March 31, 2023 • 53 mins
As you know, Zach's released a new film. A Good Person came into being through the real-life grief Zach navigated during the pandemic. Channeling the loss of his sister, his father, and his good friend Nick, he explores the idea of what it means to stand back up after being knocked down. Dr. Fader, Zach's therapist and coach, played an instrumental role in helping Zach complete the script. On this very special episode, Zach talks to Dr. Fader about how he helps some of the biggest sports stars and performers change how they think about themselves, and how they react to negative thoughts.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Here's some stories about shore. We made about a bunch
of doctor nurses. Stories. Yato around here, are Yato around here.
(00:28):
I gotta tell y'all, I got this song in my
head and you're gonna love it. It's an old standard, Joel.
I know you're gonna feel it. I can't. I'm ready,
ready or not? Here I come? You can't hide, Gonna
find you and take it slowly, yes, foojie's ready or not.
(00:49):
It never goes out of style, Joel. I've been singing
it all morning. Whole album still hits. You know, when
you got a song in your head, you wake Do
you guys wake up with a song in your head? Sometimes? Yeah?
Sometimes certainly have. I very often will wake up and
I'll just be like, ready or not? Here I come.
(01:10):
That's not always that song, but maybe I was dreaming
about it or something. But this morning I woke up.
My dog licked my face, and I was just like,
you can't hide. Gone up? He said, you're ready. You
can't run away from these tears I've got. Oh baby,
I'm gonna make sure the lyrics right hold on. I
looked him up because I did not want to mess up. Ye,
(01:31):
I don't think you got one wrong yet. Wait wait, wait,
I looked it up because, for those of you don't know,
Lauren and I went to high school together. Lauren was
at my bar Mitzvah. Yes, Lauren, there's a bar mitzvah
game you called called coke and Pepsi, which is basically
just kids running around the dance floor, but you have
to have a partner, and Lauren was my coke and
Pepsi partner at So just you know this, this runs deep.
(01:54):
I want to get that one part she sings, you
can't run away from these styles. I got, oh baby,
hey baby, because I got a lot. Oh yeah, anywhere
you got that's too hot anywhere anyway, anywhere you go
my whole crew gun no, oh baby, hey baby. You
can't hide from the block. All right. Listen, Donald's not
(02:18):
here today, guys. So I had to do the loud singing.
So I'm done. That's set. The audience who hate singing.
That section is now over singing. Oh no, no, I
just don't know, you know, listen, people hate everything. So
I once saw a video on YouTube. I once saw
this is I once saw a video on YouTube that
was to this day one of the sweetest things I've
(02:40):
ever seen in my life. It was a father playing guitar,
singing with his probably four year old and they like
new harmonies and it was it brings a tear to
my eye thinking of it. And there were like this
is back when they would show down votes. There were
like thousands of down votes, and I was like, if
that isn't the ultimate example, wow, I hate joy. That's
(03:03):
the interwebt But somebody was like, took the time to
be like this adorable father and toddler singing to themselves. Nope,
thumbs down, not entertaining to me this. Wow. Um, well,
let me explain the audience. What's happening. We're doing a
(03:23):
special episode today. Um. Donald, don't worry, kids, Mommy and
Daddy aren't getting divorced. We're not breaking up. Um our
our friend Donald is shooting his new show and he's
loving it and it's amazing and he's having the best
time and he's getting that work and so we're so
happy for him. Um. But I felt like, you know,
we hadn't done a show. We did the Florence one,
(03:45):
which was so well received, Thank you for all the
love on that one. But we were going to be
off this week, and I just said to Joel, and
Joel said to me, we were like, let's do something.
And so I came up with an idea kind of
inspired by Jonah Hill and his amazing doc stunts, which
you haven't seen is really good, um, where he brings
his therapist on and sort of talks you know, and
(04:07):
shares some of you know, what he's gotten from his
therapist and just sort of shared the information. His was
done in a very artful documentary way. But I thought
we are called fake doctor's real friends. I do have
a coach psychologist who has helped me with a lot
of my life and certainly is the reason I was
able to write this movie. And um, I just thought
(04:27):
we could have him on and all shoot the ship
and it could just be a conversation about mental health.
It could be a conversation about anything anything we wanted
to be Joel and Daniel, I want you guys to
participate and steer it wherever you want. What do you think?
What do you think about that very here? Of course,
did you hear the doc is in bringing the doc there?
(04:49):
He is the whole team. Yes, So doctor Fader, meet
Daniel Goodman and Joel, Monique l and Joel. Nice to
meet you both. How's it going, Doctor Fanner, Happy to
welcome to the program. Um. So, as I was saying
to the audience, you know, we don't have Donald because
he's working, and I really wanted to thank you the
(05:12):
audience from the bottom of my heart. The the audience
response to a good Person has been just monumental. I
think it currently has a ninety five percent audience rating
on Rotten Tomatoes, which is just pretty unheard of and rare.
And I just you know, this audience, you guys who
are listening, guys and gals, have been with me the
(05:32):
whole journey. If you've been listening to this podcast. I
started writing this when we started this podcast, and so
you know, I really have a journal, in the sense
of an audio journal of my process. The whole time
I was doing this podcast, I was writing this movie.
So it feels so great to share it with you.
And and also I just thought I would go a
(05:55):
little bit. The idea behind this podcast, since we don't
have Donald and can't do an episode of Scrubs, was
to put out something and and talk a little bit
about the process of writing it. M and I thought,
who better to have on than doctor Fader, because he
I couldn't have done this without him, and I so
much of the things that I'm accomplishing in my life
I couldn't have done without him. And I first met
(06:17):
him about seven years ago. I believe there's a very
successful person in my life who will obviously remain anonymous
who I was just killing it. And not only was
he killing it, but he always seemed happy. And I
was like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
And he was killing it in his career, he was
(06:38):
killing it in his relationships. He was happy, always happy.
And I said, bro, what is the secret? And he said, well,
lots of things, lots of work, but also I really
recommend my coach, my my psychologist, doctor Jonathan Fader. And
so we started working together and and I don't know
(07:01):
what to say. I mean, I have plenty to say,
but I just want to welcome you to the show. Dude. Hey,
thanks man, and thanks for all those those kind of words.
You know, I genuinely feel that this is something that
we've done fully together. And I think your courage and
the hard work that you put in, I mean, this
is hard work to change yourself and it's hard work
(07:22):
to get started, it's hard work in the middle, and
it's hard work all the way through. And you've worked
really hard. Well, I couldn't have done it without you
and I and I I guess I want to just say,
you know, will you explain just for you know, some
people on this podcast are familiar with different types of therapy,
and some don't know anything about it. Some have it
in their lives, some it's been you know, it's looked
(07:44):
down upon in their families. You know, we have people
who listen from all over the world and from all
walks of life. So will you just generally explain to
the layman what the difference is between a traditional psychologist
or traditional there I think of old school therapy, but
and what you call what you do, which is being
a cognitive behaviorist, because and I've been in therapy since
(08:06):
I was a little kid and seen all sorts of
therapists because I had OCD as i've shared on here,
and depression and anxiety. But I really feel like I
started to make some some and now all that's been helpful.
I don't mean to minimize any of it, but I
really feel like I started to make some some more
some larger shifts when I started working with you and
(08:26):
your style of working. So can you explain that in
basic terms for people? Yeah, I mean I think that
most people have a misunderstanding about what therapy is to
begin with, and that you know, just because of you know,
watching the Sopranos or watching the show, you begin to think, hey,
this is really about not not the killing part, but
you know, you begin to think that this is about
(08:48):
only about the past. It's about understanding your past and
going really deep psychologically into who people are. And this
comes from like, you know, the history it's for it's
the beard, it's the pipe, it's lying on a couch.
But that that way of doing things is that old
school way has really evolved over the years. And the
(09:09):
kind of therapy that that I do is based in
cognitive behavioral therapy, which really means two things. It means
we focus on the here and now, we focus on
changing behaviors and actively together in a collaborative way, changing thoughts.
As we were saying before too, it's it's not just
a one person kind of thing where someone just talks.
(09:30):
We talk together, and so it's much more like coaching
where you're jumping in. You're thinking together about which thoughts work.
We tell ourselves these stories. You know, we're all from
from birth right as soon as we learn to talk,
we tell ourselves stories about ourselves. And this work is
really about examining those stories, seeing which stories work and
(09:50):
which don't, and then how in a partnership you begin
to change those stories so your life begins to resemble
the story that you want. That's so well said, and
it jumps right into what I want to say. Is
one of the one of the biggest things I've got
out of working with you and the readings I've done,
is that you're going to make up stories. An experience happens,
(10:13):
and then your brain instantly goes to work making up
a story and an interpretation of what just happened. And
if you're an anxious, depressive person, that that could instantly
go to worry and negativity and the worst possible interpretation
of that experience. But you just but one just totally
made all that up and instantly accepted it as the truth. No, absolutely,
(10:36):
I mean, as you know, I mean, I work with
you know, exceptional performing artists and like the one hosting
this show, but I work with a lot of athletes,
tons of athletes. You know, I've worked for many years
in the Major League baseball in the NFL. One of
the stories I wrote about in my book is exactly
what you're talking about. You know. There's a pitcher who's
in the major leagues for the first time, first time
(10:57):
in the big Show. He's up there, he's pitching, and
all of a sudden, he notices that his pitching coach
looks a little bit disturbed. He just sees it in
in in, you know, down in the dugout, and he's
up there and he's starting to think about, like, what
is this guy? What is he thinking about it? Right now?
He's just sucking totally. You know, he's really suspicious of me.
He's got all these stories going in his head, and
(11:18):
he actually kind of gives up a home run, has
a terrible outing, comes back in the dugout, and the
pitching coach he's saying, how are you doing all right?
He's like, yeah, But part of it is like your
attitude towardsman. He's like, dude, I've had I've had terrible
gas all day. I've been you know, I don't know
(11:39):
what it was. The burritos last night. So you know,
you're right, man. We have this constant story that we
tell ourselves and it's very evolutionary, right. I mean, no
one gives you the handbook on on what it means
to be a human, right, we learned it along the way,
and so CBT cogon behavioral therapy and to some degree,
performance psychologies. It's all about giving people a better manual
about how to live as a human, how to change
(12:02):
your thoughts, how to interpret stories in a different way.
We need training on this, you know, and you never
we obviously never get a manual we get, you know,
we get, we learned. None of this is taught in school,
you know, we have In my school, we had to
take we had to learn. I always I always reference
proofs as the dumbest thing I learned because it was
like and I know some kids needed to be exposed
(12:23):
to mathematical proofs to go on and be math geniuses.
But I remember learning like therefore by the associative property,
whatever the fuck it was, being like this, my time
would be so much more valued with a communications course.
And actually my high school, I'm sure it's long gone,
but in the early nineties had one communications class and
(12:43):
I remember thinking, even at the time, thinking like, this
is pretty progressive for a public high school, and it
was amazing. It was it was about sharing, it was
about listening, it was about all this stuff, and most kids,
this is my me rambling going so much of what
I've learned, and and in late in life it would
be so valuable. I always think when I have some
(13:04):
Eureka moment with you or with a book, I'm like,
oh my gosh, imagine I knew this in high school.
Imagine someone exposed me to this in my teens. How
much easier I could have navigated all all my emotions
and all my insecurity. You know. Yeah, And there's something
you know, I mean, Zach, it's really it's interesting you're
saying that, because there is some movement towards that, like
(13:24):
there's a whole social and emotional learning that's happening a
little bit more in school. But I agree with you,
I mean, I agree with you. I think that fundamentally,
you know, what we need to learn is how to
understand our emotions and how to understand our thoughts and feelings.
And we don't really learn that, right. We spend a
lot of time learning things that aren't that value of
(13:45):
all those proofs you're never gonna use again. But wow,
if people just learned how to listen better to other people,
if that's what was taught, Like if you were taught
how to empathize and how to listen, which is a
really hard skill to learn because we all listen to
reply and so how to I mean, it's one of
the most powerful things I got out of all of
this is like that interpretation, that negative thought you're having
(14:07):
is not the truth, and it's and it's not even
who you are. It's just this trigger response to an event.
And in my case, because I'm a warrior and I'm
anxious and i have OCD, the trigger response is negativity
and worry and fear and and I've been learning with
(14:28):
you that, Like that's just totally the web usepun like that.
The facts of what happened are our X. Okay, you know.
The fact is the pitching coach looked like he was frowning.
That is a fact. But my experience of it is
he's saying I suck. He's swirming, he thinks I suck.
Everyone in this fucking stadium thinks I suck. I do suck.
(14:51):
Why am I here, I shouldn't be here, and then
of course the next day you learn he just had gas.
And I do that every I do that a thousand
times a I mean, even with the work I'm doing it.
I'm actually trying to work on this. I'm obviously catching
myself now, but I'm still it's still a trigger response,
do you know what I mean? No? Absolutely, And that's
what's so great about you know, you talking about it
and being open about it, because you know everybody listening
(15:14):
does that. You know, it's evolutionary. You know we all
have this negative bias. It grew because humans need to
be negative in order to survive. Let's take a break.
We'll be right back after these fine words. So the
rule of threes is a really interesting rule. It's it's
(15:36):
about survival. How long can you survive without food? I
want to take a guess, like three days, right, you
can survive longer, Actually you can survive. You're you're actually
thinking about about water. You can survive for three weeks,
But you're right, it's three days without water and it's
three minutes without air. So three weeks out without food,
(15:56):
three days without water, three minutes without are basically right,
and so you're you really we have this conception that
we need that those things, but we can survive longer.
But how long can you survive if you fail to
recognize a predator in your environment, if you don't notice
something dangerous, how long will you survive? Could be no
time at all, No time at all, we're dead. So
(16:19):
if you think about how our brains evolved, they evolved
to notice the thing that was wrong. Right, That's how
we're built. We're built to notice the thing that's wrong.
When I give a talk, I mean, you know, or
give a talk to a thousand people whatever, I go
up there, the first person I notice is the person
looking at their phone. Yeah, first person I know. Oh
my god, I did a Broadway show. Dude, I did
a Broadway show. And I would perform to two thousand
(16:40):
people or I don't know, something like that, and I
would I would see someone yawned, and it would fucking
ruin my whole show. Absolutely, absolutely, one person. I'm ignoring
the nineteen the nineteen hundred and ninety nine people that
are are hopefully enjoying it, and I see the one
dude yawn and I'm like, I suck, this sucks. We
(17:01):
suck totally, right. I mean, that's and that and that's
something that's universal and so you know, so the way
I talk about it, and you know this, you know,
is that there are three parts to being a human thoughts, feelings,
and actions, and that we spend most of our time
focused on feelings, when feelings is a thing that we
(17:22):
control the least. You can't directly if you're feeling shitty
and someone says, hey, cheer up, what do you want
to do? Punch the person in the face, right, Like,
that's you know, the worst thing you could say to
someone who's anxious has calmed down, right, that you can't
you can you really, you just you can lose your mind.
So what are the things that we can affect. We
can affect thoughts, and we can affect actions. The one
(17:45):
thing you directly control is what you do. And so
a lot of behavior of therapy is thinking about that
with people and as you know, doing experiments. You know,
there's this myth that we have to feel a certain
way to act a certain way, and it's just the reverse.
You know, by behaving a certain way, you can you
start to feel a certain way. And I think that's
hard to do. Without some coaching, right, that therapy doesn't
(18:08):
have to take forever, the myth of you know, sitting
on a couch and talking about your past for ten years. Look,
I mean therapy can be really effective done in short duration,
in six weeks, in eight weeks, and twelve weeks, if
you're really working with someone who's focused with you and
who's jumping in and helping you to as you were saying,
examine right, put into a record these thoughts. I always
(18:31):
tell people when I'm working with them. Look, you know
in your head there's a district attorney and a public defender.
Only when we get depressed and anxious, the district attorney
is like Harvard train. They're ready to go, right, they're
attacking every moment, right, But you need to beef up
that public defender. You need to school them. You need
to give them instructions about how to examine these thoughts.
(18:51):
You know, humans have these two errors that we jump to.
One is blowing things out of proportion and the other
one is jump into conclusion. And so as we were
talking about before, what a great coach, a great therapist
is going to help you do is to examine the
evidence and put things in perspective. The more you do that,
you know you're gonna have a different relationship to the
(19:12):
events in your life. As the famous quote says, things
are not as they are, they are as we are. Yeah,
I love that. I love that. I also feel like
you know, Um, and some of this, by the way,
not to plug shrinking, but some of this is happening
and shrinking. If you're watching shrinking. Um, there's a there's
a running joke called called boop where where they refer
(19:36):
to as a pattern interrupt And what I got out
of that is you can change the way you're being
with someone instantaneously and and they can't help but shift.
It's almost like in tennis, Um, if you if you,
if you hit the ball cross court, the opponent has
to has to there's no choice, has to shift to
(19:58):
the other side of the court. And aren't impressed. Talkingment
of sports enalogy. But by the way, I didn't realize.
I didn't realize until last night in the bath, as
I was thinking where I have my greatest revelations, I
was like, how funny is it that of all of
the therapists in the world, I have a sports psychologist
as why But um, yeahs like neither of us, neither
(20:18):
of us have credibility in that department. Well, you're you know,
you're not an athlete. They're terrible. That's I think that's
the thing that makes me good. Weren't you like the
weren't you like the psychologist for the Giants? I was
a psychologist for the New York Mets for nine years
and the New York Giants for two years. Yeah, so
that's amazing that you don't know anything about sports. I mean,
I know about it, but I can't. I mean, the
most you must need to know more than I know,
(20:40):
because I just know, like you're trying to get the
ball with the bat as far as possible. I mean,
I think where I needed my own own techniques is
when I was asked to play catch with these guys
like on the field, and they saw what I was
really made up. That's funny. Um, but um this idea
of a pattern interrupt that you can change who you're
being and like the person that you've I hit cross court,
(21:01):
the guy has to the guy or gal has to
move to the other side of the court. Well, in
micro ways, you can do that anytime you choose in
your life. You've been Let's say you've been reacting to
a certain person's behavior. Your go to reaction is a
certain way, and then you try a pattern and drop,
and you just change who you're being in that in
(21:22):
that relationship and they have to move to the other
side of the court because your reaction is different. Do
you know what I mean? Can you explain that more
particularly than I just did? No? I think you're explaining
it well. I mean, you know Marshall Lenahan, who's a
really you know, an innovator in the field. She has
a quote which she says, like, you can't think yourself
(21:42):
into a new way of acting, You have to act
yourself into a new way of thinking. And I think
a pattern disrupt the way we talk about that is
an experiment. And what I find to be really effective
is you know, once you start to do experiments in
your life, right, you know, once you start to try
something that's different, Yeah, you get a different result, and
(22:04):
that result is reinforcing. There's nothing more powerful than reinforcement
when we do something that A pattern destruct works because
usually when you do when you do a different action,
you have a different result, and if that result is reinforcing,
it's really powerful and it makes you want to do
it more. That just lights me up so much because
(22:24):
I want our audience to hear something that's so powerful.
Is like, that's instantaneous, that's not years of therapy. That's
something it takes. It might take courage in your situation,
and definitely might take vulnerability in your situation, but it's
literally something you can do instantaneously, which is I no
longer will accept just making up example, you talking to
(22:46):
me that way, the way that you're talking to me
is no longer acceptable, and my reaction to it will
now be why even though for a decade it's been X.
And of course that takes courage. This is all about
courage and vulnerability. That's the theme of the whole wall
of working on yourself. But it is something you can
notice instantaneously, right, Doc, Absolutely, I mean I think you know,
(23:10):
to use the shrinking term. You know it is trying
those boops in your life. You know you're worried about um,
you know what someone's going to think of you if
you you know, behave in a certain way. Try that behavior.
What I tell people all the time, And this comes
from a long history of science in what's called exposure therapy. Yeah,
you know, exposure therapy. You know, so much of life
(23:35):
is by you know, finding ways to stop avoiding things.
Avoidance is the enemy of all progress, and finding ways
to stem avoidance is the key. So I mean really
simply with or without therapy, kind of making a list
of the things that you're avoiding and just in the
(23:55):
smallest ways attacking those things is a disruptive pattern that's
going to help you achieve. That could be a huge
conversation that you're avoiding. That could be asking for a
raise at work, that could be changing, you know, starting
your screenplay, it could be starting your business. I mean,
it could be something small like a conversation, or it
(24:18):
could be something big like starting a business right entirely.
And I think you know the thing about I mean,
I was just you got me thinking about shrinking. What
I love about that show is you know, it's a parody, right,
so he's just going and just telling everybody what he thinks.
But what I think is great about that is this
is he's just confronting avoidance. You know, what you find
in your life is when you start to do the
(24:38):
things you're afraid of, you get unusual results and positive reinforcement.
Positive re enforcement is so much more powerful than anything
that you could any kind of other reward. There's a
story I tell about positive reenforcement. So one of the
biggest people who's evolved the field of psychology was this
guy BF Skinner, Right, he was a guy who changed psychology,
(24:59):
came up up with these ideas of positive reinforcement. He
used to do, you know, experiments with where he'd look
at how people will respond to it. And one year
his class decided they were going to actually respond to
him and use positive reinforcement operating conditioning with him. And
so what they decided to do is while he was speaking,
they were going to just reinforce his behavior, try to
(25:20):
get him to move to the left side of the room.
That's the behavior they were encouraging. And so they did
it by reinforcing him in the way that presenters like
to be responded to. So, how do you what do
you want to see when you're presenting? You want to
see smiles and applause and nodding yeah exactly. So that's
all they did. He had no idea what was going on.
(25:42):
When he moved to the left, one step to the left,
they just nodded and smiled, and then when he stopped,
they stopped. That's it. B. F. Skinner, legendary psychologist, spoke
tucked into the left harbor wherever you were speaking, right,
And so you know, it's simply you know, making getting
(26:06):
And this is what depression is about. Whatever one people
want to say about depression, depression is about the lack
of reinforcement in your life. You're not getting enough positive reinforcement.
And so what a great therapist is going to help
you to do is forget about what happened in the past. Okay,
let's talk about getting you in a position to receive
reinforcement in your life. Where does that come from? Not
(26:27):
inside your apartment? Right, just not there, right, You're never
going to find that reinforcement. Like you know what, I
always jove of people a quarter to people come in
to tell me, Hey, I want to find a romantic partner.
I'm like, I can tell you one thing where they're not.
They're not in your apartment. You're not going to find them, right,
So like, we gotta we gotta get out, We got
to start moving and shaking, and we're going to figure
(26:48):
out ways to do that. That dove tails with another thing,
not just looking for a partner, but I am I feel,
you know, one of the things I've been asked. I
just finished the giant press tour for a Good Person,
and one thing that kept coming up was, um, what
are the themes in overarching themes that that that journalists
were seeing in my in my three films, UM, Garden State,
(27:11):
which I was here, which I always mentioned, I wrote
with my brother Adam, who's a brilliant writer, and now
the latest one A Good Person, And so it's caused
me to examine. It's something I really looked at. But
I was again thinking about it in the tub last night,
where I do my great thinking, and I was thinking
that for me, it's it's about looking for The theme
(27:32):
is looking for human connection, and it really comes out
of my my my loneliness. UM that I've felt my
whole life very even even when I'm surrounded by people
and friends and others, I have felt different and other
than and very lonesome. And so I think all three
(27:53):
films are are are about yearning for a deeper connection
to someone hmm. And and I think the response to
this film, um, since it's come out, and and and
the messages the beautiful, heartfelt messages and commons I'm getting
on Instagram and and and other social media platforms. I'm
(28:16):
seeing this connection to that obviously to grief and to
addiction and to but I feel people really tapping into
that yearning for a deep connection to other human beings. Yeah,
I mean, all your films are certainly about that. For
(28:42):
I'm just curious, though, you know what, what's your hope
for what this film does? How does it? What does
it bring out in people? And what will what will
how will they walk away after seeing it? I hope
that they feel less lonesome, I mean, or or just
or just that they see themselves in the movie. I mean,
the movie is obviously an extreme it's it's it's no secret,
(29:05):
it's in the trailer. It's about a vehicular manslaughter and
and and how that affects the lives of these two families.
And now, God willing the audience won't have something that
extreme in their in their life, but they will. Everyone
grieves something, Everyone has a pain in their heart about something,
(29:26):
and I and I hope that they that they that
they go and experience it and um and and feel
less a little bit a smige and less alone that
there's other people, Because when I'm really depressed and anxious
and lonesome and I just feel I just feel like
I'm the only one feeling those things. I know in
them in the macro that's ridiculous. I know that we're
all human beings, but but but that's what you feel,
(29:48):
that's what's overwhelming feeling. So I hope that people see
this and feel um see themselves and feel seen and
feel less lonesome. That's what I really hope. Yeah, well
I'm you know, what do you think people would be
surprised to know about you that that led to this film,
that led to this coming out, and led to this
(30:12):
come into fruition. I think probably that I've suffered from depression.
I mean that's something I just spoke about him really
openly for the first time on the Rich Role Podcast,
which is a podcast I really recommend everybody. It's my
favorite podcast other than this one, obviously, But Rich Role
is just a fantastic interviewer, and he's he's just a
guy who wasn't addict and he turned his whole life around,
(30:34):
and then he became like one of those marathoners who
runs like insane marathons, and now he's just I don't know,
he's just a I saw him the other night and
I said, you're like my rabbi, Like I think I
was like, I think you're I think what you do
for me in my life is what a rabbi is
supposed to do for Jewish people, because I just find
him so inspiring. And but anyway, I'm rambling. Um, that's
(30:56):
what I think that people would be surprised to know.
Because I'm known for being a a comic actor. I'm
known for being silly. I come and do this show,
for example, and you know, throughout the pandemic, there were
times when I was really, really really depressed. Um, you know,
Nick was dying, Amanda's was fifty feet away in my
guesthouse in a ball crying, and I was very very sad.
(31:22):
And I would psych myself up to to be funny
on this podcast because I want to entertain people. I
get joy. I do get joy from making people laugh
and entertaining them, and I get I get a dopamine
high from feeling like Donald and I and Joel and
Daniel were funny, and I hopefully made people laugh and
made them feel good. But I certainly. Um. I think
(31:46):
that's the biggest surprise people would probably think, is that
I you know that I've suffered my whole life from
from depression and anxiety and and and it's actively working
on actively working on it with you to to be
able to tackle it better. I mean, I'm just listening
to what you're saying about the Rich Role podcasts and
the marathon and what he does, and I just think
of you and your life, and you certainly have run
(32:09):
a marathon through COVID and through all those things that
you experienced. What what has allowed you to do that?
I mean, how have you, in our work and on
your own been able to get through that and then
use that to produce I think, thank you. That's a
great question. I think I really just focused on. You know,
(32:30):
I'll tell you a story I'd never told anyone, and
that is that I don't know why this is my
answer right away, but I you know this, but no
one knows this. I was super sick in the beginning
of January. I got so I got strapped throat so
the worst I've ever had. It was so painful, I
couldn't even swallow water. I mean, I didn't know you
could get strapped, throught this bad and think I think
(32:51):
I had scarlet fever because I had a rash on
my stomach and I was like googling, Yeah, I was
googling rash. I finally was like rash and the strep
throat and it said scarlet fever. And I was like,
I got a fucking scarlet fever. And I tried to
convince my doctor. I was like, he's like, you wouldn't
get scarlet fever. That's for children in This's like rare.
And I was like, I have fucking scarlet fever, dude. Anyway,
(33:13):
I don't know if I ever convinced him, but anyway,
so I was so sick and I was so sad,
and I was so alone, and I remember just lying
on this heating pad because it was the only thing
that felt good. I didn't even have my dog with
me to I mean, I was just it was a
low point. And anyway, I put on this Burnet Brown
(33:33):
YouTube ted talk about vulnerability, which has gone viral for years.
If you haven't seen it, it's it's it's what broke
Brenee Brown as a self help guru if you will,
I don't know what you call her but she's amazing.
And it was her first TED talk and it was
about vulnerability and I just started sobbing. I just started crying.
Granted I was very sensitive and very sick, but I
(33:55):
just what she was saying about being vulnerable and having
the courage to be vulnerable. Um, I just felt this tears.
I cried for the whole thing. And uh. And so
I think that that obviously tapped into something for me.
And that's where it's a similar place that the movie
came out of. It was like, what if I, you know,
just wrote something that was incredibly vulnerable. You know, the
(34:17):
story of a good person is not my exact story,
but all the emotions and the feelings and the everything
that's that is the support structure of the plot is
my story. Yeah. And I think in what you've made too,
I mean, it just it speaks to the fact that
everybody has a struggle, um, and that it speaks to
(34:38):
the fact that we're all experiencing and have experienced over
this past couple of years loss. I mean, if you haven't,
if you haven't experienced loss in the past couple of years,
in some way, you probably weren't awake to what was
going on, Well, wasn't even men. You needn't even be death. Um,
it could be just the the this. I think we're
all in, I mean, this PTSD from what happened, and
(35:01):
we're all moving on, like, Okay, that was crazy. And
I really think. I was talking to my mom about this,
who's also a psychologist. She's been on the podcast, and
I was talking about last night because we were trying
to analyze this and this beautiful audience response, and my
mom was saying kind of like, I think that there's
a there is a collective grief in society that that
(35:24):
people might not even know is there within them, and
that that could be from their very real life experience,
of course, or or it could be just from the
experience of the trauma of COVID. I mean, you know,
I think what's what's the story within the story here
is you know, you were asking me about changing behaviors
(35:49):
and about dealing with grief and about dealing with depression
and overcoming it and how cogn behavioral therapy is a
method for that. But the whole arc of making this
movie was in fact all of that. For you. It
was it was quite a journey, you know, and and
it's this audience has been along for the whole ride,
(36:09):
you know, guys, Joel and Daniel I started talking when
we started the podcast. I thought he was telling even
writing it for a long time. Let's take a We'll
be right back after these fine words. You guys have
any questions for the doc, I don't mean to hog
expensive doctor's time. You guys, it was really fascinating to
(36:34):
hear the two of you talk, so please to apologize. Yeah, yeah,
so okay, I, similar to Zach, have depression. Um I
noticed it at like sixteen, but I also had add
which was also undiagnosed. So I got diagnosed with depression
when I was thirty and with add when I was
(36:56):
thirty one. And when I started therapy. You know, my
first therapist was a lot like you. She was like,
all right, let's figure out what the problem is. Let's
really make a plan, let's go get it. And I
was instansed. I was like, I'm hurting, I don't know
how to start trying. I'm so angry and still confused,
and I'm still trying to get medicated despite being diagnosed.
(37:17):
It was like a whole process and it was frustrating
for me, so I went through two years of just
the emotional kind of therapy, the let's just dive deep
and just talk about your past and all of that stuff.
And then at some point I was like, this is
not changing anything. So like on a new therapist, cognitive
behavioral therapist who helped me change and grow a lot.
(37:39):
But I say all that to ask, is there a
headspace you need to be in or a thing you
need to have done in order to be ready for CBT?
This is such a great question. I really I love
this question. I'm already married, but I would marry this
question if I wasn't there. I love this question because
(38:01):
you know, I think by our discussing this, you're really
going to help a lot of people. Look, the main
advice I have about therapists is if you feel like
your therapist doesn't like you, fire them. And not to
say that this therapist and you didn't get along, but
you know, if there's not mutual likability, meaning you don't
feel understood, forget, it doesn't matter what kind of therapy
(38:24):
they do they can do. You know, I don't know
scarlet fever therapy. It doesn't matter very like they're not
the right person, and so what the research the science
shows us is the biggest effect of therapy is feeling
understood by the therapist and that there's mutual well you know,
likability and positive regard and so that's just like, you know,
(38:45):
it's like when I there was this club, the Palladium
that I in New York City growing up, and I
would go there. They'd be these amazing drag queens out front.
I would go up to the front and try to
get in, and they'd be like you you and look
at me and dead in my face and be like
not you. So you know that later on Zach will
worked that out with me. But anyway, so they have this,
they have these these little ropes, right, the velvet ropes.
(39:08):
You can't get into a great therapy relationship unless you
get past that. And the entry fee is empathy. You
need to be able to show and demonstrate understanding of
the person and connect with them. It doesn't matter what
kind of therapy you do, right, And so I would say,
you know, to me, it's sort of seventy percent that
to your point, and thirty percent the techniques, right, and
(39:30):
so you know, you should find a therapist that you
feel like understands you. And a lot of the research
also shows because is such a great question, I could
nerd out on this forever and I think it's really helpful.
It's like, you know, you got to be able to
do two things as a great coach. You have to
first be able to connect and demonstrate an understanding and
(39:52):
the hurt. Acknowledge the hurt, and show the person you
get the hurt. Only then will you be able to
teach or give skills. I'll tell one other story about this,
because your your question like unfull, you know, sort of
opened a door. But I was once in the clubhouse
of a professional sports organization and I was there and
(40:12):
there was a rookie. He was really struggling. This is
a guy who's just starting in sports, right, it's really struggling.
And I was newer at the field, and I was
just going after him. I was like, hey, man, why
do you try this? Why do you try that? Why
do you try that? And there was a veteran there
who knew me right and for a long time, and
he just sauntered over. Afterwards, the kid was like listening
and he was like, you know, playing my game, and
then he walked away and the veteran just like, look, Fader,
(40:36):
people have to know that you care before they care
what you know, and that just like stuck with me.
It's a cool I think Roosevelt said it or something,
but that's stuck with me forever. To your point, well,
like this isn't even about therapy, it's it's about teaching.
You know, if Daniel's teaching someone else audio video stuff,
It's like if the person doesn't feel like you really
(40:57):
care about them, it doesn't matter what you say. It
doesn't matter the instruction, it doesn't matter the thing. So
your question is also just like a hammering home point, like,
find someone that you feel like cares about you and
that you care about you can develop relationship. There's instant
good feeling. Well within the first meeting, I feel that
you care very much about me, and I do. Man,
I trust you, and I feel like you're rooting I do.
(41:18):
I mean, the coach analogy is so strong. I feel
like you're rooting for me. Another really powerful thing that
I get out of our relationship is that I feel
accountable to you. I'm not going to let you down
because I know. It's like just like an athlete doesn't
want to let their coach down and their team captain down.
I don't want to let you down. So if I
committed to you that I'm going to write, you know,
(41:41):
Monday through Friday for three hours a day, and then
I'll text him like I did it, or I'll send
him pages. We have this relationship where it's like I'm
not gonna not send him pages because I don't want
to disappoint him. And I think that's really great, a
really powerful thing. And you don't have to you know,
you don't have to be in therapy to do it. Obviously,
(42:03):
you can do it with your partner, you could do
it with a friend. But if you're trying to start
a new habit really being accountable to another person that
you don't want to let down, that you can made
a commitment to. Let's say you're trying to do sobriety
for a month, or you're trying to um, you know, write,
or you're trying to you know, eat less. Whatever your
thing is that you have some sort of person. It
(42:25):
could be a therapist, it could be a parent, it
could be a friend, it could be a partner that
you're accountable to and that you don't want to disappoint
and that obviously you're honest with because if you're lying
with the hell's the point, right, Yeah, I mean you
know what you're saying is so valuable, Zach, because not
everybody listening is going to go to therapy for whatever
reason right now, well some can't afford it. We should
(42:48):
say we we we advertise better help on here, which
I think is a is a new and affordable way
for people to seek out therapy. So obviously, um, you know,
I have a great privilege in being able to have
you in my life, so I do want to acknowledge that.
But there are ways to reach out to people and
(43:09):
and sometimes for those who can't, um, it could be
as simple as reaching out to a friend, not not
a friend who's going to give you bad advice. You
know who that person is, don't sort of you everyone
listening knows who's the friend not to go to. But
but but but just being in communication and sharing and
(43:29):
being honest and authentic that I've gotten just so much.
You know. My sort of word for my year now
is is vulnerability. Obviously, releasing a movie to the world
is the most vulnerable thing I can do is in
my profession, and it's it did take a lot of
courage to to just release something and then you know,
have and just show it to the world and have
(43:51):
everyone way in on it. But anyone who's listening's life,
whether it be as small as having a scary conversation
you're dreading or or you know, it's all about vulnerability.
It's all about saying, I'm going to do this because
I'm going to be authentically myself and I'm going to
(44:12):
allow myself to be vulnerable and I'm going to do it. Yeah,
you know, I mean I had I had a therapist
actually who once said to me, this is maybe twenty
years ago, who said, look, you know people people often
regret the things that they didn't do, not the things
they did. And um, and that made a lot of
sense to me. And I think, you know, what do
(44:35):
people who regret later in life? Mostly there are regrets
around relationships. Um. And when you speak about the word vulnerability,
you know, we all have someone in our life that
we could you know, finish this podcast and and be
more authentic too. Maybe they're a friend, maybe they're a partner,
But you know, I think there's so much My experience
(44:55):
has been that that finding the people that you can
build a little bit more clear already in vulnerability with
It's just such an enriching part of our lives to
be able to do that. I just a question for you,
and don't know, maybe maybe you cut this and this
is just a real we never talked about this, but
you know, how do you know that I care about you?
What are the things that that happened that make you
(45:18):
feel that way. I feel that you're authentic, and I
feel that you're genuinely interested, and I feel that you're
rooting for me, and I feel no matter sometimes I
fall down and I don't come through with something I
committed to you that I was going to do, or
I tried every technique you gave me and I still
(45:40):
felt depressed. But I always feel like you're You're in
my corner. You're like you're in if I was a boxer.
You're the guy that's pushing that weird thing on my
forehead and whatever that things. I don't even I don't
even know what that thing does. I get the sponge,
I don't get that weird push down on your forehead thing,
but um, I don't know. That's it. That's it and
(46:01):
I and I and I know that you are because
um you you root for me. I feel like you
you're You're one of my biggest champions, so I want
to thank you. Don't worry everyone, We're going back to
a comedy podcast. Some of the fans right now are like,
oh fuck, no, I promise you this will not be therapy.
(46:22):
Next week we're gonna have Donald back and we will
be playing the bong hit noise on the sound effects
just to prove it to you. You're gonna kick off
the real doctors. Hold on, I gotta get the bong
effects so every no one freaks out talk one second.
Yeah there it is every the show here in honor
of Donald's what you're trying to get into one day,
shoon what you're trying to do. All right, we'll be
(46:44):
back being funny next week. I want to think, doctor Favorite.
I do want to plug your book because you've an
awesome book. Um and uh it's called remind me what
it's called, because I forget Life is Sport and I
know you're writing a new one, Um, but check out
Life is Sport if you want to read some of
these amazing wisdoms from this gentleman who's helped me so
much I genuinely did from the bottom of my heart.
(47:06):
I couldn't have written this film without you, and so
thank you. And I couldn't have written without this podcast
to be honest, Joelle and Daniel, because um, it made
me laugh and it was a hit of dopamine every
every week when we do it. So thank you guys
and audience. Um, thanks for listening, and thanks for a
(47:31):
welcoming doctor Fader into our community. And um, check out
a good person. If you haven't seen, it'll only be
in theaters a little while obviously, and then and then
it'll come on streaming. But I do think, um, there's
something really powerful about seeing it in the theater. It is.
Um there's something communal about about experiencing the emotions that
come up with this with friends, with family, with a
(47:53):
partner in a in a movie theater setting. So you'll
only have a couple of weeks in order to do that,
and um, it just expanded this weekend tonight, I should say,
because we're airing this on the thirty first of March,
right DAYLD. So that's it. We love you. Anything else
you guys want to say, no, come back next Tuesday.
(48:14):
We'll be here, you know. What actually I think. First
of all, this is thanks so much for having me on.
It was really great to talk to all of you.
And you know, I love the questions that you had. Actually,
I think it would be helpful, Zach, just briefly if
you want to talk about the behavioral things you did
to write the book. I think that would be really
(48:34):
interesting to people. I mean, to write the script. I
mean yeah, I mean I think, you know, just talking
a little bit about what, you know, what were the
ways that you got it done. Everybody, everybody who's listening here,
you know, almost to a person is trying to get
something done right. They're trying to lose weight, they're trying
to quit drinking, they're trying to speak differently their partner,
(48:54):
they're trying to write their own screenplay, whatever it is.
They're trying to get something done. And you know, you
you really became a master of some of these techniques
that you and I worked on to well master no
by no means master, but thank you. Um. I just
practiced what you taught me, and that was some one. Well,
the biggest, most basic thing is is committing making a
commitment to do it every day. Um, just like you
(49:15):
make you make a commitment, an important commitment to to
do anything in your life. When you know you commit
to someone in marriage, it's a serious commitment. UM. I
committed to doctor Fader and to myself that I was
going to write five days a week for a certain
amount of hours, and that even if I was staring
(49:36):
at the blinking cursor and and saying to myself, you suck,
this sucks, I suck that I was still going to
show up and be vulnerable. And some days it would
go great and some days it wouldn't. Um, But I
always I was keeping my commitment. I I and I
would say to him, and he Doctor Fader always says,
there's there's great power in a streak. Meaning if I've
(49:57):
done that commitment and I've really wrote five days in
a row, on Monday, I'm gonna I'm gonna start again
because I don't want to mess up my streak. If
you're trying to go sober and you made it five days,
you don't want to mess up your streak. It's exciting,
you know, I've told I think I've spoken about this
on the podcast before, where I would take something as
simple as a paper calendar. You guys can do this
for free, and you don't. I use stickers, but if
(50:20):
you don't want to pay for stickers, use a pencil.
And I would just go. I would give at the
end of the day. When I was when I was
first attempting uh not you know, not drinking from month,
I would uh, I would give myself a smiley face
at the end of that day. And I would see
all the smiley faces and I'd be like, I'm not
sucking up my smiley face streets. So it's so simple.
(50:42):
And I told I sold this to rich Role and
he was like, it's so funny, how reptilian, he said,
our brains are. It's just that we want that. We
want that, We want that fucking smile. It's like when
you're potty training your kids, you know, I know people
use stickers, like if you you you get a sticker
on the day, if you use the potty or whatever.
We still my brain, at a pretty six at the time,
was like, I'm not fucking not getting that smiley face.
(51:04):
I want that. So even stuff like that really helped
me going for a streak. Getting affirmation, sending the pages
to to friends and then getting feedback from them always
felt good. When I would people in my writing community,
I would send a scene to and be like, hey,
can I get your thoughts? And so getting that feedback
was helpful. It would it would inspire me when they
(51:25):
were like this is great, oh my gosh, keep going.
But really showing up, you know, showing up every day,
no matter how I felt, was was the key. It's
so huge. I mean, the gamification of your task is key.
I mean, you know, people of what I've done with
some people, just have them order a light bright you know,
(51:45):
twelve dollars online and just every day that you do
your thing, you put a little light bright key into
the light right right, No, it's good. It's the cheapest
you can do it. So this money money can't be
your excuse if you don't want my free version. If
you don't want my free version, no, my mind version
is free. Everyone should have a pencil. If not, just
(52:08):
pick your finger and use blood. I'm just kidding, but
you can. Anybody can print a paper calendar off the internet.
But but if you want to spend seven bucks, you
can buy a light break. Go ahead, doctor Fader, Yeah,
do it. And I mean I think, look, the reality
is that you know just by having simple gamification and
also connecting it. You don't have to have a therapist,
(52:31):
radio a therapist of coach, but finding someone. The science
shows if you say out loud to someone what you're
intending to do, and they hear it and they know it,
you're much more likely to complete it. And so just
those two simple things or things that anyone listening here
can do and make it much more likely that you're
going to complete your goal. All right, On that note,
m I know that we only had you for the hour,
(52:52):
So thank you so much. You're incredible. Life as Sport
is the book. Thank you, doctor Jonathan Vader, I love you,
dwelling dal And that's our show, Bob six seven eight
stories about show we made about a bunch of doctor
nurses and a janitor who learned him. I said, he's
the stories natural should know. So gada around you here,
(53:18):
are YadA around you here? As free watch shows that
no mm hmmm
Here's some stories about shore. We made about a bunch
of doctor nurses. Stories. Yato around here, are Yato around here.
(00:28):
I gotta tell y'all, I got this song in my
head and you're gonna love it. It's an old standard, Joel.
I know you're gonna feel it. I can't. I'm ready,
ready or not? Here I come? You can't hide, Gonna
find you and take it slowly, yes, foojie's ready or not.
(00:49):
It never goes out of style, Joel. I've been singing
it all morning. Whole album still hits. You know, when
you got a song in your head, you wake Do
you guys wake up with a song in your head? Sometimes? Yeah?
Sometimes certainly have. I very often will wake up and
I'll just be like, ready or not? Here I come.
(01:10):
That's not always that song, but maybe I was dreaming
about it or something. But this morning I woke up.
My dog licked my face, and I was just like,
you can't hide. Gone up? He said, you're ready. You
can't run away from these tears I've got. Oh baby,
I'm gonna make sure the lyrics right hold on. I
looked him up because I did not want to mess up. Ye,
(01:31):
I don't think you got one wrong yet. Wait wait, wait,
I looked it up because, for those of you don't know,
Lauren and I went to high school together. Lauren was
at my bar Mitzvah. Yes, Lauren, there's a bar mitzvah
game you called called coke and Pepsi, which is basically
just kids running around the dance floor, but you have
to have a partner, and Lauren was my coke and
Pepsi partner at So just you know this, this runs deep.
(01:54):
I want to get that one part she sings, you
can't run away from these styles. I got, oh baby,
hey baby, because I got a lot. Oh yeah, anywhere
you got that's too hot anywhere anyway, anywhere you go
my whole crew gun no, oh baby, hey baby. You
can't hide from the block. All right. Listen, Donald's not
(02:18):
here today, guys. So I had to do the loud singing.
So I'm done. That's set. The audience who hate singing.
That section is now over singing. Oh no, no, I
just don't know, you know, listen, people hate everything. So
I once saw a video on YouTube. I once saw
this is I once saw a video on YouTube that
was to this day one of the sweetest things I've
(02:40):
ever seen in my life. It was a father playing guitar,
singing with his probably four year old and they like
new harmonies and it was it brings a tear to
my eye thinking of it. And there were like this
is back when they would show down votes. There were
like thousands of down votes, and I was like, if
that isn't the ultimate example, wow, I hate joy. That's
(03:03):
the interwebt But somebody was like, took the time to
be like this adorable father and toddler singing to themselves. Nope,
thumbs down, not entertaining to me this. Wow. Um, well,
let me explain the audience. What's happening. We're doing a
(03:23):
special episode today. Um. Donald, don't worry, kids, Mommy and
Daddy aren't getting divorced. We're not breaking up. Um our
our friend Donald is shooting his new show and he's
loving it and it's amazing and he's having the best
time and he's getting that work and so we're so
happy for him. Um. But I felt like, you know,
we hadn't done a show. We did the Florence one,
(03:45):
which was so well received, Thank you for all the
love on that one. But we were going to be
off this week, and I just said to Joel, and
Joel said to me, we were like, let's do something.
And so I came up with an idea kind of
inspired by Jonah Hill and his amazing doc stunts, which
you haven't seen is really good, um, where he brings
his therapist on and sort of talks you know, and
(04:07):
shares some of you know, what he's gotten from his
therapist and just sort of shared the information. His was
done in a very artful documentary way. But I thought
we are called fake doctor's real friends. I do have
a coach psychologist who has helped me with a lot
of my life and certainly is the reason I was
able to write this movie. And um, I just thought
(04:27):
we could have him on and all shoot the ship
and it could just be a conversation about mental health.
It could be a conversation about anything anything we wanted
to be Joel and Daniel, I want you guys to
participate and steer it wherever you want. What do you think?
What do you think about that very here? Of course,
did you hear the doc is in bringing the doc there?
(04:49):
He is the whole team. Yes, So doctor Fader, meet
Daniel Goodman and Joel, Monique l and Joel. Nice to
meet you both. How's it going, Doctor Fanner, Happy to
welcome to the program. Um. So, as I was saying
to the audience, you know, we don't have Donald because
he's working, and I really wanted to thank you the
(05:12):
audience from the bottom of my heart. The the audience
response to a good Person has been just monumental. I
think it currently has a ninety five percent audience rating
on Rotten Tomatoes, which is just pretty unheard of and rare.
And I just you know, this audience, you guys who
are listening, guys and gals, have been with me the
(05:32):
whole journey. If you've been listening to this podcast. I
started writing this when we started this podcast, and so
you know, I really have a journal, in the sense
of an audio journal of my process. The whole time
I was doing this podcast, I was writing this movie.
So it feels so great to share it with you.
And and also I just thought I would go a
(05:55):
little bit. The idea behind this podcast, since we don't
have Donald and can't do an episode of Scrubs, was
to put out something and and talk a little bit
about the process of writing it. M and I thought,
who better to have on than doctor Fader, because he
I couldn't have done this without him, and I so
much of the things that I'm accomplishing in my life
I couldn't have done without him. And I first met
(06:17):
him about seven years ago. I believe there's a very
successful person in my life who will obviously remain anonymous
who I was just killing it. And not only was
he killing it, but he always seemed happy. And I
was like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
And he was killing it in his career, he was
(06:38):
killing it in his relationships. He was happy, always happy.
And I said, bro, what is the secret? And he said, well,
lots of things, lots of work, but also I really
recommend my coach, my my psychologist, doctor Jonathan Fader. And
so we started working together and and I don't know
(07:01):
what to say. I mean, I have plenty to say,
but I just want to welcome you to the show. Dude. Hey,
thanks man, and thanks for all those those kind of words.
You know, I genuinely feel that this is something that
we've done fully together. And I think your courage and
the hard work that you put in, I mean, this
is hard work to change yourself and it's hard work
(07:22):
to get started, it's hard work in the middle, and
it's hard work all the way through. And you've worked
really hard. Well, I couldn't have done it without you
and I and I I guess I want to just say,
you know, will you explain just for you know, some
people on this podcast are familiar with different types of therapy,
and some don't know anything about it. Some have it
in their lives, some it's been you know, it's looked
(07:44):
down upon in their families. You know, we have people
who listen from all over the world and from all
walks of life. So will you just generally explain to
the layman what the difference is between a traditional psychologist
or traditional there I think of old school therapy, but
and what you call what you do, which is being
a cognitive behaviorist, because and I've been in therapy since
(08:06):
I was a little kid and seen all sorts of
therapists because I had OCD as i've shared on here,
and depression and anxiety. But I really feel like I
started to make some some and now all that's been helpful.
I don't mean to minimize any of it, but I
really feel like I started to make some some more
some larger shifts when I started working with you and
(08:26):
your style of working. So can you explain that in
basic terms for people? Yeah, I mean I think that
most people have a misunderstanding about what therapy is to
begin with, and that you know, just because of you know,
watching the Sopranos or watching the show, you begin to think, hey,
this is really about not not the killing part, but
you know, you begin to think that this is about
(08:48):
only about the past. It's about understanding your past and
going really deep psychologically into who people are. And this
comes from like, you know, the history it's for it's
the beard, it's the pipe, it's lying on a couch.
But that that way of doing things is that old
school way has really evolved over the years. And the
(09:09):
kind of therapy that that I do is based in
cognitive behavioral therapy, which really means two things. It means
we focus on the here and now, we focus on
changing behaviors and actively together in a collaborative way, changing thoughts.
As we were saying before too, it's it's not just
a one person kind of thing where someone just talks.
(09:30):
We talk together, and so it's much more like coaching
where you're jumping in. You're thinking together about which thoughts work.
We tell ourselves these stories. You know, we're all from
from birth right as soon as we learn to talk,
we tell ourselves stories about ourselves. And this work is
really about examining those stories, seeing which stories work and
(09:50):
which don't, and then how in a partnership you begin
to change those stories so your life begins to resemble
the story that you want. That's so well said, and
it jumps right into what I want to say. Is
one of the one of the biggest things I've got
out of working with you and the readings I've done,
is that you're going to make up stories. An experience happens,
(10:13):
and then your brain instantly goes to work making up
a story and an interpretation of what just happened. And
if you're an anxious, depressive person, that that could instantly
go to worry and negativity and the worst possible interpretation
of that experience. But you just but one just totally
made all that up and instantly accepted it as the truth. No, absolutely,
(10:36):
I mean, as you know, I mean, I work with
you know, exceptional performing artists and like the one hosting
this show, but I work with a lot of athletes,
tons of athletes. You know, I've worked for many years
in the Major League baseball in the NFL. One of
the stories I wrote about in my book is exactly
what you're talking about. You know. There's a pitcher who's
in the major leagues for the first time, first time
(10:57):
in the big Show. He's up there, he's pitching, and
all of a sudden, he notices that his pitching coach
looks a little bit disturbed. He just sees it in
in in, you know, down in the dugout, and he's
up there and he's starting to think about, like, what
is this guy? What is he thinking about it? Right now?
He's just sucking totally. You know, he's really suspicious of me.
He's got all these stories going in his head, and
(11:18):
he actually kind of gives up a home run, has
a terrible outing, comes back in the dugout, and the
pitching coach he's saying, how are you doing all right?
He's like, yeah, But part of it is like your
attitude towardsman. He's like, dude, I've had I've had terrible
gas all day. I've been you know, I don't know
(11:39):
what it was. The burritos last night. So you know,
you're right, man. We have this constant story that we
tell ourselves and it's very evolutionary, right. I mean, no
one gives you the handbook on on what it means
to be a human, right, we learned it along the way,
and so CBT cogon behavioral therapy and to some degree,
performance psychologies. It's all about giving people a better manual
about how to live as a human, how to change
(12:02):
your thoughts, how to interpret stories in a different way.
We need training on this, you know, and you never
we obviously never get a manual we get, you know,
we get, we learned. None of this is taught in school,
you know, we have In my school, we had to
take we had to learn. I always I always reference
proofs as the dumbest thing I learned because it was
like and I know some kids needed to be exposed
(12:23):
to mathematical proofs to go on and be math geniuses.
But I remember learning like therefore by the associative property,
whatever the fuck it was, being like this, my time
would be so much more valued with a communications course.
And actually my high school, I'm sure it's long gone,
but in the early nineties had one communications class and
(12:43):
I remember thinking, even at the time, thinking like, this
is pretty progressive for a public high school, and it
was amazing. It was it was about sharing, it was
about listening, it was about all this stuff, and most kids,
this is my me rambling going so much of what
I've learned, and and in late in life it would
be so valuable. I always think when I have some
(13:04):
Eureka moment with you or with a book, I'm like,
oh my gosh, imagine I knew this in high school.
Imagine someone exposed me to this in my teens. How
much easier I could have navigated all all my emotions
and all my insecurity. You know. Yeah, And there's something
you know, I mean, Zach, it's really it's interesting you're
saying that, because there is some movement towards that, like
(13:24):
there's a whole social and emotional learning that's happening a
little bit more in school. But I agree with you,
I mean, I agree with you. I think that fundamentally,
you know, what we need to learn is how to
understand our emotions and how to understand our thoughts and feelings.
And we don't really learn that, right. We spend a
lot of time learning things that aren't that value of
(13:45):
all those proofs you're never gonna use again. But wow,
if people just learned how to listen better to other people,
if that's what was taught, Like if you were taught
how to empathize and how to listen, which is a
really hard skill to learn because we all listen to
reply and so how to I mean, it's one of
the most powerful things I got out of all of
this is like that interpretation, that negative thought you're having
(14:07):
is not the truth, and it's and it's not even
who you are. It's just this trigger response to an event.
And in my case, because I'm a warrior and I'm
anxious and i have OCD, the trigger response is negativity
and worry and fear and and I've been learning with
(14:28):
you that, Like that's just totally the web usepun like that.
The facts of what happened are our X. Okay, you know.
The fact is the pitching coach looked like he was frowning.
That is a fact. But my experience of it is
he's saying I suck. He's swirming, he thinks I suck.
Everyone in this fucking stadium thinks I suck. I do suck.
(14:51):
Why am I here, I shouldn't be here, and then
of course the next day you learn he just had gas.
And I do that every I do that a thousand
times a I mean, even with the work I'm doing it.
I'm actually trying to work on this. I'm obviously catching
myself now, but I'm still it's still a trigger response,
do you know what I mean? No? Absolutely, And that's
what's so great about you know, you talking about it
and being open about it, because you know everybody listening
(15:14):
does that. You know, it's evolutionary. You know we all
have this negative bias. It grew because humans need to
be negative in order to survive. Let's take a break.
We'll be right back after these fine words. So the
rule of threes is a really interesting rule. It's it's
(15:36):
about survival. How long can you survive without food? I
want to take a guess, like three days, right, you
can survive longer, Actually you can survive. You're you're actually
thinking about about water. You can survive for three weeks,
But you're right, it's three days without water and it's
three minutes without air. So three weeks out without food,
(15:56):
three days without water, three minutes without are basically right,
and so you're you really we have this conception that
we need that those things, but we can survive longer.
But how long can you survive if you fail to
recognize a predator in your environment, if you don't notice
something dangerous, how long will you survive? Could be no
time at all, No time at all, we're dead. So
(16:19):
if you think about how our brains evolved, they evolved
to notice the thing that was wrong. Right, That's how
we're built. We're built to notice the thing that's wrong.
When I give a talk, I mean, you know, or
give a talk to a thousand people whatever, I go
up there, the first person I notice is the person
looking at their phone. Yeah, first person I know. Oh
my god, I did a Broadway show. Dude, I did
a Broadway show. And I would perform to two thousand
(16:40):
people or I don't know, something like that, and I
would I would see someone yawned, and it would fucking
ruin my whole show. Absolutely, absolutely, one person. I'm ignoring
the nineteen the nineteen hundred and ninety nine people that
are are hopefully enjoying it, and I see the one
dude yawn and I'm like, I suck, this sucks. We
(17:01):
suck totally, right. I mean, that's and that and that's
something that's universal and so you know, so the way
I talk about it, and you know this, you know,
is that there are three parts to being a human thoughts, feelings,
and actions, and that we spend most of our time
focused on feelings, when feelings is a thing that we
(17:22):
control the least. You can't directly if you're feeling shitty
and someone says, hey, cheer up, what do you want
to do? Punch the person in the face, right, Like,
that's you know, the worst thing you could say to
someone who's anxious has calmed down, right, that you can't
you can you really, you just you can lose your mind.
So what are the things that we can affect. We
can affect thoughts, and we can affect actions. The one
(17:45):
thing you directly control is what you do. And so
a lot of behavior of therapy is thinking about that
with people and as you know, doing experiments. You know,
there's this myth that we have to feel a certain
way to act a certain way, and it's just the reverse.
You know, by behaving a certain way, you can you
start to feel a certain way. And I think that's
hard to do. Without some coaching, right, that therapy doesn't
(18:08):
have to take forever, the myth of you know, sitting
on a couch and talking about your past for ten years. Look,
I mean therapy can be really effective done in short duration,
in six weeks, in eight weeks, and twelve weeks, if
you're really working with someone who's focused with you and
who's jumping in and helping you to as you were saying,
examine right, put into a record these thoughts. I always
(18:31):
tell people when I'm working with them. Look, you know
in your head there's a district attorney and a public defender.
Only when we get depressed and anxious, the district attorney
is like Harvard train. They're ready to go, right, they're
attacking every moment, right, But you need to beef up
that public defender. You need to school them. You need
to give them instructions about how to examine these thoughts.
(18:51):
You know, humans have these two errors that we jump to.
One is blowing things out of proportion and the other
one is jump into conclusion. And so as we were
talking about before, what a great coach, a great therapist
is going to help you do is to examine the
evidence and put things in perspective. The more you do that,
you know you're gonna have a different relationship to the
(19:12):
events in your life. As the famous quote says, things
are not as they are, they are as we are. Yeah,
I love that. I love that. I also feel like
you know, Um, and some of this, by the way,
not to plug shrinking, but some of this is happening
and shrinking. If you're watching shrinking. Um, there's a there's
a running joke called called boop where where they refer
(19:36):
to as a pattern interrupt And what I got out
of that is you can change the way you're being
with someone instantaneously and and they can't help but shift.
It's almost like in tennis, Um, if you if you,
if you hit the ball cross court, the opponent has
to has to there's no choice, has to shift to
(19:58):
the other side of the court. And aren't impressed. Talkingment
of sports enalogy. But by the way, I didn't realize.
I didn't realize until last night in the bath, as
I was thinking where I have my greatest revelations, I
was like, how funny is it that of all of
the therapists in the world, I have a sports psychologist
as why But um, yeahs like neither of us, neither
(20:18):
of us have credibility in that department. Well, you're you know,
you're not an athlete. They're terrible. That's I think that's
the thing that makes me good. Weren't you like the
weren't you like the psychologist for the Giants? I was
a psychologist for the New York Mets for nine years
and the New York Giants for two years. Yeah, so
that's amazing that you don't know anything about sports. I mean,
I know about it, but I can't. I mean, the
most you must need to know more than I know,
(20:40):
because I just know, like you're trying to get the
ball with the bat as far as possible. I mean,
I think where I needed my own own techniques is
when I was asked to play catch with these guys
like on the field, and they saw what I was
really made up. That's funny. Um, but um this idea
of a pattern interrupt that you can change who you're
being and like the person that you've I hit cross court,
(21:01):
the guy has to the guy or gal has to
move to the other side of the court. Well, in
micro ways, you can do that anytime you choose in
your life. You've been Let's say you've been reacting to
a certain person's behavior. Your go to reaction is a
certain way, and then you try a pattern and drop,
and you just change who you're being in that in
(21:22):
that relationship and they have to move to the other
side of the court because your reaction is different. Do
you know what I mean? Can you explain that more
particularly than I just did? No? I think you're explaining
it well. I mean, you know Marshall Lenahan, who's a
really you know, an innovator in the field. She has
a quote which she says, like, you can't think yourself
(21:42):
into a new way of acting, You have to act
yourself into a new way of thinking. And I think
a pattern disrupt the way we talk about that is
an experiment. And what I find to be really effective
is you know, once you start to do experiments in
your life, right, you know, once you start to try
something that's different, Yeah, you get a different result, and
(22:04):
that result is reinforcing. There's nothing more powerful than reinforcement
when we do something that A pattern destruct works because
usually when you do when you do a different action,
you have a different result, and if that result is reinforcing,
it's really powerful and it makes you want to do
it more. That just lights me up so much because
(22:24):
I want our audience to hear something that's so powerful.
Is like, that's instantaneous, that's not years of therapy. That's
something it takes. It might take courage in your situation,
and definitely might take vulnerability in your situation, but it's
literally something you can do instantaneously, which is I no
longer will accept just making up example, you talking to
(22:46):
me that way, the way that you're talking to me
is no longer acceptable, and my reaction to it will
now be why even though for a decade it's been X.
And of course that takes courage. This is all about
courage and vulnerability. That's the theme of the whole wall
of working on yourself. But it is something you can
notice instantaneously, right, Doc, Absolutely, I mean I think you know,
(23:10):
to use the shrinking term. You know it is trying
those boops in your life. You know you're worried about um,
you know what someone's going to think of you if
you you know, behave in a certain way. Try that behavior.
What I tell people all the time, And this comes
from a long history of science in what's called exposure therapy. Yeah,
you know, exposure therapy. You know, so much of life
(23:35):
is by you know, finding ways to stop avoiding things.
Avoidance is the enemy of all progress, and finding ways
to stem avoidance is the key. So I mean really
simply with or without therapy, kind of making a list
of the things that you're avoiding and just in the
(23:55):
smallest ways attacking those things is a disruptive pattern that's
going to help you achieve. That could be a huge
conversation that you're avoiding. That could be asking for a
raise at work, that could be changing, you know, starting
your screenplay, it could be starting your business. I mean,
it could be something small like a conversation, or it
(24:18):
could be something big like starting a business right entirely.
And I think you know the thing about I mean,
I was just you got me thinking about shrinking. What
I love about that show is you know, it's a parody, right,
so he's just going and just telling everybody what he thinks.
But what I think is great about that is this
is he's just confronting avoidance. You know, what you find
in your life is when you start to do the
(24:38):
things you're afraid of, you get unusual results and positive reinforcement.
Positive re enforcement is so much more powerful than anything
that you could any kind of other reward. There's a
story I tell about positive reenforcement. So one of the
biggest people who's evolved the field of psychology was this
guy BF Skinner, Right, he was a guy who changed psychology,
(24:59):
came up up with these ideas of positive reinforcement. He
used to do, you know, experiments with where he'd look
at how people will respond to it. And one year
his class decided they were going to actually respond to
him and use positive reinforcement operating conditioning with him. And
so what they decided to do is while he was speaking,
they were going to just reinforce his behavior, try to
(25:20):
get him to move to the left side of the room.
That's the behavior they were encouraging. And so they did
it by reinforcing him in the way that presenters like
to be responded to. So, how do you what do
you want to see when you're presenting? You want to
see smiles and applause and nodding yeah exactly. So that's
all they did. He had no idea what was going on.
(25:42):
When he moved to the left, one step to the left,
they just nodded and smiled, and then when he stopped,
they stopped. That's it. B. F. Skinner, legendary psychologist, spoke
tucked into the left harbor wherever you were speaking, right,
And so you know, it's simply you know, making getting
(26:06):
And this is what depression is about. Whatever one people
want to say about depression, depression is about the lack
of reinforcement in your life. You're not getting enough positive reinforcement.
And so what a great therapist is going to help
you to do is forget about what happened in the past. Okay,
let's talk about getting you in a position to receive
reinforcement in your life. Where does that come from? Not
(26:27):
inside your apartment? Right, just not there, right, You're never
going to find that reinforcement. Like you know what, I
always jove of people a quarter to people come in
to tell me, Hey, I want to find a romantic partner.
I'm like, I can tell you one thing where they're not.
They're not in your apartment. You're not going to find them, right,
So like, we gotta we gotta get out, We got
to start moving and shaking, and we're going to figure
(26:48):
out ways to do that. That dove tails with another thing,
not just looking for a partner, but I am I feel,
you know, one of the things I've been asked. I
just finished the giant press tour for a Good Person,
and one thing that kept coming up was, um, what
are the themes in overarching themes that that that journalists
were seeing in my in my three films, UM, Garden State,
(27:11):
which I was here, which I always mentioned, I wrote
with my brother Adam, who's a brilliant writer, and now
the latest one A Good Person, And so it's caused
me to examine. It's something I really looked at. But
I was again thinking about it in the tub last night,
where I do my great thinking, and I was thinking
that for me, it's it's about looking for The theme
(27:32):
is looking for human connection, and it really comes out
of my my my loneliness. UM that I've felt my
whole life very even even when I'm surrounded by people
and friends and others, I have felt different and other
than and very lonesome. And so I think all three
(27:53):
films are are are about yearning for a deeper connection
to someone hmm. And and I think the response to
this film, um, since it's come out, and and and
the messages the beautiful, heartfelt messages and commons I'm getting
on Instagram and and and other social media platforms. I'm
(28:16):
seeing this connection to that obviously to grief and to
addiction and to but I feel people really tapping into
that yearning for a deep connection to other human beings. Yeah,
I mean, all your films are certainly about that. For
(28:42):
I'm just curious, though, you know what, what's your hope
for what this film does? How does it? What does
it bring out in people? And what will what will
how will they walk away after seeing it? I hope
that they feel less lonesome, I mean, or or just
or just that they see themselves in the movie. I mean,
the movie is obviously an extreme it's it's it's no secret,
(29:05):
it's in the trailer. It's about a vehicular manslaughter and
and and how that affects the lives of these two families.
And now, God willing the audience won't have something that
extreme in their in their life, but they will. Everyone
grieves something, Everyone has a pain in their heart about something,
(29:26):
and I and I hope that they that they that
they go and experience it and um and and feel
less a little bit a smige and less alone that
there's other people, Because when I'm really depressed and anxious
and lonesome and I just feel I just feel like
I'm the only one feeling those things. I know in
them in the macro that's ridiculous. I know that we're
all human beings, but but but that's what you feel,
(29:48):
that's what's overwhelming feeling. So I hope that people see
this and feel um see themselves and feel seen and
feel less lonesome. That's what I really hope. Yeah, well
I'm you know, what do you think people would be
surprised to know about you that that led to this film,
that led to this coming out, and led to this
(30:12):
come into fruition. I think probably that I've suffered from depression.
I mean that's something I just spoke about him really
openly for the first time on the Rich Role Podcast,
which is a podcast I really recommend everybody. It's my
favorite podcast other than this one, obviously, But Rich Role
is just a fantastic interviewer, and he's he's just a
guy who wasn't addict and he turned his whole life around,
(30:34):
and then he became like one of those marathoners who
runs like insane marathons, and now he's just I don't know,
he's just a I saw him the other night and
I said, you're like my rabbi, Like I think I
was like, I think you're I think what you do
for me in my life is what a rabbi is
supposed to do for Jewish people, because I just find
him so inspiring. And but anyway, I'm rambling. Um, that's
(30:56):
what I think that people would be surprised to know.
Because I'm known for being a a comic actor. I'm
known for being silly. I come and do this show,
for example, and you know, throughout the pandemic, there were
times when I was really, really really depressed. Um, you know,
Nick was dying, Amanda's was fifty feet away in my
guesthouse in a ball crying, and I was very very sad.
(31:22):
And I would psych myself up to to be funny
on this podcast because I want to entertain people. I
get joy. I do get joy from making people laugh
and entertaining them, and I get I get a dopamine
high from feeling like Donald and I and Joel and
Daniel were funny, and I hopefully made people laugh and
made them feel good. But I certainly. Um. I think
(31:46):
that's the biggest surprise people would probably think, is that
I you know that I've suffered my whole life from
from depression and anxiety and and and it's actively working
on actively working on it with you to to be
able to tackle it better. I mean, I'm just listening
to what you're saying about the Rich Role podcasts and
the marathon and what he does, and I just think
of you and your life, and you certainly have run
(32:09):
a marathon through COVID and through all those things that
you experienced. What what has allowed you to do that?
I mean, how have you, in our work and on
your own been able to get through that and then
use that to produce I think, thank you. That's a
great question. I think I really just focused on. You know,
(32:30):
I'll tell you a story I'd never told anyone, and
that is that I don't know why this is my
answer right away, but I you know this, but no
one knows this. I was super sick in the beginning
of January. I got so I got strapped throat so
the worst I've ever had. It was so painful, I
couldn't even swallow water. I mean, I didn't know you
could get strapped, throught this bad and think I think
(32:51):
I had scarlet fever because I had a rash on
my stomach and I was like googling, Yeah, I was
googling rash. I finally was like rash and the strep
throat and it said scarlet fever. And I was like,
I got a fucking scarlet fever. And I tried to
convince my doctor. I was like, he's like, you wouldn't
get scarlet fever. That's for children in This's like rare.
And I was like, I have fucking scarlet fever, dude. Anyway,
(33:13):
I don't know if I ever convinced him, but anyway,
so I was so sick and I was so sad,
and I was so alone, and I remember just lying
on this heating pad because it was the only thing
that felt good. I didn't even have my dog with
me to I mean, I was just it was a
low point. And anyway, I put on this Burnet Brown
(33:33):
YouTube ted talk about vulnerability, which has gone viral for years.
If you haven't seen it, it's it's it's what broke
Brenee Brown as a self help guru if you will,
I don't know what you call her but she's amazing.
And it was her first TED talk and it was
about vulnerability and I just started sobbing. I just started crying.
Granted I was very sensitive and very sick, but I
(33:55):
just what she was saying about being vulnerable and having
the courage to be vulnerable. Um, I just felt this tears.
I cried for the whole thing. And uh. And so
I think that that obviously tapped into something for me.
And that's where it's a similar place that the movie
came out of. It was like, what if I, you know,
just wrote something that was incredibly vulnerable. You know, the
(34:17):
story of a good person is not my exact story,
but all the emotions and the feelings and the everything
that's that is the support structure of the plot is
my story. Yeah. And I think in what you've made too,
I mean, it just it speaks to the fact that
everybody has a struggle, um, and that it speaks to
(34:38):
the fact that we're all experiencing and have experienced over
this past couple of years loss. I mean, if you haven't,
if you haven't experienced loss in the past couple of years,
in some way, you probably weren't awake to what was
going on, Well, wasn't even men. You needn't even be death. Um,
it could be just the the this. I think we're
all in, I mean, this PTSD from what happened, and
(35:01):
we're all moving on, like, Okay, that was crazy. And
I really think. I was talking to my mom about this,
who's also a psychologist. She's been on the podcast, and
I was talking about last night because we were trying
to analyze this and this beautiful audience response, and my
mom was saying kind of like, I think that there's
a there is a collective grief in society that that
(35:24):
people might not even know is there within them, and
that that could be from their very real life experience,
of course, or or it could be just from the
experience of the trauma of COVID. I mean, you know,
I think what's what's the story within the story here
is you know, you were asking me about changing behaviors
(35:49):
and about dealing with grief and about dealing with depression
and overcoming it and how cogn behavioral therapy is a
method for that. But the whole arc of making this
movie was in fact all of that. For you. It
was it was quite a journey, you know, and and
it's this audience has been along for the whole ride,
(36:09):
you know, guys, Joel and Daniel I started talking when
we started the podcast. I thought he was telling even
writing it for a long time. Let's take a We'll
be right back after these fine words. You guys have
any questions for the doc, I don't mean to hog
expensive doctor's time. You guys, it was really fascinating to
(36:34):
hear the two of you talk, so please to apologize. Yeah, yeah,
so okay, I, similar to Zach, have depression. Um I
noticed it at like sixteen, but I also had add
which was also undiagnosed. So I got diagnosed with depression
when I was thirty and with add when I was
(36:56):
thirty one. And when I started therapy. You know, my
first therapist was a lot like you. She was like,
all right, let's figure out what the problem is. Let's
really make a plan, let's go get it. And I
was instansed. I was like, I'm hurting, I don't know
how to start trying. I'm so angry and still confused,
and I'm still trying to get medicated despite being diagnosed.
(37:17):
It was like a whole process and it was frustrating
for me, so I went through two years of just
the emotional kind of therapy, the let's just dive deep
and just talk about your past and all of that stuff.
And then at some point I was like, this is
not changing anything. So like on a new therapist, cognitive
behavioral therapist who helped me change and grow a lot.
(37:39):
But I say all that to ask, is there a
headspace you need to be in or a thing you
need to have done in order to be ready for CBT?
This is such a great question. I really I love
this question. I'm already married, but I would marry this
question if I wasn't there. I love this question because
(38:01):
you know, I think by our discussing this, you're really
going to help a lot of people. Look, the main
advice I have about therapists is if you feel like
your therapist doesn't like you, fire them. And not to
say that this therapist and you didn't get along, but
you know, if there's not mutual likability, meaning you don't
feel understood, forget, it doesn't matter what kind of therapy
(38:24):
they do they can do. You know, I don't know
scarlet fever therapy. It doesn't matter very like they're not
the right person, and so what the research the science
shows us is the biggest effect of therapy is feeling
understood by the therapist and that there's mutual well you know,
likability and positive regard and so that's just like, you know,
(38:45):
it's like when I there was this club, the Palladium
that I in New York City growing up, and I
would go there. They'd be these amazing drag queens out front.
I would go up to the front and try to
get in, and they'd be like you you and look
at me and dead in my face and be like
not you. So you know that later on Zach will
worked that out with me. But anyway, so they have this,
they have these these little ropes, right, the velvet ropes.
(39:08):
You can't get into a great therapy relationship unless you
get past that. And the entry fee is empathy. You
need to be able to show and demonstrate understanding of
the person and connect with them. It doesn't matter what
kind of therapy you do, right, And so I would say,
you know, to me, it's sort of seventy percent that
to your point, and thirty percent the techniques, right, and
(39:30):
so you know, you should find a therapist that you
feel like understands you. And a lot of the research
also shows because is such a great question, I could
nerd out on this forever and I think it's really helpful.
It's like, you know, you got to be able to
do two things as a great coach. You have to
first be able to connect and demonstrate an understanding and
(39:52):
the hurt. Acknowledge the hurt, and show the person you
get the hurt. Only then will you be able to
teach or give skills. I'll tell one other story about this,
because your your question like unfull, you know, sort of
opened a door. But I was once in the clubhouse
of a professional sports organization and I was there and
(40:12):
there was a rookie. He was really struggling. This is
a guy who's just starting in sports, right, it's really struggling.
And I was newer at the field, and I was
just going after him. I was like, hey, man, why
do you try this? Why do you try that? Why
do you try that? And there was a veteran there
who knew me right and for a long time, and
he just sauntered over. Afterwards, the kid was like listening
and he was like, you know, playing my game, and
then he walked away and the veteran just like, look, Fader,
(40:36):
people have to know that you care before they care
what you know, and that just like stuck with me.
It's a cool I think Roosevelt said it or something,
but that's stuck with me forever. To your point, well,
like this isn't even about therapy, it's it's about teaching.
You know, if Daniel's teaching someone else audio video stuff,
It's like if the person doesn't feel like you really
(40:57):
care about them, it doesn't matter what you say. It
doesn't matter the instruction, it doesn't matter the thing. So
your question is also just like a hammering home point, like,
find someone that you feel like cares about you and
that you care about you can develop relationship. There's instant
good feeling. Well within the first meeting, I feel that
you care very much about me, and I do. Man,
I trust you, and I feel like you're rooting I do.
(41:18):
I mean, the coach analogy is so strong. I feel
like you're rooting for me. Another really powerful thing that
I get out of our relationship is that I feel
accountable to you. I'm not going to let you down
because I know. It's like just like an athlete doesn't
want to let their coach down and their team captain down.
I don't want to let you down. So if I
committed to you that I'm going to write, you know,
(41:41):
Monday through Friday for three hours a day, and then
I'll text him like I did it, or I'll send
him pages. We have this relationship where it's like I'm
not gonna not send him pages because I don't want
to disappoint him. And I think that's really great, a
really powerful thing. And you don't have to you know,
you don't have to be in therapy to do it. Obviously,
(42:03):
you can do it with your partner, you could do
it with a friend. But if you're trying to start
a new habit really being accountable to another person that
you don't want to let down, that you can made
a commitment to. Let's say you're trying to do sobriety
for a month, or you're trying to um, you know, write,
or you're trying to you know, eat less. Whatever your
thing is that you have some sort of person. It
(42:25):
could be a therapist, it could be a parent, it
could be a friend, it could be a partner that
you're accountable to and that you don't want to disappoint
and that obviously you're honest with because if you're lying
with the hell's the point, right, Yeah, I mean you
know what you're saying is so valuable, Zach, because not
everybody listening is going to go to therapy for whatever
reason right now, well some can't afford it. We should
(42:48):
say we we we advertise better help on here, which
I think is a is a new and affordable way
for people to seek out therapy. So obviously, um, you know,
I have a great privilege in being able to have
you in my life, so I do want to acknowledge that.
But there are ways to reach out to people and
(43:09):
and sometimes for those who can't, um, it could be
as simple as reaching out to a friend, not not
a friend who's going to give you bad advice. You
know who that person is, don't sort of you everyone
listening knows who's the friend not to go to. But
but but but just being in communication and sharing and
(43:29):
being honest and authentic that I've gotten just so much.
You know. My sort of word for my year now
is is vulnerability. Obviously, releasing a movie to the world
is the most vulnerable thing I can do is in
my profession, and it's it did take a lot of
courage to to just release something and then you know,
have and just show it to the world and have
(43:51):
everyone way in on it. But anyone who's listening's life,
whether it be as small as having a scary conversation
you're dreading or or you know, it's all about vulnerability.
It's all about saying, I'm going to do this because
I'm going to be authentically myself and I'm going to
(44:12):
allow myself to be vulnerable and I'm going to do it. Yeah,
you know, I mean I had I had a therapist
actually who once said to me, this is maybe twenty
years ago, who said, look, you know people people often
regret the things that they didn't do, not the things
they did. And um, and that made a lot of
sense to me. And I think, you know, what do
(44:35):
people who regret later in life? Mostly there are regrets
around relationships. Um. And when you speak about the word vulnerability,
you know, we all have someone in our life that
we could you know, finish this podcast and and be
more authentic too. Maybe they're a friend, maybe they're a partner,
But you know, I think there's so much My experience
(44:55):
has been that that finding the people that you can
build a little bit more clear already in vulnerability with
It's just such an enriching part of our lives to
be able to do that. I just a question for you,
and don't know, maybe maybe you cut this and this
is just a real we never talked about this, but
you know, how do you know that I care about you?
What are the things that that happened that make you
(45:18):
feel that way. I feel that you're authentic, and I
feel that you're genuinely interested, and I feel that you're
rooting for me, and I feel no matter sometimes I
fall down and I don't come through with something I
committed to you that I was going to do, or
I tried every technique you gave me and I still
(45:40):
felt depressed. But I always feel like you're You're in
my corner. You're like you're in if I was a boxer.
You're the guy that's pushing that weird thing on my
forehead and whatever that things. I don't even I don't
even know what that thing does. I get the sponge,
I don't get that weird push down on your forehead thing,
but um, I don't know. That's it. That's it and
(46:01):
I and I and I know that you are because
um you you root for me. I feel like you
you're You're one of my biggest champions, so I want
to thank you. Don't worry everyone, We're going back to
a comedy podcast. Some of the fans right now are like,
oh fuck, no, I promise you this will not be therapy.
(46:22):
Next week we're gonna have Donald back and we will
be playing the bong hit noise on the sound effects
just to prove it to you. You're gonna kick off
the real doctors. Hold on, I gotta get the bong
effects so every no one freaks out talk one second.
Yeah there it is every the show here in honor
of Donald's what you're trying to get into one day,
shoon what you're trying to do. All right, we'll be
(46:44):
back being funny next week. I want to think, doctor Favorite.
I do want to plug your book because you've an
awesome book. Um and uh it's called remind me what
it's called, because I forget Life is Sport and I
know you're writing a new one, Um, but check out
Life is Sport if you want to read some of
these amazing wisdoms from this gentleman who's helped me so
much I genuinely did from the bottom of my heart.
(47:06):
I couldn't have written this film without you, and so
thank you. And I couldn't have written without this podcast
to be honest, Joelle and Daniel, because um, it made
me laugh and it was a hit of dopamine every
every week when we do it. So thank you guys
and audience. Um, thanks for listening, and thanks for a
(47:31):
welcoming doctor Fader into our community. And um, check out
a good person. If you haven't seen, it'll only be
in theaters a little while obviously, and then and then
it'll come on streaming. But I do think, um, there's
something really powerful about seeing it in the theater. It is.
Um there's something communal about about experiencing the emotions that
come up with this with friends, with family, with a
(47:53):
partner in a in a movie theater setting. So you'll
only have a couple of weeks in order to do that,
and um, it just expanded this weekend tonight, I should say,
because we're airing this on the thirty first of March,
right DAYLD. So that's it. We love you. Anything else
you guys want to say, no, come back next Tuesday.
(48:14):
We'll be here, you know. What actually I think. First
of all, this is thanks so much for having me on.
It was really great to talk to all of you.
And you know, I love the questions that you had. Actually,
I think it would be helpful, Zach, just briefly if
you want to talk about the behavioral things you did
to write the book. I think that would be really
(48:34):
interesting to people. I mean, to write the script. I
mean yeah, I mean I think, you know, just talking
a little bit about what, you know, what were the
ways that you got it done. Everybody, everybody who's listening here,
you know, almost to a person is trying to get
something done right. They're trying to lose weight, they're trying
to quit drinking, they're trying to speak differently their partner,
(48:54):
they're trying to write their own screenplay, whatever it is.
They're trying to get something done. And you know, you
you really became a master of some of these techniques
that you and I worked on to well master no
by no means master, but thank you. Um. I just
practiced what you taught me, and that was some one. Well,
the biggest, most basic thing is is committing making a
commitment to do it every day. Um, just like you
(49:15):
make you make a commitment, an important commitment to to
do anything in your life. When you know you commit
to someone in marriage, it's a serious commitment. UM. I
committed to doctor Fader and to myself that I was
going to write five days a week for a certain
amount of hours, and that even if I was staring
(49:36):
at the blinking cursor and and saying to myself, you suck,
this sucks, I suck that I was still going to
show up and be vulnerable. And some days it would
go great and some days it wouldn't. Um, But I
always I was keeping my commitment. I I and I
would say to him, and he Doctor Fader always says,
there's there's great power in a streak. Meaning if I've
(49:57):
done that commitment and I've really wrote five days in
a row, on Monday, I'm gonna I'm gonna start again
because I don't want to mess up my streak. If
you're trying to go sober and you made it five days,
you don't want to mess up your streak. It's exciting,
you know, I've told I think I've spoken about this
on the podcast before, where I would take something as
simple as a paper calendar. You guys can do this
for free, and you don't. I use stickers, but if
(50:20):
you don't want to pay for stickers, use a pencil.
And I would just go. I would give at the
end of the day. When I was when I was
first attempting uh not you know, not drinking from month,
I would uh, I would give myself a smiley face
at the end of that day. And I would see
all the smiley faces and I'd be like, I'm not
sucking up my smiley face streets. So it's so simple.
(50:42):
And I told I sold this to rich Role and
he was like, it's so funny, how reptilian, he said,
our brains are. It's just that we want that. We
want that, We want that fucking smile. It's like when
you're potty training your kids, you know, I know people
use stickers, like if you you you get a sticker
on the day, if you use the potty or whatever.
We still my brain, at a pretty six at the time,
was like, I'm not fucking not getting that smiley face.
(51:04):
I want that. So even stuff like that really helped
me going for a streak. Getting affirmation, sending the pages
to to friends and then getting feedback from them always
felt good. When I would people in my writing community,
I would send a scene to and be like, hey,
can I get your thoughts? And so getting that feedback
was helpful. It would it would inspire me when they
(51:25):
were like this is great, oh my gosh, keep going.
But really showing up, you know, showing up every day,
no matter how I felt, was was the key. It's
so huge. I mean, the gamification of your task is key.
I mean, you know, people of what I've done with
some people, just have them order a light bright you know,
(51:45):
twelve dollars online and just every day that you do
your thing, you put a little light bright key into
the light right right, No, it's good. It's the cheapest
you can do it. So this money money can't be
your excuse if you don't want my free version. If
you don't want my free version, no, my mind version
is free. Everyone should have a pencil. If not, just
(52:08):
pick your finger and use blood. I'm just kidding, but
you can. Anybody can print a paper calendar off the internet.
But but if you want to spend seven bucks, you
can buy a light break. Go ahead, doctor Fader, Yeah,
do it. And I mean I think, look, the reality
is that you know just by having simple gamification and
also connecting it. You don't have to have a therapist,
(52:31):
radio a therapist of coach, but finding someone. The science
shows if you say out loud to someone what you're
intending to do, and they hear it and they know it,
you're much more likely to complete it. And so just
those two simple things or things that anyone listening here
can do and make it much more likely that you're
going to complete your goal. All right, On that note,
m I know that we only had you for the hour,
(52:52):
So thank you so much. You're incredible. Life as Sport
is the book. Thank you, doctor Jonathan Vader, I love you,
dwelling dal And that's our show, Bob six seven eight
stories about show we made about a bunch of doctor
nurses and a janitor who learned him. I said, he's
the stories natural should know. So gada around you here,
(53:18):
are YadA around you here? As free watch shows that
no mm hmmm
Hosts And Creators
Donald Faison
Zach Braff
Show Links
RingtonesPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!