The Zac Clark Show - Jeff Halevy on Trauma at 14, Addiction, Grief, and Building a New Vision for Wellness Through Tech

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Jeff Halevy has lived many lives. After surviving a childhood brain tumor and living with undiagnosed PTSD, he poured himself into achievement – becoming an award-winning, multi-exit entrepreneur in health, wellness, and technology. He built businesses at the intersection of fitness and behavior change, served as a correspondent for NBC’s Today Show, hosted the internationally syndicated Workout From Within with Jeff Halevy, and advised on Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move!” campaign. Outwardly, he was thriving. Internally, he was struggling.The pressure to produce and the need to stay in motion became unsustainable. Jeff eventually hit a spiritual bottom that forced him to reassess how he was living – redefining how he channeled his energy and passion in a healthier, more sustainable way. Not long after that shift, tragedy struck: his wife died by suicide following severe mental health challenges compounded by postpartum, leaving Jeff to raise two young children alone.In this conversation, Jeff shares the pain and trauma that shaped him, the emotional cost of high achievement, and how fatherhood became the anchor that kept him grounded. He also reflects on how his journey – through undiagnosed trauma, success, loss, and recovery – inspired the founding of Continuum, where he now serves as founder and CEO. Continuum is a luxury wellness club that uses biometric data and AI to deliver individualized, precision-based wellness – with the mission to make the practice of wellness as precise and intentional as the practice of medicine.This episode is about trauma, sobriety, grief, and turning pain into purpose: how one man’s healing journey became the blueprint for helping others.Topics include:Emergency brain surgery as a teenager and its lasting psychological impactLiving with undiagnosed PTSD while building a wellness careerWhen overachievement becomes survival – and how that is not sustainableLosing his wife to suicide and raising two infants aloneBuilding and exiting multiple companies in fitness and healthFounding Continuum: precision wellness through biometric data and AIHow Jeff has come to view success through the lens of fatherhood and being emotionally present For more information about Jeff’s new wellness company, Continuum, please click here: ContinuumConnect with Zachttps://www.instagram.com/zwclark/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zac-c-746b96254/https://www.tiktok.com/@zacwclarkhttps://www.strava.com/athletes/55697553https://twitter.com/zacwclarkIf you or anyone you know is struggling, please do not hesitate to contact Release:[phone]releaserecovery.com@releaserecovery

All right, welcome back to the Zach Clark Show. I am excited for today's conversation. We have Jeff Halvey with us today. I got it right, right? Hallow. Okay, good. Who is an award-winning multi-exit entrepreneur in health, wellness, and technology. Currently, the founder and CEO of Continuum Club,

which is a luxury wellness club using biometric data and AI to deliver precision wellness. And the goal there is to scale. that and make it available to everyone. So we're going to get into that because I am a consumer, a proud member, and it's been an awesome experience so far in my quest to run the sub three-hour marathon. Welcome, Jeff. Thank you. Thanks for having you.

We're excited that you're here. We could start in a lot of different areas because your story's incredible, and it's one of hope for a lot of people, and I feel like that's going to be delivered today. But I want to start at 22. You're 22 years old, the wheels are coming off. Can you bring us into what happens there? I mean, there's some depression, there's some substance abuse. You went right for the jug.

Yeah, right for the jug. I mean, that's what we like otherwise we do some of the, you know, cushy stuff and we might not get to it. Well, I would say if there was, if you had to pick a particular time that was the absolute lowest of the low formula is 22 years old. to give you a little bit of history of what led up to that point. I, when I was 14 years old, I had been having these headaches, pressure around my eyes, and I was told that these were sinus headaches. And about a year goes by and I see different allergists and stuff and they're giving me injections to treat my allergies.

and one morning I'm you know a couple months shy of graduating elementary school I wake up and I can tell my my pillow's wet because I feel it against my cheek and I lift my head up and it's soaked in blood it looks like a small animal had been murdered on this pillow overnight it just drenched I freak out call for my mom My mom comes to my, you know, my bedroom. Thank God she doesn't freak out because I have only made things worse. She's very reassuring. And she says, oh, it looks like you had a nosebleed.

Now she knows this is not a nosebleed. Right. And so I go to the doctor. Things then progress very quickly. And someone takes an image of my head for the very first time, an x-ray. This is 1993. Okay? So no one had done an MRI, no one had done a CAT scan, no one had done an x-ray, despite these ongoing and increasingly severe headaches.

The x-ray results come back, and I still remember this perfectly. I remember even what the doctor, you know, looked like and everything I'm there with my dad at that point. He's got the x-ray up, you know, on the light box. And he goes, there's definitely something there. You need to see a specialist immediately. It turns out that I had a non-cancerous, but softball-sized or pear-sized tumor right in the middle of my head. So directly beneath my brain, behind my eyes, and above my hard palate, and it had grown to the point that it was less than a paper's width away from my optic nerve. If your optic nerve gets compromised, you are blind for life.

There is no repairing that. So it's imperative that I got surgery immediately. I mean, even the surgery itself was kind of crazy because the first surgeon who was going to operate on me. This was a vast... Where are you living? Where are you living at the time? I am living in New Jersey, actually, at that point in time.

Originally from Arizona, but then most of elementary school and high school is in New Jersey. So do you come into the city? I'm living in New Jersey. Do you come to the city? I actually went to St. Luke's Roosevelt. finally now it's something else it's not there yeah so but i go to go to st luke's roosevelt this where i eventually ended up the first surgeon that i was going to see though

did not realize he needed to embolize the tumor cut off the blood supply of the tumor and had he proceeded with the surgery i would have bled out on the operating table unequivocally they would not have been able to stop it my parents just had like a gut instinct that he wasn't the guy for whatever a reason. And so despite the timeliness of it, they wanted a second opinion and ended up having my life saved by Dr. Youssef Crespi, who's the head of otolaryngology at St. Luke's Roosevelt, you know, at the time. And he first embolized a tumor site two procedures. The one was going in through an artery near my groin. Not fun, by the way, at 14 years old. You know, it's just, I mean, at any age, but alone at 14, kind of like an awkward time. But the

They send a tube all the way up to your head, and they shot little plastic darts into the tumor to cut off the blood supply. It shrinks the tumor first a little bit, too, cuts off the blood supply. And then the question everybody asks usually is, well, how did they get it out? I don't see any scars or anything. It was entirely extracted through my hard palate, meaning that they opened my mouth up as wide as it could possibly go, completely opened. up the roof of my mouth, pulled it down, and then were able to access the inside of my skull and extract the tumor that way. There was a very good risk that I would be disfigured. That was the exact terminology used. I remember sitting in the doctor's office with my parents

because they would have had to basically saw my lower jaw down the middle or something like that and I remember that really registering with me where they have to disclose risk you know and one of those things was so I didn't know how I was going to come out I didn't know if I was going to come out number one and I didn't know how I was going to come out you know number two surgery was was successful but I wake up having no clue it's going it was an 11-hour surgery okay I wake up having no clue what's going on. By the way, you know, what I will share with you, well, let me say this first,

then I'll then I'll give you a piece of what happened the night before the surgery. I wake up and I'm not celebrating, you know, it's not like I'm alive. I'm disoriented. I am terrified. I have a ton of pressure inside my head and I don't know why. I can see tubes are sticking out of me, but I'm still under the anesthetic, you know, like I try to grab them because I just, you know, sort of freak out. And then I'm in and out, you know, for hours, in and out of consciousness. And that pressure inside my head, you know, are these things that are basically supporting the internal structure of like my sinus cavity, all the areas that they had gone, you know, gone up into. Anyway, it takes several months for me to recover.

at first even once I'm recovered can't eat can barely swallow an ice cube by the way at first but can't eat can't speak there was a chance that I would need to you know go through relearning how to speak properly and you know that sort of thing but but then I land on the other side of this and I am okay and I start my freshman year of high school So this is eighth grade going into first year. It's eighth grade. I missed a graduation trip and all that stuff.

But then I start high school. And for the most part, this was treated, not by the fault of anybody, but this was treated like it was a broken leg. Leg broke. Cass went on. It healed. You're okay. Get back on the field. Yeah, they're not putting you in therapy.

Bingo. You know we're brain tumor brothers? You know how to brain tumor? I did not know that. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm right there with you, every step of the way, going. getting the MRI. Oh, you got to get to the hospital. Oh, you got to get this thing cut out of your head. Oh, you're waking up. And all of a sudden, it's people around you are excited. Like, I'm not

excited. I'm actually really sad because I don't know what the hell is next. Yeah. I can, I can relate to that. And I think for me, it wasn't just sadness. Um, it turned out there'd be some anger there too, because, um, so I start my freshman year of high school. And, um, um, um, um, I start having these crying bouts. I start crying out of nowhere. So everything's normal in my day. All the normal school stuff is going on, social stuff is going on. And then all of a sudden I feel like a sudden onset of crying.

I am not sad about anything. I'm not thinking about anything. There's nothing that's really triggering it. And so I get really good at running and hiding so that I can go cry. because by the way, when you're a 14-year-old boy in your freshman year of high school, you don't want to be showing up at school crying every day. Okay, right?

So I, you know, run to the back of the school and, you know, out into the woods behind. I've ducked into bathrooms. Anyway, one day my mom finds me crying in the basement of the house. And she's like, what's wrong? You know, what's going on? I'm like, nothing, you know, leave me alone. At that age, you don't want to.

discuss anything right and she grills me to figure out like what what's going on and I couldn't tell her because I truly truly had no clue and so that turned into that turned into a way of relating to life that was drastically different than how I experienced life before so I went from let's just say for lack of a better term being one of like the good kids to being one of like the bad kids I wasn't showing up to school and punching someone in the face

I just I didn't want to list I mean part of this is also you know being a teenager and that sort of thing but I don't want to listen to any authority I became very angry so the way I felt at the time just felt very isolated very alone isolated but also

I felt maybe isolated and betrayed in a way that wouldn't be obvious because everybody was saying thank God you're okay thank God you're okay and in my mind it's the same shit they said to me well tell me if you relate to this in my mind I don't know how old you were at the time I was I was 23 20 yeah 23 still on the younger side and and I remember thinking to myself thank God fuck God I didn't ask for this in the first place where you do you know break my leg and then give me a crutch and I'm supposed to say thank you

you know right it just made no sense to me and because I didn't have any therapy or anything like that I didn't process it now I don't blame my parents at all when I when I this all went down in 1993 nobody was talking about PTSD in kids at the time trauma PTSD no one was this is my whole thing behavior health care I get a surgery you get a surgery, whoever gets a surgery, you go in, you go to the hospital, their job is to fix the physical problem that is taking place in your body. For me, it's a tumor for you, it's a tumor. They're putting me on narcotic painkillers and I have no idea how good these things are going to make me feel. And then there is no one that's there to say, hey, you just went

through like a really big life experience. Do you want to talk about it? So you're shoved back out into the world with a bottle of pills to basically mask my feelings and my pain. And I have no one to talk to about it. So I bite down on my mouthpiece harder because I figure that's what I'm supposed to do. Well, it's less dramatic, right? I mean, if you think about a war scenario, for example, it's very easy to understand, you know, and I have friends like this. One friend in particular comes to mind sitting next to you a buddy of his who is alive one second. Now it's not only dead, but there are pieces of his skull and brain now, you know, spattered on his, on his uniform.

right? We can understand how traumatizing that is. Something awful happened. It's incomprehensible. You yourself came very close to death in that moment. It's a little different and more abstract when it's being done in a medical context, and then you're okay. That's the thing is the problem, you know, gets solved. I didn't realize this, though. It took me 25 years. basically, to realize that I had been living with PTSD. Because I, like you said, bike down harder. I had no, I was very high functioning. You know, by the time I was diagnosed, the therapist I saw said,

honey, how have you been living your life, let alone in New York City of all places walking around like this? Because I was like, my nervous system was always turned up to an 11. And the- And the emotions were, Could you regulate your emotions? Like during that, during that, I mean, because for me, I'd like knuckle my way through anything.

Yeah. That's, I relate. That was the adaptive response. So I could be on TV. I could smile. I knew how to put on a game phase and do life regardless. Handsome, by the way, didn't affect, didn't affect, you know, you got out. I appreciate that.

Thank you. Jack's got a nice scar. Yeah, I get, I got the big thing in the back of my head, so I get the questions. Oh, I got other scars, but yeah, weren't from surgery. Yeah. So anyway, you threw me off with a handsome comment. Now I feel all, you know, I'm going to watch your handsom. Therapist, therapist, 25 years living with PTSD.

But I, so there's one part that I mentioned the night before, you know, because so what I had said all these years when people would ask me, well, weren't you scared? Weren't you scared? And I said, nope, nope, too young, too dumb, just listen to this. the adults if you had waterboarded me for the truth I would have given you that answer turns out that wasn't true my psyche constructed that story to protect me the truth of the matter is the night before and I had a conversation with my mom about this I'm having like holy shit relevation because that's I still to this day were you scared before no a lot of people have that experience it turns

out, it's not just us. I have a conversation with this, about this with my mom. And I said something about not being scared. And she's like, what are you talking about? And I said, well, I wasn't crying, I wasn't freaking out. And she goes, no, you weren't doing those things. But the night before your major, two procedures, the embolism and then the extraction itself, I looked at her. By the way, just to index this for everybody, I watched the final episode of Cheers that night from the hospital. And after that episode at some point, I turned to my mom and I just very matter-of-factly asked her if I was going to live or die. And she said to me, you may have forgotten that, but I will never forget that because I stayed up the rest of the night crying after I reassured you that. you were going to live.

I say all that because you asked me about my low point at 22 years old. But what I found is that most people don't just show up at their low point. There's a whole story that has led up to that point. There have been multiple forks in the road that have ultimately led up to that point. And so for me, the undiagnosed PTSD that then, by the way, led to self-medication starting in high school, you know, so I didn't even know why I was into partying, which is the way They put you on pills? Do you remember the painkill?

Yeah, I mean I was on pills, but those were not problematic for me. So, so when I was in, you mean like painkillers? Yeah, after the, because that's, that was a big part of my story. I put on the painkillers and then that just led to a whole because I felt so good. Yeah. they worked that that was not the problematic part for me the problematic part was really one of self-relations um i was angry um part of me even hated myself for being so weak to to to get the tumor i mean it sounds bananas when i say it out loud but seems normal but you know

it was it was it was it was a self-relation issue and then um because of um access socialization those sorts of things that ordinarily happen in your high school years, all of a sudden, I can feel a hell of a lot better about myself, and it's completely socially acceptable. Like, if you're getting obliterated in high school, you're just cool. What kind of could be you playing sports? Were you kind of just like, were you days confused out in the wood? I was an interesting combination because I was like a musician and also a wrestler, much better musician than wrestler.

So I, you know, you know, it's, it's funny because like the, the wrestling stuff, I feel kind of was a good academic motivator for me because I needed to have at least a C in order to remain on the team, which I thought a C was a good grade person. Me too. You know. So, you know, unbeknownst to my parents. I went to high school in Northern New Jersey. I thought C plus B minus is the entrepreneur's great point. Like, like, like, for us, for guys like me and you, it's like, I need. the C plus just to keep people out of my shit.

That's entirely the way I saw it. The interesting part is I went to high school in Northern New Jersey and it was very easy to jump on a bus and be in the city within about 20 minutes. So I'd go to school in the morning, get on a bus, leave with my friends. We'd hang out in the city, you know, and we'd get weed and, you know, we'd need at 40s and we lived the life. The best. The best.

And then I'd go back. at the end of the day. My parents had no clue what had just happened, but they did eventually become acutely aware that I was simply not going to class. And that's when I got thrown out of high school at the age of 17. So after my junior year, did they change the way they raised you after that? Were they more like, you know what, Jeff had a, had a rough one. Let's, you know, he's acting out a little bit or? My parents did take me to like a garden variety therapist, once I was, like, bad and doing bad stuff, completely, like, unhelpful. And I'll tell you why.

Like I said, nobody was talking about trauma, PTSD in those days. And so help me, God. I'm seeing a therapist, and not once, not once did it ever come up, like, to me or to my parents, hey, just throwing this out there. your son just almost got permanently blinded could have died you know it was in the hospital for an extended period went through this majorly traumatic thing this might have something to do with how you're experiencing life right now not once it's crazy everything was focused on like strategies to I don't know you know be more compliant well to your point we show up you

showed up in that drinking coal 45 smoking a blonde okay that's the issue that's the issue no it's not it's a symptom yeah let me ask you something what you know you talk this anger that you felt but like before that experience like what kind of kid were you i mean like were you emotional were you very driven like when you felt that anger for the first time was it like a shock to your system because you were a happy go lucky kid like how did it really disrupt you because you know like i'm so we're all sacks over like we've all been on these paths to self-destruction, right? And not everybody when shit happens to them goes this way. A lot of people go that way. So what do you think it was about you or your personality

that this was the path that you took, which has probably benefited you in a lot of ways in terms of your life and success? Yeah. I mean, it's funny because it has benefited me because that anger kind of, anger is a very dirty fuel. I think that there are two primary fuels. There's anger and there's love. And not hate, but anger. And that anger fueled me significantly with physical feats, entrepreneurial endeavors. You know, there was a lot of overcoming, you know, that I sort of felt at all times. But at first it was certainly only toxic. And I think that there were still anger from, you know, experiences even prior to the tumor. I mean, the school, again, no fault of my parents whatsoever, but they sent me to a private school and that they could

barely afford, barely afford. And we're on like financial aid, you know, whatever it is. And I'm getting teased on a regular basis, bullied in this school because I do not fit in. I don't know if you remember like the starter jackets. Oh, yeah. Okay. Of course. Go bird. so you had to have one of the well I wanted a giant starter jacket so not one you would have been caught wearing right no but I wanted a giant starter jacket and all the kids had starter jackets this was like starter jackets rebock pumps you know Michael Jordan or I'm sorry the Nike Air you know the Air Jordan anyway so I sound like such an old man when I say that now I'm like what do you call those you know all that stuff is coming back like it's all that stuff is coming back like it's all The kids these days, all they want is a starter jacket. Go favor. Yeah, they love the 90s. Is that true?

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's crazy. The starter jacket's back. Unreal. Well, anyway, my dad takes me to Burlington Coat Factory and proceeds to get me like a starter jacket rip off.

And I show up at school with this thing and I just get ragged on nonstop for like the entire winter, which I think I was in fourth or fifth grade at the time. I think fifth grade. winter's in eternity one school year when you're a kid is like five years you know it's like dog years right so um it was it was pretty bad so i had a lot of those experiences um kind of being left out teased but i wasn't angry at all as a kid i hated myself i hated myself and i felt um very ashamed and embarrassed um i knew that our house was not as nice as other kids yeah i heard other kids talk about going on vacation. And I was like, what's that about? You know, like,

I think we've done that twice, but they're regularly going skiing and doing all this other cool stuff. Did you have brothers and sisters? But I have a younger sister. Okay. But I had no chip on my shoulder. Like zero. I was okay with it. I just, I internalized all. All that was pointed at myself. Then finally in high school, I got angry, but it wasn't even at other people. My anger was at God. That's, that's how I felt. Like, how could you be doing this to me? And then I became very fatalistic. So, um, grow up religious. Was there, was there a church in the home? No. Um, my, my parents, so I'm my background, uh, Jewish. Um, and, uh, my parents wanted me to, um, have, um, I guess a sense of my, you know, legacy and that sort of thing. We were never orthodox or religious or

no synagogue, like you're not. Well, we, we, I had a bar mitzv. Um, you know, the, the, the, um, I had experiences with it. But it was something that never... Was your grandfather in the Holocaust? Yes. My grandfather is a Holocaust survivor. Mine too, yeah. Yeah.

That was probably, you know, that's probably actually my closest tie to, you know, any type of Jewish background is really the Holocaust, you know, aspect of it in knowing firsthand for my grandfather what he went through, which in and of itself is just an hour. absolutely remarkable story, orphaned at the age of 12, and then was in Auschwitz and in Dachau. The Germans keep incredible records, by the way, so we were able to see this transport card that he had that showed where he was being sent to. And then he got liberated on a death

march on May 12, 1945, which I actually have tattooed on my... I got this tattoo, by the way. I'll tell you a funniest side. But anyway, let me close a look by my grand. But my grandfather was an absolutely amazing person. He was the happiest guy you'd ever meet. You could throw a brick at his head. And he'd be like, you're an idiot for doing that anyway. And just, you know, move on.

Nothing bothered him. Nothing. Nothing. I had never met anybody like that in my life. And I remember thinking, if I were you, I'd be so pissed off. I'd be so angry at the world. And all he did was celebrated life.

He was happy to be alive, happy to be here in this moment, happy to wait in a restaurant because they'd mess something up with a reservation or whatever it was. If we're out as a family, he just never had a problem with anything. And he was also very tough.

But he was not a tough guy. He was just tough. There's a big difference between the two. And he just had this presence that was truly remarkable. Now, the tattoo, the reason I got this tattoo and another one, which was his military number, was I wanted constant reminders of that legacy. Moore is like a moving away from kind of thing. So I shot a TV show.

We were talking about it right before we started rolling. But I shot 52 episodes of, it's still an internationally syndicated television show called Workout from Within with Jeff Hall. We fought for the title credits. I'll throw it in there. But it's what you get when you shoot 52 episodes in five weeks. But yeah, we did our best. We did our best. And I had a great team.

But there was one morning towards the end of production where I freaked out because I was supposed to have a green juice ready every morning before we started shooting. And my green juice wasn't there. And I freaked out on a PA where I was like, You know, basically like, dude, you have one fucking job and you gotta be kidding me. And I felt so, his name's Pete, I won't say his last name. But it's etched in my memory. I'm so embarrassed about how upset I was in that moment.

And how old were you then? I was 30-ish. Okay. But the thing about your grandfather and then you- So I'm sorry, let me just finish that. So I got so upset about myself. that I let something so trivial and so stupid upset me and then took it out on somebody else that I was like, I need a permanent fucking reminder, something that will always ground me.

And so I decided that that would be like, you think you have problems, you have zero problems. No, that, I mean, that's where I was going with it. It's like your grandfather, this guy that had been through so much and nothing bothered him. and then I relate to that story. It never feels good when my emotions are unregulated and I lose my shit and I yell at someone or I tell someone that they stink at their job or like whatever it is. It just doesn't need to be said that way.

And then the hangover and the guilt and the shame and the hate, the self-hatred like seeps in. And I'm not yelling at that kid. I'm yelling at myself. Do you think that can be learned, you know, that the sort of, having a different shift in perspective and then therefore behavior to where, like, because when you're talking with your grandfather, which is making me think about, you know, Victor Frankl's man's search for meaning, right? Like, I could choose to look at this is an opportunity to move forward or I can, you know, put my feet in the ground and withdraw and become very

angry and upset. And, you know, because in your world of fitness, right, where it's, it's, it's easy to see how someone can change outwardly, but like emotional intelligence and self-actualization and really understanding yourself why you think the way you think and why you behave the way you behave. Is that something that can be applied to the world of fitness and also just learned so that people are changing the way they really react? I think it depends. I mean, for me, when you say fitness, I almost think about a very narrow slice of what it means to be healthy. And so it's difficult for me to answer that within the context of fitness.

And at this stage in my career, I'm just not focused on the fitness piece. People are calling it wellness. I just think of it as health. But if you want to even chunk up one level higher, the part that I personally care about most is what I've identified as my purpose. and my mission, which is to expand the life force and others, to expand the possibility of life potential. Now, the vehicle of doing that, you know,

like right now is continuum. It is AI we're developing, you know, that integrates all of these different file markers and isn't just focused on exercise, it's focused on sleep, recovery, nutrition, all of the elements that come together. But what I will say is that even when you bring all of these elements together,

I'm not so sure about that. Let me rephrase this. It is my belief and in my experience, what I have found to be very effective for myself is to almost focus on everything from the neck down to take care of what's going on neck up. In other words, trying to tackle the psychological components, the behavioral components, particularly in isolation. So if you think about like traditional models of therapy, where it's like, well, let's just focus on what's going on up here. I particularly don't care for that approach.

Not without including all of these other aspects that support the body. body from the head down or from the neck down. So in my experience, the types of changes that you were speaking about actually happen from the neck up. So to take it back to where this conversation first started, 22, the my low point, which I still haven't talked about, but we'll have been, we got to start somewhere. No, we got to start somewhere and it always goes that way. And then like, we're closing the episode. I'm like, by the way, 22 years. What the fuck happened? I answered like a politician. I talked about everything. But, yeah, Yeah. Well done.

But to take it back to that, 22, low point, I have been in and out of multiple rehabs. I almost go to prison. I heard that story. Do you want to tell it? You heard the story? I heard you tell that story of when you were out playing basketball and a couple guys. It's not one that I want to aggrandize, you know, in any way. You don't have to, but no, but I think it was a fundamental. I just, it was like one of these things where one, like we talk about forks in the road where it was like one bad decision led to another bad decision, led to another bad decision, and ultimately I ended up trying to fight my way past the SWAT team to escape to my freedom, which in my mind at the time, because of the state, in your house, in your house. Yeah, in my parents' house.

Yeah. I could have easily been shot and even more easily put behind bars. And I have very low. lucky to receive pre-trial intervention and put on probation. I would have had a very, very different life had that not happened. But between near incarceration, multiple rehabs that I had gone to in and out, I finally land at a rehab that's working for me. It's called the St. Jude Retreat House. It's an upstate New York. St. Jude being the Patriot Saint of Lost Hope,

and I felt that that was very appropriate at that point in time because I really, I was in this weird space where I knew I didn't want to keep doing what I was doing, but I felt so stuck like I didn't know any other way. So I felt very caught between like a rock and a hard place. I want to do something different, but I just keep on doing what's familiar. even though that's not working anymore.

And so I wind up up there. I am, I stopped playing myself while I'm like 260, 270, not looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or like Chris Farley. And so, you know, I'm smoking a pack of cigarettes. What did you smoke? Unfiltered, Paul Malls. Unfiltered.

I always did everything to the extreme, you know. Yeah. I want to smoke a filter. cigarette. I want to smoke a light cigarette, you know. I want something that toasts my lungs, you know. So completely out of shape. And then to bring it back to what you were asking is on the other side of rehab, what worked for me was focusing on getting my body back. So I really didn't focus, not that I neglected it, but if you, 80, 20, 80% was, 80% was, you, was getting back in shape, largely catalyzed by my father.

My father knew how to get under my skin in the right way. He knows how to do it in the wrong way too. But in this moment, he knew that's called dad. Exactly. That's called dad. So he knew how to get under my skin and he bet me I couldn't even jog a mile. And I was like, of course I can. He said, well, come do it with me.

I could do it with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. And I'm happy I didn't try that way because I'd like to say I made it like three minutes. It's probably more like 30 seconds. Hands on knees. It was like the first time I'd exerted myself and God knows how long. And in that moment, during which I felt like I was genuinely dying, I thought I was having a heart attack. And I remember even thinking to myself, you fucking idiot. Like you made it through all the stuff that could have very well given you a heart attack.

And now you're trying to get and shit. Look, can you believe this, you know? Yeah. And an ambulance ride later, it turned out I was okay. Just like severely over-exerted myself. And it turns out that after not exercising for years and drinking and drugging and all of this stuff, you probably shouldn't just hop right into a full spray. Exactly.

So, but that created some pain for me. And I realized that I realized that I realized, I could. couldn't even jog for a few minutes. And so that worked because that started changing things for me. And then I knew that I didn't feel good about myself, you know, and I wanted to lose weight. And so I started actually, you know, I was like jogging a little bit. I was doing some kickboxing, just hitting paths, you know, and stuff. And then the weight started to come off.

And then I started caring more about what I was eating. And you know, so all of these things. And you're not drinking and jogging at all. okay at all um although i do have a different approach to sobriety i mean this is one of those things where i think sobriety is like religion i think everybody should do it in a way um that benefits them and doesn't hurt others i'm so happy you're saying i mean i had i had i'm so happy you're saying that because look i've been very public about the way that i've recovered and that can be different from the way jay recovered that can be different

the point is you need something and for you it was this idea that i've nearly died several times and now I'm in an ambulance because I can't run for 30 seconds I might want to figure out my body it doesn't matter actually if I if I drink or smoke I'm going to die from being so unhealthy yeah and you know I had a girl write me last night on on social media and said like I'd put something up about about recovery and she said you know I had eight years from 2013 to 21 and I'm struggling now and she was like super negative and I said why'd be so hard on yourself. You did a lot of great work for eight years. It's okay. And you can start tomorrow making healthy decisions. It doesn't need to be so. And I'm happy that you're talking

about it in that way because my experience is the people that stay sober or stay healthy, right, to your point or stay well, are the ones that pick something up that replaces the lifestyle they were living. There's a maxim that I live by that is just as applicable. to health as it is to investing or entrepreneurship, really success in anything. And that is ordinary things done consistently over time produce extraordinary results. You don't have to go after not exercising for however long or just, you know, like people do like the weekend warrior stuff or it's one heroic four-hour workout over the weekend. It really is about doing the boring, consistent stuff that only,

ultimately creates the win. I think it's true for sobriety. I think it's true for health. I think it's true pretty much across the board, except it's just, it's a lot more fun to do the more heroic, you know, and dramatic stuff. But here's the kicker.

As a result of doing that boring shit, guess what you get, the fucking life you always wanted. The life you always wanted. Or sometimes you get the life that you didn't always want, that you then, that you then adapt to, you know. Yeah, I don't know if you get the life you always wanted,

but I think you build a structure to live life as it comes and to react differently and to have just a much stronger foundation to adapt when life throws its curveballs at you. But what is, so in terms of talking about your idea about sobriety, like what does that look like for you? What does that mean? So my approach that has worked for me is...

good bring back, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. The alcohol itself was, was never a primary issue for me. So for me, alcohol moderation is not a problem. And when I say moderation, there were months I will go without a single drink. It was cocaine. That was your, the drug that was a primary issue. And then sometimes mixing, you know, pills and alcohol and that sort of thing. I stopped breathing a couple times because of that. And so for me, the alcohol was never the main issue, but I was terrified of drinking on the other side of rehab because I really felt if I had so much as like a sip of anything that I could spiral off, you know, get to the nether regions once in. And so the first time that I consumed alcohol after rehab, I was with my family at a dinner and I had a tiny sip

wine and i kind of it's like almost like i took a sip and i waited and i was like am i cool you know is everything going to be okay how long after rehab was this uh this is probably 18 to 24 months okay yeah so this is a huge issue you're bringing up and and i'm not suggesting this right no i know but but because we talk and the and someone we had on the podcast recently who loves to smoke weed and is completely sober abstinent all of it his fear is and i hear this a lot too is that if Well, if I start smoking weed, like, the night will come, or maybe I'm like, I'll have a beer with that. And then the night will come, we'll have two beers. And then all of a sudden, I'm around a buddy who's got a pill.

I love pill. I'm going to have a pill. And then I'm shooting dope, you know. And I think, like, it's confusing, especially when you get sober very young. And now you're in your 30s, maybe, where you're, like, watching the moms and dads have a glass of wine. And you just feel like left out. Like, why can't I just fucking unwind for a minute? And, you know, mind fucking yourself about, well, can I?

you know and like I more and more I agree with you 100% it really is a personal decision about what works for you but I do sort of more and more think that you know what like you you probably could you know I I don't want to say it for anyone else so it's a very internal personal thing but you know I so sorry but I just wanted to say that my experience is that for me my internal landscape had shifted so significantly it's almost like I had a different operating system right So if you try to run Windows software on a Mac, it's just not going to work, right? My operating system was now different. So the software almost didn't matter to me because that's how significantly I had, you know, personally shifted.

I have friends who, I mean, even, you know, psychedelics are becoming very big right now. By the way, possibly, possibly very beneficial for substance abuse, for, you know, for cessation of, And PTSD. Cigarettes to alcohol. I mean, PTSD for sure, definitely helpful. And I ended up being treated with the MAPs protocol for PTSD, which is three MDMA-assisted therapy sessions. They were completely life-changing for me. I felt like I was given the broadcast delay back, if you will, between stimulus and response that I had lost for,

for over 20 years. It was incredible. It was absolutely, and I think it's absolutely criminal, that more people don't have access to this because it is truly life-changing. What do you think about that, Zach? I might have put you on the spot, but... No, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about what we're talking about.

You know, it all comes back to me. Can you be honest with yourself? Can you really be honest with yourself? For me, personally, I know that a mood or mind-altering substance does not agree with me and your point about when you take that sip of alcohol like am I cool

I take that sip of alcohol and I am sprinting to go find you know heroin or whatever and I know that to be true about me right so I'm just not the same

but both things can be true if you're able to moderate alcohol and you're sitting here at 46 years old and you're living a healthy life and you are happy who fuck am I to say you need to stop drink you know or you need to stop like that's the point we point the finger so much and that that doesn't work it's like hey you want to try what i try come along

i think it's what it's what you just said like the fundamental promise of recovery really i think when you're really seeing it actualized is what you said a complete rearrangement of attitudes ideas and emotions right like and that's that's from like the 12-step literature but like anyone who I've seen that has really had a profound experience after putting down the drinks and drink and drug it wasn't because of the drink or the drug right and so when you get to that place which I think a lot of people who just stop drinking or stop using drugs don't they leave out the well now

what's the work that I really have to do inside of me you know when I think you get to that place that's when you are you know that's when you've that's when you're in recovery you know like and it's just it's hard to describe because it really is a subjective experience. But like you got to a place where you knew, like, I am fundamentally not who I was. You know, I am prepared to go out and live this way and make these choices. Yeah.

I mean, look, what do substances do? They alter your state, right? We can all agree about that. Why do you need to alter your state because you're not okay? Yeah. It's that simple. If you become okay, you don't need to alter your state. And if you don't need to alter your state, then the substance is, you know,

is less problematic. I'm not going to say entirely not problematic to be perfectly clear because I do want to be respectful of anybody like yourself that has made a decision and knows themselves. I think that's really the most important thing. Are you being honest with yourself? I knew I was being honest with myself. I knew, so help me God, before I went to that last rehab, I knew there was no way I was ever going back to the life that I had. I was 100%. I made up my mind before I even went. Yeah. Well, the way that I appreciate the way that you're you're talking about it because there are people that will fight abstinence and shove their way of thinking down your throat and that that doesn't work either right like because

i have seen what i know to be true is i have had friends who have gone and done the ketamine treatment and have had life-changing experiences and they have found a freedom and a happiness that they deserve i have also had friends who have gone and done the ketamine treatments and they are now nowhere to be found. So it's just a slippery slope. And I believe that going back to what I said, if you are honest with yourself, that's all that matters. Because if you take that drink and you realize very quickly that you go right back to drinking the way you were 24 months ago, then you probably can't drink safely. The big book actually says in AA, if you are not convinced that sobriety is for you, go to the local bar

and have a couple pops, see how it works out. And if you're able to do it, congratulations. Right. But there's a lot of work to get to being honest with yourself. Of course, that's the kicker. It's very hard to do that. And oftentimes you need other people around you

who you trust, you need open-mindedness, you need willingness, you need humility, you need vulnerability. I mean, these are things which are very difficult for men in particular to access when you're talking about like how am I really being honest with myself or do I have like a quiet whisper that I'm ignoring because I just don't want to deal with it

you know so in terms of you and like your journey you're 22 now you know are you still doing music like how do you get on this this I completely quit music you quit I had to abandon it do you regret that at all people places things you know I knew this is another one I knew

before I even went to my final I mean I was playing music here in the city I had some success, which is even worse. You know, if I hadn't had success, it probably would have been, I don't know, a little easier to walk away from. And it was involved in a bunch of different projects and bands and all that stuff, varying, you know, degrees of success. And I knew for a fact.

I knew this is where I was on a time. I knew for a fact. I jump in, back in to that circle of friends. I'm going down with them. And that was it. That's what made things like, you know, crystal clear for me. And it was very, very lonely on the other side because I felt like I had no friends. I had like one or two people, you know, from that time period in my life.

So like I still had a friend from high school, you know, was living in Colorado. And I mean, I had a few people. I really didn't have any friends. And I was miserable. I mean, on Friday nights, I would take Tylenolp. at like 8 o'clock at night to just knock myself out so that I wouldn't. experience the misery of being alone on a Friday night. And this is before social media.

You're not even doom scrolling and feeling like this is just real. Yeah, I mean, I don't know which one is worse though either. Like, you know, I was just, I just felt, I mean, probably watching other people like have a good time is worse, you know, but I was just completely alone.

I was completely alone. And, you know, particularly the weekends felt like really tough because I knew everybody was out, you know, doing something and I was afraid, you know, to go out with,

and, you know, people that I knew. And then there were circles that I just wouldn't travel in anymore, some all alone. And so my solution was if I'm not awake, I can't do anything bad. Right. And I also won't experience, you know, the pain of it. So I used to take Tylenolp. literally, like eight o'clock on a Friday night just to... And do you find that, do you find your new community in the fitness world? Is that where that comes from or is it...

I found my new community in a lot of different places. You know, so I, the smile, dude, the smile that comes out when I like, when someone smiles about community, that just tells me they're not alone. Yeah. It's fucking awesome, dude. Well, because I have a cool, um, a cool, eclectic community. You know, like, even now, like I started, uh, after my wife passed, I, I, I started, uh, jujitsu just to give me, give me something else to do with my body, take my, my mind to a

different place. And I kind of, I don't want to say I have myself figured out, but I, I felt like I knew, what I needed and it really stuck. But even now, I've got like my jiu-jitsu people. I've got my entrepreneur people. You know, I've just got a smattering of different groups that, just people that I like, you know, and I don't feel, I guess I don't feel, it's kind of interesting now that I think about it too, because, you know, when I was younger, I had one group and it was the group, I mean, a lot of them were musicians, but it was like the group that would go out and get fucked up together constantly, you know, and now I have groups that do different things.

And interestingly enough, a lot of them are completely, and they never even necessarily had any challenges with the digital, but they're completely sober. They just don't drink, you know, like one of my friends who's a very well-known founder of a household name, you know, business, just doesn't drink, no drugs, nothing. his approach it's you know personally what would you know he feels um you know is uh is right for him so it's just it's it's kind of cool and i think a lot of things are also shifting to where yeah you're you're there's permission there you're being given permission by the world to explore what it might look like and there's people like us out there talking about it who

have had some success so it's like oh well if he's doing it um i want to if i may you you glossed over very quickly your wife was named Rory right is that yeah and so um and we don't have to dig too far into this but i i will say a large the goal is to be helpful with this podcast and a large contingent of my following is women and your wife you know went through something after birthing your kids that a lot of women experience and so to the degree that you're willing to share kind of what happened and um i know it's not the easy easiest thing to talk about, but it is a part of your story. It still sucks to, you know, to this day, you know, and it happened almost three

years ago. And, um, my, uh, my wife, uh, had, uh, some underlying mental health challenges, um, none of which, um, obstructed her career, you know, pathway or anything like that. They were challenging in our relationship, definitely challenging our relationship. But it did feel like something that with therapy and medication that she had a handle on. And she was very high performing. And, you know, eventually got to a position where she was overseeing lifestyle content for one of the world's major, you know, publisher. She was a producer director, you know, at that point by trade.

Successful. All the video content. Successful, beautiful, all of those things. And postpartum really got to her, really, really got to her. And it started unraveling a lot of a relationship. She and I were both probably making, you know, some bad relationship, you know, decisions overall. And it had a spiraling effect where things just, it just felt like things were just not moving in the right direction no

matter what and there were things that I knew and things that I didn't know I knew that she had postpartum depression I did not know she had postpartum psychosis that's why HIPAA is a little bit of a double-edge sword it's great that it protects you know or health information the challenges for family members who you know unless someone's an immediate threat to themselves or others you're not going to find out and the definition of immediate is kind of in a gray area you know and so I I really had no indication on that taking her life was on her radar it was there semantically you know I was aware of it and you know she would say

things like I don't want to be here or about a month before she took her life she told me she wrote a suicide note to me and our kids who at the time when I lost her, I mean, they were super young. My son was 21 months old and my daughter was seven months old. So they were babies. Wow. And it was a, yeah, real, real shock to the system. But she wrote a, you know, a, she told me she had written a suicide note. I immediately got in touch with her psychiatrist and her psychologist flagged it she had emergency sessions with them and then I was told like everything's okay they've talked everything's did you believe that I don't know I don't know I you know it's it's at it's a it's a

it's a definitely a thought stimulating in a reflection stimulating question I never thought that she would actually take her life. I knew that she had one prior attempt when she was a teenager that was thwarted by her older brother. So I knew that when she was a teenager, that that was something that she could have possibly done. I just didn't think that it would happen, especially given the fact that we had kids. you know, for some reason I felt like, if all else failed, the kids would be the one thing that would prevent her from actually following through with anything. And then one day, you know, September 29th, 2022, I'm at my office in New York at the time,

I'm sorry, in Fort Lauderdale, at the time leading, you know, a, you know, a, a tech startup that was just commercializing its product, early AI company, about 100 employees, just like you mentioned you have now, and I get a text message. I'm in the middle of a meeting. You had a text message and I look at it in my Apple Watch and I start scrolling through it. And it says something about like being cremated and I'm like, what the fuck is this? So I almost like kind of like blacked out where I didn't say anything to anything to any in my office. I just ran out of my office, jumped into my car. I lived three minutes away from, from, you know, from the office. And I'm looking at the ring cameras as I'm driving there to see if she's like leaving or like doing anything.

She's still there. You know, I get to the house and, you know, I jump out of my car, run into the house and, you know, I call her name out. and I don't hear anything and unfortunately it was too late within you know the three or so minutes that it took me to get home she had successfully ended her life so I tried to rescue her and immediately called 911 and it was too late and the kids were there she waited until the kids went out for a walk with the nanny they were at the park so i mean thank you for sharing that i mean you know it's terrible what do you say i guess a thought i have though is that in that moment or in that period of time you know we started this talking about the 14 year old boy who has this thing happened to him

and then just reacts with anger and vengeance and you know how could you do this to me what what are you thinking like how are you moving through the world how are you looking at your children i mean i can't imagine first and foremost i would say that my kids saved me um the after the initial shock i mean the first 72 hours or so um were i have fragments of memory from that um but amongst the things i remember is that every single time i thought about what happened i would get like an explosion of tingling in my chest and arms and felt like i was about to pass out um it was surreal i mean there there was and it's so sad because like you know i i can feel how this landed with both of you as i as i say it and at the same time do you know how many families

are going through this very thing right now because mental health on a on a at the level of of at the level of our population across all demographics is declining suicide rates are increasing and and by the way suicide we're only counting this successful attempts, you know, for the most part, when someone is slowly drinking themselves to death, that's not counted as suicide. Right. No, I'm with, I mean, and it did land because it doesn't get easy. I've been doing this work for a long time and I've lost more people than I care to share,

you know, and it, I just, it's just my heart, man. That's all that is. Like, it's landing right here. And just the way that you shared so openly about the thing that struck me so hard is like you were so honest about like, hey, it was like it was seeping into our relationship. Like things weren't great, you know. I would love to come here and tell a different story and say, you know, we had the best relationship ever and everything was perfect. And then all of a sudden this just happened, you know, completely out of nowhere. Part of that's true.

This happened completely out of nowhere. I could have never in a million years you run the play over and over a million times never saw this happening but we didn't have a great relationship and we're both struggling our way through it and I was doing my absolute fucking best to do what I could

and that's real and that's the type of authenticity that our world oftentimes lacks because people feel like they have to be perfect or at least pretend like it was something that it wasn't you know I love her to this day.

No, 100%. I love who she was. I love the way she laughed and made other people laugh. I love the way she was able to capture people's stories and tell them

as a producer because she was a true empath. All of those things are true. And it was a really difficult relationship that we probably shouldn't even been in going back several years prior to her passing you know like there were a lot of reasons that we probably should have just said look we gave this relationship a shot it's not working but i don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing but we were both just so dedicated

to making the thing work um so the way i think that's right i think that's right you know can i ask ask the question. Yeah. Do you blame yourself at all? Yes. The guilt for the first almost year was so hard because I was running through as many people do who are in my shoes an alternate reality where they could have solved. they could have solved the problem and something could have been done.

And I was even told that in a survivor group, you know, early on, of family members who had lost, you know, someone to suicide. And this guy said to me, he lost his teenage daughter, said, dude, I just want to share with you that I tried, I went into detective mode after I lost my daughter, As if I got all the right pieces and knew the things I didn't know, I could have somehow prevented it. And it's an exercise in futility. And I just want you to know that that was my experience because I would hate for, because he could see where I was, hate for you to go down that rabbit hole and just realize that you're, you know, you're going to go nowhere.

Right. And so it took an extensive amount of therapy. self-reflection, going through the cycles over and over, too. I mean, I think that's one of the toughest parts that maybe people don't understand about grief is they try to view it as linear and it is cyclical. And so we're taught about, what is it, the seven stages of grief, I think it is, or something. Okay? Whatever this stage is.

Yeah, whatever. But the point is that there's some type of linear progression that all, ultimately leads to acceptance. And what I found is it's not true. The way I view grief, if I have to explain it to somebody, is I view it like a terminal illness. It's always going to be there. Or chronic condition.

It will always be there. You will always have it. There will be sometimes where there are flare-ups and you will not be able to do life. You will not be able to work. You will not be able to concentrate. You won't be able to parent, all of those things. And there are other times where you will completely forget that this condition even exists. But it's important to remember that it's still there because despite the linearity that we wish that it could have,

that perfect, you know, tied up in a bow and tap that we would like it to have, it's just simply not there. And so, you know, I found myself getting to the point of going through this process of guilt, shame, anger, all of these different emotions, metabolizing them, processing, and being like, okay, well, now I'm here, feeling like I'm on the other side of something, I feel like I've metabolized this to some extent. And then all of a sudden, it just comes right back like a tidal wave. and I have to go through the whole process all over again. I mean, in a lot of ways, dealing with grief feels like almost Sisyphian, you know, in nature. You feel like you're there, and then all of a sudden you realize you've got the boulder right back at the bottom of the hill, and you've got to push it all the way back up again, which is why I think very commonly people refer to grief as something that they carry. It's a weight that's really what it's like.

I just, one of my good friends, long-time friends, long-time photographer, too. We kind of met each other, believe it or not, back in the day, well, you said I was handsome before. But back in the day, I did a little bit of modeling when I was about 20-some-odd years younger and had a little more hair and all that good stuff. And probably 20 pounds later, too. But I met my friend James Farrell, who's a photographer who shoots for Nike and Lulu. He does these huge campaigns and everything. But he lost his daughter when she was 18 months old.

I mean, just an unreal tragedy. And they still don't know why she passed. But he just posted the other day, you know, because he's got a tattoo of her name on his fingers. You know, he talks about the way he's metabolized it, but there isn't a moment, no matter how you metabolize it, no matter how much you're focused on meaning and life. And, like, in my case, you know, my kids. And, you know, I try to package this thing as well, this tragedy, because we all want something to make sense in some way. Going back to like Victor Frankel, right? We want it to get packaged up in some type of greater meaning

so that it almost takes the edge off of the tragedy, right? Because by giving meaning to tragedy, it wasn't just a tragedy. Because if we're left thinking, well, you know, maybe life just sucks. Maybe shit just happens. It's a very bitter pill to swallow. So I've gone, you know, through a lot of those laps, myself kind of being like, well, maybe her tour of duty in life was to bring my church. children, you know, into the world. And even then, um, it still hurts because my son will do

something funny. You know, he's four years old and I'll do something funny. And the first thing I'll think of, reflexively, before I even, you know, it's like, I guess just as I'm processing, that's funny, you know, or laughing. I think immediately about how much you would have enjoyed it to. Yeah, she didn't get to see this. And I'm sure you see her in them. I definitely do. I mean, particularly my son. You know, my son, my son looks like her.

And, you know, so he is, I mean, both of them are. And this is another one where it's like it all depends on perspective. They're a constant reminder. So what do I want them to be a constant reminder of? Do I want them to be a constant reminder of tragedy? Or do I want them to be a constant reminder that when people, pass they never truly disappear when the kids have their DNA you know so she's still with me yeah that's beautiful that's beautiful i i just really value you i value you sharing the way you did

it's going to help some people for sure and i know that's not your intention but it's real man i appreciate it um i talk about it only it's not something i enjoy talking of course i mean i saw i saw like you you felt it with us like when when when you glossed over it you probably had of thought that we were going to come back to it and and that's when the you know we get we get the way we get because it's sad and it's tragic and it's you wish it on no one um it sucks the ear out of the room yeah the reason that i that i that i talk about it is because i know other people are out there suffering in this way and may have endured something similar and the way we are as human beings, just knowing that we're not alone provides some degree of relief.

Yeah, there's someone listening to this podcast that just had a child and is supposed to feel joyous and they don't, you know, and they reach out to you or however that goes. But that's the point of all this stuff is that, yeah, you are not alone. I want to shift gears. Would you say that's the number one thing though? Would you say, sorry. Would you say that that identification of, you know, of seeing your story or seeing yourself through someone else's journey is the thing that helps you, you know, move through it with

it? And the other thing, too, I'm thinking about, and this will segue into where we're going, is that, like, at 14, at 22, like, you're reacting completely different to this kind of situation. So, like, the person that you had become between 22 to, you know, in your 30s, you know, that you had built through the fitness and wellness, starting companies, you know, being on TV, teaching people how to take better care of themselves, like, what, like, what is the, proves the person that you are that then allowed you then to have this experience and say, I'm not going to bend towards, you know, destruction. I'm going to choose to see this as an opportunity to move forward in a different way. But I have my family, my kids, you know, the life I've built, you know, this is not going to define me. I don't remember the first half of your question.

Don't worry about it. I just was going. But the second half, what I will say is we'll come back to, I use that metaphor of the operating system. About six months, I'd say, after my son was born. I'll actually share a little bit about this because I think this is something else that since I've now talked to other dads, they've said they've felt this too. You know, so I found that sharing, you know, my experiences, you know, it can be beneficial because people don't feel alone or weird or, you know, isolated. And so one of the things that I couldn't understand is I was told that the birth of my son, my first born, is going to be like. life changing. The second he pops out, everything's going to be different. And I didn't experience

that. I didn't experience at all. I was happy. It was cool, you know, but I didn't feel fundamentally different as a person. And I remember two months went by, three months went by, and I'm waiting for that magical bond that's supposed to happen. And it's just not happening. And I start to really wonder whether I'm defective. And a lot of these negative voices for my childhood start to even creep back in, you know, whether I'm a piece of shit and all these other things. Like we all have that certain language that we use for self-talk, negative self-talk. And a lot of these things come back.

And then I couldn't tell you exactly why, but it was right around when my son first laughed, when it was like six months old, like a real laugh. all of a sudden I fell absolutely in love with him, like absolutely head over heels in love with him. And it was like another operating system upgrade happened. And I was now father. And the change in operating system to father made it possible to weather the storm after my wife's passing. And because my primary focus after those first 72 hours week or so was to make sure that my kids were okay.

It's like all I cared about. my daughter was very young that was almost like the easier one of the two quite honestly my son was now acclimated already to nighttime books and rituals and that sort of thing and so I had to do it and so um you know I'd sit there with him on my lap you know in the rocking chair in his room reading him you know um made for me and um uh uh So with the other one, he used to call a good night gorilla, but I think it might be good night zoo. You know, but I'd be reading him these age-appropriate, you know, books, you know, and I'd be crying, and he had no clue. And he'd sit there on my lap, and I'd barely be, you know, be getting through it.

But I think to myself, like, I need to do this for him. He needs to have this consistency. this normalcy, the love. I cannot remove myself to go fix myself and then come back. I need to be here. And that ended up, you know, really, because you ask like, well, it wasn't the 14-year-old you, it wasn't the 20-year-old. It was a different, you know, you. It was the me that primarily identifies as a father. I'd say if you, if we get into identities, like who am am I, core identity is father, you know, above and beyond anything else. And that, that's what made it entirely possible for me to do it because that's, you know,

what I was, what I was anchored to. Yeah. So Jay, Lou, we wanted to switch gears. No, I mean, no, I love. We could talk all day. I mean, like, your story's unbelievable. There's so much hope and inspiration and honesty. I mean, like, and I just, you know, selfishly, I'm a fan of you and I'm a fan of your work.

And so I want to talk about how this new project is really a culmination of all the things that you've learned in this life. I mean, like you're uniquely qualified to talk about so many things, right? Because you've experienced it. Well, fortunately, unfortunately. Right. The grief, the trauma, the substance abuse, the mental health, the fitness, the wellness. And so continuum, which is your latest project here in New York City is a culmination of, you know, the 14-year-old kid and the 23-year-old kid and the, you know, the 30-year-year-old. I mean, there's a whole.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and, and, and the hard work that you've done. Um, so I would just love it if you, because it's very easy for someone to say, like, this fucking luxury, it's another fucking luxury, you know, like thing or it's another just for rich people and, and, and speaking to you before, like I actually know and believe that it's not, I mean, you got to start somewhere, right? You got to build something and then hopefully make it scalable. So I would just love it if you could, you know,

know, talk a little bit about that project and what it means to you and why now. Well, people ask me, you know, like continue, I'm like, oh, how long have you been working on that? I'm like 20-some-odd years. Okay? Because it is the natural progression and evolution of everything I've been working on. So let me say this, that even I had a hard exit out of another career. My first career was an entertainment, well, PR, and then entertainment marketing. And I did really well financially, got completely burnt out and decided I didn't want to do it anymore. And so I decided I was going to become a personal trainer. Don't ask why. At the time, my friends thought I was like bananas, because this is not just a good sound bite, but I'd be going from

a seven figure income to $7 an hour minimum wage. That was literally the transition. And there were plenty of times as I first worked at Crunch Wall Street, but it was not even, it was right opposite Hanover Square, rocking dumbbells and that sort of thing that I looked at myself in the mirror. And I was like, dude, what the fuck did you just do? And so. I love that. Yeah.

It was an interesting transition. And, but anyway, you know, what I first, I knew, I knew that I really was passionate about health and exercise. like I said, changing from the neck down to affect change from the neck up. And I knew it was really passionate about helping other people also. And so that's ultimately what led to, you know what, I'm going to take a crack at this. And I had learned a lot. So I briefly mentioned before that I had started kickboxing to get back in shape. That kickboxing for fitness turned into amateur competitive kickboxing.

and one of the that I did throughout my 20s and one of the first things that I realized was the first rule of fighting at least in my opinion wasn't to keep your hands up at all times or protect yourself at all times it was never get tired you get tired you're done right so I started on my own studying exercise physiology to figure out how I had this dream of making myself like um invincible you know like I just I would never get tired and so I ended up becoming very interested in, you know, in it as an advocation, you know? And so I start, you know, working and doing this and then I start getting very lucky. I became a partner and this, you know, very exclusive health club here in New York City. Not all that dissimilar from the club, you know, in terms of clientele that are members that we, you know, that we have now, I end up getting asked by the biggest loser to fill in for Jillian Michaels while she's out on leave.

Amazing. Out of left field. You know, like, I had no TV career. This was like completely out of left field. They scouted me. I thought it was a scam at first because, you know, they reached out. They said from them like this, I don't know, it sounds kind of weird. And then NBC went with, um, um, um, um,

What's his name? I'm forgetting, Brett Hoble, first year, Dolvet Quince, the second year. But then I ended up getting my own TV show, but then I end up on the Today Show. Things kind of bounced around, but I got very, very lucky. And then amongst those lucky opportunities that I had is I got hired by Michelle Obama to create a technology-based program for Let's Move for Childhood Obesity Initiative. And that initiative was met with varying levels of success, also quite a bit of resistance, around school lunches, that sort of thing.

I always felt like I had an easy job in that campaign. Were you working with her? Well, I was saying, I primarily worked with the vice chair, Cory Booker, who was then the mayor of Newark. So it's not like Michelle Obama and I were hanging out every day. You get tapped to do something at that level. It's like you're in and you don't interact at all. You just go run and you do your thing.

but the program leveraged early wearables in order to motivate and incentivize kids through prizes to complete at least 60 minutes of incremental daily physical activity so they had a red circle on their device when the day started and they had to take it from being red to being completely green nice all right that program ended up becoming quite successful and it really left a mark. And I had this moment, I think as every entrepreneur does, every type of dreamer, innovator, whatever it is, where you think something's going to work, but then it doesn't. You're like, shit, this really actually did work, you know? And now, you of course, you know, publicly facing, you know, you've always been confident. And everybody, you know, but you have no clue. And so I had

this moment of like, oh my God, this thing actually worked. And it really left a mark on me because I was at the time, and again, this is like, when I started this, I think it was like 2009 or 2010. So considerably long time ago, order rings certainly didn't exist, right? So we're in a very different, you know, the iPhone was only out for a couple of years. It's a very, very different landscape technologically, but I thought to myself, the future is at the intersection of health and technology. This is where I want to be. This is a very interesting space, and it can do very interesting things to help people at scale

live better and healthier lives. And so that was the first thing that kind of really left a mark and set me on this trajectory. But then I also had a few successful health clubs, you know, here in the city, an AI company that specialized on specifically exercise prescription. And so I had racked up, you know, roughly 20 years figuring out how to bring together the best methods, practices, protocols, et cetera, how to build teams, how to build the technology. And that's effectively what continuum is.

So when you hear that backstory and then you experience continuum, you go, oh shit, like what else could this guy have possibly done? This just makes so much sense. The place is so legit. I mean, it's so sick. I mean, you roll up a like, you know, there's someone standing outside out before you enter into the space. I mean, I'm sure that's, this is all stuff you've thought through is like, what's up, Zach?

And then there's some probably level of like, or whatever. And then like you're downstairs and everyone's greeting you. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's awesome. It really, you've built a special and the team there is kind. My team is amazing. Yeah. I really love my team. And, you know, particularly I give a shout to Juan, our dormant.

Yeah, yeah. Who I believe you're, you're referring to, who's, who's absolutely fantastic. It's become a neighborhood staple. Everybody in the neighborhood. Oh, yeah. knows him. But dude, they're starting to, I don't know if it's Juan or who, uh, just ran a 5K on 5th and he got inspired by, so that's what I love about this is that everybody

it touches gets inspired to go, you know, so I'll tell you one of the, you know, one of the, maybe it's the most, the greatest success I've had as an entrepreneur. The greatest success I had as an entrepreneur is one of my employees bought one of my companies. That's the best. And we did it as an installment sale because he wasn't, so I was already in a sales process. He approached me and I was like, you know, are you going to be able to fund the transaction? Let's get creative and because I really want to, but that was the best thing.

So what I love is when I'm able to build something and whoever touches the nucleus, like I said before, um, has this opportunity. of expanded possibility and life potential, you know, they have an expansion of their life force. And now he's going on, not only, by the way, did that business, because it was a boutique a gym on the Upper East Side, not only did it survive COVID, but it actually grew and they moved into a much larger location. So I just, I love seeing that happen. Were you always technologically minded?

I mean, I've always been a closet nerd. So, you know, what I'd say is that, A lot of people make assumptions about me based on my physical appearance, which I'm acutely aware of. But I'd actually say that probably a lot of the way that I look at this point is just armor that I built up over the years because I was scared. And so the way, you know, the way I, and I know the way I must come across, especially before someone's spoken to me. But on the inside, I'm really very different. You know, like I, to answer your question, I am endlessly curious. I mean, since I was a little kid on my way. And so it really doesn't even matter what the subject matter is.

Like, my last company was an AI company that I started in 2018. The focal point in the beginning was to create because it, incorporated computer vision for real-time human kinematics. So a camera, so the same way autonomous vehicles drive, they're able to see the world around them and make decisions, we built software in a camera that was able to see the world around it, but specifically your body, and understand what you were doing in real time and prescribe an exercise regimen around that. The biggest constraint at that point in time was the computer vision model. I don't know if you remember the connect from Xbox, Microsoft, okay? So that

That was the best model at the time for real-time human kinematics. Without wearing sensors, like you just stand in front of a camera, it sees you, it understands what you're doing, right? I knew nothing, knew nothing about computer vision and AI. A little bit of self-study just to basically understand how this stuff works. And I decided to start this company. And of course got laughed out of a lot of rooms for that reason, but that tends to be the way that I do things where I like to take a big, Barbara Corcor, and I said something along

these lines, like take a big bite and then chew it. I just go, well, I'm going to go do this thing, and I tell other people I'm doing it, so then I have no choice other than to accomplish it. And so I went and I did this thing. And so the technology piece, I really, I only got to the point where I understood the problem fundamentally really well. So like with computer vision, it's all of these computer vision systems saw things on an X, Y, axis, and inferred the Z coordinate. So for me, in my highly reductive reasoning, I was like, all we need to do is figure out how to ascertain the Z coordinate. By the way, Microsoft couldn't do it, but for some reason I was like, oh, no problem. We just figure out how to, you know, it's just linear algebra.

Anybody can do it. So a lot of my technological endeavors came about by one. wanting to solve a problem and then backfilling to understand the technology itself, but probably more importantly than anything else, like with anything else you do, it's not what, it's not how, it's who. It's with whom you're doing it. And so I had an amazing team, an amazing co-founder, and we were able to, you know, to solve the problem. But the technology piece for me was just always, even with what I'm doing at continuum, the reason that technology is so fundamental to what we're doing and we're building an AI model and data model not too dissimilar from my last company is because it is impossible to really do what

we're doing at scale which is to integrate all aspects of wellness or health or whatever you want to call it everything that happens before the doctor's office we are able to integrate into a model that makes the practice of wellness as precise and intentional as the practice of medicine. Sleep, nutrition, recovery, exercise, all of those elements together. Clinical and non-clinical. So we're looking at physical therapy, but we're also looking at training, but really brings in this entire experience into one neat package, a precision wellness program, that adapts in real time based on your real-time physiology.

So the way we do that, as Zach knows, is a combination of biometric data like blood work and Dexa and VO2, but also leveraging wearables for the real-time components. I'm a bad student. I don't have my wearable on it. I was going to say, I noticed you're not wearing your auror. Do you get an oaring when you? Yeah, yeah, when you sign up. So wait, but did you have you done your markers? Have you done? Have you been onboarded? I've been onboarded. I, you know, I, and we were talking about this before. And I appreciated kind of. of doing boring things over and over and over again. Like I got to wear the thing and do the thing and show up and schedule the

appointments and do it. So like for me as a student, like I signed up with a very specific goal that I want to run a marathon in under three hours and at 41 years old I need to optimize my performance and I'll take every little inch of, you know, advantage or whatever you want to call that I can possibly because like you, like I'm a nerd, I want to know why I operate the way that I operate. And so I've been onboarded and using the space and have had, you know, three, four sessions with trainers and, and it's go time for me now. So I better get my What does that mean? How's it different? Tell me, like, tell me. Like, tell me. Because like,

I'll tell you one thing for sure. We don't have any trainers. Every trainer out there is certified in the United States. Very few are qualified. Uh-huh. There's a big difference. Yeah, he should speak to. Not me. I mean, this is not. I want to hear you. I want to, I like hearing your experience. You can speak about it experientially. I'll just tell you, you know, quantifiably. to even be considered to be part of our human performance team. We have two types of individuals on the human performance team. With clinicians and non-clinicians, they all possess doctorates or masters in their respective fields. So on the clinical side, they're physical therapists.

They have doctors and physical therapy. On the performance side, they have doctorates in exercise science, kinesiology, that sort of thing. We're a master's degrees. They have a minimum of at least six years of academic experience, right? you got four and two for a master's plus five years applied so the minimum of 11 years before they were even considered for employment by continuum so you're dealing with true subject matter experts who were able to navigate the entire terrain for you I mean I remember you were mentioning before we started about Darnell yes Darnell helping you you know

he's tenured I mean for a startup so tenured means a little over a year but it's been with us for for a little over a year best they go so much beyond you know they're not they're not glorified rep counters yeah no i they're sitting here talking to you i believe that people have been recruited from all over yeah yeah so let me ask you this and i know we're we're going to wrap it up soon but what do you say to the idea of using technology can strip humanity can make the person too aware, self-conscious, develop, you know, anxiety around, you know, tracking this stuff, being so hyper-aware.

Like, before COVID happened, like, no one knew what the fuck of virus. You know what I mean? I do go both way. Like, like, the sleep thing, I'll wake up some mornings and be like, that's bullshit. I slept well, you know? So, like, that's... Well, what do you say?

I'll share two things. I don't want a machine to tell me if I slept well, because I know when I slept well. So I'll share two things. So firstly, to close a loop, on the tech piece. The reason the technology is so important to what we're doing at continuum

is because we're going to deploy the very experience, like you mentioned, it is certainly not inexpensive. It's very cost intensive to do what we're doing right now, but what we're going to be able to do next year is decouple the technology from the club so that we can now

launch the technology at scale at a price point that most people can afford a subscription that's around $20 a month, not $10,000 a month. And like an app. That's correct. Now, as for the fears around how the implementation of technologies can go wrong, that's something that is actually under very deep consideration within our design and user experience.

And so what I found was that people don't want dashboards. They don't want data. They think they do, but they don't. Because you don't know what to do with it. And they don't want dashboards to tell them sort of, they want direction. And so I can understand without more of a global perspective where you wake up and you see your sleep score with 60 and you're like, oh, now I'm going to have a terrible day. That can be very challenging. We use a proprietary orb system.

It's a data visualization tool. that's also going to become a veritable digital twin. So it won't just be prescriptive. It'll be predictive. But we use these super cool glowing orbs that help you relate to your current state of physiology that really, at least in our early user testing, help people manage that relationship with their data much better. Because now we're not just throwing a number at them. or, you know, it's always being given in a much more global context.

So people are getting a true idea of their current physiological state. So it's not just how you slept last night or what you ate or what your last blood work, you know, results were. It's bringing these all together in a very, again, like integrated and interrelated way that create what actually is a very complex health picture, but make it very simple. for someone to understand. So I think that at least in early testing, it's people feel almost like it's like, here's another 90s reference. People feel like it's almost like

their little Tamagachi. So you're just taking care of the orb that is you. And so you get almost like this like a little bit of a softer or gamified experience that feels a lot friendlier. Rather than waking up with like a 60 sleep score, you're like, oh, 60's a failing grade, you know? Yeah.

It's that entrepreneurial deal. That's awesome, dude. We're rooting for you, man. This was awesome. I appreciate you and what you've built and what you stand for. And, you know, for a guy and for men to sit here and have the conversation that we just had, it's really meaningful. So appreciate your time. Appreciate your flexibility on scheduling.

He was flexible for us. For me, I had a call I had to be on. And so, look, man, it's just all love and anything else before we wrap here. Nothing I can think of. I really appreciate you having me. Really good conversations, both before we started and during. So I appreciate you listening. Thank you, Jeff.

Keep doing the good work, man. Thank you. That's it for today. And we will be back very soon with more inspiring conversations.