The Chris Cuomo Project - Jay Glazer, Depression & Anxiety

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

In this week’s episode of The Chris Cuomo Project, Chris dives into the statistics behind the prevalence of mental health issues in our lives. Jay Glazer, NFL Insider for “FOX NFL Sunday” and author of “Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too,” speaks with Chris about battling depression and anxiety in “the gray,” the importance of opening up to loved ones about mental health struggles, and more. Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I don't know what it's like to be loved from the inside out. Like, I just never felt worthy of being loved from the inside out. So as a result, it motivated me to do all these really great things and outwork the world to try and get some love, to accomplish things and get some love from the outside in while I'm still working on the love from the inside out and hopefully meet in the middle one day. Welcome to another episode of the Chris Cuomo Project. Project, me and you, collaboration, Free agents, free agents like you.

No team, no tribe, right? Open mind, open heart, willing to listen even if you disagree. I also want you to buy the merch, not so that I can have a string of Bentleys, but that we can put a kitty of money together that we will give to good causes. I already started in your stead. It's just going to come out of my pocket. And it's going to be in an upcoming episode. You'll see who I picked and why, stead. It's just going to come out of my pocket and it's going to be in an upcoming episode. You'll see who I picked and why, and I think you're going to agree.

So the merch is shirts, all these different things. It's cool. And I like the idea on a lot of it. It says, are you free? Because everybody's going to say, yes, of course I'm free. I'm an American. I'm a free thinker. I'm free. But if you think about it, what shapes your ideas, what shapes your reflexes and your tendencies, we can get conditioned by a lot of things. And that's why I ask it. And even if your answer is still yes, and that's the real answer, it's good to think about it. So that's this. Now, the idea of free agency, oh, it's because Cuomo hates the parties. Stop. I don't hate anybody. All right. It's a bad word. And to feel that kind of animus puts your head and your heart in a bad place.

Don't give anybody or anything that kind of power over you to have you motivated by a poison that is anywhere near anything approaching hate. Not anti-Democrat. How could I be? I was raised by a giant of a Democrat of the old Democratic Party. What do you mean old Democratic Party? Here's what I mean. My father's party was obsessed with the underclass, what he would call the underclass, new immigrants like him, new to this country. He was the first one in his family, his generation born here. country. He was the first one in his family, his generation born here. Workers, working class, those issues were everything, okay? Now, that is not what the Democratic Party gets owned by today. There's good and bad reason for that. The bad reason is that it's become such a toxic twosome that it's all about opposing the other side as opposed to

what you're for and what you're about. I believe Democrats also have a tougher bar because you guys are often selling better, selling something that captures the imagination about the overcoming power of spirit, of love, of community and continuity, interconnection, interdependence. And that's harder than fear and separation and demagoguery, which beat you with Trump and Hillary. Now, oh, so you think Republicans are bad? No, I think they're different than Democrats,

or they should be. Right now, I think everybody's too similar and it's just about who's worse. I think that's a mistake. But that is where my head is on Democrats. And if you look at the party, it's certainly evolved from where it used to be. The people who are seen as progressives today, their ideas don't match up with a Jesse Jackson or a Ted Kennedy or a Mario Cuomo. They just don't. Do your homework, do your research, and come up to your own conclusion about why there's a difference. The biggest thing is, most of what you're hearing out of the progressive left or the far right is talk. It's about animus. It's about feelings. It's about judging situations as opposed to the good judgment that backs policy ideas, okay? And giving everybody everything or taking away everything from anybody, those are not good policy ideas. They are just a projection of judgment, okay? And that's bad judgment. It's really judging. Migrants, bad. That's judging. Figure out asylum laws, figure out processing, go after the large-scale employers. That's judgment. That's a judgment of a policy consideration. That's the difference. So,

being a free agent, that's what I want you to be. I'm in the media, okay? This doesn't apply to me. This is always how my head has been. But I am, by definition, not invested in one party or the other. And again, I know there are people will say, oh, but he's a lefty. And now you'll hear lefties saying, oh, he's come back. So now he's a righty. This is noise and nonsense. And that's OK. Let people say what they want to say. The beauty is this. If it's said about you, this is true about you. If it's said about me, it's true about me.

It only means what I think it does. I don't control what people say. They say what they say. But it only means what I think it means to me. You understand? You can decide what it means for you. I decide what it means to me. You understand? You can decide what it means for you. I decide what it means for me. And that's a very powerful lesson in dealing with criticism in general, let alone

in this crucible, this thunderdome of media and politics. So that's why the free agent idea is important. And that's why I want you to buy merch if you can, so that we can raise money and we can start giving it to the people and the causes that we find worthy. And I think that's a good thing. I think it's a good exercise for us to be a part of. Now, we have a really important guest today, and he's going to speak to something that we really have to reconsider. Okay. People will tell you, stop stigmatizing mental health and mental illness. And it's almost as if that suggestion falls into the be nice category or the political correctness category of why we don't use certain phrases anymore because they're offensive to somebody. So don't talk about mental illness now. That is the least of it. Do you understand? This is not about being polite.

It's not about political correctness. Our blindness, our fear surrounding the reality of the holistic nature of health, of how it all goes together, is literally killing us, is literally making us sick. Now, we think about what we call people. We think about names and terms and being derogatory and political correctness because we're worried about protecting minorities who can be, you know, distanced, who can be

marginalized. That's not what this is about when we're talking about mental health. And again, I am on this quest for a better term than that. Okay? Sirens denote the urgency. Side note, I believe there are more sirens in New York City right now than I'm used to hearing. Maybe it's because I live out on the island and far away now. I do not believe it's because there's so much crime that there are always ambulances, but I will get to the bottom of it. What I haven't gotten to the bottom of is what's the better term? But here's what I do know. It ain't about being PC. It's not about being polite, okay? Now, to make this point, I have prepared food for thought on the issue of how prevalent this is as a dynamic in our lives, okay? COVID-19, a meta-analysis, which means

a global look at a bunch of different studies. The prevalence of depression was better than one in three. People identified more than one out of three that, yes, depression was something they were dealing with. Now, the question becomes, well, do they just mean that they were sad? Maybe. But just as often, right, depression is not just sadness, right? Depression is a chemical condition and illness where literally you cannot make yourself feel the way you want to feel. We often talk about that. And look, a lot of behavior is choice, is volition, is a function of character, okay? is volition, is a function of character, okay? But not all of it. And depression isn't just being sad. Suck it up.

No. It is where you know that you want to feel differently, but you can't. And it's hard to feel anything at all. It is real. And I think by now you should know that because I would be shocked if it's not you, it's not your family, it's not a friend.

I don't buy it. The chance that you don't have someone who struggles somewhere in there, and we'll go through the numbers and you'll understand why. Depression is the number one cause of global disability. At any one time, 8% of the world has a significant mental illness. 20% of adolescents meet the criteria for this. Again, you can look at those numbers and say, what does that mean, global disability? Meaning that there is a condition that keeps people from performing the way they want to or need to. Now you're thinking, that's still mushy. Okay. 264 million people, that would be,

have some form of this condition. You know how many have cancer? Gotta be more, right? 18. Now, the skeptic says, yeah, except we know when someone has cancer. This is like self-reporting with depression. Okay. Work-related absence, the number one cause that people attribute to why this happens in workplaces, depression. The cost to employers is $23 billion annually lost productivity from workers not being available. An estimated 45 to 90% of the cost of depression treatment could be offset by gains in work productivity. Now, isn't that an interesting number as food for thought? What that denotes is how we're ignoring this. Suicidality, okay? The intersection of suicidality, people wanting to kill themselves and doing it or trying and struggling with an emotional or psychological

issue is obviously going to be high, right? 90% of people who die by suicide have an untreated mental health problem. Most often, it is depression. Under treatment of mental illness, 50 to 75 percent of those in need receive no or inadequate treatment. Think about that if it were diabetes. How many people we would have dying of toxic shock? 50 to 75 percent of those in need. Why? Because they don't want to get the treatment. Over 80 percent of adolescents and college students who die by suicide never received any consistent treatment prior to their death. You care about gun crime? You know what the number one gun crime technically in this country is? Suicide. And it's not even close. The number one gun crime is suicide. And it's not even close. How many could be prevented? If we dared to care about this enough to remove the stigma, it gets much deeper.

How else can we see this? Food for thought. Antidepressants, okay? Where do you think they fall in the prescriptions that we get in this country? You know, people are taking pills for everything, right? I got a little thing for my thyroid, right? People are taking things for the diabetes, the Coumadin because of the heart, and the Crestor for the cholesterol. People are taking things for the diabetes, the Coumadin because the heart and the Crestor for the, you know, the cholesterol. People are taking things all the time, right? Better life through chemistry. What's the number one prescription in the United States? Antidepressants. Oh, so then we must be fine, right? No. The fact that it's number one and it's probably the most undertreated illness, imagine what that tells you about the enormity of the situation.

It is encouraging that they get the treatment, but it also shines a light on how vast undertreatment is. If it's the number one prescription in the country and we have 50% to 75% of those in need not getting treatment, think about how big this is. And the worst part is why they don't get the treatment. It would be bad enough if we didn't have the medicine. It would be bad enough if we wouldn't have insurers pay for the medicine, which happens, which happens. And it happens even more with treatment.

Very hard to get, very hard, too hard. But the biggest reason is the most shameful one. Stigma. This isn't a real illness. I'm weak. I should be able to suck it up. Most of all, I'm a man. And a man doesn't have to get into his feels like this. You know what kind of jerk tells themselves that? Me. I told myself that for years. What are you so afraid of? Anxiety. What are you, a pussy? Get over it. Do you know how many times I told myself that? What are you afraid? What do you fear? All right, so you deal with it. It's what it is. All right. Why do you feel like this?

Shake it off. Enough now. Your life is good. Things are fine. Get over it. Don't be so soft. You know, you're good. Look at you.

You're good. You're strong. You're big. It's good. For years, I told myself that. And wait until you hear that same reckoning from a much mightier man than I am as our special guest today, a New York City firefighter. It's the stigma to admitting you have any kind of problem that gets in the way of beating

depression. Can't do it. Can't say you have a problem. Can't do it. And it's worse in other parts of the world, by the way, but it's bad here. Now, another highlight, another highlight, okay? Antidepressants make such a huge difference. It's part of the shame here. It's part of what's so sad about this situation, no pun intended.

Not treating depression is what kills people. Autopsy studies invariably associated with the lack of treatment or noncompliance when it comes to suicide. The CDC says 76% of suicides were untreated at the time of death. Three out of four suicides with a high intersection of the struggle and the act of wanting to kill, trying to kill, succeeding in killing yourself. Untreated. Suicide drops dramatically across the world after the introduction of modern antidepressants. You will see it on the graph. We don't think of depression as a treatable medical illness like we do with diabetes or cancer. We don't see it that way because we see it as volitional. Suck it up.

You would never hear the word choice when it comes to cancer. Never. Somebody tells you they're diabetic. Hey, have more fruit. Hey, man, change your diet. No, I'm type 1 diabetes. Ah, come on. Come on, man.

You got a little bit of a headache. You'll be good. You'll be good. Drink more water. Never. But why do we do it with this? It's killing us. It's making us sick.

And now to the focus of today. It gets even worse when you start looking at gender. Men and boys do not seek help. How do we know? 41% of women who died by suicide had antidepressants in their system. Okay? If you have an antidepressant in your system, oh, so you're going to kill yourself anyway? Don't be foolish.

There is no panacea. Just because somebody's getting treatment doesn't mean everything's going to be fine any more than it does with any other chronic illness. But not being treated makes it almost impossible to be fine. All right? We have to stop closing our eyes to this and putting up obstacles to it. It's killing us. It's making us sick. 41% of women who died by suicide had antidepressants in their system. 11% of men did. Now, what does that tell you? It tells you that women seek treatment at a rate that men don't. During COVID-19, mental health ed presentation of girls age 12 to 17 went up 50%. What do you think it went up for boys? Four. Now, look, any grown man out there knows that all stereotypes aside,

women are stronger emotionally. They deal with more. They get more into their feelings. They express their feelings. They act through their feelings more overtly, but they are strong emotionally. Any man who leans on a woman in his life knows that. So what does it tell you when mental health ed presentation of girls 12 to 17 went up 50%, but for boys, only 4%. The stigma. The stigma. That's what it is. Biggest health issue facing the globe before COVID-19, cancer, heart disease, smoking, HIV, AIDS, depression. More identified as causing disability, absence from work, school, dysfunction at home than any other malady.

Every six days in a company of 100,000 employees, every six days, one employee or family member will die by suicide. Now, I gave a lot of thought to how to present this because I don't want to come off as preachy because I'm not. I struggle with this myself. I struggled with accepting the reality that it was something for me to deal with myself. And I am very baseline. I don't have like bipolar disorder or a real disease, you know, or schizophrenia or anything like that. And you don't have to for it to be relevant. Okay. I don't have rheumatoid arthritis or any kind of significant autoimmune disease that is causing bone breakdown, brittle bone syndrome, but I still have arthritic pain. I still have joint pain and I deal with it.

Why wouldn't I deal with anything that affects how I feel emotionally, psychologically, the way I do physically when it's all related? Because I got to tell you, the joint pain in the knee is exacerbated, made worse, when you don't process the right way because of a chemical imbalance. This is what we need to speak about. And I am so frustrated by my inability to make it more clear and to make a difference because it's so obvious. Opioids are involved in one out of five suicide deaths. Okay, so what? Self-medicating is a huge collateral aspect of untreated mental, emotional, psychological issues. Many addicts are self-medicating. I'm telling you, I've been living this for 30 years in my work with the addicted and people in recovery.

Yes, there's behavior. Yes, there's choice. Yes, in the beginning. Yes, yes. But more often than not, those choices and behaviors are motivated by pain and their desire to self-medicate to not feel. Not the idea that, oh, they just want to get high because it feels good. Very few junkies will tell you that it feels good. They'll tell you they don't want to feel or that they feel horrible if they don't have the drug in their system, so they need it. Heroin addicts have a phenomenon called

getting well, where they feel fluish, dope sick, they call it. If they don't have the dope, they go into withdrawal and they feel like they have the flu, the worst flu in the world. And in their mind, they keep saying to themselves, all you have to do is take the drug and this will go away. And the worst part is it does. It does. It's self-medicating desperately because we don't treat it. We can do better than this. Now, a big thing is not to just recognize this in yourself if it's something that is real for you in your own life.

But what about when you sense that somebody else is in trouble? It is the biggest way that we can make a difference in this world in this manner. You can help somebody else just by talking to them, to ask them how they are. You don't have to be a doctor or a psychiatrist to help somebody access their own pain. On the page, you will see, and I will say it, to go to the Lighthouse Project at Columbia University. Now they call it the Lighthouse Project because I called it the Columbia Protocol so many

times that they actually changed the name to that when I was talking about this on TV all the time. But the Columbia Project is actually the Lighthouse Project at Columbia University. You'll see it on the screen. You can go there and get your own lesson in what you need to ask somebody that can completely make a difference in their lives and yours. Now, that takes us to our special guest today, Jay Glazer. Okay?

All the guy's eyes pop up, right? Why? Oh, this is going to be good. Turn up this podcast. Jay Glazer, Fox Football Sunday, man. Come on. He's one of the men, little bald guy, but he ain't little, okay? He's like a fire plug. Less known about him, very tough, fighter, mixed martial artist, many, many years, very capable. So he's a big football analyst, great reporter, a little less known, very tough guy, owns a gym, Unbreakable, and now a line of supplements, Unbreakable book, Unbreakable. Even less known and probably the most important descriptor of Jay Glazer in his own estimate, let alone mine, he struggles.

He struggles with psychological feelings, emotional feelings, anxiety. He struggles and he has for a long time and he ignored it until he decided to be the strong person that he put himself out to in the world. And now he deals with it. He's not better. He's better, but it's not gone because it's not as simple as a habit. Now he cleans his room every day. He's not a slob anymore. It's not that simple.

But I was so happy to have him come on to talk about his own struggle and what he learned about himself and what he's trying to make known to others. Please, take a look and a listen. Jay Glazer. Support for the Chris Cuomo Project comes from PrizePix. I got to tell you, there's a reason PrizePix is America's number one fantasy sports app. Three million members. Why? Easy, plenty of action if you're into DFS, and it's just you against the numbers. into DFS, and it's just you against the numbers. You pick more than or less than on two to six player stat projections, and if you're any good, the winnings will roll in. The big game is right around the corner. You got a little side action on Tay-Tay, do you? Prize picks is the easiest,

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You need an online consultation with a healthcare provider, and they will determine if appropriate. Restrictions apply. You see the website, you'll get details and important safety information. You're going to need a subscription. It's required. Plus, price is going to vary based on product and subscription plan. Jay Glazer, it is a pleasure. thank you for taking the time brother thank you my man i appreciate it now because i'm a fan and i know your story and i am so impressed by so much of what you've done on the charitable side on the fight side um fitness side love it all. Why would you risk all of that by talking about something that you know reduces you in people's eyes? Talking about wellness, being healthy in your mind, body, and spirit, all these different things. Yeah. Why would you talk about mental health?

Yes. I think it makes me stronger. I think vulnerability is true strength. And because I've been, look, I'm in the center of dude-ism, right? With football, fighting, ballers. No one's questioning my manhood. So I could cry on the drop of a dime. But if I don't use my own pain to help people through theirs, then like, what am I doing? So I, you know, listen, my, and I decided to write this book and do this podcast

on mental health because we all talk about, we say the words mental health, but who describes it? And God blessed me with the ability to communicate. I want to be able to communicate it so we could all have these conversations because I don't think I'm risking anything. I think we're in the majority. I think those of us who are struggling or going through something are in the majority, we're in the majority. I think those of us who are struggling or going through something are in the majority, not the minority. And look, my level is clinical. So I'm clinical, depression, anxiety, ADD, might as well sprinkle in a little bipolar while we're at it. I got everything. I got LMNOP, I got everything. So you don't have to have my level though of what I call the gray to feel something these days. I mean mean we're in a scary world social

media makes us all think our lives suck like we compare ourselves to everybody else's filtered fraction of a second of one day right like and we're we feel left out we're like why does my meal not look like that how come i'm not at that point we all feel so left out or on twitter like i don't think the human condition is meant to see so much hate and bullying. And we got bullied in the playground growing up. It sucked for a month, but now we're seeing it a thousand times a second. I just don't think we're built for that. So yeah, it's time for me to do something about it if I could and bond us all together and show us we're not alone and start talking about it. Because, man, I hit it. I'm 52.

I hit it for 51 of those 52 years, and I regret hiding it that long. So let's talk about why people shy away from it. And did you fear and what did you perceive when you first started to talk about this, even though you were already Jay Glazer and had a big fan base. And, you know, as you said, your chops, you know, as a stereotypical man are absolutely in place. You're a tough guy. You're a strong guy. What was the reaction when you started to talk about what you have dealt with and how? It has brought me closer together to every single person I've opened up to. So for those out there who are afraid, it's not the reaction you're going to get. And you asked me what we go through, why we don't.

And I'll tell you a quick story. My best friend is my baby sister, Michael Strahan. Okay. So I know you're friends with. He's been my best friend for 30 years. And it wasn't until November of last year when I told him I couldn't go out one night. 30 years later, man, the beast just got out of the box. I woke up. And this is, by the way, my depression, anxiety is something I deal with every single day of my life. It sucks. I wake up every day. And I didn't sign up for this. I didn't ask for this. It sucks. So I've had to learn things, how to deal with it, to get myself out of bed every day, to learn how to be relentless despite this gray feeling that I'm constantly feeling. That's constantly like, it's like chains are pulling me down, downward and the sky is falling and everybody hates me. And man, the universe is against me when I know it's not the case.

I know logically that's not real, but that's how it feels. And so one night I got woken up by an anxiety attack in November. And again, it doesn't make any sense. Like I got woken up by one. It's not like something triggered me. I was sleeping.

And I was supposed to go to dinner with Strahan that night on Friday night. And for the first time ever, I called him and said, man, the beast just got out of the box. I can't go to dinner tonight, man. It's kicked my ass. And when I, when I feel a panic attack or an anxiety attack or depression, the gray is really bad. I feel it physically. It's a visceral physical reaction. I feel it on the left side of my gut. I feel it behind my rib cage and like my heart. It's like, and I feel it in my joints. Like I just got out of a 50 round fight in the rain. You know, it's just, man, it's brutal. And I said, and that pain is real for me. And I said, Stray, man, I just can't go to dinner tonight. And in the past, when I felt like that,

I would have taken a cup of Vicodin and alcohol and gone out and hit it and usually often get myself in worse trouble, which I now don't do anymore, thank God. And I said, man, I just can't go out tonight. And he said, I want to talk about it. I said, no, I'm good. I just kind of want to go back to, I want to go to bed. And he said, do you want me to come over? I said, no. And then he said, why have you never told me this? 30 years. And like, I get choked up still when I tell this story here. And I don't mind getting choked up because again, no one's questioning my band and I'm good.

And I just said to him, man, I don't know. I don't make up the rules of this thing. So back, that's the answer to your question. I don't know why I didn't talk about it. I said, Stray, whatever reason, I felt ashamed with you. I talked to people in my charity band. I talked to my fighters, my fight teammates, the Randy Coutures and Chuck Liddell's. No problem. Stray, with you, I just felt ashamed.

But I don't make up the rules of this thing. Well, you know, I'm done. I'm done being ashamed. I'm done, like, doing this shit on my own. Like, I want to walk this walk with people. And every single one of them I've opened up to has gotten us so much closer together. So there's nothing to hide anymore for me.

And I hope people at home could take this also. And, and you know why? And this one, Michael said also like, he said, yeah, but I could have been there for you for 30 years, man. Like I took that away from him as my friend, as his friend. I took that away. So the people at home, you open up, like your friends, your family, they want to be there for us.

They want to lift you up. And that's them being of service to you. Some. And the ones who don't are not the right kinds of friends anyway. Yeah, that's not your crew. And then you got these other people who are one layer removed where you got to be worried. Like, I know. So, you know, I'm totally with you.

And I believe it. And it's kind of an obsession of mine that we can't say mental health anymore. Because if you and I were talking about not taking a shit in the morning, we wouldn't be talking about digestive health. You know, we would just be talking about the problem and what works and what doesn't work. And there'd be no shame in our game.

As you know now, we're the same age. Guys are talking about how they keep the testosterone up and what supplements they're going to take. And, you know, the Viagra cocktail with a little bit of gin. Whatever they're doing to get what they need, the way they need Viagra cocktail with a little bit of gin. Whatever they're doing to get what they need the way they need it. Wait, with a little bit of what?

Wait, wait, what is that? I'll tell you later. Help me out here. There's like no shame in our game until you get to this category. If I tell people, I got to go, I got to get PT. I can't roll with you today, man.

My knee is just not right. I got to go get it worked on. Everybody gets it. If I say't roll with you today, man. My knee is just, it's just not right. I got to go get it worked on. Everybody gets it. If I say, hey, you know what? I got to take a pass. I'm calling my therapist. He's got to help me through some stuff. It's just not making sense for me. People respond differently. Do you think that's just about- See, again, it's brought me closer to everybody. And my friends are the baddest dudes on the planet. And it's brought us closer together. You know what? Here's the other thing. So now I kind of give, when I wrote my book, Unbreakable, I put in these pillars that I used. It's like a game plan

to help me through my time. And one of them is having a team, right? So the reason I wrote this book is so I could have more teammates, right? Or people I could reach out to. But this is what I'm saying to you also, when I. So I'll give you another example. I had a bad day recently. Again, I don't know when they're going to come. I never knew who I'm going to wake up with every day. And I had a bad day. And now I know, you know what?

I'm going to call four friends and say, I'm struggling today. I called The Rock. That's one of them. The busiest dude in the world. Sent him a message. Boom. Responded in two's one of them. The busiest dude in the world. Sent him a message. Boom. Responded in two seconds. So here's the busiest guy in the world who responds two seconds later.

He's one of my battle buddies when it comes to this stuff. He wrote the foreword to my book because he said, this is too important. So here's the doodliest dude on the planet also. And he opens up about it with me because he thinks we need to to lead the charge on this what do you do when guys say to you listen you're okay jay but a lot of these guys don't feed them they're just being soft these men and women you know everybody's so tough you've never heard that i haven't no not at all nobody is so you know every once in a while you, some Twitter jag offs will say something and I'd usually felt bad for them, but it's been 99.9999% have been when I'll tell people, listen, man, I'm struggling

today. I'm struggling. I'm hurting today. And so I'll do that to four of my friends, random, just different friends. And I need them. No one's told me that they have no time for me. No, not your friends. I'm talking about you. But that's what I'm talking about. But you have to go to your people. Right. No, I'm totally with you. Not just random. I don't go to random people. I go to my crew.

But the other thing I started doing when I have those bad days, I now check up on other people. I'll call four other people without telling them I'm struggling. I'll be of service. I'll call them and just say, hey, man, I'm just checking up on you, seeing how you're doing. I love that. Just selflessly. One of the reasons I recommend your book, although I'll call them and just say, hey, man, I'm just checking up on you, seeing how you're doing. I love that. Just selflessly.

One of the reasons I recommend your book, although I want to fight with you about the title, or not literally because you'll twist me into a pretzel, but I want to talk to you about Unbreakable. But look, I love the concept. And I recommend your book because his book is about process. I am obsessed with process. I love self-help. I read everything. I love it. I enjoy it. I try to with process. I love self-help. I read everything.

I love it. I enjoy it. I try to use it. And very often, it's about more about the what and even the why than the how. We're very light on the how because the how sucks. And mine, there's a lot of how. It's so much how about the different things you call on the pillars, but there's got to be at least eight or 10 different sets of guidance in there about what Jay figured out through research and personal

experience. What are different coping mechanisms? And I'm obsessed with process because the older you get, you realize, you know, even if it's in the, you know, when you're fighting, you know, I'm self-defense, you know, you do MMA, you know, until you get in there, you realize there's very little that you control until somebody starts to do things. And now you can react and now you can create a dynamic, but process you always control, your effort you control, what you do you control. I think you lay it out beautifully in the book. My one beef, unbreakable, how I turned my depression and anxiety into motivation and you can too. I agree with all of it, but unbreakable, how I turned my depression and anxiety into motivation, and you can too. I agree with all of it.

But unbreakable. Wait, I thought you said you had a beef. Here's the beef. We are breakable. We are all breakable, but you can repair. My book's called Unbreakable because it's all about the things that try to break me and didn't. So I don't brag about my successes in that book as much as I brag about my scars, right? I'm proud of my damn scars.

And when I walk into a room, it could be the most powerful room in the world, I don't look at it and go, hey, I'm in the TV Hall of Fame, which we are from Fox and NFL Sunday, or man, I did five seasons on Ballers or whatever it is. I look at them like, man, I have come back from a near-death experience

where both my lungs aspirated and I was in critical care for a week. I've ruptured L1, L2 three times, L4, L5 four times. I have torn my labrum, my right shoulder, two rotator cuff tears, broken my nose seven times, torn my calf, dislocated my elbow, broken my elbow twice. Those are my scars. Those are the things that tried to break me and couldn't. It took me 11 years to get a full-time paycheck in my career. My first 11 years of my career, I was making $9,750 a year living in New York. And man, just figuring out which bills I was going to pay that week.

I just knew my phone bill couldn't get turned off. But heat, electricity, all those. Oh, yeah, all the time. So that's something that could have broken me. It didn't, it got me to come through the other side of the tunnel. So my point and like my coauthor, Sarah, only reason I chose her to be my coauthor is because she beat cancer of anybody else. And I have a thing in the book. You never know what lies around next Tuesday. I said, Sarah, I totally know it sucks. You had cancer. I know it, but man, it didn't break you. You came through the other side of that tunnel. And I want you to know how powerful that makes you because it's something

that could have really broken you. And you came through the other side of the tunnel. You got to use that in every room you walk into. And I said, again, you never know what lies around next Tuesday, but because you beat it, I chose you to be the offer over everybody else. That was it. The only reason I chose her, everybody there had talent, but she, in my opinion, had something that was so incredibly powerful. I could have broken her and didn't. So that's why I call it unbreakable. We could all bend. We could all feel like we're about to break, but if you survive it, you come through the other side of that tunnel. You've got to use that in your next step in life. When you talk about process, why is process so important in terms of dealing with what you struggle with? Because I don't want to sit in this crap anymore.

I need like a way out. I want to give other people some hope that there's a way to live in the blue. And for years, I just operated in the gray. And I just kind of fell victim to it. Well, this is just how it is. And I was like, man, I fight back with everything else in life. Why am I not fighting back here? And I was. My parents started taking me to therapists when I was four. They're like, hey, you're the screwed up one.

I'm like, yeah. Y'all need to look in the mirror up one. I'm like, yeah. Y'all need to look in the mirror too. But I've been going to a therapist since I was a little kid. I've tried 33 different antidepressant, anti-anxiety meds. And unfortunately, they don't work with me, but I'll keep trying. I get so jealous of my friends that the meds work for them. I'm like,

ah, you lucky bastards. Do you believe in medication? Absolutely. Yeah. I believe in anything that's going to help you get out of the gray and live in the blue. Listen, the things that I put in my book can help everybody. What do you say to people who say, you don't need medication for this. It's about being tough and disciplined. But I don't, those people are hiding their own pain. Those people haven't been vulnerable in their own right yet. Yeah, I've had people say, well, I've had a family member go, where'd you get all this depression stuff about? None of that came from our family.

I'm like, okay, you got it too. We all have gone through stuff from childhood on. And there's nobody, nobody has got scot-free. It's just more of a matter. I just look at when people say that and I'm like, man, they're just not in touch with their own feelings and vulnerable enough. And I feel bad for them. Or they're ignorant.

I mean, I have people who don't struggle. I feel bad for them. Who will say to me, so I did part of this new show I'm having here is that I want to open these kind of like you did a baby version of it was I talk about struggle for me and what it is and that sometimes you know I don't believe I have a drinking problem because I don't want to abuse addiction and put a label on myself for sympathy but I drink too much when I have problems and that's something I've had to think about and when to do it like you know in the run-up to the show, I haven't been drinking. And one, because if you don't have a problem, you can stop on your own whenever you want.

So, but I'm doing it just to kind of reinforce, I got to be my best. I got to be at my best. And that's not part of being my best. So I say it and I say I use therapy and that I got diagnosed with PTS and they put me on a pediatric dose of this drug and it helped, but then they switched me to an antidepressant when all this shit happened with my brother and I got shit canned

and I had all these ups and downs and like this wild edge. Nobody wanted to spar with me. Like, you know, every time, you know, I was being a jerk and I didn't even know it. And the meds really helped with the therapy. Good. And so I lay it out there.

And this guy who I actually respect, but he's probably just a little bit too old school to understand emotional or psychological pain as anything but weakness. And he said, you know, aren't you worried that you're encouraging people to be soft instead of kind of trying to toughen up and deal with problems instead of saying they have an ism and needing a pill?

And now, I don't agree with him, but I also want to ask you. You take an Advil if your head hurts. Right? What's the answer? That's not ostracized. So it's funny because I just talked to the Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings about this. It's funny because I just talked to the Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings about this. And I said, mental health is too reactive these days and not talked about the same way physical health is. But we need to do it a lot more.

I said, you guys don't only catch passes when you have drops. Right. You don't only practice tackling when your tackling is off. You do it all the time. Right. And if you hurt your elbow, man, you're right in there in the trainer's table. And it's like, what could I do? Give me everything I could possibly do. You throw the kitchen sink in it. I said, well, mental health, we only go when the sky's falling. We need to start being proactive about it. We need to start going now, going to therapists when everything is good, leaning into your teammates. Like I said, my friends that I lean into now,

when things are good and i'll still talk to them about this stuff these are conversations that we need to start having just same way we talk about our workouts i now talk about this stuff with people and i learn from them just as much as they learn from me and that's the problem is you know i told these guys you got to start working on your mental health what's behind behind like your tube, your brain and your heart. Think how big those are. Right. And we need to throw as much self-care into those as we do your physical body. The problem is there's not enough therapists yet for us. So we need to start leaning into each other. And that's what I'm saying. Like, man, and here's the thing, open up to people about it. And if people tell you to suck it up, they're not your

crew. That's not your team, right? That's not who you're going to turn and lean into. You're going to turn and lean into the people who said, man, I got your back. I hear you. I'll walk this walk with you. And like I said, I haven't had anybody. And again, for me, I don't know who's going to tell me to suck it up because you think I'm tough.

Then why would you say it to anybody else? But I think you said it right. It's too old school. I think you have some people who, again, I had a family member say it, but that was one out of 2,000. So I don't let the minority be the loudest between my ears. I let the majority, which are the Strahans and the Dwaynes and anybody. I go around these teams now, and these football players call it Mr. Glazer.

But first of all, call me Mr. Glazer. I'm like, fuck, I got old all of a sudden. Yep. But it's my 30th year covering the NFL and 20th at the NFL and Fox. And only this year did I become Mr. Glazer and it's driving me nuts. But they're like, Mr. Glazer, thank you so much, man. I got this stuff too. I got anxiety also, man. I didn't know who else to talk about it. Now you're talking about it, man. It helps me so much. So you got football players saying this now. And fighters for me, like, listen, Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell and I used to beat the crap out of each other in this cage. And then we sit and we

talk about our problems. We'd sit there and cry. And it's funny because people's reaction, they'd be looking at us like, man, these guys just really beat up on each other so much they're crying. But no, it wasn't it. We're crying about our mental health stuff. What is it about fighters? Because, you know, that's always been true is the one side of Mike Tyson that he waited too long to let out. But it is more common. Yeah, it's more common than not.

It's brilliant. In my experience, his podcast is great, Mike Tyson's. Brilliant. In my experience, his podcast is great, Mike Tyson's. But why do you think that is, that hurt guys, violence guys, tend to be the most sensitive? It's that security I talked about. No one's questioning our manhood.

So we can just open up and just, man, it's easy. Like, you know what I mean? Like, again, I could cry. Man, I will cry at every freaking sappy movie. I'll cry, but no one's gonna laugh at me because I'll beat your ass. Right? And they know it, so I'm good. So I think there's more good to do.

And it's so funny, man. For all these years, I felt cursed. Do you know what it's like to wake up every single morning, man, and it just fucking sucks? The sky is falling. Man, it sucks. It's painful. So for all these years, I just felt cursed with depression and anxiety.

And now for the first time in my life, I've kind of flipped that script and thought maybe God bless me with depression and anxiety because now I can have these conversations. And then since I wrote the book, I have grandmothers that have reached out saying, thank you for the first time in 80 years. I have the words now to describe what I've been going through to my husband and my kids and my grandkids. And you know what that's like? That's a blessing. That's not a curse for me. I have girl dads saying, I don't have it, but my daughter does. And I'm saying, by the way, whenever somebody says, I don't have it, I'm going, yeah, yeah, you probably do. We all got something. And that's something. Again, maybe not on my level. We're all going through something, right? And we're all just in a pandemic. We had isolate, which is, man, people in jail are afraid of solitary confinement, right? Isolation. So we all have been through something, but I've had girl dads saying, thank you so much. Now I have the words to have the conversation with my daughter. And you see what's going on in this world. Depression, anxiety,

suicide is an epidemic like never before. The more we could have the words, the more people could say, I need help, or they're able to start building on different weapons they could use, different tools they could use between their ears and behind their rib cage to navigate what's just a scarier world these days. And I just want people to, I want to take the stigma away because there's nothing wrong with me. There's something wrong with the way I feel for like it sucks for me, right? But again, it's because I've had these scars and this pain. And that's the other thing.

My depression and anxiety have gotten me, have motivated me to the level of success I have. have gotten me, have motivated me to the level of success I have. And if I could explain real quick, I don't know what it's like to be loved from the inside out. Like I just never felt worthy of being loved from the inside out. And that sucks too. So as a result, it motivated me to do all these really great things and outwork the world, especially during those broke days to accomplish things, to get some love from the outside in while I'm still working on the love from the inside out. And hopefully they meet in the middle one day. Again,

I'm a work in progress, man. This is still, so I wanted to do this podcast. I want to have people on all the time that can continue to teach me and we could teach the world and help lift each other up together. I have a friend who says we lift while we climb. We lift each other while we climb together. We lift while we climb. A guy named J.C. Glick, bad, bad, bad SOB, combat vet.

And he said you lift, well, that's really true for them. We lift while we climb. I mean, you know, nobody incorporates the idea of me into we the way our special operators do and the military in general. I mean, they really care about each other in a way that everybody else can only just imagine. You talk about, this is where I got my practice doing this. I have a charity called MVP, Merging Vets and Players, where I take former combat vets. It's a great idea. Jay's been doing it for a while. He matches up needs with people who want

to get involved. So veterans and athletes and pro athletes. So I know they don't do the same job, but they both go through the same struggle when the uniform comes off, you lose your identity, you lose your structure, you lose your schedule, you lose your team and you lose that locker room. So I put them together and we're about to open our eighth city in almost seven years. We put them together and we trained for about a half hour just to give you that burn again, but after we have a mental health huddle. So here's me with a bunch of combat vets and I'm opening up crying, telling them, no combat vets are telling me to suck it up. So if anybody's telling you to suck it up, right? The issue is with them because these

combat vets are opening up. They've been through it and they're opening up and they're crying in front of everybody else. It's such a beautiful, vulnerable room. And by the way, you put a room of combat vets and athletes together, it's smarter. The stuff that comes out of that group philosophically is smarter than any Fortune 500 company meeting I've ever been in my entire life. It's incredible what I've learned from them. And I've learned so much from them and I'm kind of their mouthpiece as well to be able to get their message out to the world, which is beautiful for all of us to, again, lift together while we climb. Lift together while we climb. I like, um, now it is an aspiration because we got a lot of gotcha and hater and canceling. You know, I keep telling the counselors, you know why that is,

you know, here's my thing on that. And this is. This is a line in the book I got from Sean Payton. Hurt people hurt people. The world is so damn hurt these days. They just want to hurt everybody else. And a lot of that comes from social media. That's what we see. Man, they're left out. They see all this hate on Twitter. Hurt people hurt people. So the world's trying to hurt each other nowadays. And yeah, that makes it extra scary. We screwed up with social media. Yeah, we did. We should be using it for good. Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot. The mistake that the media made, and I'm in on this. I've never been a fan of social media. I've always attacked Twitter as being a toxic crucible, but I still would allow it to happen around me. And what happened was it was too easy, Jay, you know,

not for you guys in sports as much because, you know, I've always commented that guys who cover I know, no, I know you get beat up, but I'm saying we in the news media started to rely on social media as Vox Populi. Like instead of the guesswork we used to have to do about how people felt about what we were covering and what politicians were doing or government was doing. We decided we had this really easy and instantaneous proxy. And what we missed was that's not reality. Social media is an exaggerated, ugly reality. Right. A lot of times somebody's sitting in their mom's basement telling us how much we suck. And it's loud for us. It's just as loud. But think of how fucked up this is.

For all the people who criticize us, we would never think of going into your office and going, hey, Mr. Smith, the guy in cubicle four over there is a fucking moron. He's horrible. Fire him. And look how fat he is. It's awful. Like we would never do that. And they would look at us going, you guys are horrible people. How do you do that? You can't do that. That's exactly what's happening. It's doing the same thing, right? And it's just, it's, it is toxic. And that's where I started doing these mental health posts on my social media well before the book came out, saying, you know what? I want to start using social media for good.

And when you have something good, list it down below. I want to see it. I want us all to celebrate you. If you're struggling, list it in the comments below. Let the rest of your teammates lift you up. And it was really, it was beautiful. It became a pretty cool movement. Good.

That's how it should be used. Yeah. it was beautiful. It became a pretty cool movement. Good. That's how it should be used. Yeah. I mean, look, I get why people are going to use it different ways, especially with the magnification of it and the money in it for fringe, especially in politics. But I agree with you. And I was very happy to chase you and have you come on here because I want to be part of this, if only because I'm so frustrated by living the lie that it's not real and that it's just somebody's problem and it's just some kind of like, you know, mushy way of denying the realities of life. And I want you to talk a little bit about what you call the gray.

Yeah. What is the gray for you? The gray is that depression, anxiety together. So when I, you know, like I said, I'm trying to exist in the blue, but I just, as I've been working on myself, I've been able to feel some of it more. But, and again, I don't know if I was born like this.

I have recently found out around my family, my grandma and my mom, and sorry for I don't know if I was born like this. I have recently found out around in my family, my grandma and my mom, and sorry for outing them right here, but there's things that went on with me in childhood, but I just don't remember any other way to wake up. And it's kind of like that. I see everything, I just feel this gray and not the crayola, like it's, you know,

like it's just always pouring, raining and just never sunny between my ears. And I want people to understand, like, I realized my life was great. And it's probably what you're saying. Somebody's sitting here going, oh, come on, this guy is rich and famous. And my life is great. But between my ears sucks. And I want to say this again, I didn't sign up for this. This was not my choice to be like this. It's my choice to speak out now about it, to show people that they're not alone. And, you know, the more I show people they're not alone, I think the more it helps lift them. And they, they in turn let me know and it lifts me up. But that gray, like I said, I wake up every day,

it's hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. And I went to Thailand for 35 days recently to learn how they handle mental health. Literally, and I know everybody can't do this, but I'm like spanning the globe, whatever I could do and talking to anybody and everybody because I deserve to live in the blue, but it's just never been something.

And I want love now. I'm 52, I've never had, like now it's time. and I think for all those years, maybe I needed to feel all that pain so I could help others through theirs. And the universe did make the rest of my dreams come true to keep me afloat during this time. And I had to realize that recently, but that gray that I talk about, man, it's the paranoia that comes with depression, anxiety. It sucks. The answers and stories you tell yourself of little things. Why somebody didn't call you back. Oh, this person's mad at me. This person hates me.

This person wants the worst from me. It's not real, but it feels really real when you're in the moment. It feels real to me. So all our pain is real to us and i still go through it here i am like man yesterday i kind of got pissy with a friend of mine as a coach but he didn't call me back this week and i just automatically assumed he's mad at me over this or that and he's like it was just literally like bro i'm game planning this week but i automatically think people hate me when they don't. And I've had times where I've been at Fox NFL Sunday

and I've just been melting down and how long I'll pull me aside and go, hey, calm down. The sky isn't falling. The sky's not falling. And I'll just feel like it is. And the other part that goes along with this, because that's the depression,

but the anxiety for me, I have had an anxiety or panic attack every single time I've gone on TV from 2005 till now. Even scripted stuff where I know we could just stop down and it makes no sense because I'm fucking great in chaos.

I suck in calm. So I'm great in a cage. That's where I used to feel like I belonged. That's where I started fighting. I love being on TV, but it almost became habitual. Now, every single time, it started in 2005. And here's the thing, because we didn't talk about mental health for so long, for 12 years, I was getting my heart checked out for a heart attack. I didn't know what a panic attack was. And now that I've started talking about panic attacks and anxiety attacks, I can't tell you how many people said to me, oh my God, thank God, that's what it is. And for all you out there who've had an anxiety attack or panic attack,

you're safe. It's not something that's going to kill you. You're not having a heart attack, but man, it feels like you are. My hands start shaking. My eyes start going back and forth. I start sweating. I start talking like this, like my breath gets very labored. And man, I feel like I'm having a heart attack. You're giving me an anxiety attack right now just by describing it. It sucks, right? Have you had them? Oh, yeah.

Right? They suck because you feel like you're having a heart attack. Now imagine being on TV thinking, oh, my God, I'm about to have a heart attack on live national TV. So that happens. So as I'm on the air every week and I'm talking to you at Home in America, I'm wrestling with have a heart attack on live national TV. So that happens. So as I'm on the air every week, and I'm talking to you at home in America, I'm wrestling with my abuser. I'm trying to talk to that anxiety voice.

Man, leave me alone. Not today. They're not taking me down today. So it's kind of weird. I'm having this other conversation. And what I'll usually do for anxiety attacks and panic attacks is I'll use laughter. Because it's kind of hard to be, you know, to be panicky when you're laughing. Right. So if I push out a joke on Fox NFL Sunday early, I did it this past week that you're like, like, I'll just force one in.

It's because I'm having a panic attack and the gray hates laughter. So I will try and laugh and I play. And now part of this comes along a price for my friends because as a result, I'm constantly playing practical jokes because it allows me to be in the blue, in a better place. But, you know, go back to your original thing, that gray, man, it's a fucking cesspool. It sucks. That's why process is so important.

I learned, you know, going through, and again, like, you know, you made the point to say earlier, I know that anything that I've had to deal with is nothing compared to what I've met in people and covered all over this world for many, many years. I in no way consider myself a victim or in any way underserved in any way. I've had a ridiculously fortunate existence to this point. But all pain is personal. All I'd like to say is all our problems weigh the same. If they didn't, you wouldn't have people like Robin Williams committing suicide, right? Miss America, or Miss USA recently, right?

You had CEOs and like, man, all our problems weigh the same. And I've learned it because I've been on both sides of this. I was broke. Then I went to unbreakable. My wallet is not an antidepressant. Right. I thought it was going to be. I really thought it was going to help so much.

And I got to the top and I'm like, there wasn't rainbows and unicorns. I still got to learn how to build myself from the inside out. That's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me. It's easier to pay my bills. That's it. Oh, so much easier to pay your bills than it is to pay your emotional prices for what you're exposed to and what you deal with, especially when nobody talks about it in any kind of way. The Chris Cuomo Project is supported by Cozy Earth. Why? Because I like their sheets. That's why. A lot of people don't get a good night's sleep for a lot of reasons. One of the ones that you can control is bedding.

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You know what I mean? Like, it's not like my knee health. You know what I mean? We never say that. We're just like, oh, my body hurts. My body's screwed up. My joints hurt. I want to just like make it part of the conversation.

Yeah, mind, body, spirit. Yeah, like mind, mind body spirit of how it is because you know when i lost my gig i didn't even know that like i just went that's why i liked so much what you were talking about in the book about gray i hadn't identified it that way but it was like i would just have huge blocks of time would pass and I would have had like no meaningful feelings. I knew instinctively how to play and act right around me. Like, you know, be there for the kids.

You know, I got the kids and my therapist gave me great advice. He was like, your life is messed up. Their life cannot be messed up. So you keep it to yourself. You talk to me, you talk to your team, as you would say, but you let those kids know that you are who they need you to be. And I got that.

It was great advice and I did it. But when I wasn't doing that, I would have periods of feeling nothing like about what had happened. And after like two months, my therapist was like, okay, we have a problem here. And I was like, well, it's not like I'm, you know, freaking out, trying to kill myself. You know, I may, I'm drinking a little bit too much every once in a while, but it's okay. I don't drink and drive. I'm not hurting anybody. I'm not doing anything.

And he was like, yeah, that's not the standard. The standard is, are you healthy? You're not healthy. I want you to try this drug. We're going to try you on a low dose. Turns out that even though I'm a big guy, I'm very sensitive to medication. Like it didn't take that much.

Cause I wanted more. I was like, yeah, let's go in. What's the top dose? You know what I mean? Give it as much as I can take. And he was like, it's not how it works. It gave me what you're talking about in terms of, it gave me some clarity on what I was saying to myself.

And that I didn't know what I was saying to myself. I didn't know that it was weird to have dreams where something terrible happens eight times out of 10 in the dream. I'd forgotten that like dreams don't go like that. And that when someone says something, my first reaction about what they mean is not always right. And the medication and the therapy

helped me start to process that again and like give me like a mental emotional 10 count like be like okay like to this day to this day if i get a text from you after this and it's like hey call me i panic oh me too i'm calling you right away and the people in my life know you do not send me texts like that. Even if it's bad news, tell me it's bad. I have bad. Let me know because it's not worse than what's going on in my head. That's anxiety. Yep. That's anxiety. That's what anxiety does. Yes. It tells you false narratives in your head. But without process, I'd have nothing. I'm not, the pill didn't fix me. Therapy didn't fix me. It's process. It's like 10 different things that i do every day and i think that's one of the reasons

that people you know we don't like grind we don't like hard you know you've seen how many guys quit the gym you know they come in they want to fight they want to be badasses as soon as they see what the training is they're like forget it um we we have to find a way to get people comfortable with process. Right. And that's what I learned recently. So now I have a whole better thing I do is I wake up in the morning before I ever look at my phone. Because your phone has nothing but problems. Yes.

Right? You never get an email where you really were the nephew of a Nigerian prince and you got a billion dollars. Never really happened to any of us, okay? So other than that, just nothing good happens on that phone. So before I ever look at the phone now, I get up, I learn how to do breath work, I calm down my nervous system. So I'll do 15 minutes of breath work, three songs that I love. Then I'll meditate for anywhere from one to five minutes

because it's hard for me with the ADD to stay on something, but something positive that I know is real, something positive. I'll just sit there and I'll think about it and I'll smile. I'll appreciate and I'll smile. I'm using this monk now as a therapist of mine. He's like, I want you to appreciate, celebrate, and smile. He said, when you smile, you release certain endorphins or chemicals in your brain, and your brain doesn't realize if it's a real or fake smile. So just smile, right? So think about these things and smile. So I'll do that, right? And then I'll immediately get a quick workout. It could be five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is. And then I started this thing, and I'm actually using this on my podcast this week, a gratitude list where I started to

write down things I'm grateful for. And it's funny because they said to me, they said, we want you to write a hundred things you're grateful for. And for somebody like you and I, you would think that would be really easy. Well, I'm so self-loathing with their damn roommates in my head telling me it took me 10 days to write 100 things I'm grateful for. And it's easy when you think about it, because it could be materialistic things, it could be spiritual things, it could be something, it could be just moments in your life.

So I got, so it's like God for me, the universe, sunsets. I love sunsets. My son, when he calls and says, I love you, dad, he bragged about something about us recently. And that's another one. When my dog gives me kisses, I got the coolest little rescue pit named Alma, when she gives me kisses,

cold drinks of water after the gym, working out here, breaking certain stories, Fox NFL Sunday, certain relationships, you could list them. The fact that I could buy a house, a car, like, so I got to 100. So now I read that gratitude list in the morning before I ever checked the phone.

So that's a win for me. That's a better way of waking up. It takes me a half hour total to do all this together. So for a half hour now, this is what I do. But you're talking about the processes. Those processes are better for me than I had in the past. And I'm working on stuff to do at night too, so I can go to sleep in a better way. We have to have process.

And we have it everywhere else. Same way we do for physical fitness. Yeah, I mean, look, as a reporter, just so you guys know who aren't in the business, reporting is process. It's about getting information, validating information, contextualizing information. It's all process.

Strength training is all process. If you don't have consistency, I don't care what you're doing, it's not going to be right. And fighting is the most process-oriented thing. I'm not talking about some stupid street fight. But fighting is all process and thought and proprioception, where your body goes and what situation and why, where your head is, your mind is. It's all process.

And we hate process because it's hard. And there's no quick and fast and easy return. So my father is gone, right? Passed away several years ago. And I used to mock him on a regular basis, not to his face, because he was still a hot-blooded Italian guy right up until the end.

But he was a walker. And I would be like, listen, mom couldn't find you. You're gone for like an hour, 10 minutes. Because this did not exist for him. If it wasn't bolted into the wall he didn't know what you know he didn't want to know about it so he was like yeah i walk i say you know if you gotta get a workout get on the bike uh or take a job do something like don't you feel like a dick now yeah so he was like you don't understand and he would like always leave things alone. So when this happened, I had to start getting out of the house. Now in the beginning, and I don't know why I smile when

I say this, cause it was miserable. I had paparazzi on me. Like I was Michael Jackson. Okay. When this first went down, I'm in the media, we don't ever have, I've never had paparazzi around me in my life. You know what I mean? It's bizarre. Yeah. And your sky is falling. I could not leave the house. Definitely falling. And because, well, why? What were they going to do to me? Nothing.

But every time they took pictures of me, it gave a new bite at the apple to say the same bullshit. So I would have to sneak out at night and I would walk. And I live out in the middle of nowhere. We had to move because I had these guys coming to my house and I would walk. And at first I was like walking like in a daze,

you know, or I'd have like a bottle in my hand. But then as I started to do this, I started to realize how useful a process it was for me, whether it's just burning calories or thinking through things. And I do it now as early in the day as I can for like an hour, I'll walk.

And I, you know, sometimes I stop and I do calisthenics and stuff, but I don't have to do that. I can just walk and I think, and I'm telling you, Jay, every time I come back from that walk, if I've reserved judgment on something, like, you know, let me think about it.

These graphics for this new show, I don't know, man. I won't say anything. And I'll wait. I'll take the walk and I will have thought about it again and again and again and chewing on it the whole time.

I feel differently. And I meditate. There's a graveyard. I live in this place. It's a very old place out east on Long Island. And there's an old graveyard from like the 1800s. And I use it as a place where I bury my bad experiences. Every time I walk to that cemetery, I just look at it for a second.

I'm like, okay, that guy is in there now. Okay. That he's not me anymore. Uh, I did it. I hate that. I did it. I hate that. I said it, whatever it is.

And it's been an amazing process for me. I'm actually going to, I'm going to write something about it. I know what the title is. I just don't know what the book is. The title is walk it off. Um, because, you know, obviously the joke of when, you know, coaches tell you you're hurt, just walk it off. But whatever it is, from weight or weight on your head or your heart or you want to be meditative, the walking is a phenomenal vehicle for me. And I think for other people during the pandemic, people were walking all the time.

I want you to think about this, too, because you talk about the graveyard. And I want you to kind of take this in the right way. You got something very valuable by what happened. And what I mean is you got to watch your own funeral. It's very valuable. You got to see who threw dirt on your grave, who spit at your grave, but who was right there walking this walk with you

as a pallbearer, no matter what. And it's valuable because then you understand, okay, here's my crew. Here's my team. Here's who I want to pour energy into. So it's a, it's a, it's a hurtful lesson, but man, it's a valuable lesson because now you really know who to pour that energy into, man. And, and you should look at these people who stuck by you with, wow, these people. Like I always said, it's hard to be friends with Jay Glazer because of my mental health issues. So the people like the stray hands of the world and all these people that are so close, man. So I honor them for sticking by me with all the different, as difficult as I've been.

And same with you. You get to see the people that you can really pour love into. That's pretty valuable, man. It's pretty, that's pretty cool in a certain way. I got a buddy of mine who, you know, I like, you know, I've never not worked since, you know, I was a teenager. So this was like bizarre just, you know, being on my ass, you know, for six, seven months. And a buddy of mine wound up taking a captain's course with me. You know, we're both fishermen and out on the boats all the time.

And he has a great line. He says, you want a friend? Be a friend. And it reminds me of the George Carlin line. George Carlin, at the end of his shows later in life, he used to say, be good to yourself, take care of yourself, and take care of someone else. And I really believe it's such a fundamental property that keeps you in balance, keeps you out of your own head. And that's the way of being of service. I talk about being of service. It can be just that little thing. You never know just being kind to somebody else. You never know how much that person may have needed kindness that day. Be of service. Build your team. Don't take yourself too seriously laugh be proud of your scars trauma makes us who we are that's

all from unbreakable absolutely and you never know what lies around next tuesday because man look at you right now too right you were this is your comeback you never knew this was going to happen okay you just never know when that thing's like for me the reason why i say that you never know what lies around next tuesday it was a tuesday I finally got a phone call that, hey, man, after 11 years, you could exhale. All these years of rejection, we finally got you a full-time job. So it took 11 years of me going through 52 Tuesdays a year. Man, you just never know when that Tuesday is going to come where something that you've been working toward or something you needed just pops up for you. And you got to be okay either way. I mean, that's another lesson that life has taught me that you can't be outcome dependent in terms of how you're going to feel

about yourself and your life because you don't control the outcomes. All you control is the process and the effort and how you treat other people. And I control how hard I work and my, and my ability. Okay. Am I willing to get rejected a million times? I was, and that's what made me who I am. I was willing to get knocked down more than, man, when I tell you it was 11 years of being told no for full-time jobs, holy shit, that is lonely and difficult. And again, living in New York City, not knowing how I'm going to pay my rent and my bills, it's brutal.

So that overnight success, for me, my overnight success was 11 years just to get on a certain level. And then I set out to become top insider covering sports in America. And that in itself was outworking the world also by a ton of hours. So it's a hard process, man. It's hard.

But if I had to do it again, I probably would have done another 11 years. If you could do it again, how early on did you realize that you were struggling with something that wasn't just personality-based? My whole life. My whole life, I felt like

this imaginary thing was against me. And I'm a big God guy. So I'd be like, God, what do we have to do? Can't we take this thing out? And it's, again, now I kind of think it was put there so I would be in this kind of pain so I could help others through theirs. And how surprised have you been by the response

to something that's absolutely taboo? I don't want it to be taboo, but it is. You know, people make fun, you know, you got a problem with your kidneys, you got diabetes, you got a lung thing, you got a heart thing. We call it by what it is. And no matter what your mental illness is, you're crazy.

So the stigma is real. That's the one thing I don't like, the mental illness thing. I like to refer to as things I've overcome. I don't like the word illness with it. You know, when I was growing up in ADD, they told me I had a learning disability. I'm like, no, I just learned differently

than the rest of you, right? And, you know, listen, for all those people I was saying I was having a learning disability, I just wrote my second book. Okay, so I can't be that dumb, right? So I just learned differently than they taught. That's it. So for all of us out there, it's just things we've overcome.

So my depression, anxiety, I've never called them an illness. It's just things that I've overcome and things I have to deal with. I respect it. I respect it. I do know, though, why clinicians were so, it matters so much to them to say illness because it was always written off as behavior. You know, it's like what we're struggling with with addiction right now, where too often people will still say to an addict,

suck it up, don't do the drugs and you'll be okay. You know, we got to understand that sometimes people can't control it the way you think they can. Yeah, exactly. And then for me, like, do I have depression? Yes. Do I have anxiety? Yes.

Do I have ADD? Yes. I don't call it an illness. I have to overcome those things on a daily basis. So your question was the reaction. Man, the reaction has been incredible. It has been unbelievable. I mean, I have gone on shows where people have just opened up right there. They've been waiting to open up. I went on Ridiculousness with Rob Dyrdek and Steelo Brim and Chanel West and West Coast. And all of a sudden, she just starts opening up about her anxiety.

Rob's like, this is show number 996 that we've ever done. And this is the first time she has ever told us about this, that she wakes up with it every single day. Or there's been time after time after time where I've done a show or done something where somebody's just opened up and they've been waiting to open up to somebody else. So if they're willing to open up to me, I guarantee you there are people in your life who would love for you to open up to them. And you should open up to somebody else about it. And not just in the bad times,

in the good times too. So you can kind of do the work in the good times. And the opportunity to get better. I mean, you know, what's shocking is how many people will come to you and be like, wow, thanks. What they should have heard from a doctor. What they should have heard

from an expert, a clinician. But we don't even want to ask because we don't want to be labeled that way. While I have you, I want to ask you sport fan questions. Just a couple. Will my J jets always suck what do you mean by always for the rest of my life as they have been to this point in my life oh man yeah man culture over there

right now a lot of these teams it's based on culture and culture starts at the top so i think they have the right gm and the right head coach i do but there's just so much other that so much other stuff goes into you know when you see teams that lose over and over and over the very very very very top and i'm talking about the owner got to start looking inside themselves going okay what's wrong with this place why do we never win what am i doing wrong what part of this culture ism right here and that doesn't happen enough and you know the ego is a lot of the owners it's of course they're not going to think it's them but a lot of the owners who kind of get involved in metal and just don't really have this so you're saying i should shift to the bills i should for this year you definitely should hell yeah absolutely no doubt

i worry about that kid um the giants are shifting the giants are shifting their culture the giants used to have this thing of they're waiting for the sky to fall and they finally went outside their normal tree of gms and and head coaches to get joe shane Shane and Brian Dayball, which is exactly what they did. You know what the first thing they did? They started bringing the stray hands and the ex-Giants back in the fold. Man, and start changing this culture where we know the sky's the... You know what?

The Giants teams of the past, that week one, when they beat the Titans and went for a two-point conversion, that Giant team probably would have been down 28-0 early on with the adversity in the past way. But these two guys are changing that culture and ownership's just letting them change the culture, which is great. How big a deal do you think these struggles are with emotions and psychology in pro sports, and are they addressed? Okay, so here is the issue really is, and I'm partly to blame for this. I've trained, when I stopped fighting, when Fox made me stop fighting in 04,

I started a mixed martial arts cross-training program for pro athletes. At the first of its kind, me and Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell and the stuff I train, we teach violence, leverage, hand fighting, but more than anything, we're going to make you act like, man, this game starts, that cage door locks, and you better make that guy across

and you beg to get in that damn cage with you. But part of that is our guys, our fighters, cannot take a stool in between rounds. You don't show your hurt. You don't show your pain. You don't show anything, right? And that's the complete opposite of what I want people to show in the real world and mental health, man, you open up completely. So I like went in and I've been

talking to these teams. I'm like, Hey, for everybody who's trained under me, man, I'm sorry. Right. So, but I don't let these guys put their hands on their hips because I want them like you could do, you could, you could break people non-verbally. So I've been able to use a lot of the same stuff. You know, this pain, man, to break people non-verbally. So there is a lot of that. But at the same time now, it's a different world for these guys. First thing they do, they go over to their phones and they look at Twitter. They look at Instagram.

They see the criticism. Man, and the other part too is where things started to change. Is guys started wanting to be famous instead of being great. Being famous is not the same as being great. There's a totally different work ethic that goes into it. Back in the day, guys used to just have to bust their ass to make the pro ball to get any sort of endorsements. Now, because it's social media, they're all famous. So you don't have the same work ethic

that you used to have. That make sense? Yeah. And do you think that since you've been talking about this and making it more acceptable in those ranks, do you think a lot of those guys suffer?

Struggle, not suffer, struggle. No, you can't be great and not be crazy. Okay? The amount of work that, like, that's why I told our guys at MVP. I mean, they're fucked up going in. The amount of work you have to do to be on an NFL football team. I talked about my rejection.

How many people, they've had to outwork millions and millions and millions to get to that level and the commitment they had to do and putting your body on the line like this. Man, it's just different, right? It's a different level. There's got to be a lot of crazy in there i think for anybody you can't be great not be crazy you gotta outwork the world not by a little by a lot um you put yourself a lot more pressure on yourself than than a lot of other

people do um so yeah there's there's underlying issues there and it's funny because in my book i'm describing the grade to sean mcveigh head coach of the Rams, with Andrew Whitworth, who just retired, right? And, man, this guy's Walter Payton Man of the Year award winner and first guy who ever started left tackle in the NFL history at 40 years of age. And we're trying to explain it to Sean because he wasn't very vulnerable. And at one point, Whitworth said something also like, and Sean, wait, you too? And Andrew said, Sean, what do you think gets me going at 40 years of age to beat my head against Aaron Donald every day?

Fuck yeah, I got it. I'm fucked up. You're fucked up. Of course I'm fucked up. But again, we're learning to be good with our fucked upness. See, and for Sean Payton, it's, this is not something that you acknowledge

because if you acknowledge you say that about yourself it means that you're weak and you know sean mcveigh you know you're weak but i mean it's a whole generational thing no no it wasn't yeah but for him you understand too like sean man and his son you don't understand it because he's been brought like, man, the worst thing that ever happened to Sean was he didn't win the Super Bowl in his second year as head coach, you know, the youngest head coach in NFL history. And like his parents look like the people that are in the picture frames

at Target. They're like nightlights. It's beautiful. His life is incredible. So he didn't really grow up in a household where they understood that so much. But when we really explained it to him and his question also was how many people in my locker room you know of our players you think have this i said that's not the question you need to ask the question is how many

your players how many coaches how many of your scouts how many of your secretaries how many of your cafeteria workers how many of your marketing everybody that How many of your cafeteria workers? How many of your marketing people? Everybody. That's who you have to ask. And last year, he went over November. And Sean was my first guest on my podcast that I just had. And all we did was talk mental health. And he went over November last year. And it's the first time in his life he really had to start being vulnerable to get his team back and rally around.

And he's like, I'm glad I learned it. Because, you know know i thought they couldn't tell when i was struggling and meanwhile there was nine guys calling me going hey you got to do something about your boy he's struggling and he's like no the players can't tell i'm like sure they could all tell man so don't do this by yourself like you're struggling right now open up think of how much closer it's going to make you and your team if you start opening up to them. And he did. And, man, all of a sudden they won in December and they didn't look back. So I'm proud of the work he did.

And he now works on himself mental health-wise, and he starts telling his players, hey, I want you guys to have a landing spot in here. We've got to start leaning on each other more. So I saw it transform right in front of my very own eyes. I think it's a real common experience. I think everybody struggles. Doesn't mean that they have a clinical issue.

I think it's an important distinction that you draw. Not everybody needs medication. You know, some people, it can be attitude. It can be lifestyle. But it all matters. And I salute you for making this such a big part of your life and opening yourself up and using your platform. I appreciate you, brother. Count me as a fan.

I'll come on your podcast anytime. I appreciate you, brother. Thank you, man. All right. Be well, Jay. God bless. Even though you broke my heart about the Jets. Listen, I was a fan before of jay glazer i think he's a great analyst but i gotta tell you the older i get i'm not into fantasy football i really don't watch it the way i used to i don't know it

the way i used to to me it's just entertainment now i guess life has gotten into the way but i'll tell you what i'm a huge fan of his strength and his resolve and his honesty. You know, we all walk around, you see him with the big neck, a guy like me. This is easy. Muscles are easy. Exercising the strength of will to be vulnerable and to deal with hurt and pain and see it as something other than weakness, that's strength. Good for him. And I'm glad you got to hear it. Please subscribe.

Please follow. Don't forget your free agent gear. And I'll see you on the next episode of the Chris Cuomo Project.