From the literally the minute we come into this world, I mean even though we're not quite aware of it when we're that young, but you know, we're we're looking for cues from our parents, we're looking for cues from our friends, our family, our our school, our society. Who am I?
Do I have worth in this world?
And unfortunately, I think uh most people's parents are not qualified to be able to even help them truly understand a lot of these concepts because they were never taught. Hello everyone.
Thank you so much for coming back to On Purpose, the number one podcast in the world.
I'm so grateful for each and every one of you for taking out time out of your days and nights, whenever you listen, to learn, to grow, to thrive, to choose to educate, enlighten, and enliven yourselves.
And you know that I'm always trying to get guests that I think are coming from a really authentic place, and today's guest is exactly that.
I'm so excited to introduce you to our next guest who's an American actor and singer.
You may know him from Chuck, The Marvelous Mrs.
Maisel, and most recently, he actually plays Shazam in DC's new movie, Shazam. So, I'm so excited.
Zachary Levi, thank you so much for being here.
Uh honored to be here, man.
Thank you so much for having me. Jay Shetty, everyone. Jay Shetty.
Oh god, that is that's so good. it at at nights a lot.
You You were doing accents earlier, too, and I was thinking, wow, this this is really good. doing accents? You were. What was I doing?
You're doing the Italian. Oh, Italian. That's right. That's right.
You always have to do it with the hands, though.
Otherwise, you're not really doing it Yeah, you've got it down.
But no, I'm genuinely, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I'm genuinely so grateful that you're here. Um me, too, man.
When my team and I were looking through your work, your words, your insights, the types of things that you choose to speak about, whether you're on interviews or social media, I feel so aligned and connected to them. Thanks, man.
And I was like, one thing I love about this podcast and the reason why we do it is I want to go beyond the actor, beyond the singer, Yeah.
beyond what someone does day-to-day. being. Into the human being.
Like you said, the first thing you said, Zachary Levi, the human being. Human being, yeah. Yeah, thank you, Zac.
I really appreciate you being here. Happy to be here.
But yeah, so I I want to start because what I love is that I feel like the world's just getting to learn about you even more and more and more and more right now.
And that's very exciting. Yeah.
Uh yeah, I mean so you know, I've been I've been blessed enough to be kicking around this town or this business rather for about 20 years. I mean, almost exactly.
I started auditioning um for film and television when I was when I was 18.
It was April of of 1999 and now it's April of 2019 and it's been a crazy 20 years.
I mean, this this town uh can be incredibly uh uh exciting.
It can also be incredibly dark.
Uh a very difficult place to try and find yourself, particularly when you don't know that you're trying to find yourself uh as I've come to find out.
Um and uh so to be here now and you know, uh I I mean, I've always had a really blessed career in that I started working pretty much right away when I was about 18. I started booking gigs.
Um and I've been able to build, you know, some some bit of uh I don't know a a a social awareness or people um I I've been living in the public eye to some extent.
to some extent. But this is a whole 'nother level of of what that is and um and I I I'll say, man, I I I I think the timing of all of it and we can get, you know, into more details of it, obviously, but it's one of the things I talk about so much on my social media is mental health and um loving oneself and you know, self-love, self-care uh and those are things I didn't really quite understand until I
didn't want to live anymore a few years ago and then went and did a super deep dive into therapy and uh you know had a ton of work that I was doing with psychiatrist and psychotherapist dialectic behavioral therapy art therapy meditation therapy life coaching like going to the gym meditation and and and prayer and my friends and family loving me through all of that and really just saving my own life. And on the heels of that I got
And on the heels of that I got this job.
And that is no coincidence as far as I'm concerned.
far as I'm concerned. I think that I the time as a deeply spiritual person who believes in a creator I believe that this was all waiting to happen perhaps as things time out in the way that they do I think that they do in in very big ways um
and and meaningful ways and I think that uh the the timing of me being able to now have this platform is directly tied to to the work that I went and did on my life so that I can now talk about that work and talk about the importance of it and it's awesome man. I'm
I'm I'm really grateful that not only that I have this incredible new job and that it's you know changing my life on a daily basis.
I mean I still walk around and you know most people don't know the heck I am that's that's totally most of the time I I I've lived in a reasonable anonymity most of my career which has been quite an amazing blessing you know because I don't know what it's like to be Brad Pitt.
I don't know what it's like to be Tom Cruise.
I don't know what it's like to not be able to go anywhere without people mobbing you or whatever or if people do I don't maybe I don't know maybe Tom Cruise walks around and people don't mob him either I have no idea.
Maybe you know with the right set of sunglasses and a hat you're good but um but I do I've always believed that you be grateful for what you have when you have it.
I appreciated that anonymity if I lose some of that moving into this next phase of my life then so be it.
I'm happy for the trade-off to be able to now have a more of a platform to be able to speak love into the world because I think I do believe that God created me to do what I'm doing, to be an entertainer.
I think I have a specific skill set and I've always had this skill set even since I was a little kid.
I was very good at entertaining people and and could keep growing at it and figuring it out in ways that I couldn't grow and figure out other things in my life.
Still trying to figure out how to be a better basketball player.
But but to be able to to believe that I was created to do that is one thing, but after having gone through all the therapy and the life-saving stuff that I've done and learned and the self-love that I've learned, um I really believe more than that.
I think God created me to hopefully just be really has created all of us to be conduits of love, conduits of life, conduits of light.
And if we can get through our own traumas and our own pain and our own injuries and find healing in that, then it allows us to be even stronger, more uh um efficacious uh conduits.
And so, yeah, I I I don't know. It's it's all very cool.
I just I I daily I just daily feel like a deep deep deep deep gratitude.
Like to the point where I I just start crying sometimes, you know?
And it's a cra It's incredible to go from a place where I felt such deep despair and I was crying from despair to now feeling like I just get I just tear up feeling nothing but like the deepest of peace and joy and gra- I mean, even now, even just talking about it, I just get overwhelmed.
I'm like, I can't believe that this is my life right now. It's so cool. That's awesome, man. That's beautiful.
We're 3 minutes in and Zachary Levi is already talking about self-love, uh mental health, going deep in life, talking about humanity. I love that.
And I'm so glad that we've started there.
Like this is really like usually usually I'm like okay like we're like crescendo like we're moving through and like here we go with Zach and it's like with 3 minutes in and you're already saying everything that I know everyone who's listening right now will will absolutely fall in love with you because that's that's what this is about like this whole community is about that.
Now I want to everything what's beautiful about what you've just done for us is you've kind of laid out all the things I want to dive into today.
So so I love that because everyone's got to feel for who you are now already.
feel for who you are now already. And and I want you to be able to tell that story in depth because I'm guessing and I love what you said there that when you were crying out of despair and now you're crying out of gratitude those two
different I'm also guessing that because of your faith and and I don't want to put words in your mouth but I also guess that because of your faith because of your search for meaning in your own life that even those tears how far were they from helplessness versus how far were they hopeful? Like
Like where were you in that space when you were really in that middle how how much were they helpless but how much were they full of hope?
Um you know I don't know.
I mean to be honest most of my life I've been a pretty optimistic and hopeful person but there's been there have been seasons excuse me there have been seasons of life that have just destroyed me and and and sometimes I wasn't even aware that they were destroying me.
In fact I think a lot of the times we're not really aware of the destruction that's going on and a lot of that we play a big part in you know I think I think a lot of the destruction that we feel in our life is self-motivated is self-destructive.
We don't know that we're doing that we're we're we're trying to feel like we belong with that we have worth.
I think from the literally the minute we come into this world I mean even though we're not quite aware of it when we're that young but you know we're we're looking for cues from our parents we're looking for cues from our friends, our family, our our school, our society. Who am I?
Do I have worth in this world?
And unfortunately, I think uh most people's parents are not qualified to be able to even help them truly understand a lot of these concepts because they were never taught, which then makes all mental health, as far as I'm concerned, a completely generational thing.
It's just handed down year after year after year.
So, my I think that I was given a strong enough will and spirit and ego, if you will, uh talking about like Sapiens and all that, you know, like the ego that we build, which is our survival mechanism, you know, and we get banged around and it's denting us and it's forming this thing, but, you know, um I I survived and I survived pretty well and I found entertainment as a way of survival.
I found love through entertainment.
If I could make somebody laugh, uh and I could get those applauses, I found I was like, "Oh, there's my purpose.
I have value now because I can make this person applaud or give them a good time or whatever."
But, you know, when the applause dies down, it becomes a very lonely life.
Uh and then you try to fill that loneliness with all manner of things.
So, I think for a long time, though I was optimistic and though my faith, um which is kind of rooted mainly in Christianity, although I would say my Christianity feels much more Buddhist than Baptist, um I I think that I always I always had faith, a deep a deep faith, um and therefore a deep hope with that faith.
But, under all of that even, or let's say above all of that, I don't know I'm not I don't know which current was, you know, which one's sitting on the other, but, um there was a tremendous amount of despair.
There's a tremendous amount of hopelessness, um because I still didn't quite understand what it meant to just love myself.
And I think that's one of the I mean, honestly, that's why I can't stop talking about it because after having gone through what I've gone through, I I really genuinely believe that it's probably the biggest root issue that we have in the world, in the world. Absolutely.
World leaders right now, pick a country.
Our country, here, other places, the there there are people who are in positions of power and they're in positions of power because they've been chasing worth. Mhm.
They don't they don't know how bereft they are of their own self-worth.
They have been flexing power and you know, making moves and feeling, "Oh, if I make enough money, if I have enough power and if I have enough money."
Look at some of the biggest, you know, CEOs or or most, you know, wealthy people in the world.
I think they're probably some of and we you hear these things all the time like, "Well, you know, the most successful people in the world are some of the loneliest."
or whatever and you go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, great.
I would take billions of dollars over over, you know, whatever that whatever the alternative is."
Um but I I I really do think that uh so many of them, even though they might not even realize it, are hopeless.
They don't realize that they are terrified deep down inside that even their billions or trillions or whatever they've got is still not going to give them any actual real value going into whatever is beyond this world or even while you're here in this world, you know?
Um so, anyway, that that was a little bit of a tangent.
That was a little bit of a tangent, but going back though, what I was experiencing, although again, like, you unpack a lot of this stuff in therapy, but you know, I I grew up in a home where my mom was a a beautiful and and crazy intelligent uh vibrant, dynamic woman who honestly probably could have done anything.
She could have been a CEO of a Fortune 500.
She could have been a do- a doctor, a lawyer, whatever.
She was She was an incredible force um that unfortunately was, you know, that grew up in a home where her mother psychologically abused her and her siblings.
And we knew that a little bit growing up, but you know, we you just hear mom, you know, honestly just like yelling about how her mom was such a horrible mom.
And that's that's a difficult thing when you're growing up now with a mom who didn't understand the damage that that did to her, and so she just carried on that abuse.
And she was very psychologically abusive to me and my sisters not knowing that she was.
Uh and that was one of the biggest things I learned in therapy was as I was forgiving myself and understanding how to forgive my mom because I I just started visualizing the five-year-old version of my mom getting, you know, hit or literally left on the side of the road when they were, you know, on some family road trip and my my grandma was mad at her and was like kicked her out of the car and left her there for hours.
And you start realizing how much trauma like we we've all we all experience trauma.
Trauma isn't just like some really crazy hardcore thing that like oh, you got like blunt force trauma to the head.
I mean, we're dealing with these things on a regular basis, on a daily basis sometimes.
And my mom was madly traumatized by my grandmother and and she never went and got the help that she needed to get.
And so that just got worse and worse and worse and worse and the life that I grew up with in my family really really messed me up more so than I ever gave it credit for because my ego was strong enough to keep me going. It kept me going.
I was surviving and I was surviving.
It's incredible how evolutionarily we've been able to create this whole persona and survive through the stuff.
But as a lot of people will tell you and whether that's like a midlife crisis or whatever it is, you know, you get to a place and mine was, you know, I basically got to I I I I I had a a gnarly childhood growing up.
I uh didn't realize just how much that affected me and my ability to love myself and therefore love others.
I ended up getting married and divorced in a very short amount of time to a girl that I thought I was deeply, madly in love with and I still have a tremendous amount of love for but we were two, I think, broken people, you know, finding each other which is what happens in a lot of relationships, I think.
Because if you haven't done the self-work and you don't know that you needed to do that self-work, then you're going to keep attracting the wrong person and they're going to be attracting you as the wrong person and so on and so forth.
And so then I ended up getting That was a That was a really, really dark period of my life and then I got divorced and then months later, you know, in this within the same year my mom died very unexpectedly although she and I didn't really have a relationship for about 10 years by that point.
And um And it was really like I would I I mourned for a couple of days when she died.
Uh but I then kind of, you know, I was I was okay or I thought I was okay.
I thought I had dealt with it.
Um And then, you know, work this business, again, it's a really gnarly business and it can really knock you around and beat you up.
And and then I made this move to Texas because I've had all of these crazy, amazing dreams of, well, I think amazing.
Who Who knows if they pan out but to go build I mean uh to go build a film studio that's also a a resort that's also a commune that's also like like literally I I just I I want to make a better world and I think that we can do that if we all want it and we have to just want it bad enough.
want it bad enough. And I think that if you have a a platform to maybe go and try and do that and you've got some means and some finances to go and maybe build a new type of community that can be an example of how we can get back to knowing each
other and loving each other and trusting each other and communing again with one another and knowing your neighbor and you know, kids running around and parents not feeling like they have to helicopter parent them all the time and all of that stuff. So, anyway, that all
So, anyway, that all brought me to Texas, but then I got there and then I felt after many years of feeling very optimistic and feeling a deep faith, I felt quite abandoned by God to be honest.
I felt like all of the things that led me there uh then left me alone and uh left me sitting alone and and very deeply hopeless and um and that was right around my 37th birthday and and uh I yeah, I just I didn't really understand what the point of life was anymore.
I felt like I had fought really hard to go and be a good person, to go and love people, to be an example, to try and use my my platform and privilege for good.
And I felt like all of that amounted to me now being completely alone and completely hopeless and um and thank God uh you know, I had friends and family that were there and kind of holding my hand and propping me up through some really really dark moments and times.
And then I found this place uh that I think was essentially initially created to be a place where CEOs of very large companies could that were dealing with major burnout, major depression, major anxieties uh could go and just, you know, uh get some major deep healing.
And um and I went and it was 3 weeks of just like the most intense um I got there and you know, I fell through the door of that place.
It was like I got to 37 and I just fell through the door of therapy and I said I don't know who I am or I don't think I I who I am cuz I don't know how it got me here.
don't know how it got me here. So, I need to know who I am and I need to know how I got here and I need to make sure that I that never happens again because I don't want to die, but I don't really feel I don't understand why I should keep living and um
and through all of those things that I was saying earlier, all those various forms of therapy and um psychiatry and uh and even and again like you know, doing yoga twice twice a week and Pilates twice a week and at the gym four
day, you know, because that's all incredibly crucial to our mental and emotional well-being, um those things all essentially and the prayer of of this particularly this one woman who um kind of I and I I don't think it's any coincidence that God has brought
these people into my life over throughout my journey, but there have been women older, maternal women that have come along through my journey that have been those surrogate mothers for me when my mother wasn't my mother and couldn't be my mother. And and this
And and this woman prayed me back to life and between that and all of the tools that I was learning about, you know, learning about how bad my self-talk was, you know, that's something that I don't think a lot of people even quite understand how important it is of how you speak to yourself. that. Let's do it.
Yeah, yeah, let's dive into that.
No, and and when I'm listening to you, sorry, by the way, I am incredibly verbose and tangential, FYI.
So, I'll just keep going unless you tell It's great.
No, no, no, and I and I won't because I I love listening because I think that's important, too.
I I you know, I think as much as as much as it is important for me to guide, I I also like to listen and see where you're taking it because and this is this is advice to anyone who's listening to a friend or a family member, you learn more when you listen.
And I'm learning so much more about you than I could have ever gained if I was talking, which which is awesome.
When I'm listening to you though, what I find is that today I'm sitting in front of someone who I find is extremely passionate, feels that they're living their calling, feels that they're doing what they were born to do, which is very different from the self that you're displaying or sharing that you were before.
And so, what I want to dive into we'll dive into the self-talk too, but what I want to dive into is let's take you back to that 6-year-old boy who was getting excited by dance, singing, acting, but at the same time had this home experience that you were describing with your mother at the time.
Is that when singing, dancing, and acting became that outlet, became that expression, became that connect which you weren't getting at home?
Is that when it was or was it was it actually just something that came naturally?
I mean, I think I I I I I can't imagine that there's not some correlation to what my childhood was and and then ultimately where I found outlets.
Um I I was the middle boy between two sisters.
Uh my dad wasn't in the picture.
I was I was literally just like uh uh floating in a sea of estrogen.
Like it was my sisters, my mom, my two aunts, my cousin Nikki who's like our third sister, my grandma.
Family outings were, you know, going to JCPenney's and shopping.
I mean, that that's what that's what it felt like.
And um So, as a as a middle kid, you're looking to, you know, have a voice and have a an identity of your own. That's one thing.
You know, being the only boy, I was constantly having to kind of create my own worlds of of imagination and entertainment and um and, you know, and not really having parents.
Like my dad was gone, my mom God bless her and God rest her soul, she she had a lot of issues and she wasn't the best She was really incredible as a mom in some respects and I'm really grateful for those things that she did.
For example, like she was way ahead of the curve when it came to like a naturopathic lifestyle.
We were taking vitamins and like barley green and not having sugared cereal or soda when we were kids and when I was all the other kids were like, "You don't have Cocoa Puffs?"
And I was like, "I know, it's the worst."
But I'm so grateful that my mom knew and cared about all that stuff well before the curve because I don't now have problems dealing with my sugar levels and obesity in ways that a lot of other people have been addicted to this stuff for so long cuz sugar is a crazy addiction.
Anyway, again, tangential.
But so yeah, man, I I think I was always just trying to and I was all and I always had like a super vibrant imagination and I was a super super energetic spazzy kid.
super super energetic spazzy kid. So, all of those things just Oh, sorry, and then because I didn't we didn't really have a tremendous amount of, let's say, parental supervision or whatever, you know, the television became and and and then also my video
games through the television became worlds that I explored and lived in and loved and so I was already being influenced by all of my favorite cartoons and TV shows and those became, I don't know that they weren't my friends necessarily, but I loved them and I wanted to emulate them and I wanted to be a part of them. So, all of
So, all of those things I think kind of put me into the the place for that having um having a household where I though I didn't know it at the time, where I wasn't that where I didn't understand self-love, where I didn't where I didn't know that I wasn't feeling fully loved or fully worthy of the life that I was living as a kid.
You don't These are all very subconscious things.
Um but certainly, I'm sure that led to part of me going and wanting to find that in strangers.
find that in strangers. Find that in the approval, literally, the approval of people going and sitting in seats in a theater and applauding me at the end of a play or laughing at the jokes throughout it, that all of a sudden, like I was saying before, gave me
not just an outlet for all of this other stuff, but it gave me the validation that I so desperately was seeking and needing, which is by the way what almost every actor that comes to Hollywood is dealing with on some level cuz why the heck as all you trying to go and make all these strange decisions? How do we How do we balance that?
Like I love the fact that we're talking about this because how do we balance that?
So, we all love from a genuine place also making other people happy.
We all need appreciation in our life.
We all need to feel some level of significance and some level that we matter.
That that our work and our words has an impact on others.
Where have you found that balance between not letting other people's opinions and approval lead or mislead you versus when is it right and okay to feel that?
Like do you get what I'm saying?
Like let me I want to hear your I want to hear your thought process.
Like where are you finding that balance between knowing that we all like it's the same with me.
Like when I make a video, of course I want people to connect with it.
Of course I want people to resonate with it because that's also my service. It's my offering.
It's it's where I get to be an instrument.
And it's where I get to feel useful.
But at the same time if you only let the likes and the views and the shares and the reviews of movies guide how you feel about yourself. That's where I found it. That's my balance.
It's like it's like I should know how I feel about So, I say happiness or self-love to me and I'd love to your definition.
My definition of self-love is how I feel about myself when I'm by myself. Right?
Like that's my definition of self-love. Yes.
What's your what's your definition of self-love and how does it start?
Well, I think similar I think probably very similar.
I mean I I I didn't realize how much I didn't like hanging out with myself until I went to this really incredible life-saving therapy. I thought I did.
I mean people talk about self-love all the time. I was like I love me. I'm cool with me. I feel good, you know?
But it's But I didn't realize that when I would be quiet, when I would just be with me, I was always looking for the I would I would go play video games, you know?
But that's not really spending time with yourself.
Like you're you're now a simulated version of you in some cool world on another planet shooting aliens or whatever, but that's not really spending time with yourself.
And I but I I've always been a very, very deep thinker and feeler, so I've spent a lot of time in thought.
It just wouldn't necessarily be about me, and it wouldn't be uh uh kind to me.
My self-talk, again, that I thought was just normal, when I would screw up, when I wouldn't do things the way that I thought they should be done, and this was all based on the way I was programmed, bad programming, by my parents, um I would destroy myself in my mind.
And when I talked to these folks in therapy, and they were like, "Why do you talk to yourself that way?"
And I go, "Well, because of this, that, and the other."
And they go, "Well, would you ever If your If your friend did something uh that you thought wasn't great, would you talk to them that way?"
And I was like, "I would never I would never talk to them that way."
And they go, "Then why would you talk to yourself that way?"
And it I don't know why I'd never put that together, but it leveled me.
I was like, I guess because I genuinely don't like myself.
I genuinely don't love myself.
So, what self-love is, I mean, I th- It's a very difficult thing to kind of define, I suppose, but because there's so much around it, but I would say that to love yourself is to hopefully, finally, and by the way, and it's a daily thing, cuz we can go back and forth on it, right?
It's not like, "Oh, it's that solved, and we're done, and we can move on." It's a process.
It's a journey, and you always have to check in with yourself.
check in with yourself. And I think that, you You for me, it's it's been a matter of You know, one of the things I I I I spend time in prayer in the morning and I spend time in prayer at nights and this kind of my meditative time as well
and um you know, I and and and a regular part of those prayers is thanking God for my heart, my mind, and my body because these are all things that I have ridiculed uh in various ways over the years and not embraced and not been great grateful for. Gratitude is one of
Gratitude is one of to me the most powerful uh balms for your soul, for your heart, for your mind uh to start with that and to say wherever I'm at right now, thank you for what who I am and and where I'm at.
And um and to appreciate that and be okay with where you are right now.
If you can be okay with where you are right now, you can really start to love yourself.
If you're If you're not okay with where you are right now, it's very difficult to then love yourself because it they're they're working they're contradicting one another, you know?
And how to balance that, I mean I mean, one of the things that I I've never I don't have like notifications on my social media.
I've never I I I started social media at a time where I was already living the public eye, so that's you kind of get inundated, you know, with with that many followers and so fortunately, I've never lived my world has never been one where I was constantly looking for the likes.
I I I've always even when I was unhealthy and didn't know it, I I always knew in the back of my mind that that's not a healthy way to be living your life.
You can't If you're If you're posting things and you're constantly checking to see who who who checked in and who liked it or whatever.
And by the way, not that I am completely faultless and all that.
Certainly, there's times I'll post something and I'll go back and see, "Oh, I wonder who's I wonder who's chimed in or whatever, you know?"
Um but I have never never found my worth there.
Um but I I have definitely tried you know, I've looked for and found my worth in in my work in you know, how am I doing good work?
I mean, I I thought I was failing my life for a long time because all of the jobs that I had done never really put me into the next echelon or you know, that higher level where I was with all the cool kids doing all the cool kid movies and a part of those conversations.
I was always I just always felt like I was on the outside looking in and that wrecked me on a regular basis.
I always felt like I wasn't doing something right or I wasn't good enough for And I think that's the question.
Like when I'm listening to you, that that's the question to me.
It's it's when you're doing something, do you feel fulfilled by doing it in and of itself or are you only gaining fulfillment when someone applauses? Right?
Like that's that differentiation.
That that self-awareness.
And for me, self-awareness is like the heart of self-love.
Because just getting to that point to know yourself to love yourself.
Yeah, to know yourself first and then to love yourself because you can't love someone you don't know. Right? Like I can't say Go on.
I know what you I know what you're saying and I and I agree I don't know that you can't you can't fully appreciate or or or love To fully love yourself means to love even all of the failures.
Even all of the all of the all of it, exactly.
But I do think on a general broad philosophical sense, we 100% can and need to love those that we don't know. Oh, that 100%. Oh, 100%.
No, no, 100% from a humanity standpoint.
I'll give you an example of what I mean.
Like today you walk through the door and I love you for being a human and I love you for what I've learned about you in preparing for this. 100%.
But I can't love you fully because I haven't got to know you where is the more I get to know you in this interview the more I fall in love with you. Thanks. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, totally.
Yeah, and and that's what I mean that even with ourselves Knowledge makes the the love deeper for sure. I mean.
Yeah, that's where I'm coming from.
Like when your subconsciously Well, that's empathy. Yeah, exactly.
you know, but but again, but and how interesting though is that then take it another step which is certainly that the more you might get to know somebody the the deeper you can love them, but that's only if you that's only predicated on how deep you know and love yourself. Correct. 100%.
Which is so like I really thought I was somebody who loved people really deeply and I did by the way.
and I did by the way. I I've always been a God, I'm so grateful that he gave me a heart that for a long time by the way really screwed with a lot of parts of my life and made me a very sensitive a a kid that you know, I would I would get really wrecked about certain things that would happen in the world that had nothing to do with me and I would just I
would literally feel the pain of people in other parts of the world or I mean to be perfectly honest like like India for example, I can't wait to go to India and I'm also dreading going to India because there's a part of me that feels like I'm going to go walk around in those streets and I will be devastated because I will see these kids in these lower castes and I will be like, where is this where is the justice? Where is the love for these
Where is the love for these people?
Where's the love for the unlovable?
That stuff just wrecks me, but I have always had that deep a deep love for people.
I didn't realize how much deeper I could love people and by the way, not even deeper, but also in healthier Yes. more focused ways.
If you're just a raw if you're just raw love and you're just feeling that can be powerful, but you can't but you're not perhaps accomplishing as much as you could with that love.
And if you can go and then work on yourself and tighten all this and get this strong and then not just be overwhelmed and screwed up every time something happens, then you can have more of a an even uh steady focused strong effective love, I think, in the world.
And that's where I think I'm now hopefully going into that phase of my life.
Uh you know, coupled with wherever my platform might lead me, but um Wait.
But you would said something earlier and I'm trying to remember what. time. No, no, no, no, no.
Well, I can't What We're talking about knowing yourself, loving yourself.
Yeah, I mean, I No, I don't know.
I'll I'll think of it if I can come back to it.
And and that's what I think everyone who's listening right now, I think, is going to take a lot of a lot of confidence from the fact that the way you're opening up the way you're sharing your journey and challenges and everything.
I'm I'm hoping that everyone who's listening or watching right now is listening going, "Oh my god, I'm I'm there, too."
or "I've been there, too."
And this is a common experience across the board.
Like getting to a point in life and going, "I don't know who I am. Yeah.
I don't know if I love myself."
Like these are all such normal things that we're all going through.
And and you reminded me when you were mentioning this point about being in your solitude in space, this this study that I love that I share that talks about how when men and women were given the choice of either being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes or give themselves an electric shock.
And 60% of men chose an electric shock.
And 30% of women chose an electric shock.
And when they were asked afterwards, it was because they didn't want to be alone with their thoughts. So, we're all in that.
So, now I want to dive into So, everyone who's listening right now, we've all been there. Yeah.
We all find distractions, whether it's video games, whether it's movies, whether it's Netflix, whatever it is.
We're all trying to find distractions. Relationships. Oh my god.
Relationships is one of the biggest. Definitely.
Yeah, I I just made a video a couple of weeks ago where I was talking about if you find someone in your loneliness, you often attract emptiness. Yeah. Right?
Because you've got that in you and therefore that attracts back.
So, I want to dive into you because meditation, prayer, and therapy are three tools that you really live by and stand by. Yeah.
I want to hear about each of those from you, including the self-talk element, of how those key foundational principles, and you mentioned yoga and Pilates earlier, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I just want to hear about those kind of like building blocks that have helped you change and transform and grow. Yeah.
I mean, so therapy to me was probably the most important initial uh part of it all because you can do a lot of meditation and prayer, but if you're um if you're a like like you like in Japan, you know how in Japan uh there's this tradition of there if a bowl breaks, they put it back together with gold, right?
And you can see uh these these the veins of gold to the and really makes it a beautiful piece.
You don't just throw the bowl away, you put it all back together.
So, I feel like the therapy was the gold that was putting it all galvanizing me back together, making me whole again.
And again, supplemented by and helped by the meditation and prayer around that, but if you if your head's not right, if you don't see reality the way that reality actually is, and therefore and who you are and how you fit into reality, prayer and meditation are going to help treat symptoms, but I don't know that they're going to get to the root of digging up all of that bad bad programming, you know?
Uh moreover, I and I and I don't mean this to be offensive to anyone.
In fact, I find I I find it to be quite um um inclusive.
Uh we're all mentally ill.
I personally feel like mental health is something we all deal with.
It it's it's we we all have it We unfortunately look at mental health If we put health with physical physical health, nobody has any problems talking about any of it.
In fact, there's a whole broad spectrum.
Physical health is anywhere or like if you're if you are physically ill, that can mean anything from the common cold to cancer.
And if you say that I'm ill, no one's like, "Oh god, you know."
They're going, "Oh gosh, what's you know, what's going on with you?"
There's not a stigma that's necessarily attached to that.
Nobody's judging you necessarily for what's going on in your physical well-being.
All of a sudden you you switch out mental for physical and you say mental illness and the only thing that I mean now thank god we're coming to a much better place in society, but for the longest time mental illness was straightjacket, rubber room, you're crazy, that's it.
We have to start reassessing that massively and understand that to be mentally ill, to to use a I think a dental analogy probably is the best I've come up with.
All of us have cavities from time to time.
All of us deal with mental illness, little cavities in our heads.
And and that can be literally how you start your day and you you you pass somebody on the street and they did a thing and that affected you and now you're allowing it to affect you and now that's started a little cavity in your brain and you got to root that thing out.
And for some of us we're much better at being able to attend to that stuff.
Sometimes we don't and then that cavity becomes a much bigger cavity and then all of a sudden you need a root canal.
Some of us out there in the world, I needed a major root canal.
The way that I saw myself and the way that I saw how I fit into this world needed to be rooted out of my brain big time.
So as soon as I could do that, going back to the dental analogy, once the dentist could get in there and clean all that crap out and then you know, fix that and seal that, well then it was a matter of exactly maintaining that and and and loving myself and through all of that.
And that's where I find the meditation and prayer.
And I and I kind of to me prayer and meditation are kind of synonymous.
I I my prayer time is my meditative time.
Occasionally I will do actual just straight, you know, kind of um mindfulness meditation or centering prayer, which is very similar, where you either just focus on your breath or you focus on one word and you kind of have that mantra and you go through that to really just calm it all down.
Calm the mechanism cuz we live in a world that is so go go go go go go.
And it is completely not what our biological evolutionary uh uh kind of path has been, right?
I mean, we were hunter-gatherers going back to like Yuval and Sapiens and stuff like that.
By the way, reading that book helped me because that context and perspective, I think, is so important in understanding who you are and how you fit into this world. And why you got there. And why you got there. Exactly.
So So uh you know, so I will still have some actual meditation, like proper meditation, but my prayer time coming before the creator and on my knees and and and asking to be able to walk always in humility, gratitude, and trust.
Those three words are the to me the foundation and cornerstone of my entire life. And Me, too. Yeah, man. Yeah, man.
In fact, I was thinking about getting HGT tattooed somewhere on me. I don't know. I'm still working on it.
I don't have any tattoos, but I I think I might get some time at some point.
But I think that's an awesome description. Thanks, man. I love that.
I love the dental analogy. Oh, yeah. I I love it. I think it's brilliant.
And I And I think what you're saying is so true that we sometimes think of meditation and prayer as as the be-all and end-all of our transformation.
But actually, initially it requires that step of really uprooting, really rewiring the ego, doing the work of just Oh, killing the ego. deepest self-reflection. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and meditation prayer, of course, aid that, but then they become that they become that momentum that keeps it going, right?
They're the daily cleaning.
They're the daily cleansing, daily purification.
the way, and some people are are really blessed where they they grow up in a household where their parents gave them a great foundation of mental health.
They gave them a great foundation of knowing that they're loved completely unconditionally or or yeah, uncondition- Yeah. Right? Unconditionally. Yeah. Yeah, unconditionally. Yeah.
I was like all of a sudden I was like, wait, what what is that definition?
Um yeah, where it didn't matter if they, you know, in my home if I accidentally dropped a glass and it broke on the ground, if my mom, who as it turned out was a borderline personality, if my mom happened to be in a good mood, it was like, oh, that's fine, honey.
If she was in a bad mood, it was the end of the world.
Now, I didn't realize that every time she snapped at us and yelled at us or smacked us or whatever that was.
I mean, not like smacked us, but, you know, would give us a a swat on the on the ass or something.
Those things were all leading me to having literal trauma switches in my head so that every time I then I drop a glass and break something, I beat the out of myself.
I beat myself up when I would do that.
So, I needed to Those are all those little things where I needed to reprogram, literally rewire the operating system that my mom had given me when I was a kid.
I needed a an updated operating system, and I think that's what therapy uh really hopefully allows us to do.
If you're born into a home where you're given a pretty good operating system, then meditation and and prayer may be all you need, at least for quite some time, until you maybe have more trauma or more abuse or whatever where you need some more help, but for me, the therapy helped to clean that, uproot that, all that, and the the um daily practice of going uh and literally falling before God and just wanting to uh remain in reality.
Knowing who I am, knowing knowing that my worth has nothing to do with how successful I become or don't become, that there are there is purpose for me in this world, and that's where I think the trust part comes in.
You know, if you're not a very spiritual person or you don't believe in a creator or a higher being or whatever, um I perhaps you trust in something else, I don't know.
For me, it's a matter of trusting that I don't have all the answers.
I don't know where my journey is going to go.
I don't know how I'm going to be used in this world and in this life, but I'm going to trust that as long as I keep doing this work, the really the only important work, that if I do this, then everything else will happen the way that it's supposed to happen, and uh that gives me a tremendous amount of peace throughout the the journey as well. Yeah, I love that, man.
And And I think you're right.
I think we all need to trust timing, the process, universe, like creator, like that You have to find patience. Patience, right?
That you've been living in your life, and I definitely know that in my life, too.
When I went off to become a monk at 22, and you know, the the reaction from all my friends and family was, "Well, you're never going to get a job again."
Like, you know, you're going to be years behind.
And I would And all of those things of like, "Well, where's Where's your future going to go?" Yeah.
And And for me, it was, "No, I trust that this is the best investment of my time, that this time that I'm going to be spending in meditation and self-growth and awareness and destruction of my ego and all of that is the best thing I could be doing right now." Yeah.
And And almost all we can do is trust the present and trust what we're doing right now.
Because we all don't know what's going to happen in 5, 10, 15 years. No. No.
And in fact, I It's so cru- I mean, it's easy for me to say.
say. I'm in a I'm in a position now where I I I'm literally living in the some of the most rarefied air that anyone could ever live in to be you know the the titular role in a superhero franchise and this 20 years of incredibly blessed life like it's not
lost on me that people say man you know I'm so I'm so happy for you you really deserve it and I'm always like I appreciate that and I know what you mean by the sentiment but I actually disagree because I don't know that anybody deserves this. I mean look at
I mean look at all the incredible people that have unbelievable hearts and minds that are living in third world countries that have nothing. They deserve it.
Those people are doing everything that they can just to survive.
So I don't know that anybody deserves any of this but had I known what my life is going to be like right now a year and a half ago before like if if somehow you know the crystal ball said oh don't worry you know all the all the things you're worrying about right now no no don't worry because what's going to happen is you're going to do this and that's going to happen and blah blah blah and now you're going to be there.
Well that would have been pretty incredible but what would have been what would have been even better is if you know a year and a half ago two years ago I would have just known to trust to be patient with where this is going because I can't I wouldn't have changed anything.
A year and a half ago there's so many things in my path in my in my past that I would have changed in order to maneuver to get somewhere that I felt like would have been a better place for my life.
But now that I am where I am where I'm sitting where I'm sitting I literally wouldn't have changed anything.
I wouldn't have changed the trauma that my mom put me through.
I wouldn't change anything about the abuse that I went through because had I not gone through that then I wouldn't be able to sit here literally right now talking to you and hopefully talking to people out there and saying you're okay we're okay we can get through this.
This is something that we all are dealing with.
It's unfortunate that abuse and trauma and mental illness are being passed down generationally but it can be helped it can be fixed.
We can love ourselves and we can love each other.
We can go make the world so groovy if we can just get this out.
And I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to talk about it as deeply or as passionately or as authentically had I not gone through all of that stuff prior, you know.
100% 100% I couldn't agree more.
patient with that, you know. Absolutely.
I'm so glad you've you've driven that I mean, you're like on fire right now, by the way.
As it just it's it's so great to hear you drive that message home because I feel all of us need to be open to the plan.
Like you can get to where you want in life, just not in the way you imagine it. Yeah.
And that's the challenge that because it doesn't look like your imagination, you don't want to walk down that road. Yeah. Right?
It's like you want right?
You want it to look this perfect way or a certain way and I've done that in my life where I thought that success or happiness look like this.
And then when what I was faced with was completely the opposite, Yeah.
it was scary to walk down that path.
And it's the same as what you're saying.
Like I don't think we we I don't think we want to blame this on our parents.
I don't think we want to blame it on and I don't hear that from you at all.
You don't want to blame it on any of those things because those building blocks are going to give you the journey you need to help more people, too. Hopefully.
Because this is going to be a common experience.
It's going to be a shared experience.
And you can only help someone if you've been there before.
Well, and that's why it's important I think that people, you know, particularly when it comes to mental health, we need to we need to be brave enough to be vulnerable enough with our journey and our testimony because that Well, I appreciate that.
But I I it's it's not even I don't even feel like it's an option.
I I it's it's it is completely like it's God.
It is it is I I I literally like it it excites me so much that I have that I personally have gone through what I've gone through in order to be able to go talk about this stuff because I there's so there's so many people out there that are that that are um that look, I see them on Twitter and on on Instagram on a regular basis.
People that are going through so much that are that are feeling quite lost, quite alone.
And that's why I spend as much time as I do on my social media because I feel like yes, it's on one hand one of the most destructive things that's ever come across all of us.
You know, we get lost in it.
People are It's creating mental illness in a lot of people, but we can use it for such powerful good and being able to reach out and say, "Yes, I deal with this. I have dealt with this."
And by the way, we're all dealing with it.
Everyone is dealing with it.
Like it No one is immune to Well, maybe the Dalai Lama, I don't know.
But you know what I mean?
Like it it it because this is how our brains work.
This is how our hearts work.
We And the wiring is so old school. Right?
Like isn't it so embedded into the way we're wired that it takes time to unwire that and unravel that?
Like if something's happened for thousands of years, right?
It's going to take a considerable amount of time to rewire that.
It's like you don't just unwire something.
If something's been tangled in your closet for for days, how long does it take?
Or if your room's been messy and Yeah, you just throw it out. Yeah, exactly.
But you can't do with yourself and you don't want to do with yourself.
And so And And I love how open you've been about it.
A few interviews that we looked at and saw with you talking about how, you know, comparison on social media and comparing yourself to your peers, which is such a big thing.
And you were open about the fact that when your character first gets killed off in Thor and talking about how like that felt like a bad moment, but actually now with what you're getting to do, you realize that actually it was just preparing you for something much bigger. Exactly.
And this is exactly why you're going back to what we were talking about about about patience and trust.
Trusting that even though you might not understand or agree with what is happening in your life right now, if you can Look, if you're not trusting your flailing, you are That's where anger can come in.
That's where doubt comes in.
That's where fear comes in, that's where anxiety comes in.
I was I didn't realize how much anxiety I dealt with probably my entire life.
I didn't know that that feeling that I felt on a regular basis was anxiety until I went to therapy and I was like, "Oh my god, that's what anxiety that this is what I've been dealing with for so long?"
Um had I known like when I was doing that that last Thor, um yeah, it was it was a bummer.
I mean, I you know, I felt like I was I was so stoked that I made it into the superhero world and then just to kind of, you know, for it to do that.
Like there wasn't much to do and I was definitely feeling a little salty and a little uh a little down on myself and a little like, "Okay, well, I guess that's it.
I guess I'll go have to pivot and figure out something else in my career, whatever that's going to be."
But again, had I known had I known that, you know, um if anybody's like, "No, no, Zach, don't worry about it cuz you're going to you're going to die here, but then in a you know, 2 years from now that means that you you're just going to be reborn in the DC universe."
I mean, obviously that would have made me feel much better back then, but I don't think that's how life works because it's if we know what is going to come, then we don't ultimately appreciate what that's going to be.
We need to go through these valleys in order to appreciate those mountaintops.
100% It's and that's a And we go we don't grow to become that in the best way either.
And and that and you don't get the growth. Yeah.
If you don't go through the hardship where you have to actually come to the end of yourself and trust and be patient and know that I don't know I don't know what's coming, but I'm going to be grateful for what I have and I will trust in where this path is leading me, then you don't get the growth and the growth is the most important part.
You could become the biggest, most famous, most rich person in the world, but if you have not grown during any of that, then all of it's meaningless.
I want to be, you know, you said earlier I love the alliteration.
I don't know if you use it but when you start every interview, but what was it?
An enlightened, enlivened and uh there was another word you said that I can't remember. Educated or empowered?
Educated, yeah, all of educated and empowered. All of those things.
That is the real rich richness, the the riches of life.
Like I I again, I know it's it it might even sound a little trite somebody in my position saying like, you know, it's not about the fame or the popularity or whatever cuz I'm somebody who now has who has that and has had that and has done very well financially in my life.
Um, and I'm not saying and I'd give it all up if I could, but in some ways yeah, I suppose I would.
In some ways there's a there's deep down in me to know to know the to know the depth of of the joy and the peace and the gratitude that I feel now on the other side of the darkness Yeah. because of the darkness.
If I didn't experience that darkness, if I didn't if I didn't ever sit in my room literally crying out to God to help me, to save me, to to show me the way because I was so lost.
Um, what I feel today, I wouldn't be feeling.
You you get to the place, you get to you and it's not even the destination.
I mean because, you know, it's all it's still the journey. We're still journeying.
And by the way, who knows?
I could I could walk out of here and get hit by a car and that's it.
I could I could I don't know.
Well, yeah, me neither, but I mean but I but I think it's important to always be aware that Yeah.
You know, I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I both infinitely valuable and entirely unimportant.
Yeah, it's infinitely valuable and insignificant. you know what I mean? Exactly, exactly.
And that and know that right now, right here is all we actually have and to keep digging into the depth of the right here and the right now, which is why one of the reasons I'm so grateful that we're having this conversation because this is a right here, right now.
Let's be present and let's talk about what really matters.
You know, I can go talk about Shazam all day long and I'm grateful that we got to make an incredible movie that is really genuinely bringing people so much joy.
Um but, you know, that's that's all the trappings of what the most important stuff is, which is let's go heal the world.
Let's go make this place uh uh uh uh Let's go to Let's go teach more empathy.
Let's go feel more empathy.
And you were talking about earlier about um you know, the the the knowing how much deeply more deeply we can love someone when we know someone.
I mean, that's empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy empathy, you know.
Uh God, I just I just I love it. It's the best. I love it.
Let's Let's uh I I want to We always do a final five at the end of every interview.
But before we do that, I do want to talk about Shazam because what I loved is you were talking about how like you felt like you got to play yourself. In some ways, yeah.
the childlike, you know, man-child element to the role and character.
I'm excited to go and see it this week. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I'm really looking forward to it, but tell me about that playful aspect of you and that joy that people are going to feel through you being able to be part of yourself. Yeah.
I I I I mean, I Look, I I've always um I've always been, like I said, like a super energetic spaz of a kid and I and that's never really left me.
And uh when I was about four, I realized that uh I could intentionally make somebody laugh and if they laughed, they felt good and that made me feel good.
Even aside from the applause or whatever, I loved making people feel joy. I loved it.
It's the greatest drug in the world.
And I And I And I feel like genuinely, like when I do Broadway or whatever like I feel like I'm living out literally living out my purpose.
And when you feel like you're living out your purpose, it is the most fulfilling thing ever. More than anything.
Um so uh but but part of that, you know, and and I think also just part of working in this business, you get to hopefully use your imagination and should use your imagination.
And I have always tried to hold on to that.
I've always tried to hold on to joy. I love feeling joy. I love bringing joy.
Um I love having therefore love having a great time. I love hosting parties. I like dance parties. I like singing. I like karaoke.
I like riding motorcycles and jumping out of planes.
I mean, I This is just my personality. It's always been.
And all of those things um you know, I I think I've tried to grow up and be a responsible human being in the ways that that's important.
But I've also, you know, kind of shirked some of that stuff to where I feel like um people tend to feel like, you know, well, we got to take this more seriously.
Or we got to take or or rather take ourselves more seriously, which I think we need to do far less of.
We need to take ourselves far less seriously.
And uh so all of those things I think have I don't know helped kind of protect the little kid in me.
Um and by the way, and maybe even some of my mental illness that I again I I'm so grateful to God that even all of that bad stuff he used or he she or it or whatever used to maintain this this essence of who I am deep down inside.
And all of that I just got to filter right into the character.
I mean, on top of the fact that ever since I was a kid, I dreamt about being a superhero like I think most of us do.
So it's total wish fulfillment.
Like, you know, I feel bad for a lot of the actors who play the serious superheroes, which by the way, most of them are.
Most of them are very serious adults who are concerned with saving the world.
And so Which is you in real life. Exactly, right. Yeah, exactly.
But, you know, I know that Christian Bale was was super chuffed that he got to be Batman. But he had to sit on it.
He had to like be It was like, "Oh my god, I get to be Batman."
And then the cameras are rolling and he's like, "I'm Batman."
You know, I got to just not I got to, you know, literally not rein myself in at all.
I All that enthusiasm that I felt for like, "Oh my god, I'm getting this dream job."
I just got to, you know, put that right into the character onto the screen.
Plus, hanging out with the kids um uh which of which we have a whole incredible and talented uh cast of kids and that I worked with all the time and uh they would constantly remind me what it meant to be a kid, which in a lot of ways is just not having responsibility.
They don't They're able to still be silly and not take themselves so seriously until they start getting into like high school years and then all of a sudden it's all about cliques and cool and all that garbage that Oh my god, I can't wait to maybe do a school tour one day and go to high schools and say, "Stop. Stop.
Don't Don't care about social constructs anymore. Stop it. Go do all the homework.
Do all the things that your parents and your teachers are asking you to do.
There's a whole life beyond high school.
It's all just one big bubble. It's going to blow up.
You're never going to see those people again."
Oh my gosh, there's so much time that we waste wishing that we were a part of whatever this cool clique is.
And by the way, even that, I want to redefine the word cool.
Cool All the people that think they're cool or are trying to be cool are the least cool.
Being cool means you're trusting.
Being cool means you're not fazed.
You're not worried about fitting in.
Let's go be actually cool.
Let's not go try and be like, "Oh, I need to wear the right clothes or I need to have the right style."
Whatever that is, that's all nonsense.
I can't Oh, I want all that to die a horrible death. Um yeah, for real.
Um but yeah, so on top of all that, yeah, just like, you know, getting to getting to to to be that kid and bring that kid to life on screen is a lot of fun, but um I really again, like the the movie's done well and I'm really grateful that it's doing well, not even just domestically, but internationally and all that.
Uh but the thing I'm most proud of in this film and the thing I'm most grateful for is that I I that, you know, again, a god is using me to portray a character that is bringing people joy.
People are leaving the theater and they are floating a foot off the ground.
Kids and adults are yelling Shazam as they're leaving the theater and feeling that uh imagination come back to life in them again.
And if if if what I believe is true, which is that I was put on this planet to to love people and to bring them joy, and that this is what is now happening in my life, like it I just gratitude, just like the deepest gratitude, man. That's awesome, man. I love that.
And hearing you say that reminds me of something I read a while ago is I think it went along I want to get this right.
It went along the lines of uh we don't we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing. Yes.
And and I think whatever play means to you as you get older, obviously you may not be messing around with action figures, maybe you are, but the point is of continuously having play in our lives and being playful. Yeah.
And being childlike, not childish. Yes.
And we see a lot of humans we continue to be childish but not childlike. Yes.
And I think keeping that fresh eyes, looking at things as brand new, living as if every day is just some new exploration and curiosity, that that can stay with us. So, I love this, man.
I'm going to ask you my big final five questions. it. Let's do it.
Uh these are rapid fire, quick fire answers, so I mean you'd be great at that. So, here we go.
The first one that I have for you is This is This is probably a a slightly trick question, but uh but I I want to know anyway.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Teleportation. Oh, interesting. about this. Okay.
Uh yeah, I just think I think uh teleportation it would be a very fun, but also probably the most handy and practical.
Because you can go you can do anything from, you know, going on a trip with all of your friends.
We all know from the uh lore of comic books that whatever you're touching goes with you with teleportation.
So, obviously, as long as you can connect like all your fingers and toes to a bunch of bags and a bunch of friends and family, then you're all on a vacation together, which would be great.
Or, if you're just feeling lazy and you want to zap like from your bed into the bathroom and then back again, you know what I mean? It's it's very handy. Awesome.
Second question, you were saying you're even thinking about building like a community space. Yeah.
If if the world if your if your ideal world, ideal community, ideal town or city had a set of ideals, values, and beliefs, and habits, what would those be? Ooh. Well, um minimalism.
Uh that's one of the things I am a huge proponent of minimalism.
I think that we we've all we've all been fed a lie for a really long time, uh which ties directly into consumerism and materialism, and I really do believe it's a lie.
We don't need all the things that we think that we need, and we are now owned by what we own.
And that is another thing that's leading us into more uh mental health issues, and I I I want to get back to basics.
Uh so, it'd be it'd be community, it'd be minimalism, uh it would be love and grace and tolerance and understanding and forgiveness, uh and more forgiveness and more forgiveness and more grace because I those these are seriously lacking in the world right now, and empathy and more empathy.
Uh yeah, and just helping people heal. I love that. Yeah. I love that.
If you could get the world to practice one habit or one tool for 30 days, what would that habit be? Gratitude. Gratitude, nice. I like that. That's awesome, yeah.
I I think that could change a lot, too.
I I mean, it's Again, I know it's it's I know it's different for everyone in in every place that they're in in their life, and I don't expect everyone to have as easy a time being grateful for where you are in your life.
Um but I I from my own personal experience, to start with that, if you can get there, uh it helps to put other things into place, and then it makes a lot of your life a lot easier. Love it.
Question four out of five, what's one big thing you want to learn this year?
Anything you want to learn, something new you want to do?
Well, you know, I I I at New Year, I was on a trip with a bunch of friends and we were all on New Year's Eve, we were all talking about what was if you could have one word that described your last year, what would it be?
And to be perfectly honest, I I Oh, I think I think transformation was last year's cuz it was.
It was incredibly transformative time for me.
But then what and what would be one one word for the next year and the word that I chose was patience.
So and then my friend actually made me this bracelet which is Morse code that says forgiveness or says that patience on it.
And I think I think that that's what I want to continue to learn this year because I've always been a super deep forward thinker of like future thinking and like, you know, like I want to go build this film studio and all the things that go with it and I I see it all in my head and I want it now.
I want it to be right now because I want to I want to be enjoying it right now and I want all of my friends and family and strangers and everybody to be enjoying it right now and I have to know that it's not up to me.
This timing is not up to me.
Your timing of your life is not up to you.
We get to play a part in it and a very significant part in that, but there are so many other factors that are going on and so I really want to learn to just be more patient in this life, yeah. I love that.
And the final five fifth question, what's an ideal role or collaboration for you in the future?
Something that you'd love to have. Man, oh so many. So many. Um I don't know.
I mean from from an acting standpoint, I mean there's so many directors and other actors that I would love to work with and, you know, so I don't know.
Working with Tom Hanks I think would be pretty amazing.
He's always been my idol, you know, since I was a kid.
Or and to that matter, Steven Spielberg, you know, working for for him as a director.
Um but but outside of the acting world, Uh, I I do want to start recording more music.
I I don't know with whom or how that's going to work out.
But then beyond that, uh, I really do want to somehow figure out how to parlay all of this stuff into more of a leadership role in helping the world heal.
You know, that's the collaboration that I really want to figure out and the trajectory that I really want to figure out.
And again, I'm just going to wait on God and be patient for what that is going to look like.
But, um, Would you work on that together, too? Let's I would love to.
Jay Shetty, we're going to do it. It's going to happen.
When you say it like that, it feels like it's actually going to happen. Yeah, man. I would love that. I would love that. No, but thank you, Zach.
Like, honestly, you like really brought it today.
Like, the energy this man is like I'm sitting in front of him and he's sweating.
Like, he's literally sweating like he's literally giving like every ounce of his energy.
Yeah, no, he's literally put every ounce of his energy into this podcast.
So, everyone who's listening, make sure you share this.
Make sure you share what you've learned. Tag Zach.
Tag me as well on Instagram.
I love seeing what people took away.
I love seeing what messages are the ones that really resonate with people.
So, if you are listening to this right now, make sure you put it out on Instagram.
We'd love to check you out there as well.
Zach, thank you so much for turning up.
Thank you so much for showing up.
Keep doing what you're doing on Instagram using as a platform for service.
Everything that you're doing. I'm so excited.
And I'm excited for our new friendship, too. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love yourself. Love others. You are lovable.
You are loved and you are worthy of that love. I love it.
That's Zach Efron, everyone. Thank you. Thanks, man. So much, bro. You're amazing, man. Thank you.
If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here.
I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like a Monk from thinklikeamonkbook. com.
Check below in the description to make sure you order today.