On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Zachary Levi: ON Growing from Depression, Anxiety, and Mental Health

Episode Date: April 22, 2019

On this week's episode, Shazam’s Zachary Levi opens up like never before.He shares his personal struggles with depression, anxiety and mental health as well as how meditation, prayer, and therapy have helped him grow from it all.If you are going through a tough time, this episode will help you shift your mindset and trust that, as cliche, as it sounds, everything happens for a reason.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What do a flirtatious gambling double agent in World War II? An opera singer who burned down an honorary to kidnap her lover, and a pirate queen who walked free with all of her spoils, haven't comment. They're all real women who were left out of your history books. You can hear these stories and more on the Womanica podcast. Check it out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen. Conquer your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the Before Breakfast podcast. In each bite-sized daily episode, time management and productivity expert, Laura Vandercam,

teaches you how to make the most of your time, both at work and at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights keeps our bodies strong as we age, learning new skills is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before breakfast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season, and yet we're constantly discovering new secrets.

The variety of them continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's unfortunate that abuse and trauma and mental illness are being passed down generationally,

but it can be helped, it can be fixed, we can love ourselves, and we can love each other, we can go make the world so groovy. and we can love each other. We can go make the world so groovy. and live in your lives, it's amazing that you're choosing transformation over everything else and I really value that and I appreciate you making that commitment in your life. And today's guest, as you know, we always like to bring on people who are sharing their authentic energy and today we're 100% not disappointed.

I'm so excited. Today's guest is an American actor and singer. You may know him from Chuck or the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And now he stars in DC's brand new movie, Shazam as Shazam. Zachary Levi, thank you so much for being here. I honored to be here, man. Thank you so much for having me.

Jay Shetty, everyone. Jay Shetty. Oh, no. That is so good. I practice it at night. So, I'm not. You were doing accents earlier too, and I was thinking, well, this is really good.

What's that doing, actually? You were. What was I doing? You doing the Italian was thinking, wow, this is really good. What's that doing accents? You were. What was I doing? You doing the Italian. Oh, Italian. That's right, that's right. You always have to do with the hands though. Otherwise, you're not really doing it.

You've got it. Yeah, you've got it down. But no, I'm genuinely, and I mean this from Bonnemar. I'm genuinely so grateful that you're here. Me too. When my team and I were looking through your work, your words, your insights, the types of things that you choose to speak about,

whether you're on interviews or social media, I feel so aligned and connected to them. And I was like, one thing I love about this podcast and the reason why we do it is I want to go beyond the actor, beyond the singer, beyond what someone does day to day. Into the human being. Into the human being, like you said, the first thing you said, exactly, really, by the human being. Yeah, thank you, Zach, I really appreciate you being here. Happy to be here.

But yeah, so I want to start because what I love is that I feel like the world's just getting to learn about you even more and more and more and more right now. And that's very exciting. Yeah, yeah, I mean, so, you know, I've been blessed enough to be kicking around this town or this business rather for about 20 years. I mean, almost exactly.

I started auditioning for film and television when I was 18. It was April of 1999 and now it's April of 2019. And it's been a crazy 20 years. I mean, this town can be incredibly exciting. It can also be incredibly dark, a very difficult place to try and find yourself, particularly when you don't know that you're trying to find yourself as I've come to find out. To be here now, and, you know, I mean, I've always had a really blessed career in that I started working pretty much right away when I was about 18. I started working pretty much right away

when I was about 18, I started booking gigs, and I've been able to build some bit of, I don't know, a social awareness or people, I've been living in the public eye to some extent, but this is a whole nother level of what that is. And I'll say, man, I think the timing of all of it, and we can get, you know, into more details of it, obviously, but it's one of the things I talk about so much

on my social media as mental health, and loving oneself, and self-love, self-care. And those are things I didn't really quite understand until I didn't want to live anymore a few years ago, and then went and did a super deep dive into therapy and had a ton of work that I was doing with psychiatrist and psychotherapist, dialectic behavioral therapy, art therapy, meditation therapy,

life coaching, like going into the gym, meditation and prayer. And my friends and family loving me through all of that and really just saving my own life. And on the heels of that, I got this job. And that is no coincidence as far as I'm concerned. I think that I, the, as a deeply spiritual person who believes in a creator, I believe that this was all

waiting to happen, perhaps as things time out in the way that they do, I think that they do, in meaningful ways, and I think that the timing of me being able to now have this platform is directly tied to the work that I went and did on my life so that I can now talk about that work and talk about the importance of it. And it's awesome, man. I'm really grateful that not only that I have this incredible new job and that it's changing my life on a daily basis, I mean, I still walk around and most people don't know the heck I am.

That's the most of the time I've lived in a reasonable anonymity, most of my career, which has been quite an amazing blessing, because I don't know what it's like to be Brad Pitt because I don't know what it's like to be Brad Pitt. I don't know what it's like to be Tom Cruise. I don't know what it's like to not be able to go anywhere without people mobbing you or whatever, or if people do. I don't know, maybe Tom Cruise walks around

people don't mob him either. I have no idea. Maybe you know what the right set of sunglasses in a hat, you're good. But I do, I've always believed that you be grateful for what you have when you have it. I appreciated that anonymity. If I lose some of that moving into this next phase of my life, then so be it. I'm happy for the trade-off to be able to now have more of a platform to be able to speak love into the world because I think I do believe that God created me to do what I'm doing.

To be an entertainer, I think I have a specific skill set and I've always had this skill set. Even since I was a little kid, I was very good at entertaining people and could keep growing at it and figuring it out in ways that I couldn't grow and figure out other things in my life, still trying to figure out how to be a better basketball player.

But to be able to believe that I was created to do that is one thing. But after having gone through all the therapy and the life saving stuff that I've done and learned and the self-love that I've learned, I really believe more than that, I think God created me to hopefully just be, or really has created all of us to be conduits of love, conduits of life, conduits of light. And if we can get through our own traumas and our own pain and our own injuries and find healing in that, then it allows us to be even stronger, more efficacious conduits. And so, yeah, I don't know, it's all very cool.

I just daily feel like a deep, deep, deep, deep gratitude. Like to the point where I just start crying sometimes, you know? And it's incredible to go from a place where I felt such deep despair. And I was crying from despair. So now feeling like I just tear up, feeling nothing, but like the deepest of peace and joy and gratt. I mean, leave I just get I just tear up feeling nothing but like the deepest of peace and joy and I mean, leave it now, even just talking about it, I just

go overwhelmed. I'm like, I can't believe that this is my life right now. It's so cool. That's awesome, man. That's beautiful. We're three minutes in. In fact, really, but it's already talking about self love. Hell yeah, mental health, going deep in life, talking about humanity. I love that. And I'm so glad that we've started there. Like, this is really like, usually, usually I'm like, okay, like, we're like crescendo, like we're moving through, like, and like, and like, here we go with Zach. And it's like, we're three minutes in and you're already saying everything that I know everyone who's listening right now will, will absolutely fall in love with you because that's, that's what this is about. Like, this whole community is about that. Now, I want to, everything,

what's beautiful about what you've just done for us is you've kind of laid out all the things I want to dive into it today. Yeah, let's do it. So I love that because everyone's got to feel for who you are now already. And I want you to be able to tell that story in depth because I'm guessing, and I love what you said there,

that when you were crying out of despair and now you're crying out of gratitude, those two different, I'm also guessing that because of your faith, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, I'm also guessing that because of your faith, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I also guess that because of your faith, because of your search for meaning in your own life,

that even those tears, how far were they from helplessness versus how far were they hopeful? Like where were you in that space? When you were really in that middle, how much were they helpless, but how much were they full of hope? You know, I don't know. I mean, to be honest,

most of my life, I've been a pretty optimistic and hopeful person, but there have been seasons, excuse me, there have been seasons of life that have just destroyed me. And sometimes I wasn't even aware that they were destroying me. In fact, I think a lot of the times

we're not really aware of the destruction that's going on. And a lot of that, we play a big part in. I think a lot of the destruction that we feel in our life is self-motivated, is self-destructive. We don't know that we're doing that. We're trying to feel like we belong, that we have worth. I think from the literally the minute we come into this world,

I mean, even though we're not quite aware of it when we're that young, but we're looking for cues from our parents, we're looking for cues from our friends, our family, our school, our society. Who am I? Do I have worth in this world? And unfortunately, I think most people's parents

are not qualified to be able to even help them truly understand a lot of these concepts because they were never taught, which then makes all mental health as far as I'm concerned a completely generational thing. These are just handed down year after year after year. So I think that I was given a strong enough will and spirit and ego, if you will, talking about like sapiens

and all that, you know, like the ego that we build, which is our survival mechanism, you know, and we get banged around and it's denting us and it's forming this thing, but I survived and I survived pretty well. And I found entertainment as a way of survival. I found love through entertainment. If I could make somebody laugh,

and I could get those applause, I found, I was like, oh, there's my purpose. I have value now because I can make this person applaud or give them a good time or whatever, but when the applause dies down, it becomes a very lonely life. And then you try to fill that loneliness with all manner of things.

So I think for a long time, though I was optimistic and though my faith, which is kind of rooted mainly in Christianity, although I would say my Christianity feels much more Buddhist than Baptist, I think that I always had faith, a deep faith, and therefore a deep hope with that faith, but under all of that even,

or let's say above all of that, I don't know which current was, you know, which one's sitting on the other, but there was a tremendous amount of despair. There's a tremendous amount of hopelessness because I still didn't quite understand what it meant to just love myself. And I think that's one of the, I mean, honestly, that's why I can't stop talking about it because after having gone through what I've gone through, I really genuinely believe that it's probably the biggest root issue that we have in the world, in the world. Amen. Absolutely. World leaders right now, pick a country. Our country here, other places, there are people who are

in positions of power and they're in positions of power because they've been chasing worth. They don't know how bereft they are of their own self worth. They have been flexing power and making moves and feeling, oh, if I make enough money, if I have enough power and if I have enough money, look at some of the biggest, you know, CEOs or most, you know, wealthy people in the world. I think they're probably some of, and you hear these things all the time, like, well, you know, the most successful people in the world. I think there are probably some of, and you hear these things all the time, like, well, you know the most successful people in the world are some of the loneliest or whatever.

And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah, great. I would take billions of dollars over whatever the alternative is. But I really do think that so many of them, even though they might not even realize it, are hopeless. They don't realize that they are terrified, deep down inside, that even their billions or trillions or whatever they've got, it's still not going to give them any actual real value going into whatever is beyond this world,

or even while you're here in this world, you know? So anyway, that was a little bit of a tangent, they're a little bit of a tangent, but going back though, what I was experiencing, although again, like you unpack a lot of this stuff in therapy, but I grew up in a home where my mom was a beautiful, crazy intelligent, vibrant, dynamic woman who honestly probably could have done anything. She could

have been a CEO of a Fortune 500. She could have been a doctor, a lawyer, whatever. She was an incredible force that unfortunately was, you know, that grew up in a home where her mother psychologically abused her and her siblings. And we knew that a little bit growing up, but you know, you just hear mom, you know, honestly just like yelling about how her mom was such a horrible mom. And it's a difficult thing when you're growing up now with a mom who didn't understand the damage that that did to her. And so she just carried on that abuse. And she was very psychologically abusive to me and my sisters, not knowing that she was.

And that was one of the biggest things I learned in therapy was as I was forgiving myself and understanding how to forgive my mom because I just started visualizing the five year old version of my mom getting, you know, hit or literally left on the side of the road when they were on some family road trip. And my grandma was mad at her. I was like kicked her out of the car and left her there for hours. And you start realizing how much trauma, like we've all experienced trauma. Trauma isn't just like some really crazy hardcore thing that like, oh, you got like blunt force trauma to the head. I mean, we're dealing with these things on a regular basis, on a daily basis sometimes. And my mom was madly traumatized by my grandmother and she never went and got the help that she

needed to get. And so that just got worse and worse and worse and worse. And the life that I grew up with in my family really, really messed me up. More so than I ever gave a credit for because my ego was strong enough to keep me going. It kept me going. I was surviving and I was surviving. It's incredible how evolutionarily, we've been able to create this whole persona and survive through this stuff. But as a lot of people tell you, whether that's like a mid-life crisis or whatever it is, you get to a place and mine was, you know, I basically got to,

And mine was, you know, I basically got to, I had a gnarly childhood growing up. I didn't realize just how much that affected me and my ability to love myself and therefore love others. I ended up getting married and divorced in a very short amount of time to a girl that I thought I was deeply madly in love with. And I still have a tremendous amount of love for. But we were two, I think, broken people, finding each other, which is what happens

in a lot of relationships, I think, because if you haven't done the self-work, and you don't know that you needed to do that self-work, then you're gonna keep attracting the wrong person, and they're gonna be attracting you as the wrong person, and so on, and so forth. And so that was a really, really dark period in my life. And then I got divorced.

And then months later, you know, within the same year, my mom died very unexpectedly, although she and I didn't really have a relationship for about 10 years by that point. And it was really, and I mourned for a couple of days when she died. But I then kind of, you know, I was, I was okay. Or I thought I was okay.

I thought I had dealt with it. And then, you know, work this business. Again, it's a really gnarly business and it can really knock you around and beat you up. And then I made this move to Texas because I've had all of these crazy amazing dreams of, well, I think amazing, who knows if they pan out, but to go build, I mean,

to go build a film studio that's also a resort, that's also a commune, that's also like, like literally I just, I wanna make a better world and I think that we can do that if we all want it, and we have to just want it bad enough. And I think that if you do that if we all want it. And we have to just want it bad enough. And I think that if you have a platform to maybe go and try and do that, and you've got some means and some finances to go and maybe build

a new type of community that can be an example of how we can get back to knowing each other and loving each other and trusting each other and communing again with one another and knowing your neighbor and kids running around and parents not feeling like that, the helicopter parent them all the time. And all of that stuff. So anyway, that all brought me to Texas.

But then I got there and then I felt after many years of feeling very optimistic and feeling a deep faith, I felt quite abandoned by God, to be honest. I felt like all of the things that led me there then left me alone and left me sitting alone and and very deeply hopeless and and that was right around my 37th birthday and and I yeah I just I didn't really understand what the point of life was anymore. I felt like I had fought really hard to go and be a good person, to go and love people, to be an example, to try and use my platform

and privilege for good. And I felt like all of that amounted to me now being completely alone and completely hopeless. And thank God, I had friends and family that were there and kind of holding my hand and propping me up through some really, really dark moments and times. And then I found this place that I think was essentially initially created to be a place where CEOs of very large

companies could, that were dealing with major burnout, major depression, major anxieties could go and just get some major deep healing. And I went and it was three weeks of just like the most intense. I got there and, you know, I fell through the door of that place. It was like, I got to 37 and I just fell through the door therapy and I said, I don't know who I am. Or I don't think I know who I am

because I don't know how it got me here. So I need I know who I am because I don't know how it got me here. So I need to know who I am and I need to know how I got here. And I need to make sure that that never happens again because I don't want to die, but I don't really feel, I don't understand why I should keep living. And through all of those things that I was saying earlier, all those various forms of therapy and psychiatry and even, and again, like, you know, doing yoga twice a week and Pilates twice a week and at the gym for the, you know, because that's all incredibly crucial to our mental and

emotional well-being. Those things all essentially end the prayer of this, particularly this one woman who kind of, and I don't think it's any coincidence that God has brought these people into my life throughout my journey, but there have been women, older maternal women that have come along through my journey that have been those surrogate mothers for me when my mother wasn't my mother and couldn't be my mother.

And this woman prayed me back to life and between that and all of the tools that I was learning about, you know, learning about how bad my self-talk was, you know. That's something that I don't think a lot of people even quite understand how important it is of how you speak to yourself. Let's dive into that. Let's do it. Yeah, let's dive into that.

No, and when I'm listening to you, sorry, by the way, I am incredibly verbose and tangential FYI. It's so, I'll incredibly verbose and tangential FYI. It's so, I'll just keep going, unless you're listening. No, no, no, and I won't, because I love listening, because I think that's important too. Sure. I think as much as it is important for me to guide,

I also like to listen and see what you're taking it because, and this is advice to anyone who's listening to a friend or a family member, you learn more when you listen. And I'm learning so much more about you than I could have ever gained if I was talking, which is awesome. When I'm listening to you though, what I find is that today I'm sitting in front of someone who I find is extremely passionate, feels that they're living their calling, feels that they're doing what they were born to do, which is very different from the self that you're

displaying or sharing that you were before. And so what I want to dive into, we'll dive into the self-talk, but what I want to dive into is let's take you back to that six-year-old boy who was getting excited by dance, singing, acting. But at the same time, I had this home experience that you were describing with your mother at the time. Is that when singing, dancing, and acting at the time, is that when singing

dancing and acting became that outlet, became that expression, became that connect, which you weren't getting at home, is that when it was, or was it actually just something that came naturally? I mean, I think I can't imagine that there's not some correlation to what my childhood was and then ultimately where I found outlets. I was the middle boy between two sisters. My dad wasn't in the picture. I was literally just like floating in a sea of estrogen.

Like it was my sister's, my mom, my two aunts, my cousin Nikki, who's like our third sister, my grandma, family outings were going to JC Penney's and shopping. I mean, that's what it felt like. So as a middle kid, you're looking to have a voice and have an identity of your own. That's one thing.

Being the only boy, I was constantly having to kind of create my own worlds of imagination and entertainment. And not really having parents. Like, my dad was gone. My mom got blessed and got a rest of soul. She had a lot of issues and she wasn't the best. She was really incredible as a mom in some respects. And I'm really grateful for those things that she did. For example, like, she was way ahead of the curve when it came to like a natural, pathic lifestyle. We were taking vitamins and like barley, green and not having sugared cereal or soda when we were kids.

And when all the other kids are like, you don't have coca-pasta, I was like, I know it's the worst. But I'm so grateful that my mom knew and cared about all that stuff well before the curve because I don't now have problems dealing with my sugar levels and obesity and ways that a lot of other people have been addicted to this stuff for so long. Sugar is a crazy addiction. Anyway, again, 10-gen. So yeah, man, I think I was always just trying to, and I was, and I always had like a super vibrant imagination, and I was a super, super energetic spazzy kid.

So all of those things just, oh, sorry. And then because we didn't really have a tremendous amount of, let's say, parental supervision or whatever, you know, the television became, and then also my video games through the television became worlds that I explored and lived in and loved. And so I was already being influenced by all of my favorite cartoons and TV shows

and those became, I don't know, my friends necessarily, but I loved them and I wanted to emulate them and I wanted to be a part of them. So all of those things, I think, kind of put me into the place for that, having a household where I, though I didn't know it at the time, where I wasn't, where I didn't understand self-love, where I didn't, where I didn't know that I wasn't feeling fully loved or fully worthy of

the life that I was living as a kid. You don't, these are all very subconscious things, but certainly I'm sure that led to part of me going and wanting to find that in strangers. Find that in the approval, literally the approval of people going and sitting in seats in a theater and applauding me at the end of a play or laughing at the jokes throughout it. That all of a sudden, like I was saying before, gave me not just an outlet for all of this other stuff, but it gave me the validation that I so desperately was seeking and needing, which is by the way what almost every actor that comes to Hollywood is dealing with on some level, because why the heck

is all you trying to go and make all these straight things? And how do we balance that? Like, I love the fact that we're talking about this, because how do we balance that? I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience,

and the profoundly necessary excavation of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. Something was gnawing at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season 8 of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Not too long ago, in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest, this explorer stumbled upon something that would change his life. I saw it and I saw, oh wow, this is a very unusual situation. It was cacao, the tree that gives us chocolate. But this cacao was unlike anything experts had seen, or tasted. I've never wanted us to have a gun fight. I mean, you saw this tax of cash in our office. Chocolate sort of forms this vortex.

It sucks you in. It's like I you saw the stacks of cash in our office. Chocolate sort of forms this vortex. It sucks you in. It's like I can be the queen of wild chocolate. We're all lost. It was madness. It was a game changer. People quit their jobs. They left their lives behind so they could search for more of this stuff. I wanted to tell their stories, so I followed them deep into the jungle. And it wasn't always pretty. Basically, this like disgruntled guy and his family surrounded the building arm with machetes.

And we've heard all sorts of things that, you know, somebody got shot over this. Sometimes I think, oh, all these for a damn bar of chocolate. Listen to obsessions while chocolate on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The therapy for Black Girls podcast is the destination for all things mental health, personal development, and all of the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. Here, we have the conversations that help Black women dig a little deeper into the most impactful relationships in our lives, those with our parents,

our partners, our children, our friends, and most importantly, ourselves. We chat about things like what to do with a friendship ends, how to know when it's time to break up with your therapist, and how to end the cycle of perfectionism. I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, and I can't wait for you to join the conversation every Wednesday. Listen to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Take good care.

Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, take good care. So we all love from a genuine place also making other people happy. We all need appreciation in our life. We all need to feel some level of significance and some level that we matter, that our work and our words has an impact on others. Where have you found that balance between not letting other people's opinions and approval lead or mislead you versus when is it right and okay to feel that?

Do you remember how I'm saying it? I told you, I mean, I want to hear you find that balance. I want to hear you're from a racist. Where are you finding that balance between knowing that, it's the same with me, when I make a video, of course I want people to connect with it, of course I want people to connect with it, of course I want people to resonate with it, because that's also my service, it's my offering,

it's where I get to be an instrument, and it's where I get to feel useful. But at the same time, if you only let the likes and the views and the shares and the reviews of movies guide how you feel about yourself, that's where I found it, that's my balance. It's like, I should know how I feel about it. So I say happiness or self-love to me and I'd love to your definition. My definition of self-love is how I feel about myself when I'm by myself.

Right? That's my definition of self-love. Yes. What's your definition of self-love and how does it start? Well, I think similar, I think probably very similar. I mean, I didn't realize how much I didn't like hanging out with myself until I went to this really incredible, life-saving therapy. I thought I did. I mean, people would talk about self-love all the time. I was like, I love me. I feel good, you know?

But I didn't realize that when I would be quiet, when I would just be with me, I was always looking for the, I would go play video games, you know, but that's not really spending time with yourself. You're now a simulated version of you in some cool world on another planet shooting aliens or whatever, but that's not really spending time with yourself. And I've always been a very, very deep thinker and feeler. So I've spent a lot of time in thought. It just wouldn't necessarily be about me and it wouldn't be kind to me. Myself talk, again, that I thought was just normal

when I would screw up, when I wouldn't do things, the way that I thought they should be done. And this was all based on the way I was programmed, bad programming by my parents. I would destroy myself in my mind. And when I talked to these folks in therapy and they were like, why do you talk to yourself that way? And I go, well, because of this, that and the other.

And they go, well, would you ever, if your, if your friend did something that you thought wasn't great, would you talk to them that way? And I was like, I would never, I would never talk to them that way. Then why would you talk to yourself that way? And it, like, I would never, I would never talk to them that the way. Then why would you talk to yourself that way? And it, I don't know why I'd never put that together, but it leveled me. I was like, I guess because I genuinely don't like myself. I genuinely don't love myself.

So what self love is, I mean, it's a very difficult thing to kind of define, I suppose, because there's so much around it, but I would say that to love yourself is to hopefully, finally, and by the way, and it's a daily thing because we can go back and forth on it, right? It's not like, oh, it's that solved and we're done

and we can move on. It's a process, it's a journey, and you always have to check in with yourself. And I think that, you know, for me, it's been a matter of, you know, one of the things, I spend time in prayer in the morning and I spend time in prayer at nights and that's kind of my meditative time as well.

And, you know, I, and a regular part of those prayers is thanking God for my heart, my mind, and my body, because these are all things that I have ridiculed in various ways over the years and not embraced and not been grateful for. A gratitude is one of, to me, the most powerful bombs for your soul, for your heart, for your mind to start with that and to say, wherever I'm at right now, thank you for who I am and where I'm at and to appreciate that and be okay with where you are right now. If you can be okay with where you are right now, you can really start to love yourself.

If you're not okay with where you are right now, it's very difficult to then love yourself because they're working, they're contradicting one another, you know. And how to balance that, I mean, I mean, one of the things, I've never, I don't have like notifications on my social media. I've never, I started social media at a time where I was already living the public eyes. So that's, you kinda get inundated, you know, with that many followers. And so fortunately, I've never lived, my world has never been one where I was constantly

looking for the likes. Even when I was unhealthy and didn't know it, I always knew in the back of my mind that that's not a healthy way to be living your life. If you're posting things and you're constantly checking to see who checked in and who liked it and whatever, and by the way, not that I'm completely faultless and all that, certainly there's times I'll post something

and I'll go back and say, oh, what are who's chained in or whatever, you know? But I have never found my worth there. But I have definitely tried, I've looked for and found my worth in my work, in my doing good work. I mean, I thought I was failing my life for a long time because all of the jobs that I had done

never really put me into the next echelon or that higher level where I was with all the cool kids, of the jobs that I had done never really put me into the next echelon or, you know, that higher level where I was with all the cool kids doing all the cool kid movies. And a part of those conversations, I was always, I just always felt like I was on the outside looking in. And that wrecked me on a regular basis. I always felt like I wasn't doing something right or I wasn't good enough for. And I think that's the question. Like when I'm listening to that, that's the question to me.

It's when you're doing something, do you feel fulfilled by doing it in and of itself? Or are you only gaining fulfillment when someone apprauses? Right? Like that's that differentiation. That self-awareness. And for me self-awareness is like the heart of self-love. Yeah.

Because just getting to that point, to know yourself, to know yourself. To know yourself. To love yourself. Yeah. To know yourself first and then to love yourself because you can't love someone you don't know. Right? Like I can't say.

Well, I know what you're saying and I agree. I don't know that you can't fully appreciate or love, to fully love yourself means to love even all of the failure Even all of the all of the all of exactly. Yeah, but I do think on a general Broad philosophical sense we 100% can and need to love those that we don't know. Oh that 100% Yeah, 100% that's all no no I 100% from a humanity standpoint I'll give an example of what I mean like today you walk through the door Yeah, and I love you for being a human,

and I love you for what I've learned about you in preparing for this. Yeah, no. 100%. But I can't love you fully because I haven't got to know you where it's the more I get to know you in this interview, the more I fall in love with you. Thanks.

Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally. And that's what I mean, that even with our soul, knowledge makes the love, do you correct? For sure. That's what I mean. Yeah, that's what I'm coming for. Like when you're subconsciously, well that's empathy. Yeah, that's empathy, you love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love, the love first. Correct, 100%. Which is so, like I really thought I was somebody

who loved people really deeply. And I did, by the way, I've always been, God, I'm so grateful that he gave me a heart that, for a long time, by the way, really screwed with a lot of parts of my life. It made me a very sensitive kid that I would get really wrecked about certain things that would happen in the world.

It had nothing to do with me. And I would literally feel the pain of people in other parts of the world. Or I mean, to be perfectly honest, like India, for example, I can't wait to go to India. And I'm also dreading going to India because there's a part of me that feels like I'm gonna go walk around in those streets

and I will be devastated because I will see these kids and these lower casts and I will be like, where is this, where is the justice? Where is the love for these people? Where is the love for the unlovable? That stuff just wrecks me. But I have always had that deep, a deep love for people. I didn't realize how much deeper I could love people. And by the way, you're not even deeper,

but also in healthier, yes, more focused ways. If you're just a raw, if you're just raw love, and you're just feeling that can be powerful, but you're not perhaps accomplishing as much as you could with that love. And if you can go and then work on yourself and tighten all this and get this strong, and then not just be overwhelmed and screwed up every time something happens, then you can have more of an even steady, focused, strong, effective love, I think, in the world. And that's

where I think I'm now hopefully going into that phase of my life, you know, coupled with wherever my platform might lead me. But yeah, wait, yeah, but you would said something earlier and I'm trying to remember what? Take a time. No, no, no, no, no. Well, we're talking about knowing yourself, loving yourself. Yeah, I mean, I, no, I don't know. I'll think of it as a good factor.

Yeah, yeah, and that's what I think everyone who's listening right now, I think it's going to take a lot of confidence from the fact that the way you're opening up, the way you're sharing your journey and challenges and everything. I'm hoping that everyone is listening or watching right now is listening going, oh my god, I'm there too, or I've been there too. And this is a common experience across the board. Like getting to a point in life and going, I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know if I love myself, like these are all such normal things when I'm all going through.

Everyone, and you reminded me when you were mentioning this point about being in your solitude in space, this study that I love that I share, that talks about how when men and women were given the choice of either being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or give themselves an electric shock, and 60% of men chose an electric shock and 30% of women chose an electric shock. And when they're asked afterwards it was because they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts.

So we're all in that. So now I want to dive into, so everyone is listening right now. We've all been there. We all find distractions whether it's video games, whether it's movies, whether it's Netflix, whatever it is, we're all trying to find this relationship. Relationships. Oh my God. Relationships is one of the biggest. Definitely. Yeah, I just made a video a couple of weeks ago where I was talking about, if you find someone in your loneliness, you often attract emptiness. Yeah, right? Because you've got that in you and there for that attract back. So I want to dive into you because meditation, prayer and therapy are three tools that you really live by and stand by. Yeah. I want to hear about each of those from you, including the self-talk element of how those key foundational principles, and you mentioned yoga and Pilates earlier, I just want to hear

about those kind of like building blocks that have helped you change and transform and grow. Yeah, I mean, so, so prayer. Start whichever one you want. Yeah, I mean, so so prayer. Start with you everyone. Yeah, yeah, so I would say, well, the therapy was, the therapy was kind of like, the prayer has always been a part of my life. My, my spiritual convictions and path have always been very prominent in my life. Although, again, that's been a, an ever evolving and a very interesting journey that I've been on with God for these 38 years. I'm trying to think of like, what's a good way to explain it?

But, you know, thinking, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Therapy to me was probably the most important initial part of it all because you can do a lot of meditation and prayer, but if you're, if you're, oh, you like in Japan. You know how in Japan, there's this tradition

if a bowl breaks, they put it back together with gold, right? And you can see the veins of gold and really makes the beautiful piece. You don't just throw the bowl away, you put it all back together. So I feel like the therapy was the gold that was putting it all, galvanizing me back together, making me whole again. And again, supplemented by and helped by the meditation and prayer around that.

But if you, if your head's not right, if you don't see reality, the way that reality actually is, and therefore, and who you are and how you fit into reality. Prayer and meditation are gonna help treat symptoms, but I don't know that they're gonna get to the root of digging up all of that bad, bad programming, you know? Moreover, and I don't mean this to be offensive to anyone. In fact, I find it to be quite inclusive. We're all mentally ill.

I personally feel like mental health is something we all deal with. If we put health with physical, physical health, nobody has any problems talking about any of. In fact, there's a whole broad spectrum. Physical health is anywhere, or like, if you're physically ill, that can mean anything from the common cold to cancer.

And if you say that I'm ill, no one's like, oh, God, you know, they're going, oh, gosh, what's going on with you? There's not a stigma that's necessarily attached to that. Nobody's judging you necessarily for what's going on in your physical well-being. All of a sudden, you switch out a mental for physical and you say mental illness.

And the only thing that, I mean, now, thank God, we're coming to a much better place in society. But for the longest time, mental illness was straight jacket, rubber room, you're crazy, that's it. We have to start reassessing that massively and understand that to be mentally ill, to use a, I think a dental analogy, probably is the best I've come up with. All of us have cavities from time to time.

All of us deal with mental illness, little cavities in our heads. And that can be literally how you start your day and you pass somebody on the street and they did a thing and that affected you and now you're allowing it to affect you and now that started a little cavity in your brain and you gotta root that thing out. And for some of us, we're much better at being able to attend to that stuff.

Sometimes we don't, and then that cavity becomes a much bigger cavity. And then all of a sudden, you need a root canal. Some of us out there in the world, I needed a major root canal, the way that I saw myself and the way that I saw how I fit into this world needed to be rooted out of my brain big time. So as soon as I could do that,

going back to the dental analogy, once the dentist could get in there and clean all that crap out, and then fix that and seal that, well then it was a matter of maintaining that and loving myself through all of that. That's where I find the meditation and prayer. To me, prayer and meditation are synonymous.

My prayer time is my meditative time. Occasionally, I will do actual, just straight mindfulness meditation or centering prayer, which is very similar, where you either just focus on your breath or you focus on one word and you kind of have that mantra and you go through that to really just calm it all down calm the mechanism because we live in a world that is so go go go go go go go and it is completely not what our biological evolutionary kind of path has been right we were hunterers going back to like, you've all and sapiens and stuff like that. By the way, reading that book helped me because that context and perspective, I think, is so important in understanding who you are and how you fit into this world and why you got there. And why you got there, exactly.

So I will still have some actual meditation, like proper meditation, but my prayer time coming before the creator and on my knees and asking to be able to walk always in humility, gratitude and trust. Those three words are the, to me, the foundation and cornerstone of my entire life and, yeah, man, yeah, man. In fact, I was thinking about getting HGT type of stuff. Some were on me. I don't know. I'm still working on it. I don't have any tattoos, but I think I might, at some point. But I think that's an awesome description.

Thanks, man. I love the dental analogy. Oh, yeah. I love it. I think it's brilliant. And I think what you're saying is so true that we sometimes think of meditation and prayer as the be all and end all of our transformation. But actually initially it requires that step

of really uprooting, really rewiring the ego, doing the work of just, oh killing the ego. Deepest self reflection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And meditation prayer of course, aid that, but then they become that, they become that momentum that keeps it going, right?

They're the daily cleaning, the daily cleansing, daily cooking. And some people, by the way, and some people are really blessed where they grow up in a household where their parents gave them a great foundation of mental health. They gave them a great foundation

of knowing that they're loved, completely unconditionally, or yeah, unconditionally. Yeah, unconditionally. Yeah, unconditionally. I was like, all of a sudden, I was like, wait, what is that definition? Yeah, where it didn't matter if they, you know,

in my home, if I accidentally dropped a glass and it broke on the ground, if my mom, who, as it turned out, was a borderline personality, if my mom happened to be in a good mood, it was like, oh, that's fine, honey. If she was in a bad mood, it was the end of the world. Now, I didn't realize that every time she snapped at us

and yelled at us or smacked us or whatever that was, I mean, not like smacked us, but you know, give us a swan on the ass or something. Those things were all leading me to having literal trauma switches in my head so that every time I'd then I drop a glass and break something, I beat the shit out of myself. I beat myself up when I would do that. So, I needed to, those are all those little things

where I needed to reprogram, literally rewire the operating system that my mom had given me when I was a kid. I needed an updated operating system. And I think that's what therapy really hopefully allows us to do. If you're born into a home where you're given a pretty good operating system, then meditation and prayer, maybe all you need at least for quite some time until you maybe have more

trauma or more abuse or whatever where you need some more help. But for me, the therapy helped to clean that, uproot that, all that, and the daily practice practice of going and literally falling before God and just wanting to remain in reality, knowing who I am, knowing that my worth has nothing to do with how successful I become or don't become, that there is purpose for me in this world. And that's what I think the trust part comes in. You know, if you're not a very spiritual person or you don't believe in a creator or a higher being or whatever, perhaps you trust in something else, I don't know for me, it's a matter of trusting

that I don't have all the answers. I don't know where my journey is going to go. I don't know how I'm gonna be used in this world and in this life, but I'm going to trust it as long as I keep doing this work The really the only important work that if I do this then everything else will happen the way that it's supposed to happen And that gives me a tremendous amount of peace throughout the journey as well. Yeah, I love that man And I think you're right. I think we all need to trust timing the process universe

Oh my gosh like there you have to find patience, patience, patience, patience. Right, that you've been living in your life and I definitely know that in my life too, when I went off to become a monk at 22 and you know, the reaction from all my friends and family was, well, you're never going to get a job again, like, you know, you're going to be years behind. And I will, and all of those things of like, well, where's your future going to go? And for me, it was, no, I trust that this is the best investment of my time, that this time that I'm going to be spending in meditation and self-growth and awareness and destruction of my ego and all of that is the best thing I could be doing right now.

And almost all we can do is trust the present and trust what we're doing right now. Because we all don't know what's gonna happen in five, 10, 15 years. No, no. And in fact, I, it's so, I mean, it's easy for me to say, I'm in a position now where I'm literally living in some of the most rarefied air that anyone could ever live in to be,

you know, the titular role and a superhero franchise. And this 20 years of incredibly blessed life, like it's not lost on me that people say, man, I'm so happy for you, you really deserve it. And I'm always like, I appreciate that. And I know what you mean by the sentiment, but I actually disagree because I don't know that anybody deserves this.

I mean, look at all the incredible people that have unbelievable hearts and minds that are living in third thermal countries that have nothing. They deserve it. Those people are doing everything that they can just to survive. So I don't know that anybody deserves any of this, but had I known what my life is gonna be like right now a year and a half ago before, like if somehow,

the crystal ball said, oh, don't worry, all the things you're worrying about right now, no, no, don't worry, because what's gonna happen is you're gonna do this and that's gonna happen, blah, blah, blah, blah, and not gonna be there. Well, that would have been pretty incredible, but what had been even better is if a year and a half ago,

two years ago, I would have just known to trust, to be patient with where this is going, because I can't, I wouldn't change anything. A year and a half ago, there's so many things in my past, in my past, that I would have changed in order to maneuver, to get somewhere that I felt like would have been a better place for my life. But now that I am where I am, where I'm sitting, where I'm sitting, I literally wouldn't have changed anything. I wouldn't have changed the trauma that my mom put me through.

I wouldn't change anything about the abuse that I went through because I had I not gone through that. Then I wouldn't be able to sit here literally right now talking to you and hopefully talking to people out there and saying, you're okay. We're okay. We can get through this. This is something that we all are dealing with. It's unfortunate that abuse and trauma and mental illness are being passed down generationally, but it can be helped. It can be fixed. We can love ourselves and we can love each other. We can go make the world so groovy if we can just get this out.

And I wouldn't be able to talk about it as deeply or as passionately or as authentically had I not gone through all of that stuff prior, you know. 100% 100% I couldn't be able to talk about it as deeply or as passionately or as authentically, had I not gone through all of that stuff prior, you know? 100%, 100%, I couldn't agree more. I'm being patient with that, you know? Absolutely, I'm so glad you've driven that. I mean, you're like on fire right now, by the way. As it's so great that you drive that message home because I feel all of us need to be open to the plan.

Like you can get to where you want in life, just knowing the way you imagine it. And that's the challenge that because it doesn't look like your imagination, you don't want to walk down that road. Right? It's like you want it to look this perfect way or a certain way. And I've done that in my life where I thought that success or happiness looked like this. And then when what I was faced with was completely the opposite, it was scary to walk down that path. And the same as what you're saying, like I don't think we wanna blame this on our parents,

I don't think we wanna blame it on, and I don't hear that from you too. You don't wanna blame it on any of those things because those building blocks are gonna give you the journey you need to help more people too. Hopefully. Because this is gonna be a common experience. It's gonna be a shared experience.

And you can only help someone if you've been there before. Well, and that's why it's important, I think, that people, you know, particularly when it comes to mental health, we need to be brave enough to be vulnerable enough with our journey and our testimony. You're doing it, man. You're doing it, man. Well, I appreciate that. But it's not even, I don't even feel like it's an option.

It is completely like like it's God. It is, I literally like it excites me so much that I personally have gone through what I've gone through in order to be able to go talk about this stuff because there are so many people out there that are, look, I see them on Twitter and on Instagram on a regular basis, people that are going through so much that are feeling quite lost, quite alone.

And that's why I spend as much time as I do on my social media, because I feel like yes, it's on one hand, one of the most destructive things that's ever come across all of us. We get lost in it. People are, it's creating mental illness and a lot of people, but we can use it

for such powerful good and being able to reach out and say, yes, I deal with this. I have dealt with this. And by the way, we're all dealing with it. Everyone is dealing with it. Like, no one is immune to, well, maybe the Dalai Lama. I don't know. But, you know what I mean?

Like, because this is how our brains work. This is how our hearts work. And the wiring is so old school, right? Like, as in, it's so embedded into the way we're wired, that it takes time to unwire that and unravel that. Like, if something's happened for thousands of years, right? It's gonna take a considerable amount of time to rewire that. It's like, you don't just unwire something.

If something's been tangled in your closet for days, how long does it take? If your room's been messy and on-screen. Yeah, you just try that. Yeah, exactly. What you can't do with yourself, and you don't wanna do with yourself. And so, and I love how open you've been about it.

A few interviews that we looked at and saw with you talking about how, you know, comparison on social media and comparing yourself to your peers, which is such a big thing. And you were open about the fact that when your character first gets killed off in Thor and talking about how like that felt like a bad moment,

but actually now, with what you're getting to do, you realize that actually you're just preparing you for something much bigger. Exactly. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, everything that has happened to you can also be a strength builder for you if you allow it.

Kobe Bryant. The results don't really matter. It's the figuring out that matters. Kevin Haw. It's not about us as a generation at this point. It's about us trying our best to create change. Lewis Hamilton, that's for me being taken that moment for yourself each day, being kind to yourself because I think for a long time I wasn't kind to myself. And many, many more. If you're attached to knowing, you don't have a capacity to learn. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw, real-life stories behind their journeys

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Big love. Namaste. Right? This is exactly why you're going back to what I'm about, about patience and trust. Trusting that even though you might not understand or agree with what is happening in your life right now. If you can, look, if you're not trusting your flailing, you are, that's where anger can come in, that's where

doubt comes in, that's where fear comes in, that's where anxiety comes in. I didn't realize how much anxiety I dealt with probably my entire life. I didn't know that that feeling that I felt on a regular basis was anxiety until I went to therapy and I was like, oh my God, that's what anxiety. That this is what I've been dealing with for so long. Had I known, like when I was doing that last tour, yeah, it was a bummer. I mean, I felt like I was so stoked

that I made it into the superhero world and then just to kind of, you know, for it to do that. Like, that wasn't much to do. And I was definitely feeling a little salty and a little, a little down on myself and a little like, okay, well, I guess that's it. I guess I'll go have to pivot and figure out something else

in my career or whatever that's going to be. But again, had I known, had I known that, you know, if anybody's like, no, no, Zach, don't worry about it, because you're gonna die here. But then in a, you know, two years from now, that means that you're just gonna be reborn in the DC universe. I mean, obviously that would have made me feel

much better back then, but I don't think that's how life works. Because if we know what is going to come, then we don't ultimately appreciate what that's going to be. We need to go through these valleys in order to appreciate those mountain tops. 100%. And that's going to be. We need to go through these valleys in order to appreciate those mountain tops. It's, and that's a, and we don't grow to become that in the best way. And that, and you don't get the growth.

If you don't go through the hardship where you have to actually come to the end of yourself and trust and be patient and know that, I don't know, I don't know what's coming, but I'm gonna be grateful for what I have and I will trust and wear this path is leading me, then you don't know, I don't know what's coming, but I'm gonna be grateful for what I have and I will trust and wear this path is leading me, then you don't get the growth. And the growth is the most important part.

You could become the biggest, most famous, most rich person in the world, but if you have not grown during any of that, then all of it's meaningless. I wanna be, you know, you said earlier, I love the alliteration. I don't know if you use it when you start every interview, but what was it, and lightened and livened.

And there was another word you said that I can't remember. Educated and powered. Educated? Yeah, all of it. Educated and empowered. All of those things. That is the real richness, the riches of life. Like, I, again, I know it might even sound a little trite.

Somebody in my position saying like, you know, it's not about the fame or the popularity or whatever, because I'm somebody who now has, who has that and has that and has done very well financially in my life. And I'm not saying, and I'd give it all up if I could, but in some ways, yeah, I suppose I would. In some ways, there's deep down in me to know the depth of the joy and the peace and the gratitude that I feel now on the other side of the darkness because of the darkness. If I didn't experience that darkness, if I didn't ever sit in my room, literally crying out to God to help me, to save me, to show me the way because I was so lost, what I feel today, I wouldn't be feeling. I would feel like, oh, this is all part, this is all,

I mean, you know what I mean, it's the, you get to the place, you get to, and it's not even the destination, I mean, because, you know, I mean, because it's still the journey, we're still journeying. And by the way, who knows, I could walk out of here and get hit by a car, and that's it. I could, I could lift, well, yeah, I mean, either, but I mean, but I think it's important to always be aware that,

you know, I think that we are both infinitely valuable and entirely unimportant. It's that makes it easy. Invaluable and insignificant. Exactly, exactly. And if we can always maintain that and know that right now, right here is all we actually have and to keep digging into the depth

of the right here and the right now, which is why one of the reasons I'm so grateful that we're having this conversation because this is a right here right now. Let's be present and let's talk about what really matters. You know, I can go talk about Shazam all day long and I'm grateful that we got to make an incredible movie that is really genuinely bringing people so much joy.

But, you know, that's all the trappings of what the most important stuff is, which is let's go heal the world, let's go make this place, let's go teach more empathy, let's go make this place, let's go teach more empathy, let's go feel more empathy. I mean, we were talking about earlier about, you know, knowing how much deeper, more deeply,

we can love someone when we know someone. I mean, that's empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, you know. Oh, God, I just, I just, I love it. I love it. I love it. Let's, let's, I want to, we always do a final five, the end of every interview. But before we do that, I do want to talk about Shazam, because what I loved is you were talking about how like you felt like you got to play yourself. It's

somewhat of the child like, you know, man, child element to the role and character. I'm excited to go and see it this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm really looking forward to it. But tell me about that playful aspect of you and that joy that people are gonna feel through you being able to be part of yourself. Yeah, I mean, look, I've always, I've always been, like I said, like a super energetic

spaz of a kid. I've always been, like I said, like a super energetic spaz of a kid. And that's never really left me. And when I was about four, I realized that I could intentionally make somebody laugh, and if they laugh, they felt good. And that made me feel good. Even aside from the applause or whatever, I loved making people feel joy.

I loved it. It's the greatest drug in the world. And I feel like genuinely, when I do Broadway or what I feel like I'm literally living out my purpose. And when you feel like you're living out your purpose, it is the most fulfilling thing ever, more than anything. But part of that, and I think also just part of working in this business, you get to hopefully use your imagination and should use your imagination. And I have always tried to hold onto that.

I've always tried to hold onto joy. I love feeling joy. I love bringing joy. I love having, therefore, I love having a great time. I love hosting parties. I like dance parties. I like singing.

I like karaoke. I like riding motorcycles and jumping out of planes. I mean, this is just my personality. It's always been in all of those things. I think I've tried to grow up and be a responsible human being in the ways that's important, but I've also, you know, kind of shirked some of that stuff that where I feel like people tend to feel like, you know,

well, we got to take this more seriously. Or we got to take or rather take ourselves more seriously, which I think we need to do far less of. We need to take ourselves far less seriously. You're, we got to take or rather take ourselves more seriously, which I think we need to do far less of. We need to take ourselves far less seriously. And so all of those things, I think, if I don't know, helped kind of protect the little kid in me. And by the way, and maybe even some of my mental illness that I, again, I'm so grateful to God that even all of that bad stuff, he used or she or it or whatever used to maintain this essence of who I am deep down inside. And all of that I just got to filter right into the character.

I mean, on top of the fact that ever since I was a kid, I dreamt about being a superhero, like I think most of us do. So it's total wish fulfillment. Like, you know, I feel bad for a lot of the actors who play the serious superheroes, which by the way, most of them are. Most of them are very serious adults

who are concerned with saving the world. And so, which is to be in real life. Wait, exactly, right, yeah, exactly. But, you know, I know that Christian Bale was probably super chuffed that he got to be Batman, but he had to sit on it. He had to like, he was like, oh my God, he got to be Batman, and then the camera's rolling

and it's like, I'm Batman, you know. I got to just, you know, literally not rain myself in it all. All that enthusiasm that I felt for like, oh my God, it's gonna be Batman. And then the camera's rolling, it's like, I'm Batman. I got to just, I got to literally not rain myself in it all. All that enthusiasm that I felt for like, oh my God, I'm getting this dream job. I just got to put that right into the character onto the screen. Plus, hanging out with the kids of which we have a whole incredible and talented cast of kids

and that I worked with all the time. And they would constantly remind me what it meant to be a kid, which in a lot of ways is just not having responsibility. They don't, they're able to still be silly and not take themselves so seriously until they start getting into like high school years and then all of a sudden it's all about clicks and cool

and all that garbage that, oh my God, I can't wait to maybe do a school tour one day and go to high schools and say, stop, stop, don't, don't care about social constructs anymore. Stop it, go do all the homework, do all the things that your parents and your teachers are asking you to do. There's a whole life beyond high school.

It's all just one big bubble, it's gonna blow up, you're never gonna see those people again. Oh my gosh, there's so much time that we waste wishing that we were a part of whatever this cool click is. And by the way, even that, I wanna redefine the word cool. All the people that think they're cool or are trying to be cool are the least cool. Being cool means you're trusting. Being cool means you're not phased. You're not worried about fitting

in. Let's go be actually cool. Let's not go try and be like, Oh, I need to wear the right clothes or I need to have the right style or whatever that is. That's all nonsense. I can't Oh, I want all that to die horrible death. Yeah, for real. But yeah, so on top of all that, yeah, just like, you know, getting to be that kid and bring that kid to life on screen is a lot of fun. But I really, again, like the movie's done well and I'm really grateful that it's doing well, not even just domestically, but internationally

and all that. But the thing I'm most proud of in this film and the thing I'm most grateful for is that I believe that, you know, again, I got as using me to portray a character that is bringing people joy, people are leaving the theater and they are floating a foot off the ground. Kids and adults are yelling shazam as they're leaving the theater

and feeling that imagination come back to life in them again. And if what I believe is true, which is that I was put on this planet to love people and to bring them joy, and that this is what is now happening in my life. Like, I just gratitude, just like the deepest gratitude, man. That's awesome, man. I love that.

And hearing you say that reminds me of something I read a while ago is, I think you went along, I want to get this right. You went along the lines of, we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing. Yes. And I think whatever play means to you as you get older, obviously you may not be messing with action figures,

maybe you are, but the point is, is continuously having play in our lives and being playful and being childlike, not childish. Yes. And we see a lot of humans, we continue to be childish, but not childlike. Yes. And I think keeping that fresh eyes, looking at things as brand new, living as if every day is just some new exploration and curiosity, that can stay with us.

So I love this, man. I'm going to ask you my big final five questions. Let's do it. These are rapid fire, quick fire, go answers.. So I mean, you'd be great at that. So here we go. The first one that I have for you is this is this is probably a slightly trick question but but I want to know anyway, if you get of one superpower, what would it be? Teleportation. Oh, interesting. I thought a lot about it. Okay. Yeah, I just think I think teleportation would be a very fun but also probably the most

handy and practical, because you can do anything from going on a trip with all of your friends. We all know from the lore of comic books that whatever you're touching goes with you with teleportation. So obviously as long as you can connect like all your fingers and toes to a bunch of bags and a bunch of friends and family, then you're all in a vacation together, which would be great. Or if you just feel lazy and you want to zap like from your bed into the bathroom and then back again, you know what I mean? It's very handy.

Awesome. Second question. You were saying you were even thinking about building like a commuter space. If the world, if your ideal world, idol community, idol town or city had a set of ideals, values, and beliefs and habits, what would those be? Ooh. Well, minimalism, that's one of the things.

I am a huge proponent of minimalism. I think that we've all been fed a lie for a really long time, which ties directly into consumerism and materialism. And I really do believe it's a lie. We don't need all the things that we think that we need. And we are now owned by what we own. And that is another thing that's leading us into more mental health issues.

And I want to get back to basics. So it'd be community, it'd be minimalism, it would be love and grace and tolerance and understanding and forgiveness and more forgiveness and more forgiveness and more grace because these are seriously lacking in the world right now and empathy and more empathy. Yeah, and just helping people heal. I love that. If you could get the world to practice one habit or one tool for 30 days, what would that have been?

Granted, gratitude. Nice. I like that. That's awesome. Yeah, I think that could change a lot too. I mean, it's, again, I know it's different for everyone and every place that they're in in their life and I don't expect everyone to have as easy a time being grateful for where you are in your life. But I, from my own personal experience, to start with that, if you can get there, it helps to put other things into place and then it makes a lot of your life a lot easier. I love it. Question four out of five. What's one big thing you want to learn

this year? Anything you want to learn? Something you want to learn? Well, you know, I had new year. I was on a trip with a bunch of friends and we were all on New Year's Eve. We were all talking about what was if you could have one word that described your last year, what would it be, and to be perfectly honest, I find, oh, I think transformation was last year's, because it was, it was incredibly transformative time for me. But then, and what would be one word for the next year, and the word that I chose was patience.

So, and then my friend actually made me this bracelet, which is Morse code that says, forgiven or says a patience on it. And I think that that's what I want to continue to learn this year because I've always been, a super deep forward thinker of like future thinking and like, you know, like I want to go build this film studio and all the things that go with it.

And I see it all in my head and I want it now. I want it to be right now because I want to be enjoying it right now and I want all of my friends and family and strangers and everybody to be enjoying it right now. And I have to know that it's not up to me. This timing is not up to me. Your timing of your life is not up to you. We get to play a part in it and a very significant part in that.

But there are so many other factors that are going on. And so I really want to learn to just be more patient in this life. Yeah, I love that and the final five fifth question What's an ideal role or collaboration for you in the future? Something that you'd love man. Man. Oh so many so many I don't know I mean from an acting standpoint I mean, there's so many directors and other actors that I would love to work with. And, you know, so, I don't know. Working with Tom Hanks, I think, would be pretty amazing.

He's always been my idol, you know, since I was a kid or, and to that matter, Steven Spielberg, you know, working for him as a director. But outside of the acting world, I do want to start recording more music. I don't know with whom or how that's going to work out. But then beyond that, I really do want to somehow figure out how to parlay all of this stuff into more of a leadership role in helping the world heal.

That's the collaboration that I really want to figure out and the trajectory that I really want to figure out. And again, I'm just going to wait on God and be patient for what that is gonna look like, but. We should work on that together. I would love to, Jay Shetty, we're gonna do it. It's gonna happen. When you say it like that, it feels like it's actually gonna happen. Yeah, man.

I would love that. I would love that. No, but thank you, Zach, like honestly, you like really brought it today. Like the energy this man is like, I'm sitting in front of him, he's sweating. Like, he's literally sweating, he's literally giving like every ounce of his energy.

Yeah, no, he's literally put every ounce of his energy into this podcast. Everyone who's listening, make sure you share this, make sure you share what you've learned, tag Zach, tag me as well on Instagram. I love seeing what people took away. I love seeing what messages are the ones that really resonate with people. So if you are listening to this right now, make sure you put it on Instagram. We'd love to check you out

there as well. Zach, thank you so much for turning up. Thank you so much for showing up. Keep doing what you're doing on Instagram. Using as a platform for service. Everything that you're doing, I'm so excited. And I'm excited for our new friendship too. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love others. You are lovable. You are loved and you are love yourself, love yourself, love others. You are lovable, you are loved, and you are worthy of that love. I love it. That's Akari Levi, everyone. Thank you, man.

Thanks so much for your amazing time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening through to the end of that episode. I hope you're going to share this all across social media. Let people know that you're subscribed to on purpose. Let me know, post it, tell me what a difference it's making in your life.

I would love to see your thoughts. I can't wait for this incredibly conscious community we're creating of purposeful people. You're now a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't a part of the tribe, a part of the squad. Thank you for being here. I can't wait to share the next episode with you. Regardless of the progress you've made in life, I believe we could all benefit from wisdom on handling common problems, making life seem more manageable, now more than ever.

I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One-E-Feed Podcast, where I interview thought-provoking guests who offer practical wisdom that you can use to create the life you want. Twenty-five years ago, I was homeless and addicted to heroin. I've made my way through addiction recovery, learned to navigate my clinical depression, and figured out how to build a fulfilling life. The one you feed has over 30 million downloads and was named one of the best podcasts by Apple Podcast. Oprah Magazine named this as one of 22 podcasts to help you live your best life. You always have the chance to begin again and feed the best of yourself.

The trap is the person often thinks they'll act once they feel better. It's actually the other way around. I have had over 500 conversations with world-renowned experts and yet I'm still striving to be better. Join me on this journey. Listen to the one you feed on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Yom LaVanzant and I'll be your host for The R Spot. Each week listeners will call me live to discuss their relationship issues. Nothing will tear a relationship down faster than two people with no vision.

There's y'all are just flopp flopping around like fish out of water. Mommy, daddy, your ex, I'll be talking about those things and so much more. Check out the R-Spot on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Our 20s are often seen as this golden decade. Our time to be carefree, make mistakes, and figure out our lives. But what can psychology teach us about this time? I'm Gemma Speg, the host of the psychology of your 20s. Each week we take a deep dive into a unique aspect of our 20s, from career anxiety, mental health, heartbreak, money, and much more to explore the science behind

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