From Dentistry to Comedy: Discovering the Healing Power of Humor with Jeffrey Gurian on Comedy Saved Me-Encore Episode

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Comedy saved me. I guess that's why you're doing what you're doing, how comedy saved me. It saved me so many times. It saved me from depression. It got me through dental school. I used to draw on my walls. They treated me so badly that I kept to talk about that now at dental conferences. They want to hear my story because they tortured me in dental school. I was banned from school because I grew a mustache. Welcome to another episode of Comedy Saved Me. I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, here to explore the power of laughter in overcoming life's challenges and shining a light on the moments when humor truly saves us. Each week, we dive into meaningful conversations with comedians, storytellers and creative minds who remind us that even when times are tough, there is always something we can find to smile about. Today, we are joined by the multifaceted comedian, author, healer, Jeffrey Gurian. I'm so excited to even say this with a remarkable journey from dentistry to stand-up stages and decades spent chronicling the world's funniest people, which you can see anytime you want on his Comedy Matters TV show. Jeffrey's life is a true testament to the healing power of humor. And together, we'll delve into this inspiring story, uncover lessons laughter has taught him. No matter what we're up against, comedy can help us all find hope. That is the message of this show. And I'm so excited to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Gurian. Yes, a real doctor and comedian to Comedy Saved Me. Jeffrey, welcome. Thanks so much, Lynn. I'll tell you one thing with an introduction like that, I better be good. You better be good. No, honestly, I wanted to start off by saying that I watched this beautiful documentary. I'm in the middle of producing a documentary with some friends of mine. And so I know what work goes into them and your documentary called Who the Fuck is Jeffrey Gurian? And I love being able to say that because that's really the title, although it just says F. But, you know, when can you do that? Publicly, it was just such a beautiful documentary. And I wanted to say congratulations on that and everything in your life and career, because it seems as though the seeds that you planted have come back to root in all these beautiful ways. So I would like to implore everyone listening right now when this show is done. Just go check this show out, the documentary. It's I don't know how they did it, but in 20 minutes ish, they put quite a beautiful story together. So thank you for that. Thank you so much for saying that. You know, when I watch it, it actually it brings tears to my eyes. It's a very big honor for somebody to do something like that about you. And how it came about this young filmmaker contacted me and he said, you have an interesting story. And would you be open to me doing a doc about you? And I agreed to meet with him, you know, it's it's it's a big risk when you do that. You never know how you're going to be portrayed. People can make you look really weird and stuff. And anyway, I met with the guy and I had a sense of trust, which is why I opened my life to him. It's it's a very odd thing to see your whole life unfurl in a film on the screen, you know, starting from when I was a child. Footage that he had of me playing the piano and, you know, from when I was a kid. And it really encompassed all areas of my life. And I was very I was very happy with what he did. You know, I didn't find any fault with it. It was very heartwarming to me. And as I said, when I watch it, it brings tears to my eyes. The music, the whole thing is it was really very masterful. I couldn't agree more. And it brought tears to my eyes, too. And I do believe it will for anyone who watches. I it's homework. If you're listening to this podcast, that is homework for you to go watch that for no other reason than to discover a wonderful human being on this planet. And very funny, too. That's so kind of. So and it led to something. Possibly very, very big, even bigger than that. I'll just say that a production company saw it, contacted me. And if you're familiar with D.L. Hugley, one of the original Kings of Comedy, he just signed on to produce this. It's a it's a program. It's a special thing about me as a result of that documentary. And it's in the process. They're pitching it to networks, but a production company saw it, made a sizzle reel about me, which was really just as moving, almost just as moving as that doc. And D.L. came on. He's a very dear friend. And when he saw it, he said, I want to produce this. His words were, I would do it for free. And I'm like, I don't expect you to do it for free. He goes, I would do it for free. But his his production company is behind it. And it's going to be D.L. Hugley presents Jeffrey Gurian. Wow. But it's something but it's as a result of that doc. So you never know what happens in life, you know? No, you don't. Can you share a little bit with our congratulations? Wow, that is really big news. And even more on top of the big news you shared before we even started the show, which is equally as exciting. Well, we'll definitely get to. But before we do, can you just share with our listeners a little bit about how you found your way into the world of comedy, especially because, as I mentioned up front, you were going to be a dentist or you are a dentist. It's a nasty rumor that started the day I graduated from dental school. I. Oh, oh, I. People think I'm in the music business. No one thinks no one ever gets dentists. And I don't know about comedy, but, you know, because I was a very sensitive kid and I knew I wanted to be a doctor. But I knew I couldn't handle life and death situations. I didn't know at the time I'm an empath. I feel things more deeply than I want to, which I had to learn. It took me many years to learn to own it as a strength and not as a weakness. And it's one of the things that I lecture on and I write books about because sensitivity is a very big part of my life. And our society very often tells women that they're too sensitive, which is a terrible message. And men don't want to cop to being sensitive because they feel like it's not masculine. I have no choice. I feel things so deeply. There was a time in my life if I was with you and you were sad, I was sadder for you than you were. I felt my feelings. I'm like an antenna for feelings and I have no choice. So I have to learn how to own that. So I at 12 years old, I don't know what made me think I had to decide what I wanted to do for my whole life. But I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I knew I couldn't handle life and death. And I was wearing braces and I said, you know what, I'll be a dentist and I'll make people look beautiful like you have an amazing smile. And I have to tell you that. So thank you. I said, all right, I'll make people look beautiful. And I was already writing comedy. And I remember laying awake at night thinking. You know, I want to be a dentist, but whoever heard of combining that with comedy. No, no one ever did that before. And for some reason, that's become my whole life. I never changed. Most 12 year old kids have no idea what they want to do. They want to be a policeman or a fireman. They change their mind a million times. I never changed my mind. My whole life was geared in that direction. And so in my junior year of dental school, I contrived a way to meet Woody Allen, who was my comedic idol. And I didn't have a lot of self esteem in those days. I was a very poor dental student living in Philadelphia, but I had a lot of nerve. And I never let anything stop me. And I was determined to meet Woody Allen. So on the rare occasions when I would come to New York, I would go to the theater. He was in a show called Playing Again Sam, Play It Again Sam with Tony Roberts. And I would go to the theater and I would drop off a note on the back of my dental school card as if I knew Woody Allen, as if we were friends. And I said, Woody, it's Jeffrey. And I haven't seen you in a long time. And I'm coming to the show and I would leave little strange notes. I'm bringing my cardboard thumb with me. I thought I had to impress him with insane comedy because I don't know if you ever saw his stand up, but it was so bizarre. It was amazing. You know, he did a joke that I'll never forget. He said he was walking down the street and a maniac threw a Bible out of the window. And luckily he had a bullet in his breast pocket. And if it wasn't for that bullet, the Bible would have pierced his heart. Oh my. That's the essence of insane absurdism. So over a period of months, I'm leaving Woody notes with the stage manager every time I could afford to come home on the back of my dental school card. So finally I saved up enough money for tickets because I had no money. I was a poor dental student and I borrowed my father's car. And because I had no self-esteem, I knew that there's only two ways to impress a celebrity. If you're going to meet a star, you have to show them that you're sane. So there's only two ways. You either wear a tie or you bring a pretty girl with you. And I didn't have a tie and I only knew one pretty girl and she hated me because we had just broken up. But I begged her to come with me because she knew that my dream was to meet Woody Allen and she agreed to come with me. So this night I drive up to the theater and I leave my last card Woody. I'm here and I'll be back during intermission. I was so naive. I didn't know that you don't go to see somebody during intermission. You wait till the end of the show. So during intermission, I'm nervous. I want to back out. I'm too nervous to go and she goes, you have to do this. You have to. I came with you. You can't back out. So I go backstage. Stage manager is not in his seat. Now, in those days, there was no terrorism. You could just walk backstage at a Broadway show. So I open the door. The stage manager is not there. I take a hand. I run up the stairs and I wind up on the roof. I went the wrong way. So I come back down. The stage manager is there and he says, can I help you? And I said, yes, Woody is expecting me. And he said, go right in. So I go to Woody's dressing room and it's empty. He's in Tony Robbins dressing room with the whole cast. Right. And I see this. Lynn, I'm telling you, I could see this like it was yesterday. It was decades ago. Woody is sitting on a couch across the room and I go up to the door and I go like this to him and he goes and I'm like, yes, you like this. I crook my finger and he comes over and he's actually holding my car. And he says to me, you must be Jeff. And at that point, I lost it. I'm meeting my idol. I'm so excited. I'm 21 years old. And I said to him, I started saying ridiculous things like, let's open up a day camp and throw winter clothes at people. Let's walk low like we used to in Europe. And he looks at the girl I'm with. He goes, this guy's a fucking nut. Just like that. And I realized I was over excited. You know, I'm a kid. I'm meeting my idol. So I said to him, listen, I write comedy and everyone says that everything I write is just like you. And he says, well, I'm in the middle of a show. He goes, you think you could come back tomorrow night. And I was like, no, I'm much too busy. No, I didn't say that. I said, no, I'll come back tomorrow night. So I begged the same girl to come with me again. And she did because I had no self-esteem. I thought it was about who was on my arm. I didn't I I didn't know in those days that people were inviting me because they wanted me to come, not because of who I could bring with me. But I didn't have the confidence. So I bring the girl. He sits with me for like an hour in his dressing room and reads all my material. I didn't even have scripts. I had like scraps of paper. My dream was that he was going to say, Jeffrey, we need to make movies together. That's not what happened. He said to me, he said to me, your comedy is very visual and you should really think of making films out of it, which I did a few years later. I made a series of films on the street called the Men Who series that wound up in the Toyota Comedy Festival. And it was about it was about men who do very unusual things like men who take a pitchfork to the movies, men who enjoy Latin dancing with tools. I'm a lot of Latin dancing with tools. I had a guy do the tango with a wrench that was unbelievable. He was so good. So so years later, I became friends with Jack Rollins, who was Woody Allen's manager. And he was managing Woody Allen, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams, which is how I met all of them. Because Jack Rollins became a mentor to me, called Saturday Night Live and asked them to meet with me. And I wrote a movie years later called I Am Woody that was a short film, a 40 minute long film about a violent mob boss who was obsessed with Woody Allen. And he survives a mob hit and he comes out of it with amnesia. And now he really thinks he's Woody Allen, but he's six foot five and 300 pounds. So he's he's a huge Woody Allen. He becomes afraid of his own men. He thinks he's small and thin. So so they want to take him to a sit down and they can't get him to go. They have to tell him that it's a meeting to raise money for his next movie. So I wound up being connected to Woody Allen very strange ways. And his manager, Jack Rollins, said to me, Woody must have really seen something in you, because it wasn't like him to invite people to come backstage and sit with him. It was very, very rare. And that's how I got to meet Billy Crystal, because Jack Rollins wanted Billy Crystal to play me in a sitcom. He thought he would be great. But Billy was doing sat in at live. He was doing a million things and it didn't work out. But that's how I wound up meeting Billy and Robin Williams. And years later, when I wrote the book on the comic strip with Chris Rock, there's a picture of me and Billy Crystal in it. And he's pointing to his teeth because did you work on his teeth? No, but he remembered that I had been a dentist. Oh, wow. The concept of the sitcom that Jack Rollins wanted him to star in was a dentist who wanted to be in show business. And he thought Billy Crystal would be perfect to play me. Wow. So he brought Billy down to the office to meet me. He took a liking to me. And again, that's how I met Billy Crystal and Robin Williams. And when I told him my Woody Allen story, he was like, that's amazing. It is amazing. And Jeffrey, it is sort of that feeling you get when you meet you. Even before I met you, I was excited. And I'm curious, you know, you said you realized you were an empath. Two side questions. One, how did you know? When when did you know? And two, if there are people listening who have similar feelings like when they get around somebody and they can feel their pain, even if someone hasn't even opened their mouth, you can sort of feel that in the room. How did you how did you learn how to harness that as opposed to make it, you know, take you down because that you can't save the world? No, I mean, that's a great question. And I and it's an important thing for people to know because there are a lot of people struggling with their sensitivity. When I was only seven or eight years old, I already knew that I could take away certain pain with my hands. If my little sister had pain, I would just say, I'll take it away. And I would put my hands on her and the pain would go away. And I used it all my life. My parents didn't teach it to me. No one showed me that it came to me intuitively that I could do that. And years later, it's what opened me up to the concept of past lives because sometimes little children have certain gifts that there's no explanation for. I was just reading about a five year old piano prodigy who is going to be playing at Carnegie Hall. And it just makes sense. I open my mind to all positive things. I don't want negative thoughts, but all positive things because it's arrogant to say that you know what's true and what's not true. When it comes to things like that, how can it diminish you in any way to open your mind to the concept that there's a possibility of past lives? You know, you can't kill energy when people pass on, their body stops moving. But the spirit has to go someplace. You can't kill energy, you know. So growing up, I always use that. I would always just touch people and take away their pain. When I went into practice, there's a concept. The universe puts people in your life that you're supposed to know. And I would get a lot of patients that came to me that had very bad headaches and physical symptoms of stress from clenching and grinding their teeth. It's called Bruxism. A lot of people do that. Millions of people in this country alone, there's more than 150 million people. See my little tiny teeth back there. That's that's me. There's more than 150 million people who suffer with what they think are migraine headaches that are really what we call musculoskeletal headaches from clenching and grinding the TMJ, which is the jaw in front of your the not the joint, the joint that you can feel in front of your ear when it allows you to open and close your mouth. And that joint is considered a master joint, which means that it controls not only how your head feels, but how your whole body feels. When that joint is out of whack, you get many different physical symptoms. So I had to learn. I started studying spirituality about 30 years ago. I wanted to know what it was that I was given, what this gift was that I was given. It's helped me in many different ways. And I had to learn that people will try to manipulate you because of it. A lot of people take kindness for weakness. And people who are sensitive need to know that you need to censor your life. When you have that kind of energy, you draw a lot of people into your life, but not everyone deserves to be there. And it's not an easy thing to do, but you have to eliminate people that will drain you because there are some people that will only call you when they're in crisis and then you help them, you stay on the phone with them for an hour. By the end of the conversation, they feel great and you feel suicidal because you allow them to drain you, you know, there's so look, I write books about that. Wow. My first happiness book, I don't know if you start, is called Healing Your Heart by Changing Your Mind, a Spiritual and Humorous Approach to Achieving Happiness. You know how hard it is to get a dog to sit and look. I was going to ask you was that was that a. Do you think, can I ask you before we get too far? Do you think Woody Allen was an empath and that's why he allowed you that day to come in there? That's an interesting question as well. You have great questions. I don't know that he was an empath, but I think he missed the felt energy from me. Had to, right? I don't mean that in an egotistical way, but people have told me, like on my Comedy Matters YouTube channel, they say everybody stops off to talk to me on the red carpet, even if their publicists are pulling them away. Like Kevin Hart, you know, his publicist is like, we have to go. He's like, I got to talk to Jeffrey and he came over and, you know, I never try and trap people into saying something awkward. I only want to put out positive energy to the universe. Jerry Seinfeld once asked me to keep it a secret that he was doing his Netflix special at the comic strip, and it would have been a great scoop for me to put it in my column, but I would never do that. You didn't. I would never do that. You know, I would never risk a friendship to try to get something better for myself. And he really, he really respected that. I kept it a secret for three months. He was getting paid like $100 million to do a Netflix special, and he didn't want people to know that he was doing it in the club where he started. And at the time that was my home club. That's the club. I did the book on that with Chris Rock, and I kept it a secret. So my feeling is that maybe Woody felt that he could trust me in some way. I don't know. I can't speak for what people feel, but people have said to me that when I'm on the red carpet, they come over and they give me a hug because I make them feel safe because they know that they can trust me, that I'm not going to put something up on the internet that makes them look bad. Let's put it that way. You're not going to sabotage them. Yeah. I only want to support people. That's what I want to do. I love to support talented people. When people have a gift, I want to help them put it out there. Such a beautiful thing. What was the first moment that you realized that comedy and humor could be a force, not just for healing you personally, but also for others? Well, I'm on the board of this group called LaFMD that comes out of California. And we bring comedy to people in hospitals and people in recovery. I performed at Sloan Kettering once for cancer patients. They wheeled them out with IVs in their arm. People are very sick. Other people feel very awkward around them because you don't know what to say, what to do. As an empath, it was very hard for me to see people that were so ill. And I performed and I made them laugh. And it was a great feeling. It was a wonderful gift that you can laugh. It's not just the cliche that laughter is the best medicine. It's so important. It releases endorphins. It changes your whole mood. I realized that when I got started from Saturday Night Live, can I tell you that story? Because that's a crazy story. Please tell me about that story. And then I'm going to tell you my notes that I got from your... Just go ahead. Tell me the story. I'll tell you. So Saturday Night Live comes out. I'm making films on the street, Super 8 with my Super 8 camera. And they're like kind of crazy kind of films like false news items. Like several men were arrested for smearing cream cheese on the ankles of elderly women. But what their stockings wrote down like bagels. You ever see the old women with the stockings around their ankles? It looked like bagels to me. So I went to my dear grandmother. I had two grandmothers. One had a great sense of humor. She and her husband owned a nightclub growing up. And she had a great sense of humor. And she made believe she had a Jewish accent. I was so sick. She let me put cream cheese on her ankles. On my own grandmother, I put cream cheese on her ankles. And she says, you know, in the Jewish religion, we have two kinds of stockings. One for milk and one for meat. She goes, and this crazy man, he smears cream cheese on my meat stockings. And I can't get it off. And I put him with the camera on the ankles with cream cheese. And I was doing like stories like two master criminals who disguised themselves as inanimate objects to commit their crimes. So it starts with two men disguised as coats rob a hat store. They come over to, they come in over the arms of two other men and they say, just act natural like we're your coats and nobody will get hurt. Right? I love it. Two men disguised a pair of eyeglasses rob a local optometrist. They come in on another man's face. And I interviewed the guy, I interviewed the victim of the crime. And he says, I don't know what's going on here. I'm walking into this optometrist to get my glasses adjusted. Another pair of glasses jumps onto my face and whispers into my ear, just act natural like we're your glasses and nobody will get hurt. What's the city coming to? So I make these films and I say, I got to get up to Saturday Night Live. So the same way I met Woody Allen, I had a lot of balls in those days. I couldn't do it now what I did then. I'm driving a PIP mobile and I had met a Pimp from Maryland and his name was Benny and I was very impressed with his lifestyle. And he drove a bold Cadillac Eldorado with a clear bubble over the driver's seat and a clear bubble over the passenger seat. I'm like, this is the car that I need. So I went to a place in the Bronx and I bought a Mandarin orange Cadillac Eldorado that had been made for one of the Isley Brothers. True story. I found that later. It was really for one of the Isley Brothers. And I put a Rolls Royce grill on it because that's what the Pimps drove in the 70s. But mine had doctor's plates on it, DDS plates on the front. So it was very confusing to people. Hookers would check out the car, drug dealers, cops would follow me. I was married at the time and my wife was like, we're Jewish and we live in Scarsdale. Why am I driving an orange Cadillac? You know. No one got it but me. I totally got it. It made perfect sense to me. So I drive up to 30 Rock with my films. I threw the doorman a few bucks because in those days you could drive right up to the front of the building. There was no terrorism. I threw the doorman a few bucks and I said, watch my car. Lauren Michaels is expecting me. Lauren Michaels, the producer of it said, he had never heard of me. Lauren Michaels was not expecting me. So I snuck in to the, I snuck past security. I got up to Saturday Night Live. Alan's Y-Bell, I don't know if you know the name, but he's become an award-winning writer, producer, director. In those days he was the main writer for Saturday Night Live. He was playing handball on the wall with a guy named Neil Levy who is Lauren Michaels' cousin. And I interrupt them playing handball and I introduce myself and I say, I have these films and Alan sits and watches the films. To this day, decades later, he says he can't get the image of cream cheese on the ankles out of his and spoke to him this past week. You know? Wow. He did the kindest thing for me. He didn't just give me the phone number of his manager. He called him on my behalf. Wow. And he said to, and his manager's name was David Jonas and that he left us in recent years at 100 years old and at the time he was managing Freddie Prinz, who was the star of the show Chico and the Man. I love that show. So he, he sent me up to meet with David Jonas and David took about a year trying to talk me out of it. He goes, you're a doctor. You don't need this business. It's a crazy business. You don't want to be in the comedy world. You're a doctor. I said, I wouldn't take no for an answer. And it took me about a year to learn how to write jokes because I'm thinking cream cheese on the ankles, which you can't do on stage. That's a visual, right? So I started writing jokes for his comedians, Dick Capri and Freddie Roman, the guys who did the show Catskills on Broadway. And through them, I got to meet Rodney Dangerfield and Rodney started doing my jokes on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Amazing. That's really what started my career. But it was because I had the nerve to drive up in a Pimp Mobile the Saturday night. And they, and they actually did that in the documentary. They did it in an animated version. Yes. If you remember of me typing this orange catalog. I would love to have seen that though in real life. I'll send you pictures of the car. I have pictures of the car. Jeffrey, can you just tell me where the chutzpah, I hope I said that correctly. Because if I don't spray it, then I didn't say it correctly. But what gave you that I'm not going to take no for an answer, that creative thinking to just act like you already knew these people just to get, you know, because that has to come from somewhere. Someone instilled this in you or you just naturally knew? I wish I had a great answer to that. I was just, I was so determined. I felt like people needed to know who I was. That the only reason I wasn't best friends with Mick Jagger was because he didn't meet me yet. Oh, wow. Like I finally met Mick one night. And I recently met Melanie Hambrick, his girlfriend. I told her the story because when my kids were little, they would say, how come you're not like the other dads? And I'd be like, you don't understand if I was Mick Jagger and they'd be like, yeah, dad, but you're not. And I told Mick that story the night I met her. He didn't think it was that funny. I thought it was hilarious, but Melanie thought it was funny, you know, but I don't know. So where it came from, I was just determined. I felt like I was given this gift of comedy. My parents had great sense of humor. My dad used to take me to comedy films when I was a little kid. He was always laughing. Oh, he was such a wonderful person. And I had a great sense of humor. And maybe that's where I got it from. But I was determined because I didn't know one person in show business. I didn't know anybody. So I'm like, how am I going to do this? How am I going to get to meet all these people that I needed to know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where I got the courage from. Like I said, I don't think I could do it now. No. I mean, you couldn't anyway. And just a different world. I could. Yeah. They would shoot at me if I tried to speak at this. Having live now, you'd see me on the news in hand cards. Oh my God. Was there a much safer world in those days? It was. People were being set on fire on the subway. It was, you know. No, but still very important just to know for anyone who may want to get into comedy or whatever they want to be. Don't do what I did. Don't do what Jeffrey did. No. I had a lot of nerve is what I'm saying. I really had a lot of courage to go out and do that because these people could have said to me, who the heck are you? Get out of here. They could have. But for some reason they accepted. There was only three people ever wanted to meet. Woody Allen, Salvador Dali and The Beach Boys. And I met them all. I got to meet them all and spend an evening. I spent an evening with Salvador Dali. You know, that's another crazy story. But I don't want you to run out of time on your podcast, but I have a lot of stories. You do. And that's why I was saying that the documentary to sum it up as quickly as it was, who the F is Jeffrey Gurian is, I said, my goodness, I would have gone down each one of the segments of that documentary. I could have spent hours discussing each element of them alone, but it was so nicely done. It got me so excited to talk to you. We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Saved Me podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Saved Me podcast. Some of the things that I made note of, and I have to share this with you because it's so huge. And I want you to explain if you could be very careful what you spend your time being afraid of because we tend to manifest our biggest fears. Is that sort of like people getting in their own way of success or those old sayings? Be careful what you wish for. Or can you explain that because that's really huge, just that sentence. Hopefully that you said that. It's one of the things, stuttering was a very big part of my story and it had to do with fear. For some reason, I've been leading a fear-based existence for my whole life and I never let it stop me. As a kid, I had a lot of fears. I was afraid of the dark and I made myself go in the dark. I started stuttering when I was about seven years old and I stuttered through my 20s and beyond. Even after I was a doctor, I was still blocking on certain words. When I went to college, I made myself run for the president of the freshman class. I was only 16 years old. I didn't feel part of. I couldn't say my name. I could never say Gurian. Most stutters can't say their own name. As you can see, not only don't I stutter anymore, but you can't even shut me up. I have a lot to say. I always talk, I have a lot to say. But as an avocation, I work with stutterers all over the world to teach them how not to stutter. When I went to college, as I said, I ran for president telling myself if I could win, I wouldn't have to stutter anymore. And to make a long story short, I won. I was the president of the whole freshman class of Hunter College and I still stuttered. And it was a great lesson because it taught me that outside validation in life doesn't work. It doesn't matter how many people tell you that you're wonderful and talented and fantastic. It matters what you think of yourself. And that started my journey on learning about who I was and what thoughts I was holding that were not valid for me. It's a very big topic. I do a talk called Don't Believe Your Thoughts. We're all holding thoughts that are not valid for us, that are usually negative, that work against us. I created a false disability for myself. As you can see, I no longer stutter. It's not a genetic problem. It's, and the stuttering community doesn't tell people that they can get better. It's a very big frustration for me. So I worked very hard to cure myself. And it took me years to undo the unhealthy thoughts that I was holding. And it's what led, I hope you don't mind, but it's what led to me writing my second book, Fight the Fear, Overcoming Obstacles That Stand in Your Way. Because I've been battling fear for so many years. And other people do too when I speak to them. So I started studying spirituality about 30 years ago and learned how to process the events in my life. Fear is a bully. Fear is the thoughts in your head that tell you that you'll never be successful, that you're not enough. You're too old, you're too young, you're too thin, you're too heavy, whatever. You're just not right. It always tells you these things and they're not true. And you have to fight against it. And what I teach people is you have to make that voice or whisper. If you were in a crowd of people and somebody was whispering to you, there's a good chance you wouldn't hear what they were saying. That's how you have to make that part of your mind. It's your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is your enemy. And it's very strange to think that I'm battling with my own mind. So I have fears of traveling. I have fears of getting lost. So in 2019, I made myself go to Japan all by myself as a challenge. I performed in two shows while I was there. I was lost every single day because they say that the Japanese subway system is the most difficult in the world. I was lost every day, but I never let it stop me. I figured out where to go. I have fears of getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, probably because of my hair. I don't like to get my hair wet. So I'm walking down the street in Japan and it starts to rain out of nowhere. So I found a store and I bought an umbrella. I solved the problem. I spoke Japanese. Things that other people can do comfortably I must be able to do. When I go to the airport, I'm not alone. It's filled with millions of people who are traveling. If they're traveling, I have to be able to do it as well. So I challenge myself on a daily basis. And again, it's one of the things that I lecture on. I had so many fears. Fears of performing, fears of getting on stage, fear of having a practice, fear of having a family, fear of being a dad. I conquered every one of those fears, not to say that they're gone, but I can battle fear on a daily basis. So many things can make me uncomfortable. I'll never figure out exactly why. And it's not important to figure out exactly why, but it is important to look at all the possibilities. So I'm always grateful to get an opportunity to talk about stuttering, because if anybody out there knows somebody who has that problem, just tell them that they can get better. That's the message. You don't have to tell people that they could be cured. For some reason, the stuttering community doesn't like it. If you tell them you have a cure, but they should know that you can get better, that the problem is in here. I realized, I'll end it on this. I realized one day I didn't stutter when I was alone. I only stutter when I was trying to talk to somebody else, which is very common in the stuttering community. And I was given the grace to figure out, you can't have a disability based on your location or on who is in the room with you. A man with a limp limps in every room of his house. He can't go into a room alone and walk perfectly. But if I could speak fine when I'm alone, then theoretically it means there's nothing wrong with me. And I had to confront the fear and undo the negative thoughts in my mind to allow myself to free myself from the bondage of stuttering. That's a very long answer to your question. That's incredible though, because what you are saying in essence is, first of all, you have to train your brain to think optimistically and look at every challenge in life and anything that you're afraid of as just an obstacle you have to overcome. There's so many people that when you get stuck in a rhythm, the fear just guides you constantly. And I don't know if you or even myself, sometimes, I mean, yeah, I've been afraid of things in the past, but for some weird reason, I have this, I always thought it was a problem that I was overly optimistic. I was too optimistic. I was too happy. I was too excited, just the opposite of almost all my friends who promptly didn't want to be friends with me anymore because they didn't know how to be happy. And I learned that when I was a teenager. So when I talk to someone like you who's done all this research and written books, it all makes so much sense that there's so much we just do to ourselves that we need to learn. It's very hard to objectively look at your own thoughts. I had a healing center for a while called the Happiness Center. And I teach people to create their own Happiness Center. If you come to my house, it's filled with balloons and crayons and toys. And you would think that little children lived here. And I do it for me. It's very important. My inner child is my best friend. When you were a little girl and people would come to you as and say, could Lynn come out to play? And you were so happy that's not supposed to stop just because you grow up and do serious things. You supposed to stay connected to that. And so when I teach people to create their own Happiness Center, every place where you live, every place you look, should be something that makes you feel good inside. Like my whole apartment is white. My carpeting is white. My piano is white. My car is white. I need brightness because as an empath, I'm affected by color, by music, by the people I'm with, by the room that I'm in. I'm sensitive to everything around me. So I have to center my life and make sure that everything there is something that makes me happy. And it does. I don't keep things around that bring back bad memories. I only surround myself. That's my own personal Happiness Center. And that's what I teach people to do. Oh my gosh. Now it explains everything about all. Everything is so neutral in my life and people make fun of me. Like, could you put a little something of color around here or something? Everything's just so, and there's no, yeah. It's interesting how you go into someone's home and it can explain a lot about what's going on in their head. People live in dark places and they wonder why they're depressed. Unlike a plant, I need lots of light, sunlight, water. Happiness. Happiness. That's the thing. That's what I lecture on. In the past few months, I've been a keynote speaker at major dental conferences. And the topic they gave me was how to survive a career in dentistry using positive thinking and humor. Because dentists have the highest rate of suicide and the highest rate of divorce. You're kidding. I did the divorce. I'm trying to put off the suicide. Please, no. We need you. Yeah, no, that's just a joke. I'm kidding. I feel good. I feel wonderful. You know, my ADHD kicks my butt. It creates a lot of confusion. I talk about the rosso. So many people, you know, it's very fashionable these days for people to say they have ADHD. I was actually tested by a neurologist and he said to me, you must have had to work 10 times as hard as everyone else. And it's true. I did. In 2015, I had a heart attack. Yes. Came out of nowhere. It was one of those, they called it a widow maker heart attack. I guess it was lucky I wasn't still married, right? There was no widow. But I was lucky enough to survive. And I was back on stage five days later. And the owner of the comedy club said to me, what are you crazy? You just had a heart attack. I was like, yeah, but it's hard to get a spot here. I didn't want to lose my spot. You see? Only a comedian would say something like that. Only a true comedian. Because when I left the hospital, they said to me, try and make believe this didn't happen. And I'm like, how do you make a, you didn't have a heart attack. It really put me in touch with my mortality because it was the major artery to the left side of my heart. They said it was about 95% blocked. I had never been sick a day in my life. The night before I was out with the serious exam people because I had been a regular on serious exam for a couple of years, bringing on special guests. And I was on air and we were partying for the holiday. And the next day this thing happens to me. And then March 11th of 2020, the day they declared it a pandemic, that's the day I came down with it. Well, as you can tell, I'm a trendsetter. I went right out. I got COVID immediately. I don't want to wait. Well, COVID double pneumonia, right? Oh my God, the whole thing. I'm laughing now, but it was very serious. The ambulance had to take me away. I waited two weeks to call an ambulance because they were warning people if you had any kind of heart condition, try not to go to the emergency room because the germs were so strong. It was when New York was the epicenter of the virus. And when the ambulance finally came, I couldn't take the pain anymore. I never was so sick in my life. And when the ambulance came to get me, two men in hazmat suits came to my door. And one of them took my hand. I couldn't believe this to this day. And he said to me, don't worry, you're going to make it. That small act of kindness meant so much to me because I had been alone and so sick for two weeks. And he was amazed that I could get on the stretcher myself. He said, most people needed to be carried. And when I was playing there in the hospital, I was trying to make myself laugh. Because my life is so bizarre, the first two days, they put me in isolation. The third day, they put me in a room with three other very sick men. And they tell me the guy in the bed next to me is from Wuhan, China. I'm like, what? That can't even happen. But that's impossible. Those are the kind of things that happened to me. I'm laying there next to patient zero. Right? Oh my God. The guy is coughing and choking into the air with no mask on. So when I expressed my concern to the nurse, she told me not to worry. And she pointed to a thin curtain that was hanging between us. And I'm like, excuse me for being so concerned. I said, you know, everyone knows if you want to protect yourself from a deadly virus, you're hanging a thin curtain around you. Who better Dr. Fauci didn't know about that? I mean, it was ridiculous. So I turned my hospitalization into like 10 minutes in my act. Wow. So I was lucky that I survived. As I said, I joke about it now. They saved me with hydroxychloroquine before they politicized it. I had put myself on Z-Pak, which I like to tell people. Always keep Z-Pak in the house. Yeah. It's an antibiotic that's specific for your breathing. Yeah, especially if you end up getting pneumonia because you wait too long, like most guys. Yeah, exactly. And you're supposed to take it for five days. And I took it for 10 days. And that and the hydroxy saved me. So. Well, thank goodness you're still with us. Thank you. But humor is very, very powerful. It could change people's lives. And I guess that's why you're doing what you're doing, how comedy saved me. It saved me so many times. It saved me from depression. It got me through dental school. I used to draw on my walls. They treated me so badly that I get to talk about that now at dental conferences. They want to hear my story because they tortured me in dental school. I was banned from school because I grew a mustache. And the dean of the school these days told me it was because they were racist and anti-Semites. I didn't know that in those days, but I was tortured in dental schools. I've been through a lot of difficult times. And comedy always saved me. Being able to think differently. Comedy is taking things that you see every day and pointing out what's funny about them. That's why the audience laughs. That we have the ability to see things that you take for granted. Like now I'm talking about ripped jeans. Ripped jeans drive me insane. Because the truth is ripped jeans are just torn pants. That's all they are, man. Just torn pants. If you went into a store and you saw a sale, a big table filled with pants, and it said sale torn pants. There's a good chance you wouldn't buy them. You'd be like, yeah, I'm good. I'm good. You know? But people are wearing torn pants. And it's so stupid because the more torn they are, the more expensive they are. I saw a girl with like just wearing pockets. That's all that was left. Both legs were completely gone. Just pockets. A thousand dollars. Poor people can never wear ripped jeans. They can't afford them. It's like, so it's so silly. Everybody wears ripped jeans. But to me, I'm seeing torn pants. It's funny how your mind works like that. That's what comedians do. We take the things that you see every day, and we see the humor in them. You know, something you said to me, or maybe it was during one of the things that I've watched of you or read, that there are still mornings even today that you will wake up and feel a little, maybe, I don't want to know if depression is the word, but you just don't feel right and you can't get out of your own head. How do you do that? I mean, for example, I am the happiest person that I know, but I still wake up. Like just the other morning, I woke up and I had this sense of gloom and doom, and I couldn't shake it, and I didn't know how to shake it. And you really have to work hard with your own mind to fix that. And sometimes it's really hard. There's a possibility that you're an empath. Look, we're surrounded by stress every day. Every place you look, TV, you read the newspaper, horrible things. There's such evil in the world. It's possible not to internalize some of it. I find that I wake up in a positive mood, but if I wake, look, you may be internalizing stuff. Maybe you're an empath as well, and you're internalizing something from someone else. It's confusing to people until they learn about their sensitivity. What am I feeling? And what am I feeling that someone else, that I picked up from someone else? What I do healing work, I have to protect my heart chakra that I don't internalize someone else's negativity. But it's very easy to do that. What I do is I make a gratitude list. All the things that I'm grateful for, it's very important to be grateful for things. Self-pity is one of the worst things that a human being can do for themselves, to feel sorry for yourself. Anytime I've ever done that, I walk out in the street and God puts some unfortunate person in front of me to show me how lucky that I am. I have a very, very long gratitude list. There are things that I've wanted in my life that I don't have for a long time now, but what I've learned is that I'm not the ultimate victim of the universe. If I don't get what I think I'm supposed to have, it's not because I'm being punished. It's because I'm supposed to have something better than that. And if I got what I thought I wanted, I wouldn't be available for the really good thing that's coming to me. The problem is I have to have patience. And as human beings, we have no patience. We want everything right now. So I've come to understand that. Like I said, I'm studying spirituality for 30 years, and it's taught me how to process the events in my life. And I understand the path that I've been on. I understand it much better than I used to. You get what you get. You get what you're supposed to get, not necessarily what you want, but what you're supposed to have. And you don't lose anything you're supposed to have either. On a very personal note, divorce is very painful, but my ex-wife is a wonderful person, and she adopted two other children. She remarried and adopted two other children and had another daughter of her own. And those two children needed to be adopted and that little girl needed to be born. That little girl recently had twins of her own. All those things couldn't have happened had I stayed. And sometimes you only see that in retrospect. Well, we're all friends. Halei's come, and we celebrate everything together with my kids, my ex-wife, and her husband and their kids. And I have a very big extended family because of the principles that I've spoken to you about. Not necessarily comedic principles, but spiritual principles. And I try and lead my life that way. And when you do that, you wind up with a much bigger life than you thought you'd have. Because people very often hate each other when they break up. And for me, like she's the mother of my children, there's no greater gift. No one else ever gave me any kind of gift that even comes close to that. And so I value that. And so I honor her. You know, I tell her, I don't know if she likes to hear it or not, but I tell her all the time that I'm very grateful for her because she gave me that amazing opportunity. And not everybody has that opportunity. And, you know, so being grateful is a key to getting out of that gloomy state. If you wind up waking up like that sometimes, could just be a bad dream too, you know. You can pick up something that you heard or saw. It's why when you dream, there are people in your dream that you've never met before. They're probably people you passed on the street that you don't know. Oh, how interesting. Our minds are like video recorders. They record everything. I'm very big talking about cellulite memory. Every single thing that's happened to you since you were born, Lynn, is still inside of you. It's the reason why you could hear a song you like and you remember the boy you liked in the third grade or you smell a perfume and you're like, my kindergarten teacher wore that perfume. You know, it's sensory deja vu. There's no thought involved. It happens automatically. And so we get triggers all day long and you never know what triggers a weird thought. And suddenly you can be happy and suddenly you could feel sad and you won't even know why. And it could be a bit of a song, somebody walks by that reminds you of somebody you used to know. You walk by 13th Street and you had a relationship on 13th Street and just seeing that sign brings something back to you. We're very delicate instruments. We sure are. Oh my goodness. I feel like you should be sending me an invoice at the end of this podcast. Well, I have a feeling that you are an empath. When I read about you, you do so many interesting things. I wouldn't be surprised because it seems that what I'm saying resonates with you, that you get it. I'm not saying stuff that you don't understand. No, I get it. I think the one thing where I realized that something was going on was, I can't handle large crowds. Not because I'm afraid of anything current day, you know, large crowds of people and... The energy can be overwhelming. But I never knew that. And someone told me that and I was like, that makes so much sense. I'm feeling all of everybody else's energy. And I don't know my, I'm like, my brain is going crazy because I don't know which way to turn. So maybe there, maybe you're on this one. Wonderful signs of an empath that you feel too much. You take in, I'm like an antenna for people's feelings. I still, I feel more than I want to. So I've had to learn to censor my life. If I encounter someone who I get a negative vibe from, I eliminate that. I don't allow them in anymore. Wherever I can, sometimes if you're doing a big project, some of them slip in, you can't quit everything you're doing just cause somebody's negative. But when there's a choice, you have to try and protect yourself. You are so right about that. That's what makes work work sometimes, instead of fun. Now you've interviewed and written, and thank you so much for all that. I know you're also on a time schedule too. So I want to, I have so many more questions. No, please, I'm not in a hurry. This is very important to me. Take as much time as you need. Well, thank you. You're so generous. You've interviewed and written for legendary comedians. Can you tell us maybe about a particularly memorable encounter that may have deeply impacted you? Maybe somebody like, who may have gotten in your way with SNL, or have you ever confronted that? But do you know, or even anecdotal, something? I've been given the gift to meet all the people that I've been inspired by in the comedy world, written for them, worked with them, Milton Burl. A lot of people who were listening to this may not even know who Milton Burl was, Mr. Television. Greatest entertainers of all time. The reason he was called Mr. Television was because people bought TVs to watch his show. In the 1940s, before there was TV, he had one of the first big shows, the Texaco Star Theater. And he was my sponsor in the Friars Club. As a little kid, I'd watch him on the Ed Sullivan show. And Milton Burl became a friend of mine. He saved my life once. I was very depressed. And I'll never forget, I always get home on a very cold winter day. And my phone was ringing. This was before cell phones. I got home from teaching and I was feeling really sad. And as I was opening my door, my phone was ringing already. And I was trying to get to it before it stopped ringing. And I picked it up and it was Milton Burl. And he said to me, he was being honored. And he wanted me to come as his guest. I think it was an honor from the Friars Club, Man of the Year or something like that. And it was so amazing to me that I went from being so sad and depressed to being so happy, that a man like that would think to call me. We actually became friends. And I got to write for him. And I got to write for Woody Allen, not Woody Allen, for Rodney Dangerfield and Joan Rivers and Gilbert Gottfried and Richard Belzer and Andrew Dice Clay. I'm one of the few people that ever got to write for Dice. And he says that openly. There was a time I wouldn't say who I wrote for because it's not to take anything away from them. They did mostly their own material, but they worked with me. You know, and I got to work with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. Oh, yes. They had me open the Broadway show and they made me this jacket. Oh my gosh. An exact replica of the Guardian Angels jacket that Curtis Slewa wears who's running for the Bayer. That's awesome. But my jacket says, Gourian Angels. And Nick Kroll and John Mulaney made this for me. See on the front, the exact replica of the Guardian Angels. So they didn't know that I was friends with Curtis Slewa. They mentioned him in their Broadway show. I used to be Curtis's dentist and he says it. So it doesn't matter that I say that. Get out of here. He's my friend for 30 years. I know he's got a win for mayor, by the way. So wow. I was at the prize to Nick and John. I brought Curtis to the Broadway show and he wore his Guardian Angels jacket. And I wore my Gourian Angels jacket. Gourian Angels. I almost feel like you should have some hot chicks in Gourian Angels jackets too. Like Charlie's. They made up Gourian Angels t-shirts and they got two models to wear them to the opening night. I've had a lot of amazing experiences. And we did the show in Montreal and they had me. They do too much tuna. Were they pranked? I was just going to say this is more homework for those listening to the show besides who the F is, is John Gourian. You have to look up Nick Kroll and John Mulaney doing too much tuna with you because that is so funny. The person to be pranked. It's a strange thing to put on your resume. But I'm the very first person to be pranked with too much tuna. Nick and John think it's very funny to give people the tuna sandwich that's about this tall. And I'm the first. They brought me out to LA to do it on Comedy Central. It went viral. And then we did it in Montreal at the Just for Laughs Festival, which is the biggest comedy festival in the world. And they had me give the tuna sandwich to Judd Apatow, the king of Hollywood. I'll get out of here. The king of Hollywood movies. When they were ready to give in the sandwiches, they said, Jeffrey, come out. And I was wearing my Gourian Angels jacket with the big tuna sandwich to give it to Judd Apatow. Did you know what you were going to say, or was it totally ad-libbed? Totally ad-libbed. And I thought I did something wrong. You were so funny. Because they stopped shooting after the second take. And they were doing other sketches, and they did a lot of takes. And I'm like, did I do something wrong? And they're like, no, we love what you did. We don't want to change it because I refuse to be pranked. We're pranking you. And I'm like, no, you're not. No, this is good. I love it this way. This is a perfect tuna sandwich. I'm like, no, there's cameras all around them. Like, I'm not looking. I'm not looking, you know? Oh my god, you are amazing. I had to know. I mean, it seemed like it was impossible that it could be that funny without being scripted. But it really is. It just happened. And like I said, I was worried that I did something wrong. And they had me back a couple of times. I wound up doing a thing with Laura Dern and Amy Poehler and Seth Rogan. And Katy Perry. It was Katy Perry's comedy debut. And I'm on the red carpet doing crazy stuff with them. For those listening who might be in pain or pursuing a dream that seems impossible, what message do you hope that they would take away from your journey in life? I know that's a big question. But I have an answer. I have an answer to everything. Okay. Perseverance is very important. If you believe in yourself, if you truly think that you have a gift, then you owe it to yourself to persevere. The entertainment business is very, very, very difficult. You have to be able to handle rejection. Not everyone is good for whatever they think they're going out for. At some point, you have to have a clear picture of yourself and realize that maybe you're not what you think you are. But if you really believe that you have talent, then you have to take it as far as you can take it. Without driving yourself crazy, you have to have balance in your life. I was lucky. I couldn't get a job as a waiter, so I went to dental school. It's important to have a second career, something to fall back on. If you're only looking at getting into show business, it's a very, very hard field to break into and make a name for yourself. And you have to be really tough. And creative people are very sensitive, so it makes it very, very hard. I was lucky that I had two careers. You know, as hard as it was for me to do both at the same time, it gave me balance, very left brain, very right brain. And when the comedy thing wasn't working, I always had a career to fall back on. I was always doing things. Whether I was making people laugh or making them look pretty, I was always doing something to put out positive energy to the universe. So perseverance is key up to a certain point. Then you have to be realistic. And you have to say, maybe I'm not as talented as I think I am. Good advice from a man who knows. One of the, they call you one of the most connected people in comedy. They do. Let me ask you, how do you, how do you use that platform, you know, to inspire joy and kindness? How I use that platform is when people approach me and people do that say, can you help me get a big star for this show or this, whatever, to produce shows? Because once in a while I produce shows, I'm able to call the talent directly without going through their manager or agent. I call them first and present it to them and see if they're even interested in it. And then if they are, then I go through a manager or agent because you have to do that out of respect. But it gives me the option of talking directly to the big star themselves. Because fortunately, and again, I don't even have an answer how this happened. Nick Kroll said it in that video. He said, you know more people in comedy than anybody I know. And I'm not even sure how that happened. I was in the right place at the right time. You know, I go through life. My motto is I love everyone until they teach me not to. I embrace people, you know, and so maybe they feel that. I don't know. I've just been lucky. I've been able to meet everybody that I wanted to meet in comedy. And I don't know a lot of the real newcomers, you know, they say, I know all the YouTubers. I knew the comics from the Golden Age and the YouTubers from today. There are people that I read about that I haven't met yet. But there are some people that I met that I didn't even know they knew me. There's one who's so I don't know why I'm blacking on his name. Oh, Troy Bond. So I was I was performing at the Sunshine Festival in Florida. And everybody was talking about Troy Bond, this new big star. And I was so excited I was going to go meet him and do an interview with him. Because aside from performing, I was interviewing people for the festival. And I heard he was in this room. So I went into the room and as I approached him, he said, Jeffrey Gurkin, I can't believe that you're here. And when I interviewed him, he said, I can't believe I'm going to be on comedy matters TV. I've been watching it for years. I didn't even know I was excited to meet him. And he was excited to meet me. So we took some great pictures together. And he's in this little sizzle reel that they made about me. So it's just it's just funny. I don't have a good answer for it, but I just I love meeting people that are successful, people that are doing things to put positive energy out to the world. That's the best answer I can give you. Well, it's it's a fantastic one. You just added to perseverance and gratitude and you've got a book. Oh, but you already wrote that. So we'll have to check out. I went up with eight books. The last book I'm going to show you is the book that I wrote after I recovered from COVID. And it's called Facing Adversity Stories of Courage and Inspiration. And it's true stories of people who overcame tremendous difficulties. We all think we have problems. These people, a man born with no arms and legs who was going to commit suicide at 10 years old. And today he's an internationally known motivational speaker, married to a beautiful woman and he has four children. And I think I have a rough day sometimes in this man. Nick Vujicic is his name. No arms and legs. And my whole book is those stories that I collected over a period of 20 years. And while I was recovering from COVID, I was in the house for months. And I said, what can I do? I don't want to waste this time. Time is too precious. How can I turn a negative into a positive? And I took this folder down from my closet that's packed with these stories. And I wrote Facing Adversity. And it's part of my happiness series. Those three books that I showed you are what I call my happiness series. And they've all become bestsellers on Amazon. They seem to resonate with people. They inspire people. That's my thing. I want to motivate people and inspire people that no matter what's going on in your life, there's a possibility that tomorrow is going to be better. You know, that we're not mind readers. Every single person in your life that you know there was a day before you met them. And you had no idea you were going to meet them. And then you met them and something is different in your life, you know. And so it's important for people to hold on to those thoughts. So that when things are rough, when you're having a rough day, that you can shift your consciousness and think of something different and be grateful for the things that you do have. And realize that tomorrow can be much better. You know, as an empath, I used to think if I was said today, I'm going to be said for the rest of my life. There's no hope for me. I'm just going to be sad and depressed. And I didn't know how to shift my thinking in those days and how to change a thought. And that's what I've learned that thoughts are not facts. Feelings are not facts. And thoughts are not facts. And thoughts are thoughts are not necessarily based on our experience. They're based on our interpretation of our experience, which is why you can have siblings that are completely different people. And if you asked them about their childhood, you'd think they had different parents. Wow. That's a whole, that's the next podcast. You have to come back. We need to talk about that. Come back anytime you want, Lynn. Thank you, Jeffrey Gurian. Just write this name down. Just Google him and watch everything he's involved in, because you will feel better after, I promise. Jeffrey Gurian, thank you so much for your time today and coming on Comedy Saved Me. And I really do truly hope that you come back. And best wishes, good luck with everything you do in the future. And thank you. Thanks so much, Lynn. It's been very special spending this hour with you. And I hope you do ask me to come back. I'd love to come back again. Thank you so much.