Open Up About Your Struggles. Your Friends Can’t Read Your Mind. | Clips | Dad Saves America

0:00 (slide swooshes) - Listen, today, I had a bad day this morning. I had a really bad day this morning. I had to get on with my therapist this morning, let some other people know I'm really struggling today. I didn't sign up for this and I don't know when it's gonna happen. I just wake up. And by the way man, our show won Emmy last night. - Congratulations, man, that's awesome. - I should be sky high today, and instead I woke up in the worst gray I've been in in a long time and had nothing to do with anything else.

0:24 I just, man, woke up in the tank. But I know now to go do things. But also every day in my life it is, it's hard for me to get out of bed in the morning. So I made a decision long ago. I can either lay in bed or I can get my butt outta bed and then go be relentless once I make that decision. So I decide to be relentless every single day of my life, and again, it's that thing I said before of, hey, I'm not gonna work these guys by a little, I'm gonna out work 'em by a lot.

0:49 I'm gonna be absolutely relentless. And the other thing my mental health issues did, it always made me feel like I was down so I never minded getting knocked down. So I was rejected more than any human being I've ever met in my life on the way to his journey, and again, it was 11 years to get a full-time paycheck, and during that 11 years, I was applying and calling and calling and being a pain in the butt and being relentless, relentless, but I didn't mind getting rejected 'cause I felt like I belonged there.

1:15 So I look back now and go, wow, where did these mental health issues actually work for me? And everybody out there, we can look and see where we thought they hurt us and flip the script on it and say, man, they actually helped us in certain ways. A lot of people say, "How could you complain? Your life is great." My life is great, but between my ears sucks. - Yeah. - Again, I didn't sign up for that.

1:38 So I'm gonna try and help people that between the ears we see something different than what's reality also. But I get this call from my agent and even getting that guy, his name's Murray Gostrend. - What year is this? - '99. - Okay. So I've gotten turned down by agent after agent after agent after agent. And man, it is brutal, but I just picked myself up, brushed myself, let's keep going, let's keep fighting. And he calls me up and he says, "Hey, what are you doing?"

2:06 I said, "I'm driving around with Tiki Barber." And he said, "You could finally exhale." I said, "What's up?" He said, "You finally got a full-time job." I get a little choked up even talking about it 'cause this is my moment. I said (sighs). I said, "With who?" He said "CBS Sports. They got the NFL back and you're gonna be their NFL Insider. You're not gonna be on camera, you're gonna be their NFL Insider. They're gonna mention you and you're gonna have this thing called a ticker crawl, which is gonna break your news," which really think existed before that and now it's everywhere, right?

2:37 - Right. - And I said, "I'll take it." And he said, "Don't you wonder how much it's for." I said, "I don't care." 'Cause it validated me when I walked in the Giants locker room six years earlier, seven years earlier, and I said, "Man, I'll be the last dude standing in here and I wanna do it differently." It validated me. So that was my moment. That was bigger for me than any amount of money could have done.

3:00 That's the equity. - I wanna ask a hard question. - Go. - Which is, for a lot of people that are experiencing the kind of anguish internally that you were, and it's when it's combined with- - And it ain't over. - Right. - But I what I say is, when I say were, I guess I mean you've got this going on still to this day, but then you also had making 10 grand a year in New York City. - Right.

3:23 - A lot of people fall into the cycle of addiction. You know, did you struggle with that or if you didn't, how did you avoid it? 'Cause for so many people, when they're right at that margin and a bill bounces, or they get evicted from their apartment 'cause they didn't make rent for three months, that's that spiral downward. We had Dr. Drew on the show and he was talking about a lot of experiences and with people that are high level.

3:47 - I didn't turn to drugs for anything like that. I've only drank socially and yeah, I hit the bar, but I hit the bar in the good times and bad times because for me that was a social thing. I need teams around me, and even that, for me, it was like a good, it was community. - But you didn't find, you didn't like get connected into like that sort of, someone to say self-medicating. - Not because I've been rejected.

4:05 I had issues with Vicodin that, again, I started fighting an early age and then just kind of got handed out. I don't even know by who or when, but this was the mid-'90s and there was no opioid crisis back then and I'm like, it's a pain, we play a sport of pain, it's a painkiller, sign me up, sounds great. And it felt great and then over time I used them for social anxiety issues and then realized over time like, okay, when I would use those and I would come out with alcohol and I'm going through issues, if I'm out, these would get involved too much and that's not good for anybody so I stopped with that, and it actually took me until a year and a half ago was the first time I was supposed to go out with Strahan for dinner and I was having a really, really, really bad social anxiety and depression day, and at this point, the beast really got outta the box really, really bad and it's the first time I ever called him and said, "Can't go to dinner tonight.

5:06 The beast got outta the box." In the past I would've popped a Vicodin, done some alcohol and gone out and dealt with it. It was the first time I said, "Can't go out. Beat got outta the box." And he said, and when I have a really bad anxiety and depression bout, I feel it physically. I feel it on the left side of my gut, I feel it behind my rib ribcage, and I feel it in my joints like I just had a 50 round fight in the rain.

5:31 And man, it sucks, it's debilitating. And I just said, "Can't go out tonight, man, the beast got outta the box." And he said- - Yeah, so what'd you do? - He said, "You wanna talk about it?" And I said, "No, I do, but I wanna go to sleep right now. I wanna sleep this on one off and live to fight another day." And he said, "Do you want me to come over, though?" And I said, "No, not yet, not, just..."

5:56 And then he said, "Why haven't you never told me about this?" The first time I ever told him. Never told him. - This is the first time. - That's the first time. - And he's been your buddy for- - First time all I needed was a Vicodin and an alcohol and go out and deal with it. I said, "No." He's been my best friend since 1993. It's now 30 years and he said, "Why have you never told me?"

6:12 And I said, "I don't make up the rules of this thing. With you, I felt shame. I felt ashamed and probably 'cause we're so competitive." And he said, "Yeah, but you took my ability away to be your best friend for all these years. I could've been there for you for all these years." So now I don't go another day without telling him or someone else. I tell everyone and that's how I deal with it now. So no more that for me.

6:38 Now I call and I want people to understand the busiest people in the world when you say to them, "Man, I'm struggling, I have this," they will make time for you. And if they don't, they're not the right ones for you. But like the Rock wrote my forward and he said, "I don't normally do these but you're gonna be a voice for all of us, all of us." And now he's starting to talk about his issues as well, but he's the busiest guy in the world.

7:06 I call him when I'm struggling, dude. And we have a thing like we don't go a day without responding, either one of us, and you know, there's some people I know I could lean into more than others, but for the most part, man, it's been, I don't know, 90% of when I call people say, "I'm really struggling," they're there. Someone hit me up today, Andrew Whitworth, former left tackle from the Rams, hit me up today, was honest.

7:31 I said, "Dude, it's one of those days, man. I'm just struggling." And he is down here doing something today. He said, I could, I get choked up talking about this, like how much people are there for you. But he said, "I could be at your house by this afternoon." Like, man, so here is a big difference and think how beautiful that is, instead of me using substances or anything like that. And again, I didn't have addiction per se, but this is a much better way for me to handle things, but look at the response.

8:03 And again, I wanna really put this out there 'cause people are afraid to turn into people and that just hasn't, my experience has been so amazing. It's not because I'm Jay Glazer, it's not the reason. People truly wanna help you and be there because I think in this point in life also, more and more of us are facing things where we know someone who's facing things and the more we can talk about it, the more it's gonna help them.

8:23 (slide swooshes) - If you enjoyed this clip, we've got more where that came from. Be sure to check out my full conversation with Jay Glazer. And one of the best ways you can help support us is to subscribe to the channel so you won't miss our interviews and short videos as they come out each week. (slide swooshes) (upbeat music)