The Ariel Helwani Show - Jay Glazer

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

One of the nation's top NFL reporters joins Ariel for a conversation about Glazer's public struggles with mental health issues, which he refers to as "the gray." Glazer tells Ariel why he decided to start speaking out about his struggles, how he hid his crippling anxiety for years, how his worst experiences have paved the way for the life he lives now, and so much more. Plus, he tells Ariel why he started training MMA, his relationships with Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture, and about his new book, Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too.You can follow Jay on Twitter and Instagram @JayGlazer.Jay Glazer is an NFL insider for FOX Sports and is one of the stars of the award-winning studio show FOX NFL Sunday. He is also the co-founder of Merging Vets and Players (MVP), an organization that trains combat veterans to reach their highest levels of performance after serving in the armed forces, as well as co-founder of the Unbreakable Performance Center.Glazer's new book -- which features a foreword from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson -- is available now.For more episodes of The Ariel Helwani Show, please follow the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or on Ariel's YouTube channel.Theme music: "Frantic" by The Lovely Feathers

Hello, friends. Hope you're doing well. Welcome back to a brand new edition of The Helwani Show. I, of course, am Ariel Helwani. It is Thursday, April 7th, 2022. Appreciate you stopping by. Thank you very much to my good friends, The Lovely Feathers, for giving us this great theme song and for everything that they have done for me. I can't wait for the reunion. I am pushing that and I hope it happens very soon. I'm very excited about today's guest. His name is Jay Glazer. You know Jay Glazer, right? He's one of the absolute best NFL insiders out there. He's been doing it for years, for decades. He's one of the faces of NFL reporting. He was my colleague over at Fox Sports

many years ago. Well, he recently came out with a book entitled Unbreakable, How I Turn My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation, and you can too. It's a great read, and it's a very honest read. It's a very forthright read. It's a read about how he turned, I mean, it's right there in the title, his depression and anxiety into motivation. And you'll be amazed, this guy who's on TV all the time, who's doing stuff in the public eye, has been battling extreme anxiety and depression for a long time. He's very open. He's very honest about it.

He hasn't talked about it in the past before coming out with this book. And I've talked about mental health. It's something that I'm very passionate about, about being as healthy as possible, both mentally and physically. And I really enjoyed this chat. It's not so much about football and sports, all that stuff.

It's about overcoming these obstacles, getting better, being a better version of yourself, how he overcomes them, all that and more. Even if you are not a football fan, I think you'll like this. You'll appreciate this. You'll be able to learn from this because it's inspiring to hear him talk about it. Obviously, you don't want anyone to go through this, but to see someone of his stature who has enjoyed the

kind of success professionally that he's enjoyed, I think it's just a really, really interesting look at how people can turn anxiety and depression into fuel to succeed and to overcome these obstacles in life. So the book is out right now. It's called Unbreakable. Like I said, we talk about that. We talk about his MVP charitable organization, Merging Vets and Players, the Unbreakable Performance Center, all those things and more we shall discuss with Jay Glazer, the one and only, the inimitable Jay Glazer. Here's my conversation with my old pal, my old colleague, the brand new author, sometimes actor, NFL insider, Jay Glazer. Enjoy. I do want to get one thing off the chest because there's no better person than you to talk about this. I am still in mourning, Jay, about my beloved Buffalo Bills.

It's been a pretty good offseason. Can you tell me, like, is this happening? No, but I'm in mourning. I'm in mourning because of January. I'm in mourning because of Kansas City. Is this happening? You got to move forward, man. I mean, they keep building.

You got to move it on. You got to move forward. Them getting Von Miller, you should be celebrating and dancing in the street. You kidding me? Is this happening? Yeah. I mean, your quarterback is a stud. Stud.

And, yeah, I think the Bills – the Bills' time will come here, man. And they just keep building up the right way, which is defense. And, yeah, as long as that quarterback stays healthy, I mean, you guys have got a good future. I don't know why – listen. And you know what the bills the bills giants were the first game i ever did on the road in my life 1993 wow and man i'll never forget here i am going the road and those bills fans obviously you see how rabid they are man and back then i used to go on the team bus with the Giants over to the stadium.

And we get on the team bus, we go over there, and I'm sitting behind Lawrence Taylor, great Lawrence Taylor. And literally people are throwing bottles at the bus, and I think I'm kind of tough, not that tough. And I get down like under the seat, and LT is just sitting there laughing his ass off. And it was like everybody else is kind of down, and he's just, this is how Buffalo is. he's just, well,

this is how Buffalo is. It's like, this is Buffalo. It's all right. This is good. And for him, I, and I think for everybody else,

they just, man, they thrived and how those fans were, but man, fans get on. You guys, this year when I was doing my mailbag for Fox, my,

what the hell is my mailbag called? It's called the Monday shit. I don't remember. Whatever it's called. Ask Glazer. Every week, I got something from Bill's fans like, is Josh Allen for real? I don't believe in

Josh Allen. I don't get it. Man, he is a stud. He's just going to get better because he works his ass off. By the way, you train with a lot of football players. I feel like Josh would be a pretty damn good fighter. A lot. Absolutely. We've trained. Obviously,

when Fox made me stop fighting way back in 2003, I just couldn't get MMA in my system. I learned how to start coaching and obviously it made sense for me to coach football players and i'll tell you that story a little bit the first guy we did because kind of it'll shock people um how it went down but every time we've gone in as myself i have randy couture coaching with us and chuck liddell and jay ron and tyron woodley's

coach with me um man just made a had a ton of guys over the years. And usually teams, especially for the guys in the trenches, they'll have a strength. Because that fighter mentality, it's still a fight. No matter what, football, they can take the violence word out of it as much as they want. It's still about you whipping that dude's ass across when you're breaking his will.

A lot of times they would have the quarterbacks not do it. And I'm like, no, quarterbacks are perfect. We actually worked with Jameis Winston last year year and he was doing well until he got hurt but the way you throw a pass is the same way you throw your two and over and over and over the way you turn your hip and push off your foot and also just being good in in chaos there right as that pocket begins to you know fold around you you can't panic you got to be great in chaos so we'll actually do stuff as if they're in the pocket with us trying to throw punches at them without really hitting them just to get them to be good in chaos so i agree i think more quarterbacks should

do it i mean there was one quarterback who turned me down a few years ago i'm not going to turn not going to put his name out there because he did in a way i wasn't thrilled about and i said really he said yeah quarterbacks don't need this. And I said, well, Tom Brady boxes. Worked out pretty well for him. Amen. Well, okay. So I do want to take a step back. I really want to talk to you about the book and everything. And you know, sometimes when you meet someone, you talk to someone and you have them on the show and you see them on the street, you say, how's it going? And then you want them to say back like, good. And you want to move on with your day. I want to ask you a real, how's it going? How are you doing? Because you've been doing this thing on, on your social media, on your Instagram,

where you check in every day, your mental health check-in. And you're very honest. Some days you say you're in the gray as, as we'll talk about. Some days you say that you had a horrible night, just a couple of days ago, I think you said you had a horrible night. It was really tough. You woke up. So how are you doing on this morning? Where are we finding you right now? I appreciate it. What I was talking about is I wrote this book, Call Them Breakable, how I turn my depression,

anxiety into motivation. And you can do motivation. And you can too. But I didn't want to wait for the book to come out for me to start being vulnerable with the world and showing people. And I'm a lot of curse on this, right? Sure. Showing people that it's okay to be fucked up.

Like I'm fucked up, but I'm good with my fucked upness. And you know, my, my issues have led me to do great things. So I wanted to start connecting because I mean, social media is horrible and at least to a lot of our mental health issues. And I wanted to start connecting with people and show them they're not alone and show them from a dude that's OK for us to cry out there. And like this is not strength and vulnerability is true strength. So that's why I started really opening up and bearing my soul out there to help everybody else out and to build a team.

That's one of the things in the book is like, man, trying to build a team to connect with people. So when my mental health illnesses and issues are really rearing up bad, I got people I can lean on. So today I'm doing really good. I'm in the blue. And Sunday was a hard day. Sunday I woke up at, yeah, 3 o'clock in the morning, and I called the beast. Man, the beast just got me. And I had this anxiety attack at 3 a.m., woke me up. And when it happens for me, well, my – and just for people who are staying out there too,

I've suffered from depression, anxiety my whole life. I don't know any other way to live just didn't talk about it it was well glazer's crazy and football and fighting that's a badge of honor what they didn't know was how much pain i was always in so i um physical or mental pain mental pain but when my definitely physically pain because I'm a shitty fighter and I still wrestle with these guys. But the mental pain, when I have an anxiety attack, like I did the other night, it is like I do. Every time I've ever been on TV from 2005 on,

and no one's known that until I wrote the book, because I don't want to bring my teammates down during it. Like the guys I work with, when I have an anxiety attack, I feel like I'm having a heart attack. My hands shake, my eyes dart back and forth. I start sweating like crazy. My heart starts going. And physically, I feel it on the left side of my gut behind my rib cage and in my joints like i just fought a 50 round grand prix fight you know like like i just fought 50 in one night like oh

man it's brutal um and you know i wanted to kind of you know we all talk about mental health but no one describes it. Right. So that's what I wanted to do by this book. I wanted to give it words. I wanted to give it words that people can understand it. And the moment I talked about, and this is how much I have hit it. The first time I ever told anybody in the book launched, the day the book launched, I went on and announced it with my baby sister, Michael Strahan on Good Morning

America. And I said that I've had an anxiety attack every week since 2005. launch i went on announced it with my baby sister michael strahan on good morning america and i said that i've had an anxiety attack every week since 2005 he had no idea i never told my best friend ever told him but once i did that on that show and described it a good majority of people i know in television and friends reached out said oh i had it too but i didn't know didn't know who to turn to and tell. Well, I've had this, or I've had that. And man, I've experienced the same thing at one point or, or another. I've had friends say they called the ambulance because they thought they were having a heart attack. So man, I wanted to give it words.

I wanted to like, our, our world is about fighting. This is my way to fight back. And you get a whole huge fight team where we all could fucking fight back against this gray together so the other night was hard man the other night was was um worse than normal it normally doesn't wake me up at night this one woke me up at night and beat my ass and i just had a reason with it and then when it happens um i feel like the sky is falling i feel like nobody likes me or loves me i feel like the sky is falling. I feel like nobody likes me or loves me. I feel like the universe is against me.

It's not logical. It's not true. None of it's true. But in those moments, man, it feels really fucking true. It's hard, but it's okay. Being the pro that you are, you beat me to it. So you have this new book out. It's incredibly vulnerable out it's incredibly

vulnerable it's incredibly honest genuine authentic it's called unbreakable how i turn my depression and anxiety into motivation and you can too forward by the way by some guy named the rock aka duane johnson uh there it is yes and uh it's it's a huge deal to come out not only a book but a book that's this honest about who you are as a person. And it puts you out there. And so I'm wondering when you're doing, because like, there is anxiety that comes along with being this open about yourself. It's one thing to sit around and talk about the bills, but you're doing media, you're on Dr. Failure, and then talking about like the most sensitive stuff. Is it like, if I would have talked to you, you say 2005, 2006, 2007,

would you have ever imagined that you'd be out doing media about this? Because I could imagine that in itself brings you a level of anxiety. Well, again, we all hit it, right? So think how many other people are hiding it. God blessed me with the ability to communicate. So I'm going to use that. I'm going to use what I've been blessed with to help others. And here's the other thing too, when I heard, and that's just the anxiety part, the depression part is totally different, which is just as bad. But I had my first anxiety attack in an empty Raiders stadium in 2005. Nobody was in the stadium. I was doing a hit for the pregame show. The game didn't start till later. Nobody was there. And man, all of a sudden the walls just started caving in. And we didn't talk about mental health back then. game didn't start till later nobody was there and man all of a sudden the walls just started caving in and we didn't talk about mental health back then we didn't talk about

anxiety attacks so i thought i was having a heart attack arrow for the next 10 years we didn't talk about mental health in this way i've been getting my i was getting my heart checked out for 10 years trying to figure out what was going on with me and everything else that was going on. And it wasn't until we started talking about it. Oh, that's what it is. So imagine how many other people suffer in silence the way I was. How many people aren't comfortable talking about it? I'm comfortable talking about it.

A lot of it. And look, in the book, I give ways to get through the gray. And that's why the rock to the floor. You said, man, you're going to be this voice for the great for all of us all including him including everybody and this is for people who who are like me who have clinical depression anxiety um but i think we all got something like fuck we just went through a pandemic we were told to do the worst thing ever which is isolate right you gotta socially distant isolate so we all got something. Like, fuck, we just went through a pandemic. We were told to do the worst thing ever, which is isolate. Right? You got to socially distance.

Isolate. So we all have that. Or social media, like, man, we're comparing ourselves to everybody else's filter, fraction of a second on social media. We think our lives suck. They don't. But it's hard not to feel that. It's hard not to feel left out every day of your life when you see everybody else's

filtered fraction of one second of the day. think how bad that makes you feel about yourself or on twitter we see all this hate right and we see the thousand times a minute when we were growing up if you were somebody got bullied at the playground it sucked for a week and that was just one day imagine a thousand times a second right so we all have something or we know somebody who's going through it and that's the other thing i'm really proud of is a number of people reached out saying for the first time i have words to uh describe this first time i could talk to my family talk so first time i have something to talk to my son about her daughter about i had a lot of girl dads reach out say i don't have it even though

they do um well my daughter does and now i have a way to communicate with her that's so as far as i know i'm long-winded here but i don't have the anxiety about putting myself out there because the results i've seen have been i had an 80 year old grandmother i'm gonna get choked up here an 80 year old grandmother reach out and say to get choked up here. An 80 year old grandmother reach out and say, for the first time I have words, first time in my life, I have words to describe to my husband and my kids and my grandkids when I go through. That's pretty freaking special. So I, sometimes I'll, cause I'm trying to make these, these check-ins really real and raw and vulnerable. And I'll send them over to somebody who does my social media for me.

And because I don't know how to do this shit. And then I'll kind of two seconds later call and go, hey, hey, is this going to be okay? Am I going to be okay? He's like, it's your mission. Like it's what we're doing. So it does, it gets a little scary, but i have not had one friend of mine say to me suck it up or stop being a wuss or anything like that instead it's gotten me and my crew my family my my friends a lot closer together they understand why now they understand this too like the ups and the ups and the downs of it.

And the pain I go through with it, they understand it's gotten us a lot closer together. What prompted you to write this book? Was there a moment, an incident, something? Because you say you've been dealing with this since 05. Why now? No, I've been dealing with it my whole life. The first anxiety attack. Gotcha.

Impression since I was a kid. no i've been dealing with my whole life oh five the first anxiety attack gotcha depression since i was a kid i as a kid i'd sit lay up lay in bed all night long and just and it was anxiety too just i just felt um like the most unlovable person in the world and i and listen um here's the truth about my battle here my battle um. Here's the ultimate truth. I say it here in the title, right? This is how I use my depression, anxiety, and turn my head, they tell me the worst stuff about myself. Like I'm the worst human being who ever lived. Or I really hold on to the bad things I've done, which we've all done some shit, but I just hold on to those. So I don't know how to love myself from the inside out.

So as a result, I've tried to do all these great things like you talked about, having a gym at Unbreakable, starting a charity in MVP, being the first ever NFL insider, the minute by minute breaking news guy in this country, doing all these things to try and get some love from the outside in and hoping that one day they can meet in the middle. So that kind of of that prompted it like it's just me continuing to try to do bigger things so i can get some outside love to show myself maybe i'm not so bad and listen i'm a work in progress um not there yet won't stop until i'm there

and that's the other thing like like um number of people who said they were thinking about suicide until they read this book has been incredible. And that's our only choice is to choose life. Life is about our choices. The very first one is life or death. We've got to choose life because, man, you just never know what lies around next Tuesday. We've got to be there for everybody else. So I will keep searching for that inner happiness in that blue, as I said. I'll keep searching for all of us, figure out ways and

to connect all of us together because, man, that's our only choice. That's the choice we have to choose. You use that Tuesday line a lot. Why Tuesday? Why do you pick Tuesday? I have no fucking idea. I don't know why but i always say yeah using the book a lot you never know what lies around next tuesday um and yeah it's it's funny because and that what i mean by that is don't give in don't just say fucking i'm done you never know when your life's going to change. Like, man, the first 11 years of my career, I was making $9,750 a year, living in New York City, a year, covering the Giants and then the NFL. I got $9,000 a year from the New York Post, starting in 95, and $450 a year from New York on TV.

How did you live? Living in New York. So, man, well, that's a good question. I'm not really sure, except, so I was covering the Giants. They were out in Jersey. I would take a subway to the bus to Giants Stadium. I couldn't afford bus fare, subway fare back every day. So Strahan drove me into the city every single day until I got my first job in 1999, literally every day.

So I own like $28,000 in Lincoln Tunnel Fair. But, man, I really learned about football. And, you know, it's my best friend. I don't, you know, my electricity was turned off all the time. My gas was turned off all the time. And here's the other thing. When I walked in that, when I first got, I guess, my break for $450 covering the Giants, I walked into that

Giant locker room in the summer of 1993. I said, man, how could I be different? This is what I try and show a lot of people. Different is good. Different leads to success. Don't be a face in the crowd. Be the fucking crowd. Walked in that Giant locker room.

I said, how could I be different well one man i'm not going to use my pen as a weapon back then i felt they did two i'm going to start relationships and that's how the industry is now it's based on relationships it wasn't back then and i got murdered for it back then just killed for it back then but that's what i know i know how to build communities and bonds and I need those relationships. And in three, I said, man, I'm going to outwork everybody in there, not by a little, by a lot.

So if these fucking writers work from 9 to 5, I'm going to get there at 7 a.m. and work until Strahan drives my ass home at 9 p.m. And so I couldn't even get another job to help with the bills. I never took a dime from anybody. I think I got some other stringer work, but it was just not consistent. The $9,400 a year,

$9,450, that was consistent. And I remember we were going, oh, so you never know what lies around next Tuesday. So man, I just kept doing this. And every week, I would just, every week, I'd work my ass off for six days. And I'd give myself a Sabbath on the seventh day. And I would sit there and go, everything that happened this whole past week, it's over, it's done. I'd give myself one day. And I would literally look up to God that after it's over that new week. And by the way, the fourth commandment commands you to take a day off and drink some wine so don't threaten me with a good time and um i would sit there good like i look up to god say i'm not asking you to get me anything this is on me i got it just

pick me up brush me off let's continue to go walk this walk together and every single week i gave myself a new set of just a refresher. So I did that. So I didn't look like I got rejected for 11 years. I looked like I viewed it as 11 years, a set of weeks for 11 years. So I kept reloading. And eventually I knew, man, just with my work ethic, I'm loyal as shit. I'm outworked the world.

I'll get my big break i'll get my shot and i was on a driving range with tiki barber in new york and my agent morgan calls and says and by the way even getting an agent man i got turned down for five six years getting an agent it was just when you have mental health issues getting rejected over and over and over it's not a good combination. But that's what I had to do. And I finally got that call. And he said, hey, what are you doing?

I said, I'm on a driving range with Tiki Barber. He said, you can finally exhale. I said, what do you mean? He said, we finally got a full-time job. And I said, with who? He said, CBS Sports, the NFL Today on CBS. They just got the NFL back. And I said, with who? He said, CBS Sports, the NFL Today on CBS. They just got the NFL back. And I said, for what?

He says, they're NFL Insider. I said, oh, my God. Full time? He said, full time. I said, I'll take it. He said, don't you want to know how much it's for? I said, I don't give a fuck. This, for me, there's only a couple times in life

you really find out who the fuck you are and this was one for me when I walked in that giant locker room early on I started my career at 89 trying, again I said I will be the last dude standing until I get until I reach my goals this validated it for me

it wasn't just empty words for me. And then he finally said, it's for 50 grand a year. I said, oh, thank you, my best friend, God Almighty in heaven. I think I can keep the gas on now. And that's what people have to understand. And so it's that you never know what lies around next Tuesday, as in you never know when things will pay off the following week, you know, and you never know when your hard work will pay off. But that's the key.

It's the hard work. It's the times you've been rejected. It's the over and over and over. Like my overnight success was 11 years, right? That big break was 11 years. It's not overnight. It's over and over and over. And then after that, I had to build myself up into this insider this minute by minute

news guy which was me and len pascarelli and john clayton we're the first ones and we were doing it with on that internet thing which i think is going to take off um and it was pretty wild like before us there was no crawl on the bottom of the screen that was pretty it's pretty cool so that's what you never know lies around next tuesday even my co-author, her name is Sarah. Sarah, the only reason I chose her, she knows this now, didn't know then. I told her this at the end of it. The only reason I chose her, because Sarah overcame cancer. She beat cancer.

I said, Sarah, I know it sucks. Actually, the truth is, I write it in the book. I wrote it. I waited to. I wrote the book. I think I wrote it. I waited to. So I wrote the book. I had her help. I said in every chapter but that one, the last one, about her until deadline day. We're like, where's this last chapter?

And I finally sent this one in. And it's actually, it's, I get choked up by it. It's just gratitude for her. And it says like, man, I know it sucked you on cancer. I know it sucked. But if you didn't, I wouldn't have chosen you. If I didn't choose you, this book wouldn't happen. And there'd probably be a lot of people who wouldn't be here with us right now.

So you never know what lies around next Tuesday. Like in the suck of it, you can't see the why. Right. But if you didn't, we wouldn't be here. And we've saved a lot of lives. You spoke already. That was, you can see I still get choked up by it. Yeah. I appreciate that. One thing that I really enjoyed about getting to know you when we were working together was that you are a proud Jew like I am. and faith is a big part of your life. You referenced God a few times. Could you tell me how observant you are and why is this part of your life? Why are you so faithful? It was actually my depression because every night I got taken

upstairs to bed, I was screaming and crying. And I was always in trouble because I always lashed back out because of my pain. And I was so alone. So no one taught it to me. I just, that's who was there. Just started talking to God every day, every night, all the time. And I've always felt very alone and lonely. So I just started talking to God. And I'm, look, people, like me having faith, that doesn't hurt anybody. I'm not talking about religion.

I'm just talking about God. I don't understand why people get upset with anybody who has faith. That's my choice. It's who I decide to hang out with. But also, it reminds me like, man, I'm not bigger than the world or the universe. Right. And I also have never truly felt fully alone. So and a lot of look, God's the greatest scapegoat in the world. When our lives are growing great, like, oh, look what I did. When our lives are going crappy. Everybody's like, oh, how could there be a God? God wouldn't let this happen.

Well, I don't know. If everybody's blaming me for everything, I don't know if I want to be so friends with everybody. But that's not why I choose to believe in a loving God as like my best friend parent. That's my choice. I choose to say, and what do you want from a best friend parent? Somebody who listens to you? Somebody who's there for you, but you're not going to constantly write to your parents or your friends when you don't get a job or when things don't happen in your life. You're not

going to blame them all the time. So that's not what I do. I believe in a loving, best friend type parent of God. And that has helped me through my loneliness a lot. You mentioned you're a pioneer. There wasn't this job before you did it. Why do you even go down this path? Why did you decide to become this job, this thing that didn't even exist in the late 80s when you're deciding to go down this path? I was broke as fuck. So I was just trying. And again, like I said, be different.

So the internet, it was, and I had signed with CBS and then CBSSportsline.com. And that's when ESPN.com first came out. So Lenny was, Pascuali was first at CBS Sportsline. He went to ESPN.com and opened one up. But also I looked at it and go, man, it's the immediacy of it. And there was a lot of pushback on that because think about it. Newspaper reporters, if they had a scoop, their deadline was 6.30 at night, let's say, to get on the back page the next day. And all of a sudden, I would come out and break it, let's say, 9 o'clock.

And, man, there was a lot of angst and a lot of anger there. But we did. We opened up the – and even back then, too, I was told by some of the other reporters because I was trying to do newspaper, radio and television because I couldn't pay my bills. And they literally talked to me in the giant press room saying, no, we don't do this. It's one or the other. We don't do them all. And I said, who are you guys to decide how I put food on my table? Not all of them. A lot of them are really incredible to me. But it's just the old way of school of thinking.

So when the internet came out too, I'm like, well, that'll be my fourth one. And I just want to be different. I don't want to do it like everybody else. And doing things differently is obviously there's a lot of arrows that come your way. I've never been shy about a fight. And if that's what they all want to do, good. But I'm glad I did because I'm sure they're glad also. Because myself and Len and Chris Mortensen and John Clayton really opened up floodgates

and eventually shuffled to get everybody to cross over and get money from Internet and television and radio. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud that even if they were pissed about it back then, I'm proud that I was, we were able to change a lot of these, a lot of people's grandkids' lives. Say that. Very recently, we lost John Clayton. What was it like, you know, being a colleague, if you will, but also battling him? What was it like? What was he like? I never had the opportunity to meet him. What was it like sort of battling for scoops with John Clayton? So when I first started going around, I just assume everybody hated me because that's how it was originally. And some of those national guys were great to me. Like Chris

Mortensen and John Clayton, they would say, oh, you got a good future. They wouldn't look at his competition. Like you got these connections. And what I try to do early, again, try to be different. Most of those reporters, they were really tied in with general managers and agents. I said, I'm going to be the players guy. I'm going to get every player out there. And they were tied in with coaches. The players eventually led me to be tied in with coaches also, but they never pushed.

They were always like, yeah, we wish we could have connections. Now, John Clayton was so tied into the Seahawks locker room but he was great to me early on and again me with this kind of always waiting for a fight sometimes expect the worst but I got

the best from him. He really was he was a sweetheart to me. He was an absolute sweetheart and I used to marvel at how all sides loved and respected him. So the management side, the agent side, the player side, the coach side, he was able to kind of walk that line. And early on, I'm like, I want to be like that. So, you know, you mentioned something that I always thought was really interesting. And I know you've talked about this in the past, but the decision to be like the players guy and to even, you know, defy the rules

of quote unquote journalism where, you know, you can't hang out with players, you can't train with players, you can't actually bring players in to help them prepare for the off season. That takes a lot of balls. No one does that. In fact, no one really does it still to this day. Like you are the outlier. Why do you come to that conclusion? And were you ever told by any of your employers to stop doing it? The only thing is Fox made me stop fighting, which sucked for me. Because again, I did it in the early days, right?

What was your official record? Was it one-on-one? One-on-one, baby. Okay. I had zero jujitsu experience as a boxer wrestler. wrestler went in there got my ass choked out in my first fight and minute and a half because i have no idea what anything was and this is when it was style versus style um and there's guys on that card it's like jay haran um joe no joe lozano wasn't on that card we my my teammates last coach fought fought Joe Lozano back then. It was great.

Things like Kid Pellegrino. You lost the first one and then won the second one, right? And not only did I win the second one, because I didn't want to wait. I was still at CBS. I went to the bosses at CBS and I said, hey, I got this fight. Coming up, it was during football season. And it was Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall. By then, what I decided to do was go to

Henzo Gracie's and go, I got to learn this jiu-jitsu thing because I have no idea. I took the guy down like I'm supposed to. I was a ground and pound. I watched the ground and pound guys. I'm like, great. Got exactly where I want to go. Went in and was like, hey, I'm going to can opener people and head bottom and do all that.

And I get caught in a guillotine and got choked out. And I said, I better go learn this jujitsu stuff so I could not get choked out the next time. And I went to the Boston CBS and I told him, Hey, I got, I want to do this mixed martial arts. And they were kind of just like mixed martial arts. That sounds cute. I didn't say anything about a cage or anything like that, or, you know, just, you know, no holds barred um and i went down fought atlantic city boardwalk hall on a saturday night before an nfl show and one tapped a guy out the second round um who did try to guillotine me over and over um and got back in the car was on tv the next day and nobody had any

idea i had a welt here from headbutting him, which I think back then, like there were no unified rules. You were allowed to head, well, you weren't allowed to headbutt, but you got a warning on the first one. Okay. They also used to do, and then I broke this knuckle. So I put my hand in my pocket and then I'd make up, try to help me with that um but i look at gargoyle and then cbs was like oh okay that's what you did um and then i signed with fox and um my first day at fox i was competing in the naga worlds for a submission fighting just for like blue belt

and um man i ended up getting banged up really bad in that because these heavyweights on the mat next to us fell over and stomped on me. It was my very first day at Fox. The next day, the NFL owners meeting. Like my eye was shut and I broke my foot during it. My ribs were messed. I come walking in. David Hill was the chairman of Fox. Like, what happened to you?

I'm like, I just won the World Submission Party Championships. He's like, I don't know what the fuck that is, but you will never fucking do it again. Why? I'm clearly not on TV for my looks. And again, I'm not, I'm not a,

I'm not a good fighter. I'm not a, nothing like that. But as a result of like Nate, Nate Diaz said it best after one of the Conor fights, he said, this sport institutionalizes you, right? It's like, man, it does. It gets in your heart and soul. And I get so excited about, after one of the Conor fights, he said, this sport institutionalizes you.

Right. It's like, man, it does. It gets in your heart and soul. And I get so excited. You know, I wrote Unbreakable 2 to talk to Greg about my mental scars. I get so excited about my physical scars from doing something the rest of the world will never think of doing. So, um, but again, back to your, your other thing. So that's how the coaching came about. I couldn't stop doing it. And I kept doing it for a while over at AZ Combat until I really came in. There was one day I was hosting a show with Tim Brown, Eddie George,

Jason Sehorne, and I was helping Jamie Varner get ready for a fight against Benson Henderson when he was in the WEC still. And I was training with him and Tim McKenzie and somebody else. And then one day, one of them gassed my head here. Another one knocked his tooth out. And Varner cracked this. And I had to go host a show that day for Fox. And I literally came in there like this.

And I'm missing a tooth. And this is all fucked up. And the makeup girl looks at me. She goes, are you fucking kidding me? I go, what? Put the makeup on. She's, are you fucking kidding me? I don't want to. Put the makeup on. She's like, you're missing a tooth.

I say, so let's put a chiclet in. So I literally hosted this show like this. My buddy, Jay Glazer, Jim Brown, Eddie George, and Jason Sheehorn. And that's when Fox had the big talk of me. They said, hey, we're all about you. Continue to find us. I said, great. You will just never be on our air ever again.

With anything. They said, if you come in with cauliflower, so my ears don't cauliflower. I'm good. I don't, God, I don't believe. And no, you come with a hang now you're done. And I think I've been doing this since 80. I started wrestling in 82.

Boxing in 88 and MMA around 2000, 2001. So like that. So I couldn't stop. And that's where I started learning how to coach guys and bridge these two gaps together of coaching NFL players in mixed martial arts, because there are two, my, my two loves. And I looked at it back then era as man for these football players, if you can get that fighter mentality and you can get that work ethic and that wrestler mentality of grinding, running, outworking the world, and you can look to see, try to break people. Man, think with your athletic ability and size and speed, think how great you'll be.

And conversely, I was trying to take the sport IQ from football players. And I would sit there at stray hand all like he'd watch film over and over and over and over. And he'd be like, Hey, look at this. Look at this. Look at this.

John Runyon tips, the whole game plan with his right foot being like this or like this. What the fuck are you talking about? So I was so brilliant. That's sport IQ. And I would try and give that sport IQ to a lot of the fighters who didn't really watch film. Didn't understand that end of it.

And that's why I try to merge the two together um but you also asked me like the starters wasn't i afraid or you know to be different and to do this um and no again for me i knew my only way to success was to do something different. That was it. So I had to go do this. And I also did it. Part of my mental health issues and one of the things I lay out in the book is I need a team to help the roommates in my head to talk nicer to each other. So when I have a fight team, they talk nicely to each other, a lot nicer to each other.

And it's easier for me to navigate the world. That's why I couldn't give it up. So I, no matter what, to this day, I mean, I had, you know, we're still, I'm 52 and I still pummel with every one of these football players we have. From the Lane Johnsons to the Andrew Wehrwitz to the, whatever it is, you know, and I still, you know, get in there and spark to a point, you know, with like the Jay Herons and the Coutures and the Chuck Liddell's and now Mark Kerr's and people like this.

We still train all the time. Like I'll just never stop because I just feel like the fighter, the man just that soul of a fighter is just, it's beautiful to me. It's a really good, it's a great family and sorority to be in. So I didn't want to let it go. Have you ever been suicidal? Nope. Now, I haven't been suicidal because I'm not going to do that to anybody. That's the only thing I tell our whole crew. Man, it's something you can't take back. So we've had great success in our charity, MVP. We put together former, it's merging vets and players.

We take together former combat vets and merge them together with former NFL players, former fighters, former Olympians, everybody. Just trying to give them a team again for the transition, when the uniform comes off, right? And when your uniform comes off, it sucks. It's scary. Not having your uniform comes off, it sucks. It's scary. Not having your locker room is a scary place. So a lot of our cats were attempted suicide.

A lot of our employees have the very first time I ever sat down and what we'll do is we'll train for about a half hour just to give you a burn and kind of let those endorphins releasing your brain and be beholden to your teammate and you're right on your left again but then after we have a mental health huddle and that's where a lot of the stuff in the book is like i learned from them um and that's where the magic really happens the very first shuttle we ever had i told everybody in there look life is about our choices and our decisions and again the first one has to be life and death we've got to choose life. If not for me, for everybody else.

Like I can't put that on everybody else. And has my darkness gotten to the point where I'm hoping it ends for me? Oh yeah, absolutely. But I'm not going to do that to everybody else. And as we started, and I do try and villainize it. Like I don't want it to be okay i think um i think we need to stick around for next tuesday but you know we had we had a i'll give an example

if we're in a huddle it's about 85 of us and this is what i say we do these huddles together it's not like four of us it's like literally like 20 40 40, 80, 100. Like it's incredible how vulnerable we are with each other. We all get each other. And there was somebody there who didn't take one of his teammates' calls on a Friday night because he was going to get with them on Saturday. And that teammate killed himself on Friday. And, man, you can understand what that did to this guy. This guy did nothing wrong, right? We need our own alone time also, right? If I don't answer the phone, sometimes I may do my own breathing or whatever it is. But that's a lot of guilt for somebody to carry,

right? And when he said this story this story man the whole room started crying and i said all right everybody in here raise your hand if you've attempted suicide before and i don't know 60 70 hands go up and i just said this is what you would have left behind think about that i said do you think that his front end team are right now? He's up there in whatever afterlife you believe in. He's up there right now looking down and going, seeing everybody you're crying and going, yes, yeah, exactly what I wanted. Or do you think he's up there saying, Oh my God, what did I do? No, no. I didn't mean to put that pain on them like that. No.

I wish I could have had a do over. Well, this is your chance to have that pain on them like that. No. I wish I could have had a do-over. Well, this is your chance to have that do-over. This is your chance to see what we've been like. And that really resonated with them. And that's why, again, I'm trying to get this message out. We can't do that to other people. So no, for me, suicide is just not an option. Here's what I'd love to know more about. Because your job, your life, high stress, right? You're on TV, you're a celebrity, the game of breaking news, especially with social media, being first scoopage, all that stuff. It's incredibly stressful. You're on Sundays on TV, millions of people. How do you deal with that lifestyle? And the kind of person that you are with with with anxiety and depression

how do the two coexist well for a while it coexisted you know again one of the early days was just me versus three four guys no problem um and i kind of got that high because it was a fight for me and and back then too i picked a fight with ESPN. So I would always sit there and every time they would steal my scoops, I'd come out there and I'd call them out for it. Well, I care. I wasn't going to work there. So I would say shit like, man, the only thing that you could be assured of in life is death, taxes, and ESPN stealing your shit. Like for me, and I was never really upset about it, but it was a good fight for me. all right? And, man, I would just kind of antagonize them, and all of a sudden, you know, I'd say like,

hey, I want scorecards, or who has what, right, first, and last. And that was good in the early days when they didn't have 200 people covering the league. I've always kind of been like a lone wolf doing it. I've just been me. So as it started getting more and more, all of a sudden, it was first me, or four.

It went from me versus three or four to me versus 10 to me versus 40 to me versus 50. And then NFL Network came about, and they had a million people. And I realized, and then also early on, people just thought, if you broke something, people started just taking it as their own real quick. So I did make a decision years ago. Like, man, mental health wise, this isn't great for me. Right.

So I need to. I want to be the most inside guy. Still, no matter what, if I say something, you're like, oh, you could take it to the back. If I come out and say Odell Beckham is getting traded by the Giants, as crazy as it sounds, you're like, oh, Glazer said it. If I come out and say, man, there's been a million things I've said that people look like I'm crazy at the time, and at least they know what's happening. This is going to happen. But I didn't want to do the minute-by-minute breaking stuff anymore for that reason.

It is. It just grinds you down and drags you. And the reward, the pain versus pleasure and the reward factor, it isn't like it used to be. If I broke a story, you're the only one who broke it for half a day, you know. And there wasn't everybody else jumping on Twitter saying, we know that people, whatever it was. So now I just I want to I did make and I even talked to my boss at Fox and they were great by making sure that I do what's most important, which is Fox and Sunday. And I come out with the best information on Fox and Sunday. I'll still break news here and there, obviously, but I don't want to live that same life anymore because it was fucking me up a lot. Yes.

A long answer to your story. It was. And again, if you break something like, you know, yesterday or this past week, I had, you know, Matt Ryan getting traded to the Colts. And man, all of a sudden, you know, it would last about 30 seconds. Right. Right. the Colts and man also you know it would last about 30 seconds right so it just wasn't as um I'd rather sit there and come on Sundays and say something somebody goes whoa Glazer said that whoa and then the other part for me that's really I really enjoy is my ins and outs on Sundays of

who's playing who's not because literally my guys will tell people one thing that oh this guy's playing he's starting and they're, he didn't make the trip. So I love that part of it also. I love kind of affecting the betting lines and things like that now that's happening. That's pretty cool. My guys have always been great with me with that. And that's where kind of I think our business is going a lot also. So that part I love.

But yeah, that's the mental health part of that. As you know, as a breaking news guy, right? You get very hurt when somebody gives it to somebody else um there's a lot of little betrayals that you feel um or like and that's the other thing too like I need I love these relationships my own mental health I don't want to always be bitching that somebody didn't you know or hurt that somebody gave it to a competitor this whatever, whatever it was. So years ago, I started kind of trying to be more personality driven and insidery, less breaking news, more insider.

Like, man, we had no idea this was really going down. That anxiety attack that you spoke of in 2005 at Raiders stadium. Do you know what triggered it? I know I was doing a story that, um, um,

uh, do you all, you hall the cornerback from that falcon angelo hell yep yep sorry d'angelo no um kind of fight against terrell owens in a game and somebody spit on somebody i forget what it was and both of them talked to me and talked to anybody else so i was pumped. I had great, great exclusive, great scoopage. When I say nobody was in the stadium, it was empty. There was no fans there yet. It was 8.30 in the morning. The game wasn't starting at 1. Zero.

I have no idea why it started. But you know what, man? I'm glad it did. As painful and shitty as this has been, I'm glad it did. As painful and shitty as this has been, I'm glad it's happened to me so I can be the one that describes it to everybody else and explains it to everybody else. Do you talk to a therapist?

Three of them. Three of them? Oh, yeah. Why three? They all have kind of different vibes and expertise and fields. Every week? I try to, yeah. Why three? They all have kind of different vibes and expertise and fields. Every week? I try to, yeah. Well, one of them each week.

How long have you been doing that for? Since I was a little kid, I was taking it to therapists. But I started, and again, and here's what I want people to understand. Mental health is so reactive. Physical health, like, look, if I, we'll train all day long, right? We train our bodies all day long. Why do we not train our minds all day long? That's what I want people to kind of switch over to also now.

But also, like, if I hurt my elbow, a dislocated elbow, or a player does, they're intrigued when our feelings hurt, our heart hurts, our mind hurts we're so reactive and sometimes we get around to seeing a therapist i want to switch that up and get everybody to go in now even when things are going great start working on mental health start doing it now so that's why i have three they all kind of do different things so even when things are blue for me i'll still go and do it i'll still especially with the zoom now i'll still talk to them um because i want to keep i want to work on that i want to be i want to have less great times and great days and know how to react through the gray

a little bit better when they happen and hold on to the blue a little bit more so yeah therapy when new treatment got i've been on over 30 antidepressant anti-anxiety meds over the years and a lot of us unfortunately are resistant um you know they haven't worked for me and there's there's other people like that so i have to continue to build myself from the inside out and figure out ways to combat this and if i won't stop if like something else comes out i'll try that something else comes out i'll try try that. Something else comes out, I'll try that. Because I know I can pull myself up out of it. Some of the things I've tried have set me down in a horrible rabbit hole.

Horrible. But I don't want to recommend anything to anybody unless I know it's worked for me. So I'm kind of willing to try anything because I can pull myself out of it. But, yeah, it's been, you know, I wish medication worked for me. And it does for a lot of people. And I'm kind of jealous what it does. When I have friends who are on it, I'm like, damn, this works for you. Because they, obviously with the book, a lot of people reached out like,

hey, this works for me, or that works for me. I'm like, been there, done that, tried it already. So it's going to be on me to find a solution for myself until I find something that does work for me, or maybe this is what works for me. Have you ever been struggling so bad that you couldn't go to work? No. It is hard to get out of bed almost every day. When I say this is every morning, every day, it's every morning I wake up and it's hard. It sucks, man. It sucks. it sucks man it sucks um and even like man the pain is what led me into a cage in the first place and i used to originally i said i was a crappy fighter i used to go in and train in that cage

to lose i felt that's what i was worthy of like i never felt worthy of winning and um it wasn't really till i started training with Chuck and Couture that I was like, no. And until I started coaching guys where I started to feel like I was worthy of something. But, yeah, every day, man, I wake up. Like, my sky's falling. Like, again, I'm not worthy.

I'm this terrible human. And I've got to work to get myself to combat it. And once I make that decision to get out of bed, then I go after life relentlessly. Right? Like, I don't just get out of bed. I get out of bed and go after things. I am fucking relentless in my pursuit of what I'm striving for. Hence the 11 years of being broken and broke and just going, going.

And that's actually, by the way, that's how we train our fighters and football players in Unbreakable, just being relentless, relentless, relentless, relentless until somebody goes, holy fuck, get him off me already. So I don't mind getting my ass kicked for a while, but I will not stop. I will not stop. Same thing with our cast. We don't stop. We don't already so i don't mind getting my ass kicked for a while but i will not stop i will not stop same thing with our cast we don't stop we don't stop we don't stop and it's kind of taking couture style and and putting more of that it's really from randy um right he just man he just didn't stop it's like being a torrential downpour of violence you don't stop you don't stop and those who are a lot more talented than us,

eventually that talent goes away when they're like, fuck, I did not sign up for this. You know, I signed up to play a sport, not to have a fucking fight like this. Same thing with life. I go at life the same exact way. I am fucking relentless. Until people kind of give in. Fuck, let's just give Jay jay this job fuck let's just do this thing that's how i go after so but it's um when it gets really horrible on me sometimes i do know to call someone and say man i'm having a bad day um you know like i'm talking about these training partners you just called mark kerr i. I saw you call the smashing machine. I haven't seen him. I saw him on your Instagram.

And so you were struggling and you call Mark Kerr to come to your house. Come over and punch me in the face. Let's go train. And I felt he did. He was there in two seconds. Wow. Yeah. How about that?

So that's the other thing. I got into fighting because I watched the smashing machine. And I was like, man, that's where I belong. That's me. But again, not really to win, more to take the meetings, which is really fucked up. on a bad path, right? And he's been in Narcotics Anonymous and Alcohol Anonymous and a lot of Anonymouses. And he comes in MVP and he's like, oh my God, this is where I belong. And he said, look, I don't have anything in common with the housewife

and the real estate agent in Narcotics Anonymous or this business leader except sobriety. But I got so much in common with these people because everybody's a warrior. And he's done so great with MVP

that we just hired him to run a Phoenix chapter out here. He's now working for MVP. As of last week, he's going to run. We're going to open a Phoenix chapter here in the next two months, I think, for combat vets and ex-fighters and ex-athletes. We're going to have him work with a lot of our fighters and football players. And, man, he is phenomenal.

So I think, like, look, The Rock said to me, man, you're going to be this voice for the gray because you've been through this darkness, right? That's kind of schooling doesn't make me an expert in this, if you will, or qualified. My suffering does. That's why Mark was perfect for this job. Like he's been through it. So he knows how to help people through their darkness, through his own darkness.

I mean, he's going to be, it's not the Mark Kerr that we've all known for the last 10, 15 years since he fell off the reservation hard, right? He's found his purpose. He even said, I found my why. I found my why. Nobody knows we've hired him. You're the first person I'm telling. Scoop it.

Scoop it, let's scoop it for you. But Mark Kerr, for every fighter out there listening, right? Go to our website, vetsandplayers.org. We are here for you. Like we're here to build this fight team for all of us again together. And you deserve it. You fucking deserve it. You've've done shit like taking those three steps up in the cage i don't care if you've done it once in our own one or a hundred times in a hundred no even though it's you know but it makes you fucking different that makes you different than the rest of the world and everybody out there who every fighter has listened to this you know one of the things mark struggled with was oh i used

to be mark her no motherfucker you're mark her that's it right and no matter what for everybody fighting out for her out there these business leaders man we could all kind of get lucky and invest in something and be a millionaire billionaire like that but they can't get lucky and have the nutsack that everybody here these fighters listen to your podcast that they have to take those three steps up and in. Right. And I want them all to understand that, like that will never go that special is, and your scars from doing this. Every time my back hurts, I'm like, look my back hurts because I've trained a thousand NFL players or football

players and football players and fighters. And it's fantastic. But I want them to understand what makes them special valuable and take that into every room you ever walk into and take that in your next step of life and to know hey i'm actually yeah i'm different motherfucker i'm different right and that's what too many of our football players and fighters and vets they go by the wayside because when it's over they either look at it like oh i, I'm different. Oh, fuck that. You're different. Or, like, again, you, man, you fight in the UFC or Bellator or BFL, whatever, anything you've done is not who the fuck you are. You playing in the NFL is not who the fuck you are.

What's behind your ribcage that got you to compete on that fucking level, that's who the fuck you are. And that suddenly doesn't just leave when your gloves come off or when the uniform comes off. you being a combat vet you go overseas and do all these great things and you race under fire and courage under pressure you you save people and they come back over here again they're like i'm different i don't fit in i'm like no again you are different you you've got to understand that your skill set is unlike the rest of the world. And look at everybody like you are different.

So that's why when you put them together, MVP is magical. And I do think Mark Kerr is going to end up saving a lot of lives. And who would have thought about it, right? Yeah. Who would have thought that? Smashing machine would now save. He's the saving machine. So as of last week, I'm excited to open that chapter.

I'm excited for what he's going to bring. That is great. And I love the fact that you give these older fighters who are no longer competing an ability to make money and to give back and to be remembered. This is a huge thing and it doesn't happen enough. You know, I was actually in preparation and I'll let you go in a moment. Really enjoyed this. Thank you for the time, Jay. In preparation for this conversation,

I read a 2014 profile on you in GQ. And you know what's fascinating about that? And you probably remember the profile. A lot has been done on you. But what was interesting about this is there's no mention whatsoever about your anxiety, depression, mental health issues. And you come across in this conversation a hell of a lot more relatable, a hell of a lot more, you know, humble. Like you're a completely different guy than that guy. And so I would imagine back then in 2014, you weren't even talking about this. You weren't letting people into this side of you. When you look back at that guy, do you like that guy? Was that the real Jay Glazer? Because I would imagine this feels like the real Jay Glazer to me.

I needed that guy. I needed that guy to hide. Right? I needed to build up this character of the Glaze so people wouldn't see my pain. You know? Because you hit it hard because you said, do you like that guy? I never liked this guy. That's the fucking problem.

And that's why I'm trying to fight back. But I need to build that up, that character to hide. And that's why I wrote the fucking book. So we don't have to hide anymore. We don't have to suffer in silence. That's a lot of fucking suffering in silence that I've done. And, you know, I really want to show people that they're not alone, that they don't have to do this shit like me where I did have

to create this character to hide behind. Some of it's me. The practical joke side is definitely me. The gray hates laughter, so I'm always trying to play jokes. It also gives me, when I laugh, it gives me that break that I need. A lot of the stories in there if you saw like

a lot of them were conflict-based because and sean payton used this line in the book hurt people hurt people right free fucking wall hurt people hurt people and you're in as much pain as i'm in and i was always hurting myself and others And that's where the conflicts came about. I was always fucking out in conflicts. And that was part of that character that was in there. I was having conflicts. I was picking fights. It was, you know, man, it was just, it was a lot,

but I was hiding the pain because we didn't talk about it back then. Like I knew for me, but it wasn't open like this. We didn't talk about it. And again, that's why I want to be the words and give people the words to start talking about this shit. As you said, look how much you can think.

You can see I'm a lot more at peace now that I can talk about it and start to be proud of it. Like if I'm proud of my physical scars, I need to start being proud of my mental scars and show everybody else out there they're not alone. And it's all okay for us to do this shit together. We got to do it together. Do you think you'll ever get to a point where you do love yourself,

where you have less gray days, more blue days, less anxiety? Do you think that's possible? I don't know, but I'm not going to stop hunting it. I have no idea. I will not stop hunting it. And that's why, again, that's where the motivation comes in.

You asked before, like, I'm not going to let it, I'm never going to never gonna take a day off from it i'm never gonna stay in my bed from it i will let it motivate me to keep hunting the blue how long do you want to do this job that you have for the the insider job do you want to go till you know the wheels fall off or is there a point where you want to evolve into something else because you got a lot going on right now i don't even know how you juggle all these things. You've got MVP. You've got Unbreakable. Book come out. The acting.

The TV gig. Is there a point where you're just like, I don't want to do this anymore? No. So our show, too, is different than Fox and The Bell Sunday. That's our family. There's six of us. There's obviously me, Terry Bradshaw, Harry Long,

Kurt Menefee, Michael Stray, and Jimmy Johnson. There's six of us, though, and there's like 19 personalities. And Bradshaw and I have 11 of them. By the way, he was the first one who did speak about it. Terry Bradshaw came out about his depression and anxiety 20-ish years ago, 25 years ago. But, again, no one was talking about it. He was so ahead of his time.

When I first signed with Fox, it was one of the first conversations i had with him well i i felt comfortable because it's again i i knew it and i had somebody else who already talked about it um so that's a different group like we are man we're the last dance like our show will never happen again we love each other so much what you see on camera is true so like we've been best man at each other's weddings there's been a lot of fucking weddings um uh we were godfathers of each other's kids like man howie's kids chris long and kyle long i've known him since they were like 9 11 and then i trained both of them to go in the NFL draft. And now Kyle just came back out of retirement. Chris is already retired.

Like, man, we are family. So for me, it's not so much about the inside of the job. It's this family that we have together. It's so special. Like we should do a last dance on Fox. There'll never be anything like us again. There will never be anything like us. You know, and I don't look – it's just, man, it's just, it's just different.

So, you know, breaking news to write the anxiety of it is harsh, but I love my family so much. It's not really, you know, you just always want to be with them. Well, there's a reason why you guys were inducted into the TV Hall of Fame. You deserve that. What a career you've had up until now. And it's really great to see this Hall of Fame. You deserve that. What a career you've had up until now. And it's really great to see this side of you. It was one of the highlights for me working at Fox, getting to know you a little bit,

getting to know about your faith, your background. You're an inspiration to people like me and even more so now because of a book like this. I could have been better to you at Fox, man. I'm sorry for that. I could have been way better and really taken you in and take you more. And I wasn't.

And man, that's my own. I remember too, when it came about to, I remember I was struggling a lot when we started and we were traveling all over on the road. Right. And just like, man. And also like same thing. Like I'd never been hated before.

And all of a sudden being the host of the UFC and people saying, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Like, and this is when Twitter really started to, I didn't fucking know how to handle it. Like, holy shit. So I actually kind of, no, I remember kind of isolating myself a lot back then. It's one of the things I, and I wish I did spend more time with you back then, kind of help you navigate what you're about to go through in this career. So I apologize to you for that.

I should have been a lot better, man. I really should have. I appreciate that. But I mean, I did not feel that way at all. But I appreciate you saying that. Congratulations on the book. You're getting a ton of praise for it. It's crazy to see, you know, you getting this kind of praise for something that has nothing to do with football, right? It's just, it's a really powerful thing. Men don't speak about these things the way you're speaking about it and the check-ins and all that stuff. It means a lot to a lot of people to know that someone like Jay Glazer, as famous and successful as you are, can go through the same things as everyone else. So kudos to you, my friend Mazel Tov,

to you on doing this. My wallet's not antidepressants, man. I want people out there to understand that. And again, when I first worked my ass off and it's in the book and I first got to Fox and I first got all this success and fame. I thought it was going to be rainbows and unicorns. It wasn't like my wallet. And I know both sides, but I got the broke side and the unbreakable side. So man,

that was like, for me, I was like, fuck, I always thought it was going to change everything for me. And man, it didn't. So I,

you know, I do appreciate who would have thought though, we did first start working together all those years ago. And one day I'd be doing a podcast with you and I'd be crying to you on your podcast. It's a beautiful thing. The book is called Unbreakable, How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety Into Motivation. And you can, too. Can't recommend it enough. Also, Merging Vets and Players, the group that you've talked about in this conversation, we've seen it featured on

Bellator broadcasts a ton. Much respect for that. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. Unbreakable Performance Center as well, training these football players, celebrities, Wiz Khalifa, Demi Lovato, and a bunch of fighters training out of there. You're doing a ton of things. I'm very happy for you. Proud to call you a friend, Jay. And thank you so much for giving us an hour of your time here to talk about all this. It was really a great conversation. I enjoyed it immensely. You're immense, brother. I really appreciate it, man. And hey, dude, if we help one person out there with this, we did our job, man. Hopefully there's a lot more. All right. So I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did.

Love those conversations. when we're not talking about, you know, like the day to day of one's career, but about who they are as a person, their lives, their struggles, what makes them go, what keeps them down, how they get over those things. I love all that stuff. Obviously, I don't love hearing him struggle, but I sincerely appreciate how honest and open he was about everything and how emotional he got. It's not easy to do that. He's 52. That's just not natural, but it's becoming more natural. It's becoming more common. And I really appreciate people like Jay who are willing to put themselves out there and

do so in the effort of trying to help other people. And that's the main thing. He's not necessarily just writing this for himself. He's writing this so that you and I can read it and say like, hey, it's okay to feel a certain way, but this is what I'm going to do to try to get better and other people out there feel the same way. That goes a long way. So, I highly recommend the book. It's called Unbreakable, How I Turn My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation. You can too. I have an immense amount of respect for Jay for everything that he does with vets, MVP, check it out, Merging Vets and Players, the Unbreakable Performance Center, and he's still the man when it comes to NFL insight. When he reports it, it's legit, and that's a huge compliment.

Much respect, Jay. Thank you very much for the time. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you want to watch this conversation, go check it out. YouTube.com slash Ariel Hawani. Thank you for your support over there. Please go subscribe. Click the little rating thing here on the pod. Click the follow if it's on Spotify. Leave a review, a comment.

All those things go a really long way. I appreciate you all more than you know. Thank you for your listenership. Thank you for your viewership. Thank you for you know. Thank you for your listenership. Thank you for your viewership. Thank you for your support. Thank you to Jay Glazer. Thank you to the lovely feathers.

Thank you to all of you. Appreciate you stopping by. Much love. Have a great weekend. I'll talk to you next week. Thank you.