Ed Helms and the Good Old Days

Your incredible line from season nine. I think about that line all the time. Yeah. It's like one of the wisest, truest lines in the history of television. I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days. before you've actually left them. It is such a poignant reminder to just take stock because this moment might be some serious good old days. Yeah.

Dwight Schrute versus Andy Bernard. What do you think about that? You and I were playing like essentially quite toxic characters. But you and I had a ball doing that. Yeah. But we didn't know how. rare it was that's what has locked in in hindsight it just doesn't get better than this when we're on the office we're kind of striving for the next big great thing yeah but now that we're like 10 12 15 years out it's like

I just want that again. Yeah. Like I want to go back to that. Yeah. Do I fit into this? podcast space somehow. A washed up TV actor gets his old TV friends on to talk about their mental health struggles. Rain, those shows are literally the worst. The worst. They're the worst. How does anybody watch this shit? Hey there, it's me Rainn Wilson, and I want to dig into the human experience. I want to have conversations about a spiritual revolution.

Let's get deep with our favorite thinkers, friends, and entertainers about life, meaning, and idiocy. Welcome to the Soul Boom Podcast. Hi, Ed. Howdy. Hey. So your new book is called Sne... Snefu? I've heard it's pretty good. And, um... Snafu or snafu. You have any questions for me? I mean, how great was it to work with me for so many years? How the hell? Did you keep all of your hair? It's so distinguished and gray. You're, you're definitely. Hi. Okay.

By the way, your facial hair is kicking my ass. I can't do that. You can't do that. I can't even do that. You can't even come close to it. I try. Ed Helms, welcome to Soul Boom. I am so glad to be here. I'm really glad to see you in the flesh. And it's really nice. We've texted a good bit. We've talked on the phone a good bit.

But you live all the way out there on the east side of LA with the hipsters. And I'm way out here in the suburbs. What do you do with all the hipsters on the east side? We sit at coffee shops and make fun of people as they walk by. just snark just snark that's on brand it's all snark that's on brand sarcasm uh irony we just live in a in a sort of cauldron of irony you know since we're sitting here and i see you gazing fondly at that

Dwight bobblehead on the shelf. I did wanna, I'd be remiss to not talk about our years on The Office. And I was thinking about your incredible line from season nine that kind of summed up. The whole show. Do you want to remind us what that line is? I think about that line all the time. Yeah. It's like one of the wisest, truest lines in the history of television.

For real. It's all Greg Daniels, and I just was a vessel. I wish there was some way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.

or something close to that very close to that yeah it is such a poignant reminder that you're always in them or that that to just take stock because this moment might be some serious good old days yeah and and those nine years were oh were yeah 100 sure and that's one of my great regrets in life i know i have few regrets i've made a ton of mistakes but few regrets is, and I was sharing this with BJ, that I knew, you know, up here I knew this was a great gig. I'm like, these people are amazing.

The scripts are incredible. People, audiences love the show. It's very funny. It's very smart. I get to play this incredible, memorable character. I knew he loved. Beloved, iconic character. I mean, come on. Dwight Schrute is a legend. Andy Bernard. Well. Iconic. Mount Olympus of TV characters. But I knew it. up here i knew it cerebrally but i i really wish i had just spent more time just being like this is it it just doesn't get better than this i knew again i knew it cerebrally but like

wow, we are improvising. And as I was going back, I was remembering how much we improvised the Cornell stuff. Yeah. And we had so much stuff of you hitting me with the Prius and stuff. And we just... would just kind of go and, and these, these scenes are, are classic. If I can just kind of like, okay, but what would you absorb them deeper? Sure.

But what would that have looked like? Like, what would you have done or felt different? More gratitude. Yes. Because for me, there was a lot of like, you know, it was, we were all on The Office. trying to get a movie career. Striving elsewhere. Right. Yeah. And trying to set up production companies and trying to do, you know, commercial gigs and, you know, overall deals and, you know, and everyone.

was and we had great opportunities to do to do movies you did hangover obviously and you know so many great films we all got to do during those years but it was it was like, I wasn't as present as I could have been. And I wasn't as grateful as I could have been. Cause I was always thinking like next hiatus, how do I get a movie lined up or how do I get this other thing lined up? And it was always.

ahead of myself so i didn't i i won't say i never did but i i wish a lot more i would have been like wow this is fucking amazing yes i completely agree yeah i think it's partly a function of um kind of what our business tells us to do and like prescribed for like, here are the pathways and here's what you're supposed to be. Your agents call and they're like, what's your next script? And did you read those things? There are a lot of external forces sort of telling you to keep striving.

and not to take stock, which is unfortunate. But it's also, I think, a function of the age that we were. it's harder to i think feel present and and grateful when you have so much life ahead of you and you're looking it was a bit old i was on the older end sure cast i didn't i didn't really start playing dwight till i was like 39 or 40. yeah i was in my 40s yeah you know Wysonski was a little spring chicken. Sure, sure.

But I hear you. You're young. You've been striving for a long time. All of a sudden you have this opportunity and doors are open. Yeah. And like, hey, do you want to write a script? Do you want to develop material? Hey, they're interested in you for this. Would you want to meet with these filmmakers? Yeah. You know, and you and I.

both struggled for a long time before we got the office and, you know, long years of unemployment. So of course we want to, you want to take advantage and rise to that opportunity as well. Yeah. That, that show. It's also there's no way to know that how special that show was. We knew, like you said, we knew.

that it was special. We knew that we appreciated it and loved it and loved this community that we were so lucky to be a part of. We, I think all knew that even with the stripe, but we didn't know how rare it was. I think that's what has locked in in hindsight is like just how special it was. We knew it was special. We loved it. And I think we did. I think a lot of us like.

I do remember a lot of us reflecting at different times, just hanging out over the years, like just how much we loved being a part of that at the time. You know who was great at that was Angela. She was very good at like, isn't this great? I just love you all. And here we are. And the scene is so funny and you all are so funny. And she was always great at kind of bringing things down. In a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think it's really been in the years since where weirdly.

Like when you're in the, when we're on the office, we're kind of striving for the next big great thing. But now that we're like 10, 12, 15 years out, it's like, I just want that again. Like I wanna go back to that. I want to be with all of that wonderful energy and those funny scripts. I was reflecting with somebody recently how special the table reads were because that was one hour a week.

that we were all together. Right. Right? Because everyone was, we were shooting our different scenes all week and sometimes there'd be conference room scenes where we're all in there together and those are great. But. The table reads, it was the whole community. It was the whole office community. It was the writers, the producers, the entire cast, and even some people from NBC that were.

gen we generally liked yep and and they left us alone which was good because we were working as a show and and uh i i just always had a buzz going dirt like in those table reads because it was just like this electric thing like what are we gonna do what's next what are we gonna what's this next episode what's it gonna be And, you know, the new laughs, the new jokes, the new character discoveries, the new things that the writers cooked up. And the amazing thing about it, by the way, is that when.

everyone was dismissed, you could stay if you wanted. And Greg would say, yeah, hang out. Let us know your thoughts. And we're going to be talking about this and this needs to get fixed and stuff like that. Sometimes he would be like, Everyone go, we need to rewrite this and just leave us alone. But they were so open to our ideas and opinions. And that also is very rare. Yeah. What about... dwight shrewd versus andy bernard what do you think about that looking back on that uh

It was such a, it was a treat getting ready to talk with you and go back and look at some of those. I wish I had rewatched some of that stuff. It was always such a wonderful kind of. tension and one-upsmanship between us which i i loved for michael's attention for power within the office for angela for a couple of seasons but it they i thought they rode that balance so nicely where

We didn't hate each other. Well, no. And it ended up being a really fabulous kind of camaraderie and mutual respect. I think this is part of the miracle of that show, which is that... you and I were playing like essentially quite toxic characters, like, you know, or at least like characters that might maybe had like warm hearts, but some real toxic. and difficult traits and- Antisocial traits maybe. And coping mechanisms and so forth. But you and I had a ball.

doing that and like portraying that and that the joy that we felt and the ways that we made each other laugh and all those scenes where we're like, where dwight and andy are just like at it but we were making just making each other laugh yeah and i think that that whatever that energy was that we really had despite our character's behavior is what an audience knew or felt and at some level yeah and and and the same goes for all of the the

you know, as, as, as toxic or antisocial as Michael Scott was in so many ways. Like he's so beloved because I think the, the true, the, the joy and compassion that we brought to performing those things and us as people being in the same space together and having an energy that we loved and cherished with each other. No matter what these crazy characters are doing, I always think that so much of the lasting appeal of that show.

which has been so surprising. But this is just me looking back, trying to kind of understand it better. I always think it's the joy and the fun and the... just that kind of giddy delight that we all have felt, really felt making those scenes.

And like I said, it didn't matter how toxic the scene was, we were laughing and having fun doing it. I mean, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about like how ballsy was it that here's a show and kind of the three leaders of the office, you know, Steve, you. and me as Dwight, were really kind of despicable, clueless, selfish, antisocial weirdos. And we're kind of like at the center of like running the office. Do you know what I mean? And a lesser show would have had like one office weirdo.

There were a lot of other ancillary weirdos like Creed and whatnot, but that was a bold move to have so many antiheroes. You know what's funny? It wasn't for everybody. My parents did not get it. My parents were of a generation where you don't sit in awkward moments, which is the entire tone of the show. The premise. The entire premise of that shows.

Humor is to sit in discomfort and stew in people's awkwardness and toxicity. And my parents... god bless them southern like you make peace you keep your company comfortable you make them comfortable you have small talk that would fill in any uncomfortable silence and if something gets weird you redirect and you know you become like i feel like a lot of southern grace and southern charm is really just mass uh is like is being a a a magician like a misdirect master you kind of like

Like the minute something's weird or uncomfortable, it's like, look over here. This is pretty. Let's talk about this or let's talk. And so I remember that my parents. Early on, eventually, I think they grew to love it and understand it. But those first few seasons I was on, they were just kind of like, it's hard for us to watch. It's hard to watch. It's hard to watch. Yeah.

My dad used to wear around a Dwight Schrute sweatshirt when the very first merchandising dropped in like season three or something like that. And then people would be like, oh, I love that show. And I'd be like, that's my song. Oh, yeah. He loved it. He couldn't get enough of it. But when fans approach you, I imagine they do. Yeah. and they do cornell heard of it yeah and what else what else do you get approached with nard dog nard dog yeah that's yeah that's the big tuna

People call me Big Tuna, which is ironic because I called Jim Big Tuna. Right, that's not your nickname. They say to me, like, my favorite line is Bears beats Battlestar Galactica, which I never said. Jim says it. Oh, that's so funny. When he's impersonating Dwight. Of course. That's so funny. Can you sign that or can you say it to my friend on the phone? It's like.

i never said that line but that's getting a little persnickety but no of course but that i even i remembered that as a dwight line it's like oh that's so funny yeah but yeah even uh my agent for years called me big tuna and it's like It's like, have you watched the show buddy? Like, uh, but, but, and then that, and that became its own joke, but, um, but yeah, big tuna and probably the Narduk people have shown me.

tattoos that they like nard dog tattoos not on their butt like i like yeah like andy did yeah um but that's always uh one guy asked me recently on my book tour for snafu a guy asked me to sign his arm and he showed me because he was gonna get it tattooed right and he showed me someone else's signature that was tattooed i can't remember who it was yeah another actor he'd had

sign his arm and had had it tattooed that's a lot of pressure i didn't do i was like not doing that i'm not i like because what if you mess you mess up or it's like shaky or yeah and By the way, that other signature did not look good. And I was like, you know what? I'll sign your book. And then you can like Xerox that or Xerox. You can take a picture of it and have your tattoo art. You should have just gone like. That's my real signature.

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In preparation for this interview, I watched your Cornell speech. Oh, wow. Commencement speech from a while back. Yeah. Wisdom is too often just a fancy word for cynicism. And foolishness is a condescending word for joy, wonder, and curiosity. It was so good, man. Thank you. It was so funny, and I loved how you were talking, your thesis. Because I did one of those graduation speeches. Blood alone moves the wheels of history. Wait, no, no, no, no, no.

No, stop. What am I thinking? What am I thinking? That's terrible. I'm quoting from a long canceled television show. It's really hard. Yeah. Because, you know. Everyone's done one. Steve Jobs has done one. Bill Gates. Yeah. Big, big thinkers and PhDs. And it's very hard to find new, new ground, new territory. Yeah. Yeah.

But I thought this, your thesis of like, because you're talking about being cynical, it reminded me your thesis of the talk was like, embrace being the fool, you know, embrace the fool. Yeah, that's right. Be the fool. Be the fool. And you shared these really vulnerable stories from your life about your fuck-ups and being more goofy and striving to be kind of more open. That was about 10 years ago or so.

How, and of course you are a big Cornell hero. Or villain. Or villain, yeah. Because I imagine someone who graduates from Cornell, they hear that all the time. Yeah, they're just like, enough with this. Oh, mighty Bernard. And I rewatched our scenes of Dwight enrolling in Cornell. Are you interviewing Dwight to interview? I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched it on YouTube before this. But I thought that speech was really like.

apt and beautiful and you know i have a son who's in college and just really perfect what's your what's your take on it now 10 years after be a fool uh speech at cornell i haven't thought about that speech in quite a while i'm i'm glad you brought it up i remember preparing for that and watching a ton of commencement speeches and realizing like oh wow these are even the great ones

And you can go on these lists of like the top 100 commencement speeches or whatever. George Saunders has a great one. Yeah, of course. And then David Foster Wallace. Yeah, Infinite Jest guy. Yeah, I was like. Yeah, what's his name again? Yeah, there's so many amazing. Bradley Whitford had a great one. Fucking Whitford. Yeah, right. you realize that they are all i i i sort of got analytical about it and was like okay it's this is every every one of these speeches is some version of carpe diem

That's really all they boil down to. Interesting. Which is like the most valuable message to give to a kid. Means seize the day. Seize the day. Carpe diem. That really is what you should be telling kids coming out of college. Right. Is to like, you know. strive and thrive and like uh and and and get after it uh and so then it was like okay that's really what everybody's saying and some in all these different kinds of ways um

What's my way? And you're funny and you're a clown and a comedian as well as a satirist. Yeah. So you want to bring, you don't want to go in and be like all hyper serious. Right. You know, they want Ed Helms. What's your spin on that story? Yeah. And so, and then it was like, well, to seize the day, in my view, is to. is to be vulnerable and to be like, to get after it is to not be afraid of failing. And then I started, I just started kind of was riffing on those.

that idea and it just crystallized like, oh, that's just being a fool, like not being afraid to be a fool in a social setting, in an emotional setting, in a professional setting. And fool.

obviously is a sort of a goofy term but it really just means like don't be afraid to uh to fall on your face to fuck up and mistakes which is so hard yeah it's it's like the most inhibiting thing in life is that fear of like falling especially to teenagers and young adults and i'm telling you in these days because i've interacted with quite a few

young adults with my kid and you know other talks and stuff i've given at college campuses like the idea of like because now everyone has phones So any failure, you talked about shooting that music video. You convinced your friend with his band to shoot the music video. And you were like, I got it. This is going to be great. I'm going to take care of it. And you were a- budding filmmaker and you just fucked it up and the video was terrible and

But nowadays, everyone at that music video shoot would have been documenting your failure and posting it or streaming it at the same time. So can you imagine Amplified by a thousand? you know, your failure of shooting that particular music video so that the stakes are so high and the, the fear of putting oneself out and being laughed at, mocked, having it posted is, is.

is just sheer terror to so many kids in their 20s these days uh that makes a lot of sense and it's very tragic yeah i i was talking to a a friend who's a college professor in uh in in on the east coast and and he was saying the exact same thing that that part of his what what he's constantly trying to impart to his students is is to to like take chances because there there is this kind of like i don't know

collective apprehension, apprehension and, and social media, like, is there anything good? Is there any positive thing from social media? I like you can, there was that initial, like. wave of like, oh, it's connecting disparate people and who might need community and can't find it where they are. Sure. But I feel like even that has tipped over. Like it's not offering.

it's now not offering like wholesome connection for anybody i think it provides great uh distraction when you're pooping because the other day i had to poop and i didn't have my phone and i was like remembering like the nineties. It's like, I used to poop without a phone. Maybe a magazine. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe a magazine. Oh my God. You're so right. But it's like, I can't.

Poop without a phone. I mean, I can play chess on chess.com, make my next move, or watch a couple Instagram reels or YouTube reels. If we could relegate social media to... pooping only i think we might have hope as a society yeah but uh but now that it's like taken over and and kids are getting their news from it sure yeah so

I was passing around this article. I'll send it to you by this guy, Ted Gaioya, or however you say his name, the honest broker. And he has this incredible chart, which is a giant fish called addiction. because these algorithms are so addictive, right? And it's going like this, chomping and getting a fish called distraction. And then that fish is chomping on a smaller fish called entertainment.

And that fish is chomping on the tiniest little fish called art. And I love that idea that, you know, addiction, which is addictive algorithms that just keep you. I can't even have most of these apps on my phone because I'll just look at, I'll waste hours a day just scrolling through them, thumbing through them. Or stay up, lose sleep. You'll lose sleep. Yeah. But addiction.

subsuming distraction, which is different than entertainment. It's just distract like 15 second videos, 30 second videos are just distraction. Yeah. And my son will show me the phone all the time. Look, and it's like a dog throwing up and then it's a guy singing.

in a ukulele and falling over. And then it's, you know, a boat accident. And then it's, it's, it's just distraction. It's barely even entertainment. Yeah. And then, you know, you've got like Mission Impossible entertainment, you know, in the, in the movie theater. And then.

art like a little bit of art out there and it's it's a scary time to live in because there's always been distraction and entertainment kind of battling art um i think the office kind of wrestled between like entertainment and art and fortunately we a lot of times we were able to lean toward the art side of entertainment which i'm so grateful for

But scary times to live in when you add that addictive element. Yeah. I don't know if you know Tristan Harris. Do you know who that is? No. Oh, wow. He's a really remarkable kind of thought leader in the... he's he's one of the founders of um the center for humane technology which was early on. Was he the social dilemma? Yes. Yeah. He's the, I think the force behind it. The main guy. And the main guy in it. Yeah. And he, he, so, so yes, the social dilemma.

obviously talks a lot about the um how we are so powerless against the these algorithms because they're so well they're so powerful and they're so advanced and our brains are so primal and they've become it's just an unfair fight is the way he puts it it's like we are pretty helpless uh up against these things because they they're They're capitalizing on brain functions that we don't control and that we're not even oftentimes aware of. He's also now.

the center for humane technology is focusing a lot now on ai and some of the dangers and potentials and uh and hopes of now there's now the movie her has completely Oh, yeah. And people are dating AI avatars that are having like virtual sex with them on their computer chats. And I was reading an article about one of the AI platforms.

monetized. It used to kind of be free. And then if you wanted to do like sex chat with your virtual boyfriend, girlfriend avatar, you had to pay. And a lot of people like couldn't afford to pay and people were like getting suicidal. because their AI boyfriend and girlfriend was no longer available to have sex with them. Wow. And I'm laughing. 10% I'm laughing and 90% I'm heartbroken. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, look, relationships are. with fellow humans are messy and and they're not 100 uh fun

And sometimes you have to be a fool to be in one and make big mistakes. But if there's some algorithm that has figured you out, that's... And everything that they say is the perfect thing for the perfect moment. That is going to work on your brain in ways that you don't control. And it's going to release endorphins. and feelings of love. And I feel like...

we're all susceptible to these things if we're not careful. Absolutely. And it should be said too, that young people have way more endorphins in their brain. They have way more dopamine. And so, you know, when these algorithms work. Whatever we're feeling, whatever kind of addictive hit we get from our phones and from social media is times 10 with someone who's 20 years old. Yeah. Oh, boy. You know what? This got dark fast. Maybe it's good.

Maybe it's like, maybe it's awesome. Maybe we should just like lean in, right? Sheryl Sandberg. Tune out. Like lean into the technology.

I don't know. So many things have to be reinvented. Like history. There's a transition for you. Ed, it's been such a pleasure to get to know your wondrous and funny and... illuminating and absolutely insane book snafu and history's greatest screw-ups. And what do you have, like 50 stories in here of- 34. 34 stories of historical screw-ups that you cannot-

For a second, believe. And you have a number one podcast by the same name. And I was just thinking as I was preparing to talk to you today about like, oh, add to Ed Helms. glowing resume historian, because here's how I experience you, okay? Like, you're super smart. You go to Oberlin. This is like getting to know you during the office. And then I'm like, how did you get started? It's like I was an editor.

It's like, okay, so he can edit as well. And then it's like, then I did standup for years. So you're like literally a standup comic. Like you could walk into like a, you know, the comedy cellar and do 11 minutes of jokes. Not. Right now, but seven and a half, three, I don't know. Yeah, but in the day. Yeah. And then obviously you were on The Daily Show. You're an amazing actor. Your range is incredible, not just comedy. I've seen you do.

stuff that's really dramatic and beautiful poignant as well and then like you're the biggest like banjo shredder of all times and i need you to not be like falsely modest like you're crazy on the banjo i mean it's not like oh here's an actor who you know picked up the banjo and can play a few licks like you're you're jamming with the what is it the bluegrass situation um

And all of these artists that come in that you, that you, uh, the lonesome trio and all the artists you play with, you sing like an angel and like you write now you're a historian. Like, and I remember you on the office, like. You were always building the little models. What were you building? Like Star Wars? Oh yeah. Models? That's so funny. So many things you've forgotten. Yeah. You're not so good at memory. That is true.

That is a, that's, you're kind of like, it's funny, you're sort of describing my ADHD right now in a very real way. Like this is like my attention. and focus jumps around so much. This is something for real for you? Totally for real. Something you've therapized about and studied and pondered? Is this a more recent diagnosis?

it's been a it was a sort of gradual realization that i was uh a candidate for for for this and then i went it was like and there i just was i think having kids and like getting um really starting to juggle uh like when you start out in show business it's so uh selfish really it's like a career it's like a selfish career it's like you really are like just kind of chasing the things that

this dream that you have. And it's- And it's all about you. It's very self-involved. You want to be self center stage. Yeah. And as life transitioned, and it's sort of a singular focus.

and as life transitioned um uh into having like an extremely beautiful and serious relationship and that turns into a family I found myself like really struggling with just grappling with a kind of the sort of spread of responsibilities in a way that was... that i that i was observing is different from other people and was like okay this is this is interesting like what can i uh i started reading more about

possibilities and ADHD emerged. And it was a little bit of a. a buzzword for a while so i kind of was like not taking it seriously like everybody's got age everybody says they have adhd everyone in hollywood's got adhd of course yeah and um but it really what started to click i read a book called driven to distraction which is kind of the the original uh kind of academic text on on adhd or add as it was called at the time and uh

and i just i wept reading that book wow it was like oh my god this this feels real like this feels kind of like this is

cutting deep what was real about it how does it manifest for you it was sort of enumerating the typical struggles of a person with adhd and these are the things that uh that i think we are taught to have shame about because there it's a lot of executive functioning things. It's a lot of like staying organized, saying.

like a lot of just basic life functions that are very natural and i think taken for granted by so many people but uh but i found myself really struggling with and uh and you know long-term planning is extremely anxiety inducing for me i'm so good in the 11th hour like i can i can really execute at a high level in a panicky mode and that is like classic adhd like because the act of like if i need to plan something two or three months out

And you sit down with me and they're like, okay, so what are the steps we need to take to get there in three months? Let's set like weekly kind of goals and deadlines to get to this thing. I'm like, what are you talking about? I don't even know where to start. Like that freaks me out. That completely freaks me out. I will punt and punt and punt until I get to a week before. And then I'm like.

in panic mode, but I get psyched and I get focused. Is it like a hyper-focus thing that sets in? Yes. Yeah, when you're like, you know you have to do it. Deadlines? Yes. You're good with deadlines? Yeah. Well, no, I mean, I'm.

and last minute deadlines last night yeah but then i have to push everything else aside and i can't like deal with uh life things like important things meaning like whatever um these are very hard things on a relationship they're very hard things on a uh on on work you know yeah structures and um

And so this is also what I'm reading about and just kind of like, oh, there are other people that act this way. Or it also just kind of gave me a framework to see it, to see some of that behavior as like. oh, this isn't just me being lazy or me being like procrastinating. Like these are. uh maybe there's a little bit of a different framework i can look at this under and that's why i wept because it was like a uh it was an opening to a a sort of a self-love that

in an area of myself that I just felt so much shame and anger about, about my own kind of patterns and behaviors. And suddenly it was like, oh, here's a way that I can. a framework through which i can actually see this uh in a positive way or or just in a compassionate way towards myself that led to a full neuropsychiatric evaluation which was very intense like a couple of days and uh and they were like yes this is a thing that you have

You got a sticker certificate. I got the diploma. Yeah, the very dubious diploma. And I kind of knew it in my gut that that would be the takeaway.

and uh it was so in some ways it was gratifying in some ways it was sort of like oh okay good this is right like i can now diagnosis that helped you see clearly what was going on helped coalesce all these kind of different uh struggles and confusions and and fears and angers throughout my uh life um but it also confirmed that i have work to do and that was a scary thing and so i'm in that process and this was only this was only a couple years ago that i went through

like then i actually got the neuropsych evaluation that says probably about a decade of like ramping into clarity and then i was like i have to you have to do something i have to do something here I just want to give a big thank you and a gigantic shout out to one of our sponsors.

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Fetzer. Visit them at fetzer.org. You know, it's interesting because if you read the work of or listen to interviews with Dr. Gabor Mate, who is amazing, and he wrote another book about ADHD. called Scattered Minds that was also life-changing for me. He is such a beautiful thinker in that.

in not just adhd but in child rearing yeah and uh addiction and just but it's so he just comes from such a deep a place of deep compassion yeah and i find his his work and his words so stirring and moving but did you find a connection and we don't have to unpack your childhood or anything but he talks a lot about how stuff like procrastination and even depression and ADHD.

anxiety have their roots in childhood trauma and childhood wiring. It is a brain chemistry issue, but it's also greatly influenced by trauma. Yeah, for sure. yeah that was a that was another it definitely kind of uh reframed or gave another perspective on on some of the the harder aspects of my childhood that, and then, yeah, another lens to kind of look at. And again, another opening for self-compassion because that's what I think is.

was such a struggle and such a an unfortunate legacy of some of the hard things in my childhood that was like uh a struggle for self-love right and i think a lot of people in show business honestly share that with show yeah love yeah yes i mean it can be a show business can just be a very tragic like pursuit of external love to fill that void sure but um there but i think uh uh it's been you know a long journey uh in trying to just confront a lot of things with

And it took a long time. I even started therapy in my late 20s, but it took a long time to get to a place where that therapy became really about self-compassion, which I think is one of the most important. things for us to learn. I think it's the most important thing to learn through the therapeutic process, 100%. And I used to be, I was raised in the South.

and therapy is for psychos like it's not no one goes to therapy yeah it's for people with like serious problems yeah or whatever and and newsflash like most of us have serious problems like that's the thing but in the south like we repress those or we just don't talk about them and if you do talk about them you're weak or whatever like it just i mean i just feel like there's so much

cultural uh kind of uh resistance to therapy depending on where you're from or what context kind of and i certainly grew up in that context and it wasn't it wasn't overt it wasn't like uh don't you dare go to therapy you weak psycho it was more just kind of a a general like yeah a sort of judgment a little judgment and and a little bit of um stink to it you know yeah yeah i just remember so vividly in my 20s going through a really hard moment i got went through a breakup and i was um

was struggling professionally i had gotten on the daily show which was incredibly exciting but i was like really uh it it was i was kind of in this dip and um there was it was such a constellation of scary and un like unsettling and unfamiliar feelings and anxieties and i i remember my roommates brother was hanging out with us one day and he's like he was in grad school at columbia and he was like um yeah i just got back from therapy and i was like

what are you in therapy for? Because again, like my whole, my whole framework. You're not crazy. Yeah. I was like, you're not psycho. You don't need to be institutionalized. He was like, and he goes, he was like, yeah. Oh, I just went to, I just got back from therapy. Like, what are you in therapy for? And he goes, well.

well, to just like get learned about myself. And I'm like, okay, wait, what are you, what, what are you talking about? And he goes, well, my student health plan at Columbia offers therapy. So I was like, why wouldn't i do it yeah and i'm like what what what kind of you you mean you just like are going to therapy like for no specific reason yeah like not because you like are

psycho or you know what and he's like no no i just like if it's free like why wouldn't i do this and it was like this whole perspective on therapy that i'd never heard and never even thought of that it's like this beneficial thing that you can just do and and you don't have to go in with some giant piece of baggage you can just kind of go in with curiosity and i was like blown away

because i really like this guy and i was like that's such a cool cool way to approach this thing wow and that was my first bridge into therapy i went i started going to a therapist and Yeah, and I benefited massively, so massive, like transformatively. Wow. And I still am, I'm sort of in and out over the last, you know. 15 years, but I just think it's just that humility, the humility to walk in with curiosity about yourself and to know that you don't know it all about yourself.

I think you're willing to learn. Yeah. I think I was raised with this sort of idea, a little bit of a macho thing of like, you are what you are. You know, you like you get, I get me like what, what else is there? Like, I have my thoughts. I think this. I feel this. I know how I'm going to react to that. I know how I operate. We don't know shit. We have our reactions to things are so primal. And they're so.

Like you mentioned, they're so rooted in these childhood traumas. And sometimes there are a lot of traumas that people go through that are not, they're not even aware that they're traumas.

you know depending on your family dynamic depending on uh on the way that um you know like let's say the great santini is a great movie uh and that the father figure robert duvall is unbelievably abusive like he's emotionally abusive i grew up in uh again in a sort of like i think fairly typical southern macho tradition of like that's just a tough dad like right that's just a tough dad run of the mill tough like yeah and and like love and he's but but he's good that's a good that's that's like a

He made him a damn good basketball player. Yeah, right. And like those kids in that movie are traumatized. Yeah. I think it's very empowering to realize like that we don't understand ourselves as well as we think. yeah and the humility that it takes to sort of start to chase that down is really beautiful and um weirdly kind of fun i mean it's scary and painful in so many ways depending on how aggressively you go after it but it's also uh it's

Yeah. It's hopeful. It's like so full of hope. I always, I always boil it down also to a time thing. Now there is a cost issue and some people are struggling to make the rent and they don't have the ability to pay an extra a hundred, 200, 300 bucks. a session or whatever. So there is that. But if you have the means, the idea that you're, you know, how much time do you spend a week working out? How much time do you spend cooking? How much time do you spend?

on hobbies or watching TV or looking and thumbing through your phone. Like, can you spend 50 minutes out of this week of seven days of 24 hours each to just. take some time to kind of look at your behavior patterns and your emotional state. Yeah. And it's funny, the author, Jonathan Haidt, talks about the rider and the elephant.

And this concept is very popular in positive psychology, and it has to do with we think we're very logical beings. Like when confronted, we think that we're always making reasonable, calculated, logical decisions. but it's the elephant that's making the decisions for us, which is our... our trauma, it's the force of our emotions. It's our reactivity and our defensiveness and our fears. And we're so often living our lives being guided. Yeah.

Irrational forces. Yeah, yeah. It's also, it evokes the work of Daniel Kahneman. Do you know the behavioral economist? I've heard of him, but I haven't read him. Wrote an incredible book, Thinking Fast and Slow, which is a- very dense read but worth it it's so eye-opening it's all it's everything you're saying about how like

what guides our choices can be so primal or rooted in things so far outside of our logical minds. And what's really wild too is when you think about how traditional economists evaluate. you know, society and evaluate commerce. And it's all based on rational decision-making, right? And so economics as a sort of- was traditional economics as a study, capitalism, all these things like are rooted in the assumption that people behave rationally and that people behave based on rational incentives.

But Daniel Kahneman's work shows us, and the work of a lot of his peers, we are so much messier than that. Right. And so many of the economic theories. um and behavioral theories yeah uh like you want you want a salsa from the grocery store and

Economists say we're going to buy the cheapest one with the best quality, but then people go in and buy the one with the funniest label or something they loved when they were a child. Totally. There's emotional impulses in the consumer marketplace everywhere you turn. Exactly. And there's so many things like that that are so surprising to learn about the way we make choices. Yeah. I told this story before, but it's so funny.

I had an interview with Pete Holmes, and he was talking about this incredible guy, Rupert Spira, who's a non-dualist spiritual kind of meditation thinker. And I was talking to my wife. I was like, oh, my God, I'm listening to this Rupert Spira. It's incredible. And this guy, and we're all one, and his meditations are incredible. And I was driving down the 101, and someone cut me off. I was like.

God damn it, where the fuck did you learn to drive? Jesus, you should see this person. And my wife's like, Maybe you should go back to the podcast. I didn't even realize it. I didn't even realize it. It wasn't even like a joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great.

But let's go back to the ADHD thing. And thanks for kind of outing yourself and talking about your struggles. I think a lot of people will relate. And I've seen a lot of things online recently about... procrastination there's various apps and things that you can help and that's and that's connected to ADHD procrastination and it's connected to trauma. And I think a lot of people feel a lot of shame about procrastination. I've certainly dealt with this at various points in my life, but it's.

whatever that resistance is, whatever that block is keeping you from doing something probably has some kind of... emotional or traumatic underpinning as well as a neurochemical one. What have you found effective for your ADHD? I mean, medication or apps or to-do lists or how do you talk to... to your wife sarah about it or um have you found tools uh that have been helpful i wish i could just spell out a road map that people could kind of like latch on to

It still feels very hard and confusing. What the diagnosis has given me is a compass. to kind of navigate through through the wilderness but i'm still in the wilderness honestly and i am actually very sadly very cynical about so much of the adhd um kind of products that are out there whether they're apps or journals or whatever just because i i look i read them and i'm like this is appealing to all of what This is like appealing to my ADHD like impulse to fix.

or like my impulsivity is like oh this is the thing and i think and and one of the things i've always struggled with is like chasing it's like this idea that if i if i just do that it'll fix everything if i just buy that if i just have this little thing and i feel like so many adhd products and apps and things that show up in my reels and whatever are just preying on that impulse control that ADHD people suffer from. And so...

Or a lot of people, honestly, a lot of people. You can picture someone with ADHD like ordering every app and book. Absolutely. And subscribing to five different things for $8.99 a month. And like just. There's a wonderful publication called Attitude. that is with spelled with two d's for add and um and that has been a wonderful resource it just in just kind of i think what is this thing of which you describe magazine publication i think i said

Did I say magazine? I don't know. They're not even listening. What is this thing of which you speak? Publication. Oh, boy. We're gone. It's helped me feel part of a larger human experience. And that I think is also helpful. And it does have resources in it. I'm still... you know, I do have a therapist and we do talk about, we do talk about very practical things. I think to-do lists.

do help me a lot and i find them kind of mandatory to keep and to have but the problem is i don't i'll make to-do lists i'll do the download but then i won't look at the to-do list because i'm like chasing um all these rabbits and i'm like i'll look at it in a second and my brain is just like doing parkour of of like all the distractions around me or just

all the things like i'm gonna go i'm gonna practice my banjo i'm gonna learn this i'm just gonna learn this banjo song real quick and then like 90 minutes later yeah i'm like ah i gotta sit down and work and it's just it's such a um It's like a picture of very elaborate flow chart of like with like a million different like.

avenues and branches and roots and tangles. It's like one of those FBI shows when they have the board with all the lines and the photos. A serial killer. And what you're saying is that I'm a psycho. And I think you're right. Yeah, they're tracking. serial killer there's yarn connecting like disparate ideas and things and that's that is often how it feels and it can be like a trap it's like a spider web but what what the benefits are you know this whole conversation started because you're

so damn good at so many things. Plus. We left out fly fishing and like making flies, right? Didn't you used to do that? Well, I do fly fish, but I haven't. I saw you with those little, I think you were fixing some flies or something like that. Where was that? On the set. You had flies. I think, yeah, I do. I fly fish and I love, I do love to fly fish. We, we spend our summers in Idaho where my wife is from.

I haven't gone down the rabbit hole of fly tying. Okay, yeah. I mean, I've dabbled, but- Maybe I saw you dabbling. But that is- a dangerous road for me to go down. Oh, because we were talking about, this all started because we were talking about what I was fidgeting with at my desk.

during office production. Yeah, you were painting like Star Wars little figurines you were making out of like matchbooks and like construction paper. Yeah, so office supplies. I would make little X-Wing fighters out of... binder clips and erasers and all these it's just like sitting there we'd be shooting scenes but like you know we were in the background sure a thousand scenes yeah where you don't do anything i was playing online chess as yeah which is probably better for your

brain, but I have a whole- Did you keep any of those? Tell me you did. No. I didn't keep them, but I do have good photographs of them because our set photographer, whose name is escaping me, or is it- Chris Heston? A production, not Chris. Okay. A production designer. Michael Gallenberg? Yes, Michael came in one day and was like, I gotta...

I gotta get pictures of these. And he took a whole bunch of pictures and I have those. Oh, nice. So they're cool. Maybe someone can recreate them for you. I should post them on the next May 4th. There you go. But this is what we're talking about. Yes, there are, you know, listen, I've talked a lot about my mental health struggles and depression and anxiety and addiction and all kinds of things. But at the same time, I'm kind of blessed because those. those demons kind of drove me to kind of.

get shit done and, and move forward and create and, you know, not just be content with being still and your wide ranging skillset is. is pretty uh is pretty astonishing that's very nice to say and i uh i i do i i do wonder if like i have chased a lot of hobbies over the years and And thankfully, a few have really stuck. And I think it is a combination of that ADHD sort of scatter approach to so many things. Well, I don't know. And like hyper focus.

Yeah. At times. When you need to hyper focus. Well, let's turn the page a little bit. I said at the beginning how much I've been loving your book and podcast and audio book of Snafu. What is Snafu? mean or stand for uh for the uninitiated it's from it's from world war ii soldiers uh you know the the military loves an acronym sure and this acronym stands for situation normal all fucked up

Okay. So it's just kind of like, it's come to mean in sort of the modern lexicon to just be a terrible situation or a disaster. And I think it can apply to. everything from dropping a carton of eggs on the kitchen floor to massive world catastrophes. It's just sort of nice. general use word. Yeah.

How did you get started? Because the whole first conversation started with like, you're good at all of these various things and now add to that historian, which I had no idea. I mean, I'm sure you have researchers helping you aplenty, but. Have you always been kind of a closet historian? Well, I vaguely remember you reading books about the Civil War back in the day. Sure. Was that one of your interests? Yeah. But how did this, how did the whole snafu universe...

uh, come to you or you come to it. So again, and this, this is something that's come into focus recently, but as a kid, I would, um, I just love chasing down. going down weird curiosity rabbit holes so which i think is is a an add thing like but i would i would just sit on the living room floor with our world book encyclopedia books and just thumb through them and read random

things about the world. Did you have world book encyclopedias or Encyclopedia Britannica or any of that? Britannica, yeah. Took up a giant shelf. Huge bookshelf. Now it's called Wikipedia. Or Google. But I had my assistant print out Wikipedia. oh really yeah and it's in three warehouses oh down in the no i'm just kidding uh but uh yeah so that was that's that

And then also we had a couple of bookshelves full of National Geographics. And so I just always loved these little episodes of history or artifacts of time. uh and and just learning about random things i don't know why i just it's fun it's like a good little brain exercise And they're fun to talk about. They're fun to bring up later. They're great conversation points. And sometimes they're instructive. Like sometimes you learn something about human behavior or about sort of like.

how some some cultural phenomenon and you're like oh wow i never knew it came from that uh and so cut to 40 years later Podcasting is blowing up. Case in point. Hey. You're crushing it. Welcome. Wilson, you're crushing it. And I start wondering, do I fit into this? podcast space somehow like should i do one of those interview shows and i was like i don't know uh

One of those dumb interview shows where a washed up TV actor gets his old TV friends on to talk about their mental health struggles. Rain, those shows are literally the worst. The worst? They're the worst. How does any- watch this shit dumb joke i have a huge soul boom fan by the way across the board you're very kind we're now three seasons in on the podcast and the podcast is different from the book because it's

Very deep. Deep dive. It's like a deep dive. The entire season is one thing. Right. And it's heavily researched, highly produced. It's a very immersive listening experience. It's great for road trips. Yeah. i i'm so so proud of it like it has been it's been a preposterous amount of work. I did not expect it to be this much work, but I'm so proud of it. And I've learned so much doing it. I've learned so much about myself. I've learned so much about these particular stories.

Uh, and I love it. And then the book just became this like obvious natural spinoff. Um, and it also became an opportunity to do so many more snafus. Unlike the podcast, which is deep dives, the book is more just kind of episodic. Each chapter is like a new story. I can't believe that these things happened. I mean, I just, I just.

It has just absolutely blown my mind, some of these stories. Like, tell us the Jimmy Carter story, which is kind of like the craziest making of an American president in a trial by fire you've ever heard. And nobody knows this story. Nobody knows it.

Yeah. I'm pretty well read and I'm a huge Carter fan. I had no idea. Yeah. He kind of saved the world. I love this story because. No one knows it. And because I'm a giant Jimmy Carter fan, I grew up in a Southern Democrat household in Georgia. Jimmy Carter was a hero to our family. And unfortunately, he sort of has like kind of a wimpy reputation. He was a badass. This story like proves what a badass he was.

So it's the 1950s. There's a, like nuclear reactors are brand new. This one, they've built one in Chalk River. deep river ontario it's called the chalk river reactor and uh it's there's a terrible accident which is its own kind of homer simpson little It really did feel like it was such a- Someone dropped the donut in the reactor core. Literally, it's like that silly, but basically a meltdown starts. It's the first nuclear meltdown in human history. Yeah. Thanks, Canada. Yeah.

They don't know what to do. I mean, they know what to do, but there's just, it's so overwhelming and so intense. They call the U S military. They're like, can you help us with this? Uh, and, and the U S is like well we have this young guy who works on our nuclear subs and he's uh really brilliant and we'll send him up there he brings a team of people and uh that's a 25 year old

or 28-year-old Jimmy Carter. And he gets there. It's melting down. The core of this reactor is already so radioactive and so dangerous that... that the workers can only be exposed to it for 90 seconds at a time, but they have to dismantle the thing. So they build a replica of it on a tennis court nearby and they start rehearsing.

this process to dismantle this reactor core. It's like a scene from Mission Impossible. Totally. We have to rehearse dismantling this bomb. And they rehearse it and they... They start sending teams in one at a time, like a NASCAR pit crew, just like getting, you know, just starting to dismantle the thing. Every 90 seconds they come out, they send in a new crew and the whole time they're replicating what they're doing on the.

the one that they've built so that they can keep track of it. Eventually, Carter is one of the last people in there. They get this thing dismantled and they save the reactor from a total meltdown. It's a partial meltdown. but it could have been so much worse, like Chernobyl bad. Yeah. And it just took incredible guts. It took incredible, you know.

intellect in the face of disaster. Can you imagine trying to like put a coherent plan together with under that much pressure? No. It's utterly terrifying. With the possibility of like. human and environmental destruction right around the corner. It's crazy. And win-win, he lived to be like 123, so maybe a little nuclear exposure is good for us at the end. I think that's the lesson.

Ed Helms, it's so good seeing you in person. This book and podcast, Snafu, is wonderful. Great to catch up. and reminisce and get to know you a little bit better. Thanks for coming on Soul Boom. Amen, Rain. So great to hang out. And one thing we ask every guest on the show is their definition of the word soul. How would you define it? It's a tough one. Well, there's like two contexts where I think souls are, I think of the soul in two separate contexts. One would be sort of one's own.

sense of self and how kind of the deepest the deepest place in which we understand ourselves That's like our own sense of a soul. The other context is the more kind of eternal... view of of an energy that's present in everyone that may or may not come and go with life um Something like that. That's pretty good. It's pretty damn good. I got a two-in-one soul definition. There you go. I love it. Two for one. Thanks, Ed. Amen.

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