The Secret to Judd Apatow’s Success is... Self Help?

Now really, really, now really lo and welcome to Really Know Really with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden remind you that you'll only be helping yourself by subscribing to our show and speaking of self help, is it real?

Jason and Peter have.

Always been skeptical of the ability for self help books and seminars to impact and improve a person's life. They even delved into the comedic aspects of the self help world with their two thousand and one ABC sitcom Bob Patterson.

They needed to find out why, and.

As a result, they also got to discuss Jud's journey to self help, his unique Iowa experience, and why he writes his comedies as dramas. Really, No, really, and now here are two guys who could use any kind of help they can get.

Jason and Peter, everybody knows Judd Apatow Is from fourty year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Funny People and train Wrecking King of Ston Island.

And on and on and on.

I'm fascinated that somebody who's as successful as he is was moved by self help. And I know that Carry Shandling was one of the first people to give him turn him onto self help. So right, that's what I want to find out about.

If you have a Tony Robbins, you go to a Tony Robbins seminar, are.

You doing self help? Well, you're you're doing Tony.

Help, but you drove there, so it's you're actually doing self self help.

Is never self help? Self help to me is I have a problem. I'm gonna go out and sit on a rock under the stars and with fingers in a circle, cross leg until I come up with an answer. But there this is I'm gonna go I have a problem. I'm gonna go to Noble and get a book from a guy who's going to try and help me.

That's not so much, but that's I'm getting an opinion.

So we're going to go to a man who is known for comedy, known for making us laugh, who's going to inform us about why a man as successful as he with everything he's got, and it's a lot, it's disproportionately a lot, it's too much much, and it feels that he needs to improve himself by reading a book by somebody he's never met.

Well, you're diminishing the cell phone thing in a big way. It's not self help. All right, let's find it. Well, let's find let's find them, saying let's find out. Let's find out.

Ladies and gentlemen, would you please welcome a man who needs no introduction, but Peter introduce him.

Shot Appetizer a producer, director, screenwriter, comedian known for his work in comedy films, the founder of Appetitle Productions.

Can you hear us?

Jed?

I hear you very well?

We see you? Can you? I'm afraid to say, can you see us?

You? Sorry?

We looked well, thank.

You for coming on, really excited to have you. We already did an amazing introduction to you and talked.

I could have heard it and felt good about myself.

Well you could have heard it. I don't know if you felt. I always take the oppositional point of view.

Yeah, so the reason exactly the reason we wanted to have you on, among other things, not only because your body of work.

Was it fascinating to me.

The TV shows that I've done with Jason have all been about self help, because I'm fascinated with that whirl. And I saw you in an interview with Larry King and you said, kind of jokingly, but not behind this is terror.

Oh yeah, And then.

You talked about self help, and I thought, I got to find out what that. How does somebody so successful still have the terror, the terror behind the eyes, And what tapes are playing in your head? And how that self help help you?

You're going right in. You're going right in.

Frankly, we've been here all day.

The eighth interview you did today, in the entire cast of How I Met your Mother.

It has been hold on, hold on. We're very specific about who we have. We don't just do. We don't do so.

We didn't want to do celebrities.

We got the guy who brought the willing matins, bringing the willly mammoths back. We've got the top professors in space drunk this and that. But it is fascinating watching you like getting quiet and watching you talk about that and go that. It's amazing. It's amazing that that would be what's inside you know, so if you can talk about that alone, no Shandler give you a self help book. And it started kind of them sure.

I mean I didn't have any religion as a kid. My parents never mentioned it. There was just no It was just pure black hole. There was no we believe, we don't believe.

It's just no hanikah, no high holidays, know nothing.

We were the Jews with the Christmas tree because it was right, okay.

And I never even knew if any of the family had rejected the idea of it for a reason. You know, we were a family that had people in the Holocaust. But no one ever said we don't believe it because of the Holocaust. That There was none of that talk either. It was just like a sliding disinterest.

But you did have a phrase that resonated with me growing up in the same kind of household. You're one. You're the one line which informed you of a bigger issue was nobody said that life was fair.

That's it.

That's our whole religion.

Nobody said life was there. The other aspect of our religion was next year will be our year.

Yeah, So I know also your parents separated and you went through a lot of stuff growing up.

Yeah, and I think that the lack of any faith or even discussion to see where you stand with it is. It's just it's a weird hole to leave a kid. And I and I remember as a I was always afraid of nuclear war. I was always afraid of Brezhnev, you know. So I had this like quiet terror for some reason. I don't know it was from the movie The Day After something, but it did feel weird to have nothing, to have any of it make any sense.

So and was that gesture from Gary did it come out of conversations you had with you or did he just look at you and go this kid needs help. I'm going to give him a book. Was it Did it come out of your relationship with him that he said, I think that this would be meaningful to you.

Well, I'm not sure exactly. It's funny because when I look back in my relationship with Gary, which is very close, I almost felt like a starter kit for a son.

You know.

Gary at the time was in the relationship with Linda just said I wrote the Grammys, you know, with him back in the late eighties or maybe ninety or ninety one. It was the first day of it was. I met him like the weekend the Gulf War started, So you check your calendar. Yeah, okay, wow.

But we just became very close and.

Just hung out all the time. And I don't even remember whining about my life in any way. He was just introducing me to some ideas that interested him. I'm sure I said I needed them at some point. But the first one was gave me a book that was called Turning Problems into Happiness, and it was written by some Buddhist monk, and the premise was that you should be happy every time you have a problem, because it will force you to evolve in some way. You'll learn

But is that just because you're so You're so now you have time. I mean, you were on the treadmill to obliving, you were doing so many things. But the other thing that I found that really reson about you in my life, my family always laughs because when we go on vacation, we going anywhere, I prepare for every eventuality. And you said, I'm probably a good producer because I look at everything that can possibly go wrong and prepare for that. And that's how I live my life. And

I think that you know, when I was a kid, my parents really fought and never worked out an agreement of you know what the alimony would be like, They never worked it out, and they just fought, paid a lot of lawyers and kind of both went broke from a never ending fight. And it made me think, you've got to get organized.

And so part of that is how do you do a good job?

You know. I interviewed comedians when I was a kid. I interviewed Erry Seinfeld when I was sixteen years old from my high school radio station, and a lot of comedians said, you know, it takes like seven years to find your voice.

So I learned from these comedians to be patient with my evolution as a as a writer or a comedian.

And and then I could really plan, like I was doing long range planning, like I'm seventeen years old, I'm doing stand up. That means I'll be great when I'm twenty four. Okay, good. And then I was terrible for the first year or so, but I was like, I'm supposed to be bad. This is good. This is all part of the plan. And it gave me a weird kind of patience about it. And then as I turned into a producer, I think every time you suffer as a producer, you figure out, like, how can I.

Prevent this next time?

Right? Like I did made a movie and it went over budget and the studio was so mean to me and it was like getting kicked in the face every day. It was like we were two hundred million dollars over budget based on how they were treating me. When we did The Cable Guy, we were like, I think we're was be forty it was forty two. But I just

I want to pursue that for saying I want to get into so many things to do. But just you know, while we're playing around in this area of self help, someone said to it. I think Peter said to me in when he said, hey, let's talk to John that you haven't you know a substantial collection of reading in the self help world. Is that because you have some doubt about your ability to learn from your experientials or I'm trying to get a handle on not because I

Do you do that as well? Or has that all been provided from your reading?

No?

I do that as well, Okay, and have for a long long time. But yeah, recently I looked in.

My journals and I realized that what I wrote yesterday was the same as thirty years ago in terms of my complaints and my shrining and my pam and you know, bracing thoughts.

Yeah, hypervisually, it was all the same.

Yeah, still for me still is along with gott to drop that twenty pounds. That seems to be my big.

Exercise that readmilk tomorrow, I would listen, don't forget to meditate. You don't have sugar, you know. And it's the same from nineteen ninety two. So this year I took ayahuasca.

Oh no, you know you did not? Oh, come on, you go down to South America and there's a whole No.

I did it in the very exotic land of Studio City, that's where all the best shaman.

Wait a minute, how did you?

How do you?

How do you vet that it wasn't like camel testicles and whatever? How do you know what it was?

I did? It was someone that had been to the person before, and I just thought I need something to like kick me out of a certain kind of mental roots.

And it definitely did. I'll say that I don't recommend it.

What did you do? Did you throw up?

What was the process? Did you throw up?

Yes, that's part of it.

You throw up.

You're not familiar what.

He tells me you you're going to throw up? I go, how is that good? What you don't throw up?

That's not a selling point usually, but Okay, your soul leaves three, you're not diarrhea?

Can I get diarrhea two with this? Or you have to pay extra? So what was the process? What did what did you go through? What did you or more importantly, what did you discover that that? From where do you do in studio city arts wors? What wasn't like well, what did you or more importantly, what did you discover that that? From where do you do in studio city arts worship? What wasn't like Well?

It's funny because I talk about it on stage when I do stand up and I tell this story like a twenty five minute version of the story now, and I always asked the crowd has anyone done it? And the funny thing is at Largo where I play, it's two hundred and fifty seats, it's usually one person, which is really funny because it's like, wow, this drug is so insane that only one two fifty two, you know, in la which is like the experience stage. But when I asked people what did you get out of it?

Guy said, I opened a box and inside was my name, and I was like, well, what does that mean? And he goes, you know, to just be, just be, which is also like stop your rasing thoughts, right, And then the other night someone said I realized that I was part of the fabric of the universe.

And then someone else, you know, like it's like it's always.

The same thing, which is some version of either be kind to each other in the way you want to be kind or it's, uh, we're all in this together, you know, and to some people there's aliens involved to get there, right, like right, they're having and I had that, you know, crazy like visions of things, but it lands at you be nice, you know, like we all have to take care of each other, but in a profound way, not in like a simple bull play where like you really feel it, like oh yeah, do you forget that

So let me do and be honest. I know you'll be honest.

So let's say you did the aahuasca and you had this revelation on Tuesday, Yeah, on Sunday. Do you go, yeah, I think I did ayahuasca?

Or does it stay with you? How long does it? Was my question? How long does it last?

Well, here's the funny thing is, And people had told me about things like this For months afterwards. I would wake up in the middle of the night. I would feel like I had been having a conversation and I had just woken up into the middle of my mind having a conversation, and then an idea would be presented to me.

So it was like I had been thinking about something. I woke up and then I would hear something.

It would be like you don't do any of the things you ask your wife to do, but like you'd wake up with that as like a power thought, you know. And it happened for months and interesting insights as is like some part of my mind is still working on aspects of it. And I think they people, you know, some people see it as a mystical I know, if it's chemical. I don't even know what it is. I try not to think about it. But it definitely felt

Just like, well, you're in the job, will you control everything you do? The casting you did, the writing you did. I mean, that's a big control thing.

I at length.

Can you tell them go back to the casting thing, because god, oh, I would never say it to him, but I will say that.

Some people think I would do comment I.

Need to sell tape and.

Hold on. I think you need Jason.

Yeah, I consider what I saw you in those Neil Simon plays.

The self page.

Oh that's very sweet. Thanks.

How great were those?

We've talked about that before?

Oh my god.

Yeah, it was working with Neil.

You know, when I was in my twenties, I was I was living the dream I had as a teenager that then took a left turn and became something I

Which was the first Neil Simon when you did with him, I.

Only did Broadway Bound with him, then did a revival of Prisoner or Second Avenue here in La that he came and saw. And then I directed Broadway Bound and he came and saw that, and he was already, you know, deeply into Alzheimer's or whatever dimension he had. And it was it was that was a really tough night because he kinda he kind of knew he was connected to it, and he was having all the feelings about that, but he couldn't understand why he was connected to it.

Wow, and it that that was hard.

But he.

Next to Neil Simon got to be a bit friendly and I said, you're so straight laced when you got out to Hollywood.

Did you do drugs? And he said, Peter.

First party I went to, they gave me pot that was so strong its laced was something it would kill River Phoenix again.

First conversation with you, guys are so much.

Darker than you expect.

Oh my god, I emailed Mike Nichols. I was shooting a scene for train Wreck where the it was like a helicopter shot of the Staten Island ferry and it was a little bit of a nod to working girl right right opening Working girl, and so I emailed Mike Nichols like, hey, we're shooting this thing today, and he goes, well, this time, I hope the helicopter crashes into the ferry.

Nice. Yeah, wow, wow, you think those guys are all light and such?

You were so rough?

Do you know what that we're so off talking about. I'm going to share a story with you. I do not know if it's true.

It was told me.

It sounds true, but Patti Chaievsky very famously wrote one of my favorite movies of all time.

Network. Yes, I think, either for the Golden Globes or some other award.

That year it tied with Rocky for the award, and they said accepting for a Network Patty chifc accepting for Rocky producer Erwin Winkler. And the story goes that as they were coming up the aisle to go to the podium, Erwin Winkler got right next to Patty Chaievsky and said to him, Patty, I am so so honored to share this award with you.

Patty Saevsky said to him, I hope you die.

What year was that Broadway Bound production?

Broadway Bound was either eighty six or eighties. The one that I was in was either eighty six or eighty seven. I was twenty six or twenty seven years old down, So.

I went to see that when I was eighteen years old. Wow, So you know, coming from a place where I had been injuring these comedians for the last two years. I started doing stand up the year before, and I had comedy on the brain, and then to see that.

Well, also because he discusses it that, you know in the play, about how how comedy is written and done?

And yeah, I mean that really because I went to all those plays in that era neo ciber place, but for me as someone who dreamed of doing what he did in that Yeah, and also the you know, the idea of what is this about? That I mean, because those Neil Simon plays would be so hilarious and then they would get so real. We would land in a

Sure, Yeah, but you were just go somewhere I read either you said or somebody said about your comedies that you write him as dramas the story has to be Yes, it's character driven, but the story has to make sense on its own.

That I tried to. I mean I tried to. Yeah, I mean I worked at the Critic this Cartoon James producer. Yeah, Mike recon al Jean did so. I had a year where I was able to just hear him talk about stories. And obviously he's been one of the guiding lights. But that's how I looked at it, because he always talked about honoring the characters, and he would say, we have to do right by the characters in our work as if they existed, and if the writing was bad, we

Where are you?

I'm curious where you are now because so much of your comedy is about growth, which is funny because I'm sitting next to a guy who's sitcom lasted what nine years.

And it was no growth, none of those characters, one one iota.

Are you at a different place at this age and where you are in your life as far as what you want to writer you feel compelled to put out there on screen stories you want to tell I.

You know, I it's it's a funny age because when you get older, you realize, like, I talk about this and stand up, but you know an older comedian that someone is only talking about decay. You know they're only going like, don't you hate diverticulitis? I hate when all your girlfriends from high school start dying of natural causes. And so I struggle with that a little bit because I had projects about high school and college and getting

I said to Jason, it's so sad in our relationship. We know each other thirty five years. The gifts went from really great gifts to orthopedic devices.

I swear to God, I had a birthday three days ago.

The best gift I got so far is a pair of socks that have acupressure, a diagram of where on the foot, and a little thing.

I swear to God, I have it right here on my bag, A thing that you use to press on. Second, I'm gonna show you this.

This is this is this is the acupressure tool that you use to press into your foot to make you look I'm telling you it's a it's a Jimmy Duranty profile.

But other than that, it's on Amazon right now.

Oh my god, it's the greatest thing. I had the socks on the other day. My god. So it's what are the next product? What are you working on now? So I from stand up? But yeah, why did you you took a long Yeah?

I took a long break, like fifteen years.

And what was the thing that said I gotta what called you to go back to that?

Yeah? I don't know. I mean I just missed.

I missed being around people.

You know, when you make movies, you do the shoot, but when you write, you're kind of mainly alone. When you edit, you're with one guy in a room for six months. And I thought, I think I'm far away from the fun part of it. And then I was working with Amy Schumer and she was, you know, skyrocketing in her stand up career when we were working on train Wreck, right, And one night at the Comedy Seller, I said, I'm gonna go on just to show you what it was like when I did it, and she

Murder for twenty five minutes. I got to try to do an hour after that.

And then he comes in and of course couldn't be better, and the crowd is so happy and he is the best, and then the crowd was so good for me, they were fain they were just ye put them in the best comedy food, because you know, he's one of the reasons why I went into all of this, became very obsessed with Jerry's work right when he came on the scene in like the early eighties. Yeah, and then he was so nice to me when I interviewed him, shockingly nice to like a sixteen year old interviewed with fro

And I said, I don't know, you'd do the Tonight show more than once?

And then he did do another.

Are you serious?

Wow?

Wow?

Yeah?

Ye did you try that with Larry David?

I'd be interested in saying how that.

Let me take it back to that at age seventeen. Were you a kid who on some level was secure enough to figure I can do this, because when I read what you did, that you did and hurt the stories before that you called these comedians was part of it. Also, I'll interview them, but they'll also embrace me, and I'll be in that group and somehow that will get me. Somebody will say, hey, jud you're that good open for me or whatever. Was there a whole method to the

So I get a lot of that.

When you ment your young people, they go, well, I can't just call Joe app Okay, yes you can, so he either call back or he won't. So where was your seventeen year old head when you were doing that stuff.

Well, my grandfather is a jazz producer, and he produced Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie and Diyona Washington, and he was just a hustler.

And I always knew that there was some hustle to this.

And so when I worked at this high school radio station, my friend Josh Rosendal would go interview the new bands. So he went and he interviewed Rim and Susie in the Banshees, and then he said to me, you should try to interview comics. And I didn't think it would help me stand up because I hadn't started stand up yet.

Toty Fields, Oh man.

She was buddies with my grandma. So they talked about her all the time, like she was the coolest person in the world. So I think, as a little kid on some level, as like a weird kid, I thought, Tody Fields is the coolest person in the world. That means I can be cool. I'm weird like Tony Fields.

And so it just gave me some courage.

But also, no one liked comedy back then, Like kids weren't talking about it, you know, in the early eighties the way they do now. And so it was like I had my own hobby that no one had any interest in at all.

But wasn't that I'm trying, you know, as I've gotten older time in my sense of time, So but what the early eighties, wasn't that still sort of the real height of Carlin? Then Steve Martin and yeah, so you know, they seem like they were so much in the zeitgeist. I'm surprised that people weren't talking and sounding it live, weren't talking about comedy.

I think, you know, people would watch it all, but no one really cared, you know what I mean, Like we would all go see Ghostbusters, but it wasn't like there was like comedy obsessives, uh huh.

And so I just took it to some.

Other weird level, like my friends did go to c Spinal Tap with me.

I went. I took a friend of the Spinal Tap, and when it came out, maybe it was like in eleventh grade or something, and when it ended.

He still thought it was a real band.

You know. Sure she didn't really know their comedy that yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Because what I'm noticing and getting is what brings me back to what we started with.

You.

You seem to me, and everything I've read about you, and even the fact that you loved stand up doing to me. I went into performing because I couldn't be with myself. So if I and I didn't want myself to be seen. So if I was a character, that was good. If I was in an ensemble, that was good. Because I didn't have a tribe, and I couldn't and I couldn't stand being alone. I did not think of myself as a self motivator. I did not think of myself as a go getter.

Here you are.

Everything I've seen you accomplish has been because you said, I am going to go do this. I'll figure it out when I get there, but I'm gonna go do this thing. And yet at the very same time, you're the guy going to the books to go I'm not good yet. I'm not good. I'm gonna I'm gonna throw up in studio city and find out what I don't know. And those two, the two they seem like opposite sides of something, as opposed to two sides of the same coin.

Do you know what I'm saying That makes sense?

I mean, I think that maybe it's just that I so insecure that I like I was looking for like my way to escape. And at a very early age, like weirdly early, like almost like you know, ten or eleven, I thought, Okay, it's comedy. It's comedy, that's the thing. And then no one had any interest. So it was like this little secret dream and I kept thinking to myself, no one people don't really get me, but I think

So in some ways, it's not so much to be metaphorical. It's not so much a call to the light as a flee from the darkness.

In a way, part of it was, I mean, I loved it, but I also thought I would get safety in it, and as opposed to just having safety because I just liked myself.

But that so I get it.

So the big questions for you, mister successful producer, director, writer, can you be one hundred percent present at any given time, or do you vacillate back and forth and it's a constant battle.

I think it's a constant bout. But I'm way better than I used to be. I understand the path to get there. It doesn't happen as often as I like, but I have whatever mental things from reading Ramdas and breathing things. I feel like I still get a little crazy. But you're a jasonalmmer More. I'm Comadjason, Tom Jason.

By the way, we weren't able to do I was so excited about doing that TV show we came up with Bob Patterson about a motivational guy who couldn't motivate his own family, and I wanted the mentor to be secretly a mess.

But I still love that. I love that world so much.

We've had more fun exploring slash lampooning the guys who get up and go I can help you be a better you.

I've got and what we found in it was so interesting.

We would we would do a live show where I played a character named Donnie Clay who's going to show you the way.

Donnie Clay shows you the way. America's fourth leading motivation and we would.

We would espouse things that were so silly and so nonsense, and and the audience would laugh, they'd have a great time. They knew it was a comedy show. And at the meet and greets at the end, they'd go, you know what, I actually I learned a lot to them.

But to be fair about what we love him like, he had to Donnie Clay Forwards to guarantee your success financial financially.

Free your income. I'll increase youring and we would do it. It's not a book, it's not a program. It's not a thing you have to do for Forwards. And you'll go out tomorrow and you'll increase your income fifty and we build it up for you know, the whole big thing and eventually go here you go, folks, take to get out your Recordersfans of Forwards, get a second job and and okay, big laugh.

And then people would come up and go, you know right, right, you're right, you're right, But.

Do we get job?

Well, thanks for spending time with us, man, and thanks.

For everything's good at home, Leslie's good, everything's fine. Your daughter is becoming a huge star.

The kids are both working, they have jobs.

God bless.

And uh, you know learning what that is.

Excellent? Now do you are you annoying to them at this point or not annoying to them?

Well, once they move out, you realize that your job is to figure out how to feel like it would be painful to be around you, right like you because like a consultant a parent, you're a consultant. And then you kind of want to hang out with them and their friends, Like would they ever allow me to dinner with their friends? Like I would never when I was young with my parents, Like go on vacation with them as a young adult was so neurotic weird, and uh,

Breakfast to hang well, clearly free breakfast.

Okay, that's the beginning of that. Yeah, my kids have never whipped out the card to pay for a minute.

And my kids never said let's have no, we have we have a meal.

We do that.

My daughter's on a TV series, she still expects me to cover the uber.

Oh my god, it's never gonna end.

So we have something to talk about. That's hus be safe, man, and thank you for all the comedies. Thanks for taking the.

Time, Judd all the best. Thank you friends.

Yes, thanks that so funny.

Thank you brother.

Well look at that.

We got a big, big Hollywood producer, writer, director, multi award winner, came on our show, had a fabulous conversation and left without offering me a goddamn thing. Not a hey, I got something in mind for you, not a I should have used you in, not a hey, I'm a big fan talk about a show I was in the nineteen eighties.

Talking about self help. I need let me give you some help. Let me give you some help here, let me let me offer some help you. The gift was having him on, not an offerer, just be here now, barbarandas.

Don't you think that that we did hit on this?

I think I hit a fascinating thought when I said, he is a guy who's basically carved of all his own stuff. Yes, he worked with a couple of wonderful mentors along the way, but he had to carve his way to get to them.

It was not like, you know, being in.

A play that somebody else wrote and somebody else directed, and you get seen by a thing, and so you get your next big opportunity. He had to create every opportunity from scratch. He's writing his own stand up, he's writing his own films. He says, I'm going to be a producer. And yet so he's got that ability to say I am worthy of doing this. People will be there, And at the same time he's going, I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy of it. But I don't know enough, or I don't feel like I'm not color.

In Philly, so I didn't know well to do people, and I didn't know people in entertainment. And I came out to LA and I never network. Being a raider, I never networked. It was a job for me, so I didn't network, but I got to interview a lot of people, and I got to know people of different different stages in their life, from billionaires the most successful actors, the movie stars. And there's shocking how many of them unhappy,

They disintegrate.

The biggest stars, the biggest rock stars are doing heroin. They're doing drugs. Their medic is self medicating because it's never what they felt it was gonna be.

Right, You know, so it's a different.

War it is.

There's the other side of it is also how many people and I had my own version of this for a while, are now put in that place of extraordinary success or attention or whatever you might be, and you can't make it fit.

You can't imposter yourself in it. It's impostered.

So you get lost, you know, and and and you have to find First you have to know you're lost, and then you have to find your way, and.

Then you genuinely have to be happy with the gratitude thing and I know is that you have to really be present and go with what I got is pretty damn good, whatever that is, because if you're still racing for that other thing, then you're not really present. My horrible thing is with the ADHD and with the mesophonia. Here you know that I'm always my mind tends to want to be somewhere else, and I really want to be like when with you, one hundred percent present, when

And by the way.

Also look at how much of the world is medicated because so so depression.

Can you imagine? No, no, I cannot listen.

I know people who have had the most extraordinary experiences, and I go, yeah, if you swallow arsenic, you're going to have an experience.

Could be again, you're going to I just think it's very dangerous. Love producer, Why I want to go to another country to do it? And I said, do me your favor.

I'm all for that. I hope you have growth, get us a backup before you're going to be dead in a foreign three months where with the guy throwing up.

And he's in your Maybe so it is, but it's the search. We're all searching to try and be happier, and part of that is being present. And it's really hard being one hundred percent present because people.

I was going to say that the present isn't always so pleasant, so that makes it even crazier. Feel good about yourself.

I read a thing the other day not too long ago that I thought was, so, you know, we're looking for the mysteries of the universe beyond what we know, and we're looking for the existence of miracles. And the guy said and you can do this. I'm going to tell you right now to do something. Just do it, don't think about just do it. Touch the top of your head. Why does that happen?

You think it. I'm going to touch the top of my head and it happens.

First of all, go explain that, because that's you want the mysteries of the universe.

How does that happen?

And then second of all, when you're looking for miracles, not everybody can make that happen.

Yeah, no kidding.

So the fact that you today can think my nose itches and you scratch your nose without thinking about it, that is a miraculous thing. That is a When I do my Q and A show and sometimes we talk about magic and my love for magic, and I talk about how my wife is not a fan of magic because she thinks it's a power trip on the part of the magician, and I go, no, to me, it's about I know it's not real. I know it's not real, but the idea that somebody figure out how to make

You bought it.

You have a house that didn't just appear. It's not a mud hut. Somebody built that. You live in it with what paper? You exchanged one thing? And you gotta I say, it's all magic. It's all miraculous if you just slow down enough to go, somebody made this and what's what it does.

By the way, one of the most suppressing things I did is I recorded behind the scenes and manager reveals all the tricks. I watched about six I got so depressed because even the biggest tricks, you go, oh, it just ruined that for me.

So I never watched.

Here's here's how you know. Why do not do that? A magician not because it's a brotherhood of anything.

A magician will never ask another magician how something was done.

A true magician will go that was beautiful. Isn't pendent teller writing a book revealing how they did all the tricks?

Though?

But I'm not saying magicians won't share their secrets. There's a there's a huge legacy of magicians as they retire their career, retire there.

They will do that. That's say, here's how I achieved all I care about.

All I care about. Are they going to reveal how they do the bullet catch where he shoots the blue. I think they are revealing that's one of the most amazing tricks ever.

You know what else is amazing?

David, He's a miracle. He's proof of miracles on God's Green play you look at your David. Sure it's true today you got to meet from the confines of your home Judd appetite.

Yes, I did, very thankful, very thankful.

It's really was there a single lesson take away you got from it?

You know?

I was able to say because I had. He is the first person I've been close to since Jim Carrey where I was trying to not say, God, I really enjoyed the cable guy.

And to see what the reaction was because I truly did.

I love that that picture and Jim Carrey did not not appreciate it when I when I mentioned that to him.

Yeah, yeah, really did he think you were making that you were being facetious?

I think it was.

It was within six.

Months to a year that it had come out and he was we were at a benefit together. He was dating somebody that I was I worked with, and yeah, I think he did. I did think that he couldn't hear the fact that I'm like, I think this was actually a brilliant comedy that actually with some of the Menenda stuff that people are now watching on Netflix, if you want to go back and watch it, just the parody of that was really brilliant.

And you know, there you go.

Not a good first impression with this.

I just must say I've been watching the Menenda thing.

Not a comedy, just for people who need to know, not a comedy, really, not a com really. Yeah, it's kind of an interesting series, though really interesting series. I started it was felt campy the first episode and then there's some really good acting in that. But wow, if a third of that stuff is even close to accurate, hokey smoke, what a story?

Well yea, as they say, there's some things happening. H Thank you, jud Apto, Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will see you next time on this little show.

That we call really No really.

As another episode if really no really it comes to a close. I know you're wondering, what is the best selling self help book ever? Well, you can help yourself to that answer in a moment. But first let's thank our guest, judappataw. You can follow Jud on his website judapptou dot com or on Instagram where he is unsurprisingly

Nothing life changing, obviously, but it's the thought that counts.

No.

Check out our full episodes on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and take that bell so you're updated when we release new videos and episodes, which we do each Tuesday. So listen and follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now the answer to the question what is the best selling self