, we shoot the show in Vancouver. So who is going to be overseeing scrubs up there, the production of it all? I had partners, several producing partners who helped me, but I know the show better than anybody. The truth, the truth, I know the show better than anyone. I direct the show. And my mentor was the guy. I mean, I'm the one, the funny thing is, I keep saying this, is that, The pilot of this new scrubs is about JD coming back because Dr. Cox says,

you should come back, we should get the band back together. You should come back and make a difference. And JD acquiesces and says, yes, I'm here. I can't wait to work with you. And then his mentor goes, oh, you misunderstood. I'm not going to be here. You're in charge. That's the pilot of the reboot, the revival.

And we were up there shooting. And it's literally what happened. And I had had this impression, even though Bill had said, like, hey, I'm running like three other shows. I can't. And I also, there's also just some stuff with, you know, it's a Disney property. He has a Warner Brothers deal. He can't be there. Complexity.

So, but I didn't really, I truly didn't have the epiphany until we were shooting when I went, this is literally the show we're making. He's the one who called me and said, let's get everyone back together. Let's be so fun. And now we're literally shooting the pilot. And it's so intense and so hard. And we're really trying to nail this for the fan. and he's like, oh, and by the way, I think he may have misunderstood. Like, I'm not going to be there.

This is you. You got this. And so I did have to step up in a way that I hadn't foreseen. And it was very stressful. But when the pilot was cut, it changed everything. Everyone was like, oh, this could be really good. The studio, the network, Bill himself, everyone kind of changed. Do you feel like a passing of the torch when he got the, the pat on the shoulder from dad, finally, after all of these years, you did go, son.

Absolutely. Because he's not huge with the compliments. He wrote me a Christmas card this year. There was basically like the nicest thing he's ever said to me. And then it ended with, I hope this will last for at least a year. Nostalgia is a pretty powerful force. Yeah. How do you make sure it's serving the show instead of just trapping it?

I think we were very aware of what are all the pitfalls of these revivals, reboots and revivals. Malcolm in the middle has come back too. Yeah, I didn't never watch that show, but as I understand it, been very well received for people that that show was important to. For our purposes,

I was very, I sort of did research on what are the common pitfalls of this? And one of them is just trying to milk nostalgia because you're never going to build a new audience by going, remember this, Remember that?

Oh, wasn't it funny? Just doing callback jokes. That gets exhausting. And also, it doesn't interest a new base of the audience. You're just having people that were diehard fans of the original show, which isn't enough to really sustain an audience for a modern day show that's in ABC prime time and streaming on Hulu the next day. You have to find a way to build the audience.

And also, Scrubs was very big around the world. So there's a lot of people that are going to, be interested, but they're not going to hold their interest with just nostalgia bait. So the challenge is how do you thread that needle of finding the tone again, but also bringing in new characters and new scenarios and new people. We're 50 years old now. We were the kids. The show was, I just kind of, you get to think this is funny. I had this epiphany just recently, but we were talking about ideas for season two. The show was about three interns. That's what the old show was about. Now the show is about three attendings, three senior doctors. It's a

teaching hospital, so it's always going to be about have interns in it and about teaching and mentorship and friendship. But the focus of the show isn't interns anymore. The focus of the show is the teachers. Most people don't realize how much being dehydrated impacts their performance, which is why for the last five years I've started pretty much every morning with Element. Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. This orange salt in a cold glass of water is like a sweet, salty, orangy nectar, and I really tell the difference when I take it versus when I don't. It plays a critical role in reducing muscle cramps and fatigue, helps to optimize brain health and regulate your appetite while also curbing cravings. Best of all, there are no questions asked refund policy with an unlimited duration so you can buy it and try it for as long as you want.

and if you don't like it for any reason, they'll just give you your money back. Plus, they offer free shipping in the US. Right now, you can get a free sample pack of elements most popular flavors with your first purchase. We're going to the link in the description below. Are heading to drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom.

That's drinklmnt.com slash modern wisdom. Did it make you see your experience from the past in a different way? Kind of fascinated at the opportunity to go back. Anything that's been formative for anybody, any experience, somebody goes to university. They have a time there and they look back after a decade and they wish they'd done things differently or they see things that passed them by or that they didn't pay attention to it. They paid too much attention to and a lot of the time, you know, if only like coach had put me in, I would have won the high school game and then my NFL contract.

Yeah, rah, right. Yeah. Varying degrees of different things. I wonder if after a long time, nine years of shooting it originally to then a break to then I'm. back again now different role if it makes you see that experience previously in a different light or if it allowed you to close some loops and uh it made me grateful for how much i learned i mean i was i wanted to make movies i wanted to make tv i wanted to be a director i went to film school i got at a film school i was working as a production assistant and and waiting tables and

auditioning or doing all the things i could have as many you know irons in the fire as possible And then I got scrubs and I was so excited because every week there's a different director and to me it was like grad school I got to watch all of these great comedy directors do their thing and they all had different styles and they have to work within the lexicon of the show but they all had different techniques and styles

and ways of doing things and initially I was just so excited to absorb their wisdom. You know speed running production film school exactly at a pro level being the star of the show and everyone else going to their dressing rooms me hanging out on the set being like,

oh, what are you doing? That's so cool. And then going, oh, the reason I'm doing this is because of this. So that was amazing. I think after a while, if when I look back, I started taking it for granted. I see some of my, you know, Donald Faison on my co-starner, we did a re-watch podcast of the show.

That was one of the, ultimately, I think, it was one of the catalysts for this revival. and we were very candid. We watched it and didn't hold back when we thought we sucked or an episode sucked or we were overacting. And so I think when I looked back at it and I thought, wow, at a certain point, I don't think I was as good and I think I was overacting and I think I see where the wheels

kind of fell off the bus. And so now I'm very aware of, now that I'm in charge, keeping everyone at a certain quality, especially myself. Did you ever feel constrained by being so well known for one role? Obviously, there's a curse of success in some degrees. People get typecast, but what was some of the things that were enabled and some of the things that were limited by doing that? It's what everybody wants.

I want to be really well known, have a wonderful production. And then at the same time, there's some side dishes that come along with that. That happens to almost everyone that's lucky enough, lucky enough, blessed enough to have a breakout hit. And it's very, if you look at the cases in history, it's rare that those people get a whole new array of opportunities. Brian Cranston is a perfect example of someone who did, did Malcolm the Middle and was that guy. Until he was the next guy. until he and until breaking bad that was passed on by as i understand the lore was passed on by like every network and and uh until i think amc uh made it and brian cranson was reborn but they um that happens

of course because people fall in love with with this beloved character and they don't see you as as another thing you can't hardly complain because you were one of the extraordinarily lucky people who got an opportunity like that. But you do, I'm sure every, but you can't help but bemoan like, I wish I could, I wish I could be taken seriously as something else. I was lucky that I had my directing career that I really wanted to pursue, so my own movies and make my own stuff. But in the last couple of years, I've been finally getting a couple of parts that are outside the box of JD, something actually through Bill again, who's been my, my biggest, champion. He gave me a small part on Bad Monkey, his show with Vince Vaughn. And I was only in a

couple episodes, but the part was so different. And I got so much positive feedback for it. And it, it really gave me a newfound confidence in my own ability that I had sort of gone like, maybe I am just, you know, a comic, maybe I am just the sort of JD kind of guy. I mean, I knew I had more colors in me. But the response to that, That little arc on bad monkey gave me confidence. And in a way, and then I went and did this independent movie that just got into Tribeca

where I'm 180 degrees from anything I'm ever done playing this narcotics cop who lost his daughter. It's a true story. And so that movie's called Clean Hands and it's going to be at Tribeca, it's a Trebekahua film festival this summer. So, yeah, I would love to do more and more of that.

But I can't complain. I've been so lucky. It's interesting. I wonder how many people get what you had, which is a kind of, almost like a kind of Stockholm syndrome for your own success. So sometimes people get successful for doing a thing. Other people don't want to have to update their worldview about that person. So they don't like it when they deviate.

I think we see this in our personal lives. Somebody is the party guy or the party girl. And then I'm focusing on my, health. It's like, I have to change who I think you are used to be. It can sometimes cause a little bit of, obviously, people that are in your life that are wanting the best for you, are very happy that you're making this positive lifestyle change. But maybe people who don't want to make that change too, their behavior gets thrown into harsh contrast. Yeah. But the pressure from the outside, what's interesting about what you said, was that you started to see yourself

potentially in that, through the looking glass thing. Like, well, maybe I am, maybe I am just that. Like, maybe that is, like, you know, lots of other people seem to like me in that. And fuck, am I ever going to have a better hit than that thing before? And I wonder whether it's the same thing with people who just want to change their lives. Somebody wants to go from being that thing. It's like, well, absolutely.

Everyone else is telling me that, I mean, I was the fun, like, party girl or whatever. And now I'm, like, I'm just a mom. And that's not as exciting or whatever. Maybe people don't, maybe I'm not made for this as opposed to, no, it's there. It's their problem. It's that person's issue to try and update their view of you and evolving and changing person. By the way, that is true in both acting and in life, that if you change who you're being, the people around you have to change who they're being.

If I'm in a scene with you and I'm all of a sudden decide to do a take where I'm fucking screaming at you and yelling your face, if you're even a halfway decent actor, you're going to react differently in the scene. In life, if I totally change my life, and I'm not drinking anymore, and I'm not going out late, and I'm going to the gym, and you as my friend are going to shift your way of being around me because you have no choice. We can both in acting and in life,

shift, choose to shift who we're being. And then people can't help but react differently to us. Yeah, Joe Hudson, personal growth wizard, talks about how, if you show you up in a different way, the other person's patterns can only usually exist in his estimation for about five to seven interactions. Oh, wow. So there is a typical way that you and your partner fight, right? They get to play the victim and you get to play the bully. They get to play the bully and you get to play the savior. Whatever the accepted trade is, I'm going to complain to you and you're

going to feel aggrieved. Or you're going to tell me what it is that I need to do and I'm going to appease you, whatever it is. There's a kind of exchange. There's a dance. There's a dance move. Yeah, it's like, I'm going to hit the ball over there. You're going to hit it back in a particular way. Yeah. And then if that happens, especially after, and the reason that he said this was after going and doing something like the Hoffman

process, our internal family systems, or groundbreakers, which is his equivalent, a weekend retreat, or you make a really big change in your life. Perhaps it's over a short period of time or a longer period of time. But if this first exchange occurs, the person serves the ball across the net. If you don't hit it back, after between five and seven times of that not happening, the other

person can't keep doing their pattern. I mean, I'm sure that there's some degree of sociopathy that you're able to get to where you just, you just do your thing. Oh, there's enough crazy people out there that will just plow through your thing. Your nice, evolved, you know, Renaissance patterns. But, yeah, that you, if you show up in a different way, and I've tried to, test this and it really does seem to be like scarily true. There's a line Naval Ravikanskot where he says, we think that we can change other people, but we can't. We think we can't

change ourselves, but we can. And the changing of other people, the easiest way to do that, I think in terms of behavior change is not by telling them what to do, it's just by doing something differently yourself. And sticking to it. Yes. Yes. Because if you then fall back into the go, ah, I see. Right. It's kind of like training your dog. If you don't, as my jersey, he acts a dog. If you don't, the second, if you're creating training your dog, the second they're crying and you let them out, you're fucked, you fucked it up. You know, hold the line. You have to hold the line. And in terms of my experience, I didn't know that someone had sort of quantified it to five to seven times. That's interesting. But if you're going to shift your

patterns and shift your way of being, you have to hold the line. You have to, you have to not let the dog out of the crate. Yes. Yes. No matter, when I matter how hard they're crying. Because because then those people aren't going to shift their way of being back with you. Yes, yes. What have been the patterns that have been the, I'm pretty fascinated by things that are double-edged swords. Most times someone's greatest strengths are the light side of something that's kind of dark. That had Ryan Garcia, WBC Wildaway champion,

and he's obsessive. incredibly obsessive and that's caused him at some points in his career to drink a lot and party an awful lot and to struggle to get away from it it also caused him to be an absolutely

microscopically focused athlete who would tell me this story about how when he was a kid he had a fight in the ring with some guy and this guy kept on catching him with a particular shot and Ryan went home and he just spent two hours in his bedroom thinking about

what was he doing? Why was he catching me with that show? What was he doing? What was he doing? What was he doing? Then he went downstairs and told his dad. He's like, tell the kid come back tomorrow. He's like, you're sure?

You just got beat up pretty bad. Like that didn't look like a good experience. He's like, bringing him back tomorrow. And what he'd realized was that the guy was stepping and then jabbing, and that offbeat was throwing Ryan off. And he was like, okay, so when he does this thing, I'm going to step and then I'm going to hit him with him right. And sure enough, the whole game was over because he'd spent two hours replaying this

fight in his head because he couldn't not do it. Yeah. But that same skill of the obsession, of the attention to detail, of the hypervigilance also gave him the challenges of overbearing problems with his relationships, problems with his kids, problems with substances, like very, very out there, anxious sort of, like, on-edge thing. I'm interested in... Mine's similar, without the beating the shit out of anybody. No, I have OCD, and I had it bad as a kid. I was one of those kids who had obsessive tapping,

and you do this math in your head as a child where, or I should say I did, where I, you know, it could be a doorknob or it could be this water bottle and you say, oh, I have to touch this a certain amount of times or something bad could happen to my family. And then even as a young person, I said, that's crazy, of course. But just to be safe, it's kind of like a superstition. adults can relate.

Pascal's Wager, the obsessives wager. Yeah. Is that what Pascal's Wager is? No, but basically that I don't know whether God is real or not, but the cost of not believing in God is hell and the potential benefit of believing in God is heaven. Okay, now imagine that in an eight-year-old's mind going, I'm wagering, I don't want my family to be harmed. Not sure if it's going to do anything, but I might as well.

My brain is telling me that something bad could happen in my family if I don't hit this six times correctly. I know that's crazy, but for safety, for everybody's safety, I should do it. We'll do it again for safety. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that becomes, you know, I had it pretty, I had it bad, but, you know, lots of adults and children have it way worse. But I got, I, I was diagnosed with, with that and it made me an anxious, I was anxious. My father had a real temper and and that was scary and I think I was

he was also he also had a lovely side and introduced me to the arts and and could be and was hilarious he introduced me to humor but he did have quite a temper that I think put me

for the rest of my life on on edge of when something bad was going to happen when he would randomly explode and that certainly affected my whole childhood and and and and I I still feel it as an adult just a sort of resting anxious state. Now that has been great for for for me in terms of writing and and comedy it's amazing that I I sometimes I find it crazy that I can operate at this in in these

very anxious leadership positions where so much is on the line and there's always a problem and There's oh, I, I'm so grateful that I've figured out how to just still step into the ring and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, despite not failing like it. yeah despite like gosh this is going to be hard and I'm going to experience panic and discomfort and anxiety and adrenaline surges that aren't necessarily normal for for the level of the problem I mean an OCD anxious person will often have an adrenaline surge that is like you just almost got into a car accident and that's what leads some people to panic attacks that's sort of like the needle going into red and staying in red and then there's a panic attack um but But all of that has contributed to, I think, humor and being in my head a lot and maybe some good, some decent writing that's come out of that, you know.

And attention to detail. Definitely obsessive attention to detail. Correct. And what I was trying to think about. Me sitting there, it's on scrubs at two in the morning for an insert shot of a phone that there's no reason I should be there for. These people can handle it. But I do not want to get to the editorial and see that that's not the frame I pictured of the, phone, that's, that's, that's definitely obsessive, but it, it, I, it's how I make stuff.

Most people have no idea where the testosterone levels sit. But what if I told you there was a solution? Something that identifies low T faster than a high school bully and it won't cost you all your lunch money. That's where function comes in, gives you access to over 160 lab tests, including a deep dive into your full hormone panel. Every result is reviewed by clinicians, anything out of range is flagged and you get clear explanations with a personalized protocol with actionable next steps. So if something's off, you know exactly what to do about it. Whether you just need to go to the gym more or you need to play creed louder in your car, function will tell you exactly where your testosterone and everything else stands. Normally, this level of testing would usually

cost thousands, but with function, it's $365 a year. That's $1 a day to stop guessing with your health and start knowing. And right now, you can get $25 off, bringing it down to $340. So get the exact same blood panels that I do and save $25 by going to the link in the description below or heading to functionhealth.com slash modern wisdom using the code modern wisdom at checkout. I think ultimately what I was thinking about was what is the outcome that that achieves, right?

Because we're talking about process. It's a degree of detail focus orientation, hypervigilance, bias toward seeing problems as potentially before they've even yeah we are playing you know anxiety is all about uncertainty yeah I'm uncertain about how the future might unfold so if I can think about all of the different ways that it might unfold

I will know all of the different potential catastrophe so you're not usually anxious about all of the ways it might go right anxious about all of the ways that it might go wrong yeah and if I can't. But as a filmmaker who can't fall asleep at night staring at the ceiling obsessing about the big scene you have tomorrow it's not healthy, for mind and body, but it is helpful in that I've probably foreseen

everything that could possibly go wrong. Yeah, yeah. So you're prepared. And I've got text going out at 2 in the morning being like, did you guys, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And, you know, everyone's asleep, but I'm starting going like,

you did order the ble-blop, right? You know? I mean, it's the same for me. It's the same for me with this show. that noticing Dr. Jordan B. Peterson should have a full stop

after the B and I just want to make sure that it's okay and did we check that we got the release form that signed for the thing that's going to get the thing so I'm thinking is

lots of people who have that malady strength end up in situations where they can be very successful so my favorite example of this is

to a degree Eddie Hall so he's world's strongest man 2017, 2018, British dude, 6'4 3 by the time that he won on the winner's podium and he puts this trophy in the air and he says,

Nana, this one's for you, his grandma died recently and he sort of won this title and he retires there. His first title and he retires although he's worked his life to get there. He says if I hadn't retired at that point I would be dead,

divorced with no relationship to my kids. He was 400 pounds at 6 foot 3 on so many PEDs that his blood pressure was so far off the charts that we forget hypertension. This was like galactic tension. And he was working so hard with his training that him and his wife,

the relationship was just completely shot. And his kid didn't see him. So everything was falling apart. And I think about that and I go, well, the level of obsession and attention to detail that led him to be the best in the world also had these side effects that came along with it, physiological ones that were second order side effects, but the first order side effects of just not paying that much attention to my wife,

not paying that much attention to my child, not nurturing my relationships, not thinking about the peace inside of my own brain. And as far as I can see, the people that are really successful at lots of things, not everything, but at lots of things, are paying an unreasonable level of attention to detail.

That is where the, I'm trying to net down, what is the, like, corn that's being grown out of this thing for you across your career. It's like an unreasonable level of attention to detail. Sounds like that. In my own performance, in what's going to go on, in what might happen tomorrow and what did happen today and the lesson I need to learn. Why is that happen? Why have we decided, because I don't understand why you brought that fill lighter. Oh, it's for the bounce off the wall. Right. Why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, and yeah, that unreasonable level of

attention to detail has allowed you to do all these great things. Yes. And when people look at the outcome that they want. I would love to be on a show that gets run for gazillion, guerrillion seasons and the last for nine years and then comes back and it gets to do the other thing. I would like to do. I would, I would, you know, okay, this stuff does come along for the ride too. Yeah. You are also going to not only in the professional life, be awake at two in the morning texting people about the fucking phone shot from yesterday, but then it's also going to bleed over into your personal life as well. Yeah. You know, you can't switch it off. You can't just say, Oh, I want you to be obsessive and ruminative in this domain and not, you, my relationships?

No, no, no, no, no. That's a totally different. I should be a different person. I should Jekyll and Hyde, Batman and Bruce Wayne. I'm kind of fascinated by that sphere of question, the price that people pay in order to have the strengths that they've got. I don't know how people do this with big families. I don't know how they do it. I don't have a family.

I don't have children. I don't have a currently even have a partner. I, you know, I, we, when you're doing what I do, you often will have to go away for long periods of time. So I, I would love to have that stuff. But that's probably for me personally, other people are very good at managing and figuring it out. Obviously in Hollywood, there's plenty of people with wives and husbands and families. I have yet to have that happen. So I think personally, for me,

one of the costs has been just obsessively being career-focused. And it being the most important thing to me, the thing I love the most, the thing I get the most gratification out of is creating. And I think the cost has probably been giving, watering the seeds of a, of having a family and a relationship. How much of that's been a conscious choice?

I know that I'm going to pay this price potentially and I'm going to continue to focus on the career thing. No, it's not been a conscious choice. It's just been, you know, I do think I, if I'd put the level of attention and intention and focus into having a relationship and a family that I put into my career, I'd have a different life. kingdom. Well, I just have a different life. I'd be like a Jacob in the Bible. But I have, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I've had some wonderful relationships, but I, I have been through, for the last 25 years, completely career-focused. And when I'm not making something, I'm writing something, or when I'm not writing something, I'm

trying to collaborate with someone. I am the most happy when I'm making stuff. So when I'm not, I don't idle well. I don't sit, you know, on a beach and, and just stare at the ocean well. Maybe for like a week. Yeah. I think about people talk about developing a good work ethic,

but very rarely do people talk about developing a good rest ethic? I would like that. If you got that book, I'll read it. I'm afraid not. I mean, look, dude, this is, I get, this is part of my neuroses, but I go, I actually get anxious when I know I'm going to have a lungs time off. Yeah. Does work feel like safety to you?

I just feel like I'm most myself, I'm most in my element when I'm collaborating and creating. And when I'm not, I don't feel fully fulfilled. Even when I'm writing my own stuff, which is spending a lot of time alone with the computer, I'm not, I don't enjoy it. Because you're on the collaboration. There's no collaboration. It's lonesome. It's depressing because some days are, I'm sure you write. You know some days you're just like, I suck. Yeah. I suck. And then the next day you read it and you're like, actually, that's not good. I had a better night's sleep. I remember this, this comment when I first started doing live stuff. I just finished this live tour around Australia and New Zealand and Bali, and it was so sick. and when I first started doing live three years ago, someone commented with a piece of advice and they said,

when I'm on stage, I always have two voices that are equally loud in my head. One makes me Apollo and the other makes me Sisyphus. One says, you're amazing and you can keep going. And the other says, you suck, you should quit immediately.

And I just think it's so funny that when you have different elements of the same performance, right, in order to say a thing, need to write the thing first unless you're going to add a little bit. And that means that some days you sit down to write and you're like, I fucking blow as a writer. And other days you sit down to write and you're like, I'm great as a writer. But at each different juncture, someone that tends to be

a little bit more self-critical, someone that's got this predisposition toward hypervigilance, going to be like, that could be better. It could always be better. Yeah. And that tends itself toward a kind of ingratitude, like micro in ungratefulness each different time. Because you can always see, I mean, I love that shot of the phone. It was great, but oh, if we just had another half hour, if we'd been able to get that next 120D in and we'd just been able to, you know, adapt it a little bit more. And, um, but this is what pushes somebody to be unreasonably detail oriented and to get to a level of quality that is so beyond. And the market and status and, and money and by design, there can only be one winner at an award ceremony. There can only be one best anything, right,

at a time, the market rewards someone that is going to continue to push and push. I don't know how people enter this business without having the mentality that they're going to go all in at it because what I tell young people who I see starting out is like, okay, but make sure you're going to go 100% of what you have because in this town, every single person around you, not every single person, there's hundreds of thousands of people here that are that are going to work really, really, really hard. And they're going to have you a lunch if you don't. Absolutely.

If you're going to audition and you don't have it memorized and you didn't work on it as hard as you possibly could and work with your friends or work with a coach or in this case there's so much self-tapping, get a good lighting setup and a good camera and a nice backdrop and you're just phoning it in. Do you know how many fucking people are going all out for that same part? It's basically pointless. You are wasting everyone. time especially yours um it's crazy uh when you come across people that are that are trying i mean i

only know this profession but it's crazy when you come across people that are doing it half-assed it's like what are you there's just you're going to get blown out of the water who's very much a winner takes all thing where only one person can play the role right only one person can be this particular the fucking ac right that's on set there's only one maybe there's not actually but there's only one number one AC, right? Well, three cameras, three. You know what I mean. You know what I mean. There's only the one a camera for his AC. There we go. Thank you. Yeah, you could continue to go up the stack. Typically, there's only one person for each big thing, right? And you go, well, if that means that I'm not prepared to go all in on that one, or think about it in the personal

standpoint, you're going to go out dating. That person, unless you go polyamory, that person is only going to be in a relationship with one person. And if you are not showing up in the best possible way, being attentive, thinking about them, replying in an orderly manner, doing stuff, being thoughtful. Somebody that's just a bit more thoughtful or a bit more chill, like even the thoughtfulness of like, I probably text them a bit much today. Like I should, I can chill out for a little bit. The hormones are fucking neurochemicals are kicking it. You will be beaten. Yeah, right? There will be somebody that's prepared to be more thoughtful. So whatever the optimal strategy is with regards to effort, if you're not prepared to you. If you're not prepared to

give it everything, the person that will just gets out ahead and that means that you've lost. Absolutely. Absolutely. And this is a career path that is so much luck. But I often think of it as like it's all a complete lottery. I think if you're really, really preposterously good looking, you have a lot of lottery tickets. And if you're a really fucking talented actor, you have a lot of lottery tickets. If you're both, you have a shit ton of lottery tickets, but it's still a complete lottery because I know plenty of people that are wonderful actors and you don't know who they are. And I, and plenty of people that are beautiful and good actors and you don't know who they are. It's, it's very, very challenging career. I'm very, very present to being lucky.

Yeah. How many people have you seen across your career that you just, you can't believe that they never made it. Plenty. Wow. Plenty. I can, I, I can, I, um, I have a couple people to come right to my mind, uh, who, who I'm like, why have, why is their number not come up yet? That person is gorgeous and has blue eyes and is one of the best actors I know.

Um, you know, they might get work here and there. Yeah. But they're not a household name. They're not, they're not, not a lead on a show. Um, just go watch New York. theater. I mean, you'll see some of the best acting in London, of course. You'll see some of the best acting you'll ever see in your lifetime. And some of those people don't, can't or have yet to convert that to TV or film. Did you know your gut controls your energy,

your recovery, how well you absorb everything that you eat, and the one nutrient that keeps it all running properly is fiber. Well, it turns out that 95% of Americans don't get enough of it, which is why I'm such a huge fan of Momentis's Fiber Plus. Most fiber supplements are a one trick pony, one type of fiber solving one part of the problem. Fiber Plus is a three in one formula built to tackle digestion, gut barrier strength, and blood sugar stability all at once. I use this every single day. It is kind of hard to get in a fiber just through food alone. And best of all, Mementis offers a 30-day money back guarantee. So you can buy it, try it every single day for 29 days. And if you don't love it, they will just give you your money back.

they ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomomentus.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom a checkout. How do you think people should reckon with the, because that's a kind of uncertainty that's almost outside of your control, right, that you can't make somebody give you a chance at something. You can stack the deck in your favor as much as possible, but you can understand why people become better or jaded or resentful? Absolutely. If you're giving 100% and you're still not,

it's, of course you're going to get jaded. It's, it's, there's no, no one owes you anything here. And I have to remind myself that too when I don't get stuff. You know, I, I, I still read for things when I'm, when I'm, when it's competitive and I want it. And, uh, you know, I, I had a fucking, I auditioned for something that had a huge monologue. It was like a two page monologue. And just like I'm saying, because I look at a lot of audition tapes from the other side of the table, if I'm not, you know how many people are going to memorize the shit out of this monologue and crush it? Why am I even going to waste the time if you're not going to do it?

So for like a week, I worked on memorizing this monologue. I was walking the dog memorand, walking on the monologue. I was fucking doing the dishes looking over at the monologue. And I went in there, I laid a tape down, and I crushed it. I was so proud of it. Didn't even get a callback. Didn't even get a hey good job. Fuck you did.

And show came out and I saw the guy do it and I went, I was so much fucking better than that. In my egotistical mind. But, you know, I didn't get it. But I fucking brought it. I brought 100%. That doesn't mean you're going to get everything. They didn't want me.

They wanted him. Yeah. I wonder whether this is one of the reasons that people have such a... This is interesting. I think the number one desired job of young kids is YouTuber, and number two is influencer. Oh, God, is that true?

Horrendous, yeah. Kids, if you're out there, you don't want this smoke, I'm telling you. This sheer amount of screen time alone will kill you. I wonder whether one of the reasons that people like that, I'm aware kids don't necessarily know where they're getting themselves in for. One of the reasons that maybe older people might, like the idea of it is that there's kind of no rejection in the world of, you can become not popular,

but no one's telling you that you don't get to do the thing. You mean is a YouTuber influence? Yeah, yeah, if you're creating, you're just a solopreneur or a small unit, and you're the guy that's in front of the camera or whatever. Like, what's your thing? You can do it as much as you can send an unlimited number of two-page monologues and put them on the internet. And you are the star, even if that wouldn't have been picked up by somebody else.

And no one, it's a permissionless world. That's interesting. There's clearly people weighing in on whether it works or not by how many views it's getting after a certain amount of time. But that's not real. That's sort of a soft rejection. Correct. Yes, exactly.

That's exactly what I'm thinking. Yeah. It's so interesting because we didn't have that growing up as a thing. It wasn't a position. Well, think about some people on YouTube now are even doing sketch shows, increments of full productions like Shane Gillis,

Gillian Keybes, his thing before he's now doing tires that's that was him just fucking about like you don't need there's no there's a much smaller

tighter thing absolutely yeah absolutely and I think there's a lot of people making a great living being whatever their niche YouTube thing is

I go down the rabbit hole on these people and I I've got some people that I just love to watch and I'm not even like I've been going down the rabbit hole on like these RV RVs are you know like van life people yeah the recreational vehicle people that are giving tours or their vans it's not a life I would

ever lead although I'd love to go camping in RV I would never I don't want to live full time in RV but I'm fascinated by these I've come the algorithm has been sending me these people giving tours to their RVs oh yeah I love it what have I been looking at recently there's a guy that plays a role-playing 1800's British war game like a third-person shooter war game online thing

but he dresses in a full kind of colonial era British soldier outfit in his house while he's doing it and he's got a monocle on and he's got a huge fucking trumpet and as he's doing the live streaming

he blows the trumpet he's like come on boys don't eat a motivation oh, let's get them. And he blows this. I don't know what his neighbors think the fuck is going on. So, like, I got into him. What else have I been getting into? You know what I'm really into now?

What? They have these fucking videos of, like, the greatest hits of when detectives get people in the room. Oh, yes. To finally admit that they did it. Psychopath finally realizes that he's not, the detective knows what's going on or whatever. Or, like, guy who murdered all these people. people finally comes clean. And if someone's cut the video, they've got a narrator like now, Detective Dumbenzheim

will finally confront him with the, and you see their techniques because, you know, they have the camera up in the ceiling. And all these things, they little by little, they move in tighter and tighter to the guy. That's one of the techniques I've learned, you know, they get closer and closer. And, you know, they do good cop, bad cop. They bring in, they switch into a woman, like all these techniques. And, you know, if you watch it for hours, it'd be so boring. but they've edited it down to like the most insane.

It's like fucking red zone. It's like, or strike zone or whatever it's called in an American football. It's American football when the football's live on a Saturday. It's only games that are in the final 10 yards. And it just cuts between that. It's a highlight reel of the interrogation. This is that for interrogation. But they cut like a specific case down to the last like 30, well, the story of the progression of I didn't do it to, okay, I did it to 30 minutes.

Yep. And it's fascinating. Oh, man, the algorithm knows I like that. I do want to do something with that. Just creatively, I've been talking to a director about, I'm really interested. I love adolescence that show with the oners and everything. I love that show because I thought it was so brilliant,

even outside of the incredible craftsmanship of making it as a oner. But I really am interested in that world of the digital detective work and the performance of getting someone who's done something horrific to finally admit it. I think that's so interesting. I would be very interested. I was trying to think in my mind of a TV show where the detective's personal cost of hypervigilance has been played out recently. And I can't quite think of one.

The reason that comes to mind, I had a conversation with a guy called, called Amir Levine and he wrote the book Attached, that it kind of broke attachment theory into the world. I think it's the best-selling attachment book and he's just written a new one called Secure, which is a revisitation and evolution on the previous one. One of the studies that he taught me about was they bring people into a lab

who have had their attachment styles assessed in advance and there's some anxious people in the room, there's some avoidant people in the room, then some secure people in the room. And part way three, the conversation, it might be one of those ones where they don't know whether it's started or not yet, there might be in the waiting room or whatever. And a computer that's in this office or whatever that they're sat in, computer over the far side, just gently starts wafting smoke out of it,

as if there's some sort of computer fire that's about to occur. And he said that the anxious people are the first ones to notice, but the avoidant people are the first ones out the door. Hmm. And what he was thinking about, because he spent all of this time talking about well, this is what it's like to be an avoidant or a dismissive avoidant or an anxious person or a secure person. And much of what you're talking about, unless you're talking about secure attachment,

is here are the problems. Here are the challenges that you need to face heroes out to overcome them. He's like, well, what about the advantages? Because there have to be advantages because this has been selected for, right? Evolutionarily, this has been selected for. So you have a degree of hypervigilance

in the anxious people that's allowed them to pay attention to something that everybody else might not have noticed. the avoidant people are much quicker to make a decision. You know, the angst, oh, should we leave? Is it going to upset someone? I'm not too, the avoidant person's like, just wily coyoteed out the door.

And what that led him to explain to me was, if you were someone that's an EMT or if you were a SWAT guy, people who are avoidantly attached are able to partition off part of their brain. Like, I don't need those emotions. right now. I don't need you, rumination. I don't need you worry. I don't need you, whatever. I got a job to do or I just don't want to engage. And the ability to, I just don't want to engage also means that there's a person bleeding on the side of the street and I just need to do my job. I need to be a professional here. That's the avoiding person? Correct. Wow. Yes, their ability to partition off

little bits, but they wouldn't pay the same level of attention. So if you were to cast, let's say a cop show in this manner, you would expect most of the guys that are the kinetic door kickers to be avoidantly attached and you would expect most of the detectives that are paying an awful lot of attention to be anxiously attached

because they're going to be, interesting, I noticed that the killer's shoe was untied on one side. I wonder what the... That's how he choked it, that's how he choked, whatever the fuck. Like, that... And what would be fascinating to me

would be looking at somebody from the role of a detective who has this unbelievable I mean you've seen this with Sherlock Holmes to a degree Benedict Cumberbatch's replaying of that kind of hears this unreasonably attention to detail guy in his professional life that can't switch it off in his private life

but I think seeing what you are praised for in public you pay for in private how could that show up inside of a crime detective thing I think would be really cool you've got something that's so pro-social and the lorded

bringing baddies to heal and you know catching the crimes yeah but then also you've got what's the what's the same talent causing on the other side

and how is this person paying for it that would be fun that's interesting I you know you see aspects of the detective work in the in the interrogation room in you know almost every detective cop show or movie but I I'm curious

I mean, this is just a side note. It's something I'm curious about to develop for some project in the future is really focusing on all these techniques they are employing. Sometimes they're bad techniques that they shouldn't be doing. They're manipulative and they get false confessions and all that kind of stuff. But I haven't seen anything that's really focused on their different strategies. I think it's interesting. What are the, what are some of the coolest strategies?

that come to mind because I remember seeing... One thing I just watched recently where this guy wasn't even speaking and he was just silent. And they, these two guys were being aggressive and they were like, we know what you did. We got, and they did have a lot of evidence that it was him. They just needed him to say it. And they said, let's give the female detective a try.

And she came in and she went 180 degrees different. She was like, are you cold, sweetheart? Let me get you a, let me get you a, a, a blanket. She got him a blanket. She said, you hungry? And he kind of nodded, and she got him food. And she kind of just sat next to him and

little by little he started opening up to her. And it was, you know, that's a subtle thing, but, you know, there, and then he eventually confessed. And, uh, it was all of, all of them strategizing for how to get him to, I don't know, I just think that that, that's, all the stuff those guys are

Guys and gals are taught and then employed is really interesting to me. That would be fascinating. One thing that they all do without fail is move closer and closer and closer as the person is getting closer to confessing. They move their physical position. Did they say why? I think it's just like intimacy and closeness and I don't know. That's what's been studied to work on people.

Maybe create a sense of inescapableness, too, that as this person is opening up a bit more, they're backed into a corner, they're backed into a corner. I'm sure. I don't really fully know the psychology of it. But you would have three consultants, criminology. Oh, I would fully research it. But it would be fucking sick, because now you know all of this stuff, which would just be fun to know. Yeah, well, you could employ it in your real life. Where were you last night? Negotiate a cheaper espresso over the counter because you got in close.

and tried to touch someone on the arm twice. Yeah. You saw adolescence, right? I did. So that third episode with the psychics. The lady's circling in the... Yeah. I mean, that was just, that's an example where it was done just brilliantly of her being,

she's not a detective, she's a psychologist, I believe. And, uh, but their dynamic, uh, and the kid is such an extraordinary, they're both extraordinary actors. But that was an example of a fictional account of why I thought that was so brilliant. Yeah. Just it's all dialogue. all brilliant acting, just focused on peeling away the layers. I'd love to see something like that, more of something.

I'm personally interested in something like that. Fuck, what was that thing with Kit Harrington in it? The first episode, it was on Netflix. And then they did a French version. And the whole thing is set inside of one of these. So there's been something like this made. Well, tell me, because I'll watch it tonight. I'm going to fight.

Dude, it fucking rules. Kit Harrington, Detective Confession. series. Let's see if I can get it. A fucking criminal. It's on Netflix. Thank you. And there's two seasons now. And it's...

One ticket sold. Dude, it fucking rules. So the whole thing is set. I don't think they ever leave the floor that this is on. They sometimes go outside for a shit coffee and then come back in. But yeah, that was really, really cool.

I'm interested in what you think about you the network TV is supposed to be dead thing yeah scrubs revival pulls in like 11 million it did really well people within the first five days yeah they were wrong what do you think that says about where audiences really are i do think they um are still you know there's there's a lot of metrics now for for um for television both broadcast and streaming the first is the live viewing that means you watched it when it was live. Then they're very interested in what the live viewing plus three days was. How many people devired it?

I either devired it and watched it within three days or a stream. It was on the streaming platform. They watched it with three days. And then the next metric they're most interested in is plus seven days. How many people streamed it or watched the DVR they did of it within seven days. So all of those numbers are very important to the modern day streamers and networks. The numbers of people watching broadcast are completely a tiny fraction of what they were back when Scrubs was on television. And, you know, shows like Friends were getting numbers like you can't believe.

I mean, I don't have the stats in front of me, but like the MASH finale was like, you know, a large percentage of Earth was watching it, you know? that's just gone in terms of a live thing other than the Super Bowl and I'm sure certain soccer games it's just not a thing anymore Olympics opening ceremony whatever they are we all know what they are they're usually sports

the final thing but the numbers still are there on broadcast TV for certain shows people do want to not have Survivor is huge. You know, there are comedies, you know, like Scrubs and Abbott and, for example, that are doing really meaningful numbers because people do still watch broadcast. There are plenty of people that they skew older.

Obviously, a younger demographic is going to stream. They don't know broadcasts. They didn't grow up with it. I wouldn't be able to watch it. I don't think I have a device in my house. Yeah, there's a lot of... That would be able to access live TV. Well, you could really put rabbit ears on your TV.

Go old school. Yeah. You can... But the crazy thing about broadcast is it's in the air. It's free. Snagget. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the cold open.

No, it's being broadcast to antennas that you could just put an antenna to TV. Stay there. And there's plenty of people, believe it or not, that still are watching, you know, the broadcast... channels only they don't have they you know of course uh an older audience um so um but all of those pockets of the pie all of those slices of the pie are are are meaningful and important so there's the broadcast uh slice and then there's the then there's the streaming plus three plus seven those are those are all people we want to uh to watch the show a funny interesting that's happened thing and interesting then is fuck take three an interesting thing

that's happened is that a giant really meaningful number of people went, oh shit, I never watched this show and went back and started the series. Cool. And that's really cool because although it's going to be a minute before their numbers affect the new show, because they're going to have eight and a half long, they got eight and a half seasons to watch. Yeah, it's a big run. But that's really cool, too, because plenty of people said to themselves, oh, I'm interested in this, but I never watched it.

So I should probably start at the beginning. So that's been cool, too, because the one thing that's fun about the revival is if you're liking it and you're responding to it, like it seems a lot of people are, and you like these characters, and you never watched the show. Well, guess what? There's eight years of how they became who they are, which is. It's basically a massive prequel, but it wasn't. This is the sequel. But you've watched the sequel first. So go back and watch the sequel.

Right, which if you love it is so cool. I would love that. It's kind of like, you know, House of Dragons Game of Thrones five. That's exactly what I was thinking. Exactly what I was thinking. If you're trying to go from Joey Chestnut to Joey Swole, the RP Strength app is the best place to start. I've been in the gym for two decades, and it wasn't until this last year that I had some of the best training sessions of my life, and R.P. was a massive part of that.

Actual scientist built this thing around the obsession to beat up their high school bullies and provide the most science-backed effective path to maximizing muscle gain. It tells you your exercises, how many sets, reps, the weights, everything. So all you have to do is show up and lift. If the RP Strength app could wipe your ass for you, probably would. And it adjusts automatically every week based on how you're actually progressing. For me, following a proper evidence-based plan has made a massive difference. And if you're serious about your training, it'll do the same for you. Right now, you can follow the exact same training plan that I use and get up to $50 off the RP hypertrophy app

by going to the link in the description below. heading to RPstrength.com slash modern wisdom and using the code modern wisdom at checkout. That's rpsstrength.com slash modern wisdom and modern wisdom at checkout. You know, I watched, I watched

a fucking, is it a knight of, a knight of the kingdoms, the novella about Duncan and Egg, which is the new Game of Thrones thing. Oh, I didn't watch it. Was it good? No. Such a shame.

I'm such a massive Game of Thrones fan. I like to tell us. the dragon. I thought that was fucking wonderful. But nothing can beat that first season of Game of Thrones. That was just like, I'm not into that genre at all. At all. You don't need to be. And they got me. They got everybody. I mean, I was at uni. No, I wasn't. I wasn't at uni, but I was still in Newcastle when it was happening. And the volume of extras that they needed with British accents in and around island, or able to access island was so fucking high

that basically anyone I knew with a beard was being tapped up I wasn't a beardy man at the time unfortunately but we had a friend who had kind of long hair looked sort of warlocky and he went and was an extra in one of the scenes for the thing

because it's like we just need people that are in the fucking British Isles to come and do the thing and also it's cool because they don't make TV on that scale that much these days and as someone who'd love and loves production and loves filmmaking.

The scene, I mean, it became so fun to watch the behind the scenes after the show. One of the best parts. Because it was like, wow, how did you do that? And I loved that aspect of it too, just to watch, you know, big productions. A movie being done once a week, a movie being released once a week, movie quality stuff. And they were, remember the, what's the one, the big battle where he's, where Kid Harrington Surrounded, we're really talking about a lot of Kid Harrington today, but where he's surrounding, but where he's surrounded the Battle of the Bastars, I think it was called or whatever.

Yeah, your guys are nodding. That was just one of the most incredibly done episodes of television ever. And then you had the fun if you're into this stuff of watching, how the fuck did they do that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's one of my favorite things when that was coming out, I would watch the episode and then there's a channel called Emergency Awesome, and he does breakdowns of everything.

The guy's like been doing it for quite a while. huge channel and he would explain exactly what was going on in the episode and it kind of gazumped I found out that uh spoiler alert that John Snow was a Targaryen like a full season before it happened on the show because he'd realized oh this flashback is with fucking Ned Stark and this thing so he's helping you get out of context that you wouldn't necessarily be he's read it he's like the Sherlock Holmes of watching series and um well he does it on a lot of shows oh he does it for fucking in all sorts, yeah, pretty much every big series that's coming out, he seems to be, of a fantasy

comedy comedy genre. But one of the things that was fun there was he basically, and I realized this with Game of Thrones in particular, he was using the Chekhov's gun thing as a real hack for what was going to happen in future episodes. So there was basically nothing that happened after season three, especially season four in Game of Thrones that was superfluous. nothing. Even though it was big and quite unwieldy, there was never a pumpkin reference that was done that wouldn't pay off at some point in future. And he would always be able to say,

I know it's going to happen next week, this is what's going to go on because we've just seen this thing happen. You might have noticed that they brought up that she wasn't talking much recently and that's because, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I was like, this guy's fucking press. I know, I know, but I got, and I did kind of ruin the series for myself. I did kind of ruin it, But I got so much joy out of, you know, an hour, hour and a bit of the episode, then the 20 minute, 20 minute of the behind the scenes. Then the next day I'd go and watch Emergency Awesome. That would be another hour.

And I was like, oh, dude, I'm getting like fucking triple my money. I didn't watch trailers if I know I'm going to go see a movie. There's a lot that's revealed now. Yeah, if I'm excited, like I just went and saw the Ryan Gosling movie, Project Tell Mary, which I, everyone was talking about and I was excited. And I thought to myself, I'm not even going to watch the trailer because I want to go have a great experience and not know what to expect i mean i know it's an astronaut movie i don't want to know anything else and uh that's how i that's how i am with most uh when i know i'm going to go to the theater

i don't watch the trailer that's fun i once got um neely got ejected from harry potter and the cursed child uh so me this is uh february 2022 in manhattan and i went with Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Michaela Peterson, Tammy Peterson, a couple of their friends, and it was when COVID masks were still mandatory. And we were all sat in the line.

I'd moved to America two days before. So I was still, I was, I guess, crazy, it's so big, all of the people, some of them are fat, some of them are beautiful, that's crazy. And then we got to downtown Manhattan, we go to the show, and everyone's supposed to have masks on. But you're allowed to, you can move the mask to one side.

if you'd taken a drink. And obviously everyone's having refreshments, doing stuff like that. And maybe somebody had taken, there was a chagrin to the fact that Jordan and Douglas, who were right-coded were at this theater or something like that with the manageress and the staff, something. Somebody was scrutinizing the amount of time

that it was taking Tammy to pull her mask down to take a sip of water to then put the mask back up and had come over and mentioned, maybe she'd taken it off and taking a drink or whatever, come over and brought that up during the show. And then I don't think the response had been super cordial though. It had been like, okay, whatever you say. And then it happened again.

And then someone stood at the end of our row and basically was sort of like on mask watch, watching them. And I could hear, I was sat next to Douglas, and I could hear Douglas doing breathing exercises trying to keep himself calm. He's going, I don't know. What an anxious

My anxiety is creeping up because of the thought of watching a play like that. Well, I'm watching this while you're watching me. Anyway, the interval, the halftime interval, walked out and I say, I can't wait to watch this. So sure enough, I go through and I see Jordan and Douglas talking to the manager lady, venue manager, and I hear Jordan doing...

So what do you mean by mask? Exactly. And what do you mean my sip? Exactly. And sure enough, this lady was really, really pushing the limit of this. And we, I think we were able to stay. I think we stayed until the end, but in a disgruntled way. And that was, I was like, I've been in America three days.

And this place is like, it's just so much more, people are so much more prepared to call out the things that they don't want on both sides. You know, in the UK, the manageress would have apologized and the person that had done it would have, they would both apologize to each other. I was an insane time. Everyone was so on edge, you know. Yeah, that was an interesting one. Unreal, man. I'm really happy for you. It's cool to see someone go full circle and really love what they do.

You're awesome. Thank you. I really love your show, and I love when I catch lots of inspiring advice from your Instagram clip, so I really appreciate what you do. I appreciate you, man. Good luck. Let's keep in touch. Yeah.

Appreciate you. Goodbye, everyone.