Matt Iseman joins Dave Rubin to recount leaving medicine in 1999 after an ICU shift, crediting his father's advice to pursue happiness. They debate free speech, criticizing networks for banning jokes about specific groups while praising comedians like Doug Stanhope for tackling taboos. Iseman shares how humor helped him battle rheumatoid arthritis and cancer, turning personal struggle into inspiration rather than pity. Ultimately, the conversation highlights American Ninja Warrior's role in celebrating everyday resilience, arguing that unrestricted expression allows society to process difficult human conditions through laughter and shared vulnerability. [Automatically generated summary]
I'm a little under the weather, I'm a little hoarse here, but this is a great birthday gift.
I always say, one of the great joys since I moved out to L.A.
was I always want to make sure I perform, I do something on my birthday, because that's what I love doing.
So this is it.
You're my gift to myself.
How old are you?
I'm 40... 48.
48, which sounds so old and yet I don't... Does that sound old as 42?
48 no longer sounds... 48 sounds old because I still in my head see myself in my 20s.
Yeah.
And it's hard, it's really hard to shift that That thought process, because I'm still, I'm a dating girl, but no kids, so no commitment, none of those responsibilities.
I know you're married.
I think those are the kind of things that make you, those are the markers in life that might make you feel, okay, I've matured, but I've regressed in everything I've done.
I talk about ninjas for a living, I do stand-up comedy, so there's nothing that would make me feel like an adult other than seeing that 48 next to my name.
It's the best, and it's one of those things of if you can do it, and I credit this.
My dad deserves the credit because I was a doctor.
My dad's a doctor, and he was a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado where I was doing residency, and my dad is a world-renowned physician.
He's the man I respect more than any other person on this planet.
He is the smartest, the best, the kindest, the wisest man I've ever known.
He is just, and so to be his, following in his footsteps and to know, to feel like, obviously I think he was, he was very proud of it.
So when I sensed That medicine wasn't my passion and that I needed to take a step back and reevaluate because I couldn't, in good conscience, be a doctor knowing my heart wasn't 100% in it.
I felt like I was a fraud.
I felt like I was not doing a service to my patients and certainly not to myself.
The scariest moment was telling my dad.
And I remember when I told him, the first words he said were, life is short, do what makes you happy.
Yeah, you know, certainly it's not a Shakespearean line, but I thought it was just, you know, particularly for him to say it at a moment when very easily, probably most parents would be, you're crazy, There's a lot of money invested in this education.
This is a stable job.
You don't walk away from it.
For him to instead say, all we care about is you being happy.
I've talked to him so many times about it and marveled that he could have mustered those words.
My dad's an amazing man.
He worked hard for everything he had.
I was very fortunate to have more opportunities because of his hard work and the work of my
mom and I think to, you know, when he says, I'm like, how could I ever repay that?
He said, just if you ever have kids someday, do the same for them.
It's that pay it forward mentality.
And it's that thing of, I don't know.
It's a.
It makes me appreciate, though, the opportunity that I have.
I know how lucky I am to be out here getting to do this and how lucky I am to have tried medicine and learned so much from it and be given so much perspective about what truly is life or death.
And to be out here in entertainment where we feel like everything is life or death, but to realize it's just silliness.
It's silliness and it's so much fun what we get to do, yet we still do have a chance to make a difference.
The funny thing was, I think I kind of had a crisis during college because I worked There was just, in growing up, it was you work hard, you play sports, you go to school, you excel, you achieve, and that's the path you're on.
unidentified
But I never kind of stopped to say... A lot of patriarchy stuff right there.
And so then, when I kind of poked my head up midway through college, I go, where am I headed?
And I looked around and I thought, that's when I thought, okay, I like science, I like people.
And I looked at my dad as someone who I respected tremendously and saw the satisfaction he got from medicine.
Now, I think he was a little prescient in seeing that medicine was changing and doctors were losing autonomy
and that medicine today is radically different than it was 30 years ago.
So I think he saw that there was probably going to be some disruptions in the field of medicine.
But it seemed on paper the perfect job.
But it's so interesting, you know, that's what you realize is, you know, it's like when you watch sports or something, you know, you don't play a game on paper.
You don't live your life on paper.
What looks like it might be perfect, sometimes it's just that divine spark is missing.
Whatever it is, that intangible thing.
And I'm so lucky to have somehow stumbled into performing and finding that I love I love an audience.
I love being in front of the camera.
I love doing stand-up comedy.
I love being on Ninja Warrior.
These are things where no matter how sick I am, no matter how tired I am, if it's like when you get on stage and you have an audience, I just feel like I feel present.
And there's also an attending, but he wasn't in the hospital.
So at this point, the guy was like, the person who was overseeing me was just like, you gotta write some orders.
You gotta make some choices.
Make some decisions for these people.
All of a sudden realizing these people's lives now are in my hands.
And I just thought, I'm sitting there going, I want to be skiing, or playing Nintendo, or I don't want to be here.
I didn't feel like this is the moment I've trained for.
It wasn't like ER, I jumped on top of a gurney and started doing CPR.
It was just this moment of, I felt like a fraud.
I felt like My heart, you know, all this training, all this, and I loved medical school.
I loved the problem-solving elements of it, but I realized I think there was, there's just something, I think there are jobs and there are callings.
Medicine is a calling.
It is not something that you just do nine to five.
It is something that consumes you, that you are obsessed with.
Your patient, you're obsessed with being up to date on the information and giving them the best care possible.
And if you don't hear that calling, if it's just a job for you, that's awful.
Because it is such a consuming profession.
And when you look at the opportunity cost of someone who goes to medical school and is going six figures into debt versus my friends who went into finance and are making six figures.
And then during residency, you're making subsistence level wages as your debt continues to grow.
Some of these people will never get out from under that debt, and you end up working this career and making choices that you might not want to, or practicing the way you would want to, or giving the level of care that you would want to.
I do believe that healthcare in America is going to see a radical shift in the next few decades, because people aren't going to be able to afford to go into medicine anymore, or want to.
People can't really understand the open mic situation.
It's god awful.
I remember when I was doing it, and it's like a terrible couple years that you have to do as a comic as you're figuring out your shit, but I remember there would be doctors there, lawyers there, there would be professionals, and every time I saw one of them, I'd be like, what in the world is wrong with you?
And yet they were there because they had something in them that they had to explore.
I think everybody has that.
We all search for purpose.
We all search for something that ignites a fire in us.
And rare is the person that finds, I think, the job that does that.
And I think we're so lucky to have found something.
But do you think it's luck?
Well, okay.
We took the chance and we certainly went out there.
I still think there is a certain amount of...
Fortune or circumstance or something, you know, I'm not gonna say I'm Christopher Columbus who boldly decided to explore the frontiers of the job world and walk away from medicine.
I was lucky in that my family supported me.
I was lucky in that when I came out, you know, you meet the right people.
I think that once I realized it was this, that's where the medicine came in so handy in that Medicine taught me such a discipline and and such a an ability to work hard and process information and to just Withstand a river of shit being dumped on you where you're like, this is this is easy, right?
I'm not I'm not on third call for 36 hours You're asking me to sit here with craft services and have someone do makeup and be pampered that fine.
Yeah fine great I love this but it can be a lot of waiting around which is quite cool It is, and you know, it's a business.
Well, here's where it really helped.
Hollywood is a business of no.
You go out for a hundred things, and 99 times you're told no.
And often, you're told nothing.
You're not given a reason why.
You might have been amazing.
You're never told why.
And if you don't have something that provides you with that sense of self, that sense of, it's okay, I know I am talented.
If you don't have that belief, then I think people really crumble.
The people who succeed aren't necessarily the most talented.
They're the ones who persist.
They're the ones who can slog it out.
And you know this.
We've seen it.
The 15, 20-year overnight success where somebody pops and like, "Oh my God, this guy came out of nowhere."
And you're like, "No, they've been doing it for 20 years."
And they finally, they got recognized.
And that's why they're so good is because they've been doing it for 20 years.
Well, you know, I think, I always say people go into- That's what they say.
They, those people.
I think there's, I think people go into comedy for one of two reasons.
They weren't hugged enough as a child, pain, or they were hugged too much.
I was definitely the latter, where I had a mother who just showered me with Attention and affection and praise.
And she was always, Matt, you know, oh, that's so funny.
Whatever I did was amazing.
And she made me believe, have this ridiculous confidence.
And she was always there.
She was always there.
I had this unbelievable sense of a safety net from my mom and my dad.
And I think that that's what gave me the confidence to think I could come out here and take a swing.
And be okay and know that I could fall flat on my face and either go back to medicine and my parents wouldn't disown me.
But ultimately I believed... What I've realized in life is nothing is certain.
And I have a ton of friends who are in finance.
I had a friend who was at Bear Stearns when it imploded and saw people lose $60 million overnight.
And these guys who thought they were going to be able to retire all of a sudden now are out of a job and broke.
You know you go into you choose some of these careers thinking all right I'm gonna work my ass off but it'll pay off in the end and you realize there nothing's guaranteed and so I think to What I realize is the best bet in life you can make is to bet on yourself, because that's where you have the most control.
And so, while this career we're in, well, is so fickle, so on the surface fickle, where, you know, my show, they live, you know, week to week with ratings.
Oh my God, it's up a point or it's down a point, and you think it could end at any moment.
And we make our peace with that.
But ultimately, what I've realized is, having been out here 19 years, I've worked, and I just have to have this confidence.
The only way I can sleep at night is to say, if it goes away, something else will come.
I'll bet on myself.
And I think that's one of those things in life that...
is hard to get to, but if you can, is a great position to be in, is when you say, I'd rather bet on myself than someone else, than relying on someone else to provide me, as you have.
Yeah, I mean, I feel that very intimately, because even just in the last couple months with this Patreon thing, the rubber met the road, and I was like, can I make a move here that's a huge risk?
And I did make the move, and it's worked.
And I've found that if you're just present enough and aware enough of what really is going on and you put in the work, that you generally make the right moves.
You're going to do some missteps along the way, but that generally speaking, the right path will kind of unfold for you.
I mean, again, you know, I think I was very lucky to have parents who were incredibly supportive.
So, and I was also lucky, I think, to have been exposed to enough.
So even though I, you know, my life had always been very much set towards, you know, sports school achievement, it was set towards, you know, lawyer, finance, doctor, something.
That there was enough exposure to think that it was possible to have it outside of that.
So for a random person who's growing up without parents who are encouraging them, I think it's hard.
I know how lucky I was to have parents who gave me that sense of confidence and that sense of anything is possible.
So, for the average person, the people who amaze me are the people, you know, I watched that movie, I, Tonya, about Tonya Harding.
One of the things that struck me, there were two things that struck me.
One was how remarkable it was that this girl from the trailer parks went into this sport
and through sheer will and athleticism made it to the top.
But the thing I didn't like about the movie was that while it purported to tell her story,
I felt there was a little winking and judgmental of, "She's still a white trash trailer park."
And when you really saw the story of how her mom would hire people to yell at her, I don't
know that you wanted to be a sympathetic figure, but at least you understood what this woman
overcome and the tenacious, the ferocious tenacity she had to persevere in this world
I mean, I know I was very fortunate to have a lot of opportunities that gave me the confidence to take my shot.
So look, and the other thing was like when I moved out here, I didn't have a family.
I didn't have kids.
I didn't have responsibilities.
So for that person who's sitting there, those are the people, you know, if you have a wife and kids and you can say, I'm gonna risk our future to take this shot.
And it's, you know, one of the things I love with American Ninja Warrior, to shamelessly promote, but it's to see these people who have families, who have jobs, and still find time to train for this ridiculous thing, because it's their passion.
And when you see that, that's what I love about it, is because I think it's kind of, it sums up the American dream of, it's just bootstraps.
You know, I think there's a, you know, there's obsession, and a healthy obsession, and then there's, you know, a consuming obsession.
I think with American Ninja Warrior, for the most part, there's, the community is, There's such a positive, supportive community that we haven't seen people, you know, go off the rails.
I don't think any of them are using PEDs.
They're too expensive.
These guys are making a lot of money.
I think they really are leading a healthy lifestyle, but more importantly, it's a supportive lifestyle.
But certainly, with comedy, you've seen lots of friends who've... Comedy is a very lonely existence when you're on the road.
Now, I'm lucky that with TV, I get to do comedy selectively and not have to be out there 40, 50 weeks a year in strange cities where you're working two hours a day, and 22 hours, you're in a strange city with nothing to do.
Like in Ohio, walking around going, what am I doing walking to a McDonald's at two in the morning?
But it's, I don't know, I thought if you see the documentary Comedian with Jerry Seinfeld, you know the story of the band is like walking through the snow and they see this family celebrating Christmas.
Who could live like that?
And I think there is, there is just a certain, you know, you have a certain mindset of I have to be on stage.
But it does get hard and it does get lonely and so it's nice to find something that allows you A little more stable lifestyle with Ninja Warrior.
We're really only shooting about 23 days a year and so the majority of the time I can be around LA.
I can be around my girlfriend and we can lead largely a normal existence and pick and choose when I go out for stand-up and so right now I'm in a very fortunate situation but It can change at any moment.
So I'm also, at the same time, there's always a fire under my ass, that thing of, you always have to be hustling to make sure to find that next thing because, as we've seen, things can get taken away from you very quickly.
So this is one of, this is, this is really why, one of the things that's most fascinating to me, when you make a living with words right now, One of the things that amazes me is that the artistic community, and comedians in particular, haven't been more vocal in supporting people.
Because, again, while I am a clean comic, and the shows I do are completely family-friendly, and I try to be in the middle of the road, I also know that those people who are out there on the edges, guys like Doug Stanhope or Jim Norton, who are pushing those envelopes, They're keeping that area of speech protected.
Because once you cede an area, once it's taken away, once we say, okay, you know, we can't joke about that, you never get that back.
And to me, it's not that I, where I feel the power of comedy is, is the power to talk about very difficult, very touchy subjects in a way, in a disarming way through humor.
Now, I've had rheumatoid arthritis and I've had cancer.
And when I tell those stories, I tell them as funny as possible.
Those are stories that, you know, aren't necessarily the best stories to tell, but it's amazing what you can talk about when you use humor.
And when we take some of those topics off the table for comedy, I think we really lose an important tool for us to communicate and for us to find common ground.
And that's why it's so amazing to me as we see this now, where there's almost this agreement of, yeah, we're agreeing certain topics now are no longer, you can't joke about it.
And we're going to go back and apply it retroactively.
Oh, yeah AIDS AIDS, you know, they just kept repeating it Yeah, Seth MacFarlane and and again, it's it's like Or every character is a ridiculous stereotype.
Well, I think South Park does that better than anyone.
Whether everything is fair game or nothing is fair game.
Now, having said that, if you want to evolve, if you say, you know what, I no longer want to tell those jokes, That's fine.
More power to you.
Make the choice of your own volition.
Whatever you find funny is great.
Maybe you've had some personal awakening.
Whatever it is.
But I just think, again, what I don't like is the idea of people saying, you can't joke about it.
If you choose not to, great.
Again, I choose not to joke about a lot of things.
I'm just not comfortable.
I always picture my grandma in the crowd or my mom.
I want people to be entertained.
I don't want to alienate people.
That's me.
But I love listening to some of the filthiest comics talk about things or joke about cancer or things that have impacted me.
And I find it hilarious.
And I find it cathartic to laugh about it.
And I think because someone else may have had a bad experience with it, doesn't mean that someone shouldn't be able to joke about it.
I just think that this is a really interesting time because social media gives voice to people and we see where one or two people protesting can change a network.
And that's what's remarkable, is we really don't see these networks saying,
you know, 99% of people may not care they cave to this smaller percentage.
And again, often it'd be nice for them to say, okay, boycott.
It is, and no other, you know, Jim Norton, I give so much credit for, for talking about how comics are held to a different standard than any other artist.
So, say you're an actor, and you go on SVU and you play the most reprehensible character.
Nobody believes that you are that person.
But as a comedian, what they don't understand is sometimes you will say something hyperbolic,
you will say something ironically to make a point.
It's not what you actually believe, but because it's Dave Rubin saying it,
they take you literally going, wait, you missed the entire point of the joke.
You missed the joke.
My point was the exact opposite, but nobody will give you the credit for the context.
And people often just see the written words.
And it's really unfortunate.
And again, what people don't understand and Jim was just talking about this with Judd Apatow
in the case of Louis C.K.
is jokes don't spring fully formed.
Jokes can take weeks, months, years to be honed.
It's so hard, especially if it's a topic.
That is delicate.
To find the phrasing and to say, I'm going to tackle a subject that nobody thinks I can make funny, and I'm going to find a way to make it funny, it's going to take me a while.
And I'm going to stumble through, and I'm going to get some groans, and I'm going to get some people alienated, not me.
Again, I talk about various ridiculous things, but I appreciate those comics who can go there and say, take a subject that I would say, I will never laugh at this.
You made me laugh at this despite that.
And I think Doug Stanhope is one of the best examples of someone who will take the most taboo subjects and make you laugh despite, you might be vehemently opposed to the way he thinks, but he's funny.
And when you do that, it's such a way of opening up your mind to saying, Okay, let me rethink these things.
Or maybe it doesn't.
But it just proves that I think anything can be funny.
Anything can be fair game.
And I think it's important that we allow comedians to have this full range of words and emotions to use.
Because we're talking about the human condition.
And I think comedians really do have a great job in that we can bring up some of these topics in a way that You know, when you see it happen on Tucker Carlson, people might go to fisticuffs.
But in the comedy club, you laugh about it.
You go, you know what?
Maybe my crazy uncle's not so crazy, maybe we can talk.
Yeah, well, that's why it's so strange that I'm doing this again, because I feel like they dragged me into it, because I've seen a lot of comics who I love that have become the word police.
They've become the hysterical crew on Twitter who are calling for books not to be printed and all of this stuff.
We've all done something or said something or tried to make a joke that at some point if you went back people would say that's wrong and you'd be like okay but that was 10 years ago or and it is an odd time I think that that people aren't particularly comedians.
aren't more supportive instead are really leading this book-burning charge.
Well, that's why this family guy thing irked me so much.
It's like, you guys did this for 20 years.
I'm not even, I don't know if Seth's even that, Seth MacFarlane, I don't even know if he's that much involved in the show anymore, but like, it's like, you did this for 20 years, and now it's like, you're on the other side of success, kinda.
So like, are we a more tolerant society because we're not gonna joke about certain people now?
I think, you know, and I think, you know, we look at the universities, we look at places where I think people are taught.
You know, diversity of thought or a different thought, that there is one right thought or that you shouldn't have these discussions.
And I think that's, you know, we've always, I mean, I look at medicine and it's so amazing how medicine, you know, you think you deal in absolutes, you think you deal in complete science, black and white, but we see a new study talked about sunscreen, how actually sunscreen may not be healthy.
Because we, the reality is melanoma, which is completely deadly, is only about 1% of skin cancers.
And it is awful.
But people are putting so much sunscreen on, they're not getting any of the beneficial vitamin D. We're seeing an increase in cardiac disease.
Cardiac disease is killing so many more people than melanoma.
So now, dermatologists are thinking, maybe we shouldn't be wearing as much sunscreen.
So you see these truths that we thought were absolute being challenged because people look at the data, they look at empirical things.
When it comes to life and death, we're able to do that.
When it comes to political topics, which are just as important, I think it's much harder to do it because they're so politically charged that people don't want to look at the data.
They want to look at how they feel about them or these emotions or what it stirs up.
And if someone presents a counter-argument, you're dismissed or debunked or deplatformed.
So I started doing this show and we would be going for 8 or 9 hours a day calling these runs and it's all 10 out of 10 because it was based on the Japanese show.
So my sports calling technique comes just from years of watching sports, watching the Japanese show and being an enthusiastic guy, I'm always hyperbolic.
But it was really straining on the voice since we were shooting these ins and outs where it's coming up next on American Ninja Warrior.
And I was a little gravelly and so I was kind of making a point like, hey, my voice is kind of shot.
So I was like, American Ninja Warrior!
And the producer was like, ooh, do that.
Do more of that.
So this is like in the fourth year.
If you watch the earlier seasons, I'm like, uh, next!
An American Ninja!
I can't even do it because I'm growly.
It was none of that.
So it was just kind of born out of blowing out my voice and now it's become like this signature thing that I love.
So Steve Perry and I share a birthday and I'm not lying.
So for my 38th birthday, never met him.
I've been a Journey fan since I can remember.
And for my 38th birthday at the Brown Derby, the last night of the Brown Derby, we closed it down.
I hired a Journey cover band and I had them play and I still have this fantasy that someday On my birthday, I'm gonna be singing Faithfully or Don't Stop Believing, and all of a sudden another guy's gonna walk out behind me, and it's gonna be Steve Perry!
And we're gonna do a duet together, and arm-in-arm, just singing, like, Faithfully at the end.
I mean, it's just, you know, yeah, you could Don't Stop Believin' or Anyway You Want It.
I mean, they have so many great songs that when you just hear it, they're just toe tappers.
And I mean, granted, you know, if you grew up in the 80s, it was the soundtrack of our youth.
So so much of it takes us back to there.
But Steve Perry is just He's been one of the great artists, I think, what Journey has done.
I saw them up in San Francisco, and Neil Shillen was shouting around, and I thought, I wonder if Steve's going to come out on stage for the long... No, he didn't.
You know, what you see is, the amazing thing is, they really are the people you see.
They are these people who are incredibly hardworking and so generous and supportive of one another.
Um, a woman, Maggie Thorne, and she was, she was open about this.
She was going through a really tough divorce, and she had three little girls.
And, uh, during that time, she started traveling around the country, visiting her ninja sisters, as she called them.
People like Barclay Stockett and Jesse Flexler, Michelle Warnky, and she just talked about how, had she not had this community, She wasn't sure what she would have done to get through it.
And you see, it's been unlike any other sport.
I mean, A, we've only had one winner in 10 seasons.
Like, what other show?
Like, I talk about, like, at the end of America's Got Talent, you know, they'd come out and go, well, turns out America doesn't have talent.
There's no winner.
And yet, you know, it's a show where every single person who's competed on the show has fallen at one point.
So it's a show that would seem to be filled with failure, and yet when you watch it, you feel like you're seeing more success than ever.
And I think we've stumbled into a formula where You see, these are really everyday, they're truly everyday people.
They're us.
They are people who have jobs, have families, who've dealt with substance abuse, or cancer, or the loss of a loved one, whatever it is, loss of a job, and yet are trying to work through it.
And you see, the obstacle course is just a metaphor for the obstacles they've overcome in life.
And we tell, the thing we do, I think better than most shows, is in 90 seconds, we give you a reason to care about these people.
And then we show you, we let you cheer for him.
And it's the Olympic formula of, I don't care about curling, but you tell me this guy works at UPS, he's got a new baby on the way, and it's like a Bruce Springsteen song, and when he's out there brushing, I'm like, you go, buddy, you go!
Flensjørgen from Norway, where you just find yourself cheering for him.
And I think it's this thing of, one of the things I love, why I love doing the Strongman competition, or Ninja, or with Travis Pastrana, this evil thing, I love watching people push the envelope, or do things they didn't think they could do.
I love seeing people have their moment.
Because I think one of the things in life that helps define you, that helps give you the confidence, is to have Super Bowl moment to have to have a moment where you you win you're victorious in something whether it's you get a job or you get a promotion or you you know you literally win a game or whatever it is where you have a moment where you've worked so hard you overcame the obstacles and you got that moment where you're you get the trophy you get that feeling of wow
The hard work pays off.
And to have those moments, and I think Ninja Warrior is filled with that.
And for so many of the people, it's not about getting to the end and winning the money.
It's getting on the course for, we had a girl, Daniela Bright.
I think it was season six, I was live tweeting the show and she said, you know, if I ever get out of bed, I'd love to be on the show.
I'm like, why are you in bed?
She's like, well, I have stage three breast cancer and I'm not sure how it's going to turn out.
And so I sent her a t-shirt and I said, well, we'll be here waiting for you.
The next year, she's on the course.
She goes out on the first obstacle and comes out with the biggest smile on her face.
And, and, you know, our satellite reporter was like, how are you feeling?
I won.
I'm here.
I feel amazing.
And to see that, to see someone, you know, what a perspective on life when we so often get caught up in, you know, did the Patriots win or who cares?
You know, those are real battles that these people are having that we're all going to face, that we're all going to be touched by.
And to remember that, you know, in the face of those, you can still struggle and overcome and find your little victories.
I think that's the message of Ninja Warrior and why the show's resonated.
What do you make of the fact that Ninja Warrior or what Rogan's doing with MMA, like, people doing physical things seems to be actually, like, cool again.
I think it's, you know, it's a primitive part of us.
It's the gladiators.
It's also, you know, particularly as we get more and more static, as we sit around on our phones, we miss that.
You miss that as a kid.
You miss playing.
You miss that feeling of, One of the things that I know rheumatoid arthritis took away from me was my sense of physical well-being.
That ability to spring out of bed and feel like you could run around and run for hours.
And it's that idea of to see people achieving something physically at a high level inspires you and makes you feel motivated, I think, that it's possible.
Especially, you know, MMA or NFL.
We love watching exceptional performances.
With Ninja, what I think the appeal is, is the idea of, that could be me.
Maybe I have a chance to...
Turn this around and get back in shape one last time and do something amazing.
And I think that's, you know, we're looking for inspiration.
We're looking for hope.
I think that's part of humanity is we want to be inspired.
We want to find that spark and wake up and feel like there's hope in the world.
And that's why I love doing what I do.
I love, you know, with Ninja Warrior, with my comedy, I want people to leave feeling better.
You know, again, Love Stan Hope.
Love Ari Shaffir.
Love those guys who can tear a crowd apart.
Love it.
I can't do it.
I suck at it.
I've tried doing roasts.
I've bombed.
unidentified
I'm so bad because I'm just like, I'm sorry, I don't know how to insult you to your face.
And, you know, it's just, I think that's part of kind of finding Authentically where you are and what resonates with you and where you're comfortable and that's one of the things you know We talk about people hear this in comedy finding your voice Yeah Who you are and what you're comfortable with and that is one of the hardest things to do Because so often we emulate those we respect but that's not us.
Yeah, you really have to dig inside and say where do I live?
What's my sense of humor and Gary Gullman right now?
If you're a comedian, or even if you're just interested in expression, Gary Gellman is putting on a clinic.
Since January 1st, he's been putting out a writing tip every day, and they've been gold.
And one of the best was he put out Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on self-reliance.
And it talked about, so often we see our thoughts reflected in someone else and think they're genius, but when it comes to us, we dismiss them because it's ours.
We think it's common.
It's like, trust yourself.
Trust That you're enough.
You know, I'm paraphrasing here, but I thought it was just such a good... For someone who's creative, so often you think of something like, oh, that's not as funny as what Patrice would have said or George Collin would have said, but it's like, no.
Well, let's just talk a little bit about dealing with some serious health stuff, because the average person watching this, looking at you like you're jacked, and you look healthy, and all those things, but you've lived through it.
So having been a doctor, or as my dad puts it, you're still a doctor, champ.
When I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, I found out what it's like to be a patient.
And you go online and you look things up, and you see the worst case scenario, because that's the textbook.
They show you the typically deformed joints, and you think, this is my future.
And it gives you this sinking feeling.
And I realized, That's why it was so important for me to be out there, visible, telling my story, so that people would see there's alternatives.
Not everyone living with the disease is destroyed by it.
We have incredible new treatments.
And just the other day, I got a call from someone who I'd been baseball with in college, and he thought he had RA, and he was petrified.
And he's like, I was just googling it and I found, he's like, I didn't know you had it.
I just googled it and found you had it because you talked about it.
And I thought, you know, that's why I tell it.
So that this person could call me up and I could tell my story and say, look, there's hope, there's treatments.
Don't worry about this.
You know, whatever it is you're facing, there are incredible treatments out there.
And that's why I went on Celebrity Apprentice.
That was my charity.
We raised a million dollars to help with research.
And so It's, look, I would much prefer not to have rheumatoid arthritis and to feel- What level of pain were you going through when you realized- So it started, you know, it started with pain in my hand and it just, for those who don't know, RA essentially is an autoimmune disease where my body attacks my joints.
Yeah.
And the immune system erodes the joints and causes joint destruction, inflammation, and can impact the organs, stiffness in the back and neck.
And so I went from, you know, being, Working out five or six days a week to not working out at all.
My feet were in pain where I was wearing clogs and limping.
I couldn't sleep.
I was sleeping like 14 hours, but I was always exhausted.
I gained 55 pounds.
I felt like a shell of a man.
I was physically ruined.
And then it took 18 months to get the diagnosis.
And I was going to doctors.
I was having blood work.
It just took that long for the blood work to convert.
And when I started the treatment, I got my life back.
And I didn't realize how sick I was.
And not just physically, but emotionally, how drained I was.
And the thing that kept me going was comedy.
Was that, you know, the thing that I would get out of bed for, the thing that would motivate me was to go out and laugh.
And to realize Norman Cousins was right, like the catharsis of laughter and how good those endorphins are, how important it is.
I can't overstate it.
And that's one of the things I've talked about is You know, for people who are sick, it's telling your story.
Because so often, people with a disease feel defined by their disease.
And one of the things I've done is tried to make my stories, when I talk about rheumatoid arthritis or cancer, I want people to laugh.
I want people to laugh about it because if they do, they know I'm okay with it.
And I am okay with it.
Like cancer, I'm 10 years, I'm cured in the RA.
I've made my peace with it.
I'm doing well on my medications and I'm living the best life I can with it.
People take their cues from you, so teaching people how to tell their story, because so many people, when they tell a story of illness, they feel, they can see pity in people's eyes.
And they may not want that.
But it's hard to learn how to tell your story in a way that says, I'm okay with it.
And that's one of the things I've been working on, is trying to figure out how to help people take charge over their disease by doing what you can control, is how you tell your story.
And trying to use, for me it's humor, but for, you know, whatever, there are so many tools.
Uh, for people who are dealing with chronic illness, um, to try to make it, you know, don't let it define your life, because it's very easy, and it's very easy to, to fall into the victim, you know, and feeling sad for yourself.
That'd be a shame if you did that, Wilford Brimley.