Jay Glazer is a TV personality, National Football League insider for FOX NFL Sunday, founder of Unbreakable Performance Center, a private training facility frequented by celebrities and professional athletes, and founder of MVP (Merging Vets and Players), a charitable organization that assists combat veterans and former professional athletes adjust to civilian life. His debut book, Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too, hits shelves January 25, 2022.
Russ Prince: Discuss the Unbreakable brand—tell us about your inspiration behind establishing it.
Jay Glazer: This is a scary world we live in—scarier than it’s ever been. When I started Unbreakable, I had just been released from the hospital after a horrible medical scare. I had survived a near-death experience and God gave me a new lease on life. What tried to break me couldn’t break me, and I came through on the other side.
My doctors told me that I basically needed to sit at home and do nothing in order to recover. Well, doing nothing is the worst thing for me to do, so I started my Unbreakable gym. And, what we try to do is push people’s breaking point to show them what they thought they were capable of, and then show them what they’re actually capable of. The whole model is “we build you up from the inside out.” That’s where Unbreakable came from.
What I’m trying to do now with my new book launching January 25, Unbreakable: How I Turned My Depression and Anxiety into Motivation and You Can Too, is to get everybody to be proud of their scars. I brag more about my scars than my successes. The question I ask everyone is “What’s your unbreakable moment?” In other words, what almost broke you, but didn’t? It could be a horrible injury, a failed marriage, cancer, losing a job, anything! The point is, it DIDN’T break you. And it didn’t break me. Instead, our scars lift us up—they empower us! And we need to hear that now more than ever. I want us to realize what we have overcome and let that lift us up together.
Prince: In your new book, you mention the concept of “living in the gray,” can you elaborate on what that means and explain your tactics to combat it?
Glazer: For me, “living in the gray” is how I describe depression and anxiety. I’ve dealt with it my whole life. I don’t know what it’s like to not wake up and go to bed in the gray. The last 15 minutes before bed are the worst part of my entire day. I have a lack of self-worth and have been very broken in my life. People often look and me and my successes and are surprised by my depression. But I always tell people, “My wallet is not an antidepressant. It pays the bills, but it’s not an antidepressant.” I wake up every morning and do all these things to try to help myself.
It’s so hard for me to get out of bed in the morning, but once I do, I make a decision to live life relentlessly. “The gray” is also a physical thing I feel—on the left side of my gut and in my heart. I felt like I was cursed with it, and now I feel like I can be a voice for others who have it.
To combat the gray, I need a team. Having a team helps me fight through the gray. When I got out of the hospital after a near-death experience, I needed to immediately build a team because that’s what gets me through. Teams bond together and understand each other and lift each other up.
I also combat the gray by being of service to others. I find that when I’m tending to the needs of other people, it lifts me up through that gray. And writing this book was a great way for me to do that.
The other way I combat the gray is with laughter. I laugh and play jokes on my friends—athletes, coaches, politicians, you name it. When I laugh, I see streaks of blue cutting through the gray. When I’m of service to others, it lifts me up through the gray. You’ll see in the book, even though it deals with a lot of heavy stuff, when you read it, you’re going to laugh, you’re going to cry and then laugh again!
Prince: As a society, how can we use vulnerability as a strength to help change the negative stigma often associated with mental health?
Glazer: I’ve seen how much vulnerability has helped people. Vulnerability just means opening up. You can’t do any of this alone—nor should you! Make the choice to let people know what you’re going through. These things are going to try to break you, but they’re not. You can do it with a team.
Just start the conversation. If you’re in a room with people, someone in the room is suffering in silence. Let them know it’s safe place. Bond over that. Build your team up! As I’ve opened up and shared my own story, I find more and more people that struggle with the same thing—people you would never think struggled with it! I have head coaches calling me, people from news stations, parents of children that suffer from it. Everyone has something. So, with Unbreakable, I’m doing it for them, but I’m also doing it for me. The bigger team I have, the better!
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