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- [00:07]
Adam Schoma
Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride. You're listening to the Journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his customers comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home study courses@videos.war schiller.com just because you see what he shows.
- [00:47]
Warwick Schiller
G'day everyone. Welcome Back to the JourneyOn Podcast. I'm your host Warwick Schiller and my special guest this week on the podcast is Adam Schoma. And Adam is a conscious filmmaker, president of Eye2Eye Productions and is known for going to extreme lengths to follow stories that empower us. His feature documentaries include the award winning the Highest Pass, the Polygon, Women of the White Buffalo and he's also well known for his producing the number one iTunes bestseller and Netflix hit Heel the Heel documentary. If you guys have seen that, you know it features Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Bruce Lipton's in it. I think maybe Lynn McTaggart's in it. Great, great documentary. Adam also created and directed the docu series the Road to Dharma, a heart pounding and spirit driven quest to find freedom and motorcycles in the Himalayas, and wrote its companion online course for Living a Life of Freedom. He has just finished directing and producing a four part documentary called Selling Superman that we will talk about here in the podcast and directing the feature documentary In Iceland with a Monk featuring the famed monk Mathieu Ricard. He's also a master teacher of Sat Bah, Himalayan Kriya yoga and meditation. He leads breathwork meditations and Kriya initiations. It's all part of the mission of empowering through wisdom and entertainment. And so I've been trying to get Adam on the podcast for quite a while now, but he was really wrapped up in the documentary Selling Superman. And he kept saying, I will get back to you as soon as I get done with this documentary. And you know the stories you tell yourself, I was thinking, no, he doesn't have enough time for me. He's just blowing me off. But he contacted me recently and said I'm done with Selling Superman. So it's my, it was my honor and pleasure to have Adam on the podcast and I hope you guys enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Adam Schoma, welcome to the Journey on podcast.
- [02:52]
Adam Schoma
Thank you Warwick. Happy to be here.
- [02:54]
Warwick Schiller
Absolutely yeah, this is going to be fun. I kind of feel like I know you a bit because I've been binging one of your shows you produced. I just. I just finished watching the Road to Dharma.
- [03:06]
Adam Schoma
Ah, good. My favorite. My favorite.
- [03:09]
Warwick Schiller
And we can. We can definitely talk about that, but I have just. Well, actually for the listeners at home. So the Road to Dharma is Adam's. Why don't you tell a story? You and your spiritual teacher take a bunch of guys.
- [03:23]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. It's technically the sequel to my first documentary. First documentary, the Highest Pass. Rode motorcycles over the highest run in the world. I didn't know how to ride a bike. Right. So I thought it was so cool, and the film turned out so cool. I wanted to go back but do something longer format, dive deeper into the teachings. And that birthed the Road to Dharma, which more centered around a group and him leading us to these four sacred sites and us looking into freedom. And, of course, the way India is, you know, it delivered monsoon rains in a time when there shouldn't have been and made things very treacherous and makes for a good, entertaining, dangerous watch for the viewer, not so much for the writers, but it. To me, it is my baby. It's my. It's my favorite project because it really. I think it goes really deep into the ideas of freedom and things that we all are interested in. Yeah.
- [04:10]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. I thought it was super cool because I have just come on just February, I was in Argentina. I did a thing called the Gaucho Derby, which is billed as the world's toughest horse race. It's a survival race.
- [04:21]
Adam Schoma
Wow. Wow.
- [04:22]
Warwick Schiller
On horseback. So it's 500km. You've got to pack your own tent, sleeping bag, stove.
- [04:29]
Adam Schoma
Wow.
- [04:29]
Warwick Schiller
You know, food, and you packing only weigh 22 pounds. And, you know, there's. There's a lot to it. But anyway, watching the Road to Dharma was a lot like the Gaucho Derby because it doesn't matter what your strengths are. It'll find your weakness. You know what I mean? Like, you know that before we started the Gaucho Derby, they told us, you don't get the Gaucho Derby you want. You get the Gaucho Derby. You need.
- [04:54]
Adam Schoma
Yes. And.
- [04:55]
Warwick Schiller
And it will. It will find your soft spots, whatever they are. It just provides so many different challenges. You might be up for all of them except one, but that's your sticky spot. And someone else is up for all of them except another one. That's your sticky spot. And there was a spot in that TV show where they. You guys all get to somewhere and they forget to bring the sleeping bags.
- [05:18]
Adam Schoma
Kind of forget. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
- [05:20]
Warwick Schiller
I know. I'll get to that. I'll get to that. Oh, we didn't bring the sleeping bags. And so everybody sleeps in cold, wet blankets. And the next day they've had enough. And Ananda that said, what would you call him? Your spiritual teacher?
- [05:34]
Adam Schoma
He's my. My brother, my family, my friend, and also my guru. Yeah, by all means, my spiritual teacher.
- [05:42]
Warwick Schiller
But anyway, so they're all complained to him the next day about, about the. We didn't bring the sleeping bags. And they said, you told me not to bring the sleeping bags. He said, I didn't tear. To not bring the sleeping bags. Anyway, there's all this drama. Anyway, the next camp you guys get to, he pulls out the sleeping bags that he did bring when he told him to leave it behind. It's like, oh, you were just screwing with them.
- [06:02]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, kind of. Actually, he had them sent for. He hadn't. He did not have them. He had them.
- [06:08]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, okay. He had him sent for.
- [06:09]
Adam Schoma
Sent for. And they drove him and met us. But it's true, he didn't. He. We didn't really need them, you know, technically. And if part of what he brings up at that moment, this is on Karna, 15,000, 12,000ft up, is that, you know, there are people walking up there in sandals, old women making this pilgrimage. And I think that's really what you're talking about with your, with your ride on the horses. It's these pilgrimages. We go on it for a different reason. To learn something, to explore something to bring it out. And if you go on a pilgrimage, like the Rodha Dharma with a guru into the Himalayas, you gotta expect there to be uncomfort. You gotta discomfort. And so it was just kind of funny that so many people started complaining. He's like, what do you think you signed up for? You know what, did you see the movie? And you're like, oh, this would be cool. I'll just take a motorcycle ride and it's going to be all fun and I'll have enlightenment. No, it's going to be difficult. So it is funny that so many people were complaining. And I slept through it too. I was cold and wet the whole night. But that's not really what you remember about the journey in the end, right?
- [07:14]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. That's cool. And we'll get into more of that. Let's back up a bit. So in researching you, it said you kind of. You started down this path when you were 15 years old. When you read a book of Deepak Chopras, what is that book and what was your life like before that?
- [07:30]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. Detroit, Michigan. And my mom had gotten Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, that book from Chopra because my mom was watching Oprah like a lot of housewives were at the time. So that was my fortune. I don't think she read it, but it came to the house. And as a science based kid that was very good in math. I mean good in school in general, but very math based. My dad's an engineer and, and I tended toward that and that's is what I ended up studying in college and stuff. And we'll, and we'll get to that. But when I read that book, it merged science and spirituality in a way that it, I would say really opened me up to spirituality through the quantum field, through quantum physics and this idea of spaceless and timeless and everything communicating at once. It just, it made sense to me and I. It kind of unlocked the door. I do know I had read Gandhi's autobiography before that and I don't know why. It is something I leisurely picked up from the library. So maybe I was tuned for this Warwick in some way because I think in seventh, eighth grade I just found his autobiography and really binged it. I remember reading it, reading it, reading at night. And it was definitely not assigned reading. So something was going on there. And then around 18, when I started meditating. Yeah. Yeah.
- [08:48]
Warwick Schiller
Wow, that's, that's interesting reading that book that early. Like, you know, I started reading stuff like that when I was like 45. I had a slow journey and then I had a sharp upturn. But.
- [08:58]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, but I mean, you know, and I was a, you know, I was a good student. Played soccer. Soccer was my way to express. I was kind of a nightmare on the field in terms of my emotions. You know, that's where tenacious as could be a fighter. I'm not the biggest guy, you know, I'm 5 foot 8, but I would out jump you, out fight you. But a lot of my emotions came out on the field. And I think part of what early on enticed me about meditation was this ability possibly to understand my feelings better. To understand and maybe work with the athletic side and use meditation to heighten my game. You know, that's so I know I was interested just on an intrinsic level by my parents weren't pushing it. You know, picking up Gandhi's book, having neighbors that were Indian. I think looking back might have had an effect on me when I was 3 and 4 years old. I look back and I go, oh, I had those smells. I. From my neighbor. And, oh, my gosh, my. My neighbor was this Indian woman that she got cancer and decided not to do chemotherapy and just do it on her own. And, you know, I'm three, and I don't have. I have memories, but I. I just know that gets in, right. And then I, you know, fast forward and I do a film called Heal about it, these kind of very things, and end up going to India. And India is my second home. And I just wonder how much of it is little things like that either that I was destined for or just had in my early years around me that made me think, yeah, I want that. Or that makes sense to me.
- [10:26]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Is it fate or free will or a little. A bit of both.
- [10:32]
Adam Schoma
I tend toward 2% fate is what I. 98% free will, 2% faith. But I think we're definitely tuned to things. And then the question is, are we willing? You know, are we willing and committed? So someone else at the age, whatever, at 18, might have said no to the meditation, or I might have just not practiced the meditation once I started learning it. The question is, you know, are you really willing? So you might be a little tuned, but I think we all have to make that choice and really step into our dharma, so to speak, our truth, our path. And I don't know, luckily enough, I think sports taught me a lot about. Without knowing it, you know, a lot about that and. And made me want to learn more about myself and how to work with my own emotions and things like that. Yeah.
- [11:23]
Warwick Schiller
So you knew. Were 18, you started meditating, and now you are a master. Something I probably can't pronounce right. So I probably won't even try.
- [11:37]
Adam Schoma
Satwa. Satva Yoga. Satwa. Himalayan Kriya Yoga is what Anand started. Satwa is an organization in Himalayan. Kriya Yoga is in the lineage, more or less. So, yeah, Master teacher in that. In the meditation, the Kriya meditation and the yoga and the breathwork in pranayama. Yeah.
- [11:56]
Warwick Schiller
Very, very cool. What was your first introduction to meditation like? Where did. How did you start?
- [12:03]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, so I was in a. In my dorm. I went to Cornell University. I was studying engineering. I was playing soccer there and. Or football, whatever the audience, you know, likes to call it. And somebody had an audio tape, a kid in my dorm that couldn't sleep. You know, he would pace around at night. Right. And so he had a meditation tape to help him sleep, and he Said, do you want to try it? And I said, absolutely. And. And I was hooked. It was more like a body relaxation, going through all parts of your body, letting it go, and then just being really in your breath, like just floating for a good five, 10 minutes. And I thought, this is amazing. And I really took to it. And then after that, I just started seeking out books. I was telling a friend yesterday, like, that's how I learned yoga is. I went to Barnes and Noble. I looked in this section. You know, this is pre Internet at that point, because intern, you know, email started when I was finishing college. I'm 48, so I was in college in the 90s. And so, you know, I went to the bookstore, looked around, saw a book on yoga, grabbed it, bought it, and just, you know, cover to cover, just kept practicing. And every day, everything they said. Now nowadays people are like, oh, yeah, I yoga. I'm like, that was in the first book I read, 25 years. It's, you know, this is not. There's practices for your eyes. It's not a. It's not rocket science. You know, you can just do a few things to stretch your eyes. So that's. I was just really taken by it. You know, I can share an experience where I was in a fraternity, which I ended up leaving because it was just kind of a nightmare, I thought. But I remember I meditated and then I went into the room next door and they'd all been smoking weed and playing video games. And I walked in and I felt like I was floating like seven layers ahead, you know, above. And I go, okay. Not that there's anything wrong with marijuana, but I can tell meditation takes me at a much higher frequency. And that was just really clear and really young. And I was probably 19 years old, and it became really clear to me. This is. This is something to practice. This is what's going to take you there.
- [14:00]
Warwick Schiller
You know, I. I can't see the. The meditation and yoga lining up with a frat lifestyle.
- [14:06]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. You know, but I was still. I mean, I was still drinking and having a good time. You know what I mean? So. Right.
- [14:11]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Yeah.
- [14:12]
Adam Schoma
It wasn't that. I just totally left, you know, left the world. And I think people think it's all or nothing. It's not. I was learning and practicing and still going to keggers and dancing and. And I was a soccer player and having a good time, and I think I even got a dui, you know what I mean? So it's like it's real life, and I don't mind sharing that because it's part of what, you know, helped me grow up and say, wow, we shouldn't be doing that. I could have hurt somebody. So, yeah, it mixed enough. I was definitely known as the hippie on the team. I grew my hair out. I was meditating in the goal. And that was just, you know, part of my Persona, that I wore Birkenstocks the whole year through the winter once just to say I could do it.
- [14:53]
Warwick Schiller
You know, in, in, in.
- [14:57]
Adam Schoma
In Ithaca, N.Y. cornell, yeah, Central New York, which has tons of snow, but I was determined to wear sandals the.
- [15:06]
Warwick Schiller
Whole winter with the long hair and sandals. Okay.
- [15:10]
Adam Schoma
Yep. Yeah, yeah. Just make it a stand. You know, in college you're just trying to. Trying to explore and do different things.
- [15:15]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah. So you're going to Cornell University, you're studying engineering. So very, very left brain stuff.
- [15:22]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, Yep, yep.
- [15:24]
Warwick Schiller
And so then you started in, you know, you've. You start to meditate, doing the yoga stuff. When did it. When did you really get serious about it? Like, is your whole body of work is based around, let's call this. Call it umbrella word consciousness sort of thing. So when did you, when did you really start heading in that direction and what led you there?
- [15:49]
Adam Schoma
I mean, to be honest, at 18 for sure. When I started meditating, that became a drive, you know, so I'm going to college and such. But I wasn't. I would say soccer and yo yogic thought were more important than my studies. I still maintain a decent, you know, 3.2 or whatever it was. But I wasn't. I early on kind of knew, don't stress out too much about college, about getting the perfect grades. I don't know why. I think my mom even said, like, hey, you know, just take it easy. Which is, which is good advice, you know, like, because people can stress out, you know, especially at these kind of Ivy League schools, people can get a little too caught up. So it's amazing sometimes how a little, a few words can. Can mean a lot. And you're like, yeah, maybe I should not stress about the grades so much. So I would say then, and as I mentioned to you, I went to Universities New South Wales in Sydney on an exchange program my junior year, and that was the first meditation retreat. I went on this Buddhist meditation retreat in the Blue Mountains. And that was another one of those things. Someone mentioned it and I said, yeah, I want to do that. 50 bucks for a weekend in the Blue Mountains. You know, hopped in someone's car and wow, like, you know, they really they take care of you, they teach you. And they really taught me to meditate in the, from the Buddhist tradition. And that was incredibly powerful for me, incredibly impactful. And by the time college was finishing, I would say help set up, you know, my desire to, to not go get a job basically in my field, to not take the traditional route. I had enough practice on the inner level to know that my heart was saying, I, you don't want to do that. You. So many people, Warwick, at least at that school, were starting out from a place of stress as, as school was finishing, it was stressing out to find the job, stress out to, to apply and all this. And they were just running with stress into more stress. And I'm like, I do not wanna set that as the foundation for my adult life. And it's not like I had money or anything. I just decided this is more important, it'd be more important to live with my heart and make a first choice out of college. That's something I wanted to do and I really wanted to keep playing soccer, to be honest. I really wanted to learn Spanish and that's what I focused on. I went back to Michigan, played semi pro soccer, taught kids soccer to make money, to live, saved up enough money to go to Ecuador and train and try out for some teams down in Ecuador. Learned Spanish while I was doing that, eventually came back, played semi pro again, went to Singapore. I'm fast forwarding through a few things. Went to Singapore and tried out for one of the best teams there. Did great. But in the end, that's when I retired and I went to Thailand and I meditated for a month at another monastery. And the whole time during that I was coaching soccer to earn a living, pay back loans and all that stuff. So thankfully I had a skill that was in demand at that time, which was teaching. And looking back, I think I have that archetype of teaching. And nowadays I teach through my films and teach through other ways. But that's always been with me since I was, I was teaching kids since I was 15.
- [19:03]
Warwick Schiller
You know, it's funny, all, all the way, all through that there's still no mention of filmmaking. And so I'm loving where this is going to go. How so? How did you know? So you're obviously into the conscious stuff. How did you go from being a conscious human to a conscious filmmaker?
- [19:21]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, and all that is to say that the driver really is consciousness. That that is the driver in my life. And so where it shows itself is in different ways. It showed itself through sport. It showed itself through teaching sports. It showed itself directly through meditation and learning and reading. But then eventually I did get a job in engineering. Warwick. I did decide to. Just before I could poo poo the whole corporate world, I'm like, well, I better go. Just join it for a moment and see. So I went to work at Ford Motor Company in Michigan, Detroit, for two years or so. I kept coaching soccer, but I was so bored. I was so bored as an engineer. I really was. I just did not feel challenged at all. And sure, it's a good career and you're making money and all that, but I was so bored that I said, I'm going to try standup comedy. And it was. It was the scariest thing I'd ever done. My. My stomach was all in turn, you know, all messed up. It was really, really scary thing, but I really enjoyed it. I did it 10, 15 times. And then I turned to improv comedy, if you're familiar with that, where there's no script and there's a group of you and you're getting suggestions and just making things up. And I trained at Second City in Detroit for two years on how to improvise. And I love that because it was when they went around and asked, why are you doing this? Most people are like, oh, I want to be on Saturday live, or I just need something out of my day job. And I said, this is the yoga of comedy. The way you guys are teaching this, this is a yoga of comedy. It's be in the moment. It is drop your agenda and play with the team. It's not try to be funny. It's trust. I said, this is great. This works with my worldview and it's fun and it's really like a team sport. So it's got all these things that. That really turned me on. And so I did that. I did that. That's the. I can keep going with that. Unless you want to interject at this.
- [21:17]
Warwick Schiller
Were you a. Were you a jokester of a kid? Like, were you, like, the funny guy?
- [21:23]
Adam Schoma
I was a pretty shy kid, but. But humor was definitely recognized in our family and encouraged. My mom is hilarious, I would say. And so we're all funny. We were all taught humor. The extended family is funny. My uncle was an actor and hilarious. One of my uncles. My mom is one of eight. But that whole family. That side of the family is very funny. My dad's side of the family is very funny. So it was encouraged. But when I would audition for commercials as a kid, because my mom put us in like child acting, like, you know, print jobs, little redheads with blue eyes. Me and my younger brother would do some print jobs, but the commercials and things, I was way too shy. I would get really nervous. So, so that part I think I stopped at around 12, you know, as you're going into two teenage years. I stopped doing the little print jobs as a kid and then here I am at 27 or 26, and I went back to the same agents that I was with when I was a kid in Detroit.
- [22:22]
Warwick Schiller
Really?
- [22:22]
Adam Schoma
I go, hey, how you doing? You're still here. And they're like, oh my God. Oh my God. 20 years has passed and, and the same agent signed me as an adult and it was fun to start doing commercials and things in Detroit.
- [22:35]
Warwick Schiller
That's interesting. When you said that you started doing standup comedy. Have you ever read Lewis Howe's the Masks of Masculinity?
- [22:45]
Adam Schoma
No, I have not.
- [22:47]
Warwick Schiller
So he talks about how, you know, men tend to. Because you're not, you're told not to have certain emotions when you're younger. You, you come up with ways of masking them, you know, but one of them, and he lists these nine different masks that men have, but one of them is the, the, the Joker mask. And in that book he says that there's a place in la, I think it's called the Comedy Store somewhere a lot of people get their start, but the guy that owns that knows that if you are a, want to be a professional comedian, you've probably spent all your life cracking jokes to hide your emotions and you have severe depression. And he has a he. If you're going to be a standup comedian there he has a therapist stand alike on retainer that he has. You go and see. He says because of the fact that you are a want to be a professional comic, you obviously exporting this skill that you've used to hide yourself from the real world all your life, but it doesn't. You don't sound like that guy.
- [23:51]
Adam Schoma
No. And maybe that's why I wasn't so good at stand up comedy. So maybe I was too adjusted. I don't, I don't know. Yeah, but, but improv worked well and that was fun. And no, I, but I would resonate. We do use humor and a family uses humor to break the ice and to paper over things. Or maybe instead of the apology, it's we all make a joke and then we're back again. You know, if we can laugh again, that means we're connected. Right. But nowadays I just, I like Humor because it's joyous and it feels good in the body and, and most others want to be, want to be laughing. Right. And sometimes I say 60% of my awareness is taken up just looking for the joke, but that's okay. It's better than looking for the problem, you know.
- [24:42]
Warwick Schiller
Exactly. So you now doing this stand up comedy stuff, but we still no closer to being a filmmaker here where one.
- [24:51]
Adam Schoma
Comes next, one step closer. At that point I'm writing, I'm writing and if this is too slow, I can go fast. But I'm writing narrative features, feature feature films, comedies with my brother. He and I started writing scripts.
- [25:08]
Warwick Schiller
So you saw it start out with comedy scripts. Okay, yeah.
- [25:12]
Adam Schoma
So I started. So I self taught writing. Both he and I just read books on writing and wrote together and wrote. You know, most people never finish a screenplay, but we finish a screenplay, good or bad, we got one done and I learned the structure and then went on to. I wrote a pilot for a TV show and learned that structure. I wrote children's books with my sister. I wrote two episodes of a kid show that we produced for pbs. So I started writing and learning writing on my own and then when I got to la was in writing groups and again learning structure instruction, really understanding how, how struck at least TV writing, how structure oriented it was. So didn't go to film school at all, but self taught writing. And then in improv you're always learning scene work and you're understanding why certain things work and certain rules of comedy that still help me in documentary making today when I say to the editor, no, no, that's the rule of three. Like you, you gotta eat. The rule of three, don't, don't break that. And, and they don't know. I go, oh, you didn't, you didn't go to comedy school? Like what happened?
- [26:18]
Warwick Schiller
What is the rule of three?
- [26:20]
Adam Schoma
The rule of three is like, it's just this kind of expectation you'll have. So if, if, for whatever, if I, if I grab a flower and smell it and if that's funny for some reason, okay. And then later in the, later in the episode or the show, I would for sure grab a flower again and smell it at an unopportune time, it would be funny again. But there has to be a third one. It would feel weird if it happened once, twice, and then there wasn't a third instance, but the third instance should be radically different. And you know, it's not coming to me how that would be at this time, but it could be like maybe I am a flower out of a gas station, doing the waving, you know, like trying to get people in the gas station. Somehow radically different. And that'll somehow within our psyche feel like completion. And we're like, ah, good, you know, and it feel like we expect it. And it's not because we've been writing that way, it's just because I think the human psyche expects that. And you can do three plus one, which is like, you can do three, but you have to have that one time where it gets absurd. And if you watch any sketch comedy show, you'll see it. You can't unsee it. You'll go, one, two. And now they're gonna go crazy and they'll do something you do not expect. And there's the. I think that's part of where humor is the unexpected nature of things or the absurd truth of something. And we all laugh because, again, that is true. But I would never say that. But you just said that. Yeah. All right.
- [27:46]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah. So. So all this happens in la. How did you get to la? What. What was the driver to have you go there? Was this about the writing and.
- [27:55]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, about writing and comedy. To be honest, documentary was not on my radar. Of course, I loved nature docs growing up. I love that the most, I think, of watching anything on TV and that, in comedy and sports. But, yeah, I came out here, so I probably three or four years in Detroit doing comedy there and writing on my own. And, you know, again, we were writing plays, writing everything, came out here, honed my craft more, met an acting teacher. The first day I landed here in la, it's very cliche, you know, the first day I walked, I'm on a block, and the acting teacher was right there and I joined her and she's the one that ended up taking me to India, which is crazy enough. And I thought I was done. I thought I was done traveling. I said, I'm going to settle down, la, focus on my career. And within eight months, I was in India. And she's the one that introduced me to Anand, my guru. And. And there you go. Wow.
- [28:49]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, so what was. So this is the writing coach. Is that what she was.
- [28:54]
Adam Schoma
She was acting coach. She was an acting.
- [28:55]
Warwick Schiller
Acting coach. Sorry.
- [28:56]
Adam Schoma
She was. And she was more of. She was an intense lady. Intense acting coach. So more of a life coach and acting coach all at once. And you had to be in both classes, you had to be in her life school and you had to be in her acting school. It was a little bit cult like, to be honest. But. But it got me to India, so.
- [29:12]
Warwick Schiller
It'S all good, you know, so what. What was the draw for India? Why was she going to India and why did she take you?
- [29:19]
Adam Schoma
She was going to India because she was, you know, interested in evolution. That was part of her thing, was like, let's use acting to. To look at ourselves to. And after a while, to be honest, I thought it was the opposite. I'm like, why am I practicing the worst parts of people? Because usually in acting, you're trying to get something for your desires, your ego. You're not an enlightened person. Rarely the character is enlightened by any means or really acting altruistically. Rarely. So why am I spending more time getting in the psyche of a. Another flawed being when I'm really working, still working on myself? So after a while, I did decide, enough of that and I'm going to move towards something else. But she was really interested. That was taking people. Had taken people to Anand once before. And it all hit me. Once. There was an ayurvedic teacher she brought in, and they hit me. I'm like, oh, my gosh. India's been around me my whole life. That's when I remembered. Oh, yeah, when I was three. The sounds, the smells. My best friend from middle school is an Indian guy, and he still my. One of my best friends. One of my best friends in comedy was an Indian guy. I go, oh, my gosh, India's just been following me. I gotta go. And that was it. And. And I felt. I felt. Excuse me. Fell in love with that country. When I. When I got there, I felt so at home.
- [30:38]
Warwick Schiller
You.
- [30:39]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [30:39]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You've been there a lot. But how? Because I've heard from a number of people when you first go to India, the. The sights and the sounds and the smells, and that is just overwhelming. Is that the experience you had?
- [30:52]
Adam Schoma
Overwhelmingly amazing. And it was my experience. Yeah. I love. I loved it. I loved the. The heat. I loved the. I love the chaos of it. I love the beauty of the nature. I love the rawness, you know, because everything is just so raw. You know, the side of the road is like that. You know, the building is kind of open over there. It's half built. The person's walking with the kid right there as you're going by in a truck. It's just so raw, you know, in America is so covered and so sanitized. So sanitized that I found it really refreshing. And I just really resonated with Anand. And then, I mean, come on, we were going to Rishikesh by the Ganga River. So, like, we were going to one of the most beautiful places on earth.
- [31:35]
Warwick Schiller
So that that Ganga river will play a part in a question for you much later on. Tell me about. Tell me about a nun. Tell me about.
- [31:45]
Adam Schoma
Sure.
- [31:45]
Warwick Schiller
Well, tell me. Just about having a guru, finding a guru. Tell me about how you met Anand and what was your first interactions with him like?
- [31:55]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, maybe for your audience, you know, maybe knowing that your horse in some way could be your guru. Right. Your teacher, you know, and guru does mean mirror in many ways. And they mirror.
- [32:07]
Warwick Schiller
You did not know that.
- [32:08]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah. The word guru means mirror. And it's there to reflect back to you. It's not. They're not there to necessarily teach you or be followed. They're there to help you see you.
- [32:17]
Warwick Schiller
That is it.
- [32:19]
Adam Schoma
That's really the meaning of guru. Yeah.
- [32:22]
Warwick Schiller
I had a friend of mine from Holland a couple of years ago, we're talking about working with horses and how you've learned stuff about yourself with horses. And she said this line that I wrote down. She said, your horse confronts you with you.
- [32:38]
Adam Schoma
That's it. That is a guru. This is. This is what a guru does, you know, it is. It really is. That's what I love about Anand as a teacher also is he has teachings and you get. You can listen to the wisdom. It's great. But on, on every level, he's also just letting you have your journey, have your pilgrimage and. And be confronted and see yourself. And he's there to step in if necessary, and he's there to write things and guide when necessary. But much like a sport, the sport is teaching you a lot too. Yeah, you need a coach. Right. But the sport, the game teaches you a lot. You know, riding teaches you. You have to go out and ride. You can't sit there and listen about riding. So Anand was very much an experience driven teacher or guru. And I like that from. From life and sports. And I think that's what we learn from. And so. And pilgrimage. And thus, you know, looking back, a lot of what I like following in documentary films are pilgrimages on many levels. Yeah. Yeah.
- [33:41]
Warwick Schiller
Most certainly.
- [33:42]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. So what else about the. He wasn't my guru, like, right away. Like, let me just tell you that I didn't meet him.
- [33:48]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, he was just part of my question.
- [33:51]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [33:51]
Warwick Schiller
You know what I mean? That's part of my question is when he's become your guru, what's it like meeting a guy who's not your guru but ends up being your Guru. And how does that, how does that journey kind of happen?
- [34:03]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, like the first time him I really talked. So we all got picked up from the airport. We. We stop at a, you know, a couple hours in to get some food. As we're driving toward, you know, the six hour drive in the middle of the night. And I just start sitting there talking to him like, you know, what's your family like? Where'd your dad come from? And just talking like you would anyone just to get to know their background. And it's just an intelligent, fun, funny, pleasant man. And by no means even that first trip would I call him my guru at all. It was just like, oh, I really resonate with his teachings. He seems much more tuned in than my acting teacher. You know, I could, I could tell that right away, which was good. So I resonated with where he was coming from and. And then I went back again with a group and then. And again these. It's never. It wasn't really like, oh, you're my guru. It's just, I'm learning a lot from this experience. I'm learning a lot from this person. I think after that second time, I felt more inclined to be, to, to say the words or, or if anyone asks like, oh, this is my teacher. But he's not asking anyone to call him Guru. I call him Anand. I don't call him really now. And then I might say Guruji, you know, Mr. Guru, if you will. But. And some respect. But he, he doesn't demand it. And you don't have to treat him any certain way. That's the good thing. And I think we try to. At the beginning of Road to Dharma, I try to show that, like, him and I are just walking in the jungle talking about trees and sleeping in trees. Right. And talking about Chinese tea.
- [35:34]
Warwick Schiller
You sleep like a. He said, you go up there. He said, you ever sleep in a tree? And he says, you ever just lay with your arms and your legs over the tree? You just go to sleep?
- [35:41]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. And I'm like, no, I have never done that. But growing up in the jungle, if you're a kid, I guess you would. So, yeah, so it's. He's very much. That's why I say, he's my friend, he's my brother, he's my family. His father to me is like a second father. And he's also my teacher. And I think that's beautiful that we can play different archetypes in life. I really resonate with that now is that we shouldn't get Stuck in one archetype. Yeah, I have a. A great teacher. Archetype, meaning I love to teach, but I'm. I'm more than that. I have to get out of that and make sure I'm doing other archetypes. I'm the student also. Oh. I'm the mentor. I'm the warrior. I. You have to play them all so we don't get stuck.
- [36:26]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [36:27]
Adam Schoma
That's what I feel. And I. And I like that in a film too, you know, to talk a little film. I like when the main character switches archetypes. Yeah.
- [36:34]
Warwick Schiller
So Anand, is he roughly the same age as you?
- [36:38]
Adam Schoma
Oh, he's younger. I think he's seven years younger. Yeah.
- [36:41]
Warwick Schiller
Okay. There you go. See, that's really interesting. Like having this, this guru who's. Who's not this old, wizened, old gray wise man wearing robes. He looks like this handsome, you know, well, to do Indian dude.
- [36:54]
Adam Schoma
Absolutely. Who went to university for economics, who rides a motorcycle, who's funny, younger than me, who's a Vedic astrologer. But you know, when you, when you recognize someone's been growing up in the, in the birthplace of yoga taught by masters and it's like, doesn't matter what age. I mean.
- [37:12]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [37:12]
Adam Schoma
It. What a head start, you know?
- [37:16]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Most certainly was his. What about his family? Was his father some sort of a teacher?
- [37:23]
Adam Schoma
No, his father, I mean, they're all yogis in their. In their own right. In terms of just the thought of the world, the way they perceive the world and lead their lives is very, to me, yogic. But his father moved to Rishi, came to Rishikesh, I think, when he was young, 17, and then he was born there. He. He was born, so to speak, on the lap of his guru. So Anand's father there was a guru there named Maraji that Anand's father was very close with and that. That man named Anand. Anand. He. So Anand's guru named him and really kind of raised him on his lap as well, like from a young age. Like his guru was there, like with him since he was zero. And that's also really unique. And his, his. His Guru Maharaji was a incredible healer and traveled a lot and then just decided to settle, settle down in Rishikesh and just be there and teach a few people, you know, Very, very Indian to me. It's like very sweet. It's like, it's not about a huge gathering. It's just like one or two students having a nice talk, you know, Like I. That always struck me when I was in Rishikesh. Is he. You know, we go look in that hut and there's a teacher with two or three students. It's not always this huge yoga hall full of people. It's really sincere, really sweet. So, yeah, that's like, you know, it's a. It's a real sacred, sincere lineage that I'm. I'm kind of. Somehow this boy from Michigan got his ass over there.
- [38:57]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah, that is. That is super cool. So how did you. Now I'm interested in how you get from there to the documentary of filmmaking was. That was the highest past the start of it.
- [39:12]
Adam Schoma
It was so the first. I went to India twice with groups, right? And then, then I asked a non once. I said, can I come visit alone? I'm like. And I said, you know, if I can spend a little time with you, great. I just want to come to India alone. I'd like to be there. Of course, I'd like to see you. I'd like to spend time if possible. But I just, you know, I asked his permission. Can I come alone? It. Would it be okay? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so I came and I end up spending six weeks with him there. And I mean, we meditate every morning at 5am on the banks of the Ganga river, do yoga on the beach, go get chai together. I would record things. We were talking about writing a book, so I would record his teachings and then I would go listen to the recording. Kind of like the Karate Kid, right? You'd have to listen to it once. Then I would record it and write it down and transcribe it into the computer so I'd hear it again almost like two more times. So I was getting like full on download of this, this man's wisdom. And of course then practicing on my own too. Meditation in the evenings and things. And that was six weeks. And at the end of that, he said, hey. And he had seen me ride mopeds around and crash mopeds in India, you know. And the kids would laugh when I was going to his foundation and because I'd like to teach the kids. So I'd go to the foundation and be with them. But I would crash the moped now and then. I just was not a good motorcycle rider, let's just be honest. And that's not even a motorcycle. And he said, hey, do you want to go over the highest road in the world in the Himalayas, 18,000ft. He said, I've always wanted to do this. Would you like to come? And I just made myself say Yes. I really forced my mouth to say the words. Yes, because it's guru. It's the Himalayas. It's these sacred sites. I have to go and I'll deal with the fear part later. So that's. That's what happened. And then. Then we got to talking, I think, that summer, and we said, well, we should invite other people and maybe we should film this. You know, not everyone gets to see these places. So I set about, you know, seeing what it takes to make a documentary, raise the money. And thankfully, you know, by divine grace, we were able to raise the money and make it. So.
- [41:22]
Warwick Schiller
That was your. How many people went on that?
- [41:25]
Adam Schoma
There's seven of us and Anand, so eight of us. And then the whole. With. With crew and, you know, support staff and motorcycle people and the car drivers and things. I think we were around 20. 20 people moving, you know, unscripted, unscouted. First film, really. I was just trying to stay alive every day. I was. It was incredibly. If. If you've seen that film, people that are great writers are absolutely afraid and going down and getting hit, you know, and that's. And that's for real. Going to the hospital, like, day one. And so, yeah, my first film was really difficult, to be honest. Really, really difficult. But. But amazing.
- [42:08]
Warwick Schiller
You know, man, what's it like trying to. Because, you know, you're not just the producer, you're in it. What's it like trying to be you and experience the experience and keep one eye, trying to figure out if everybody's capturing what they're supposed to capture? That's going to be hard, doesn't it?
- [42:27]
Adam Schoma
Yes, it's incredible. It's incredibly hard. And at one point I felt, oh, wow, I have so much on my plate. And I was, you know, quickly corrected by a non. Like, hey, your plate's no more full than anyone else's. Okay. You have no idea what someone else is dealing with. So. Okay. Okay. That's the good thing about making a film when you have your teacher with you, like, you get dialed in real quick if you're off. So what was it like? Yeah, incredibly challenging. Incredibly taxing on the system.
- [42:54]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah.
- [42:54]
Adam Schoma
Again, we weren't scouted, thankfully, at an amazing DP director of photography that knew what he was doing. He knew motorcycles, and that's why I hired him. I was direct, co directing with John, and so John was more in a car, and so that was good that he could do that part while I was being an actual writer. And then, of course, when you arrive somewhere, everyone else might get the Shower and hang out, but you're just planning the shoot and, okay, where are we going to interview this person, that person? So I felt like, wow, I'm doing so much more. But again, I have no more on my plate than anyone else did technically. And. But yeah, so that is probably for anyone listening and wanting to get into documentaries, that's probably the. There's the cool part where you get to go places and meet people you never would have. You really do, and you get access like you never would have, and you have conversations that you never would have. And we can talk a little bit like recently about selling Superman, where I had some conversations I never would have had access to. But. But at the same time, sometimes you miss a little bit of looking around. I was just in Iceland with Matthew Ricard, a Buddhist monk, and we were working so hard for those eight days that it's a little bit of a blur. The. The nature part is a bit of a blur because you're always carrying a camera and you're always shooting and you're always running ahead and you're running behind. And I'd like to go back and actually just be there. Right, yeah.
- [44:14]
Warwick Schiller
Seeing your boy. Dad, why don't you tell us about that? It's. The movie's called In Iceland with a Monk. Is that correct?
- [44:19]
Adam Schoma
Possibly. We're still working on the title. I like that title. What do you think of that? Yeah. Does that resonate?
- [44:26]
Warwick Schiller
It's like comedian having coffee in cars with comedians or whatever that thing is called.
- [44:32]
Adam Schoma
Exactly. And I thought the next one would be like, In Africa with a Monk. Okay, we'll do the second one. We might call it Ending Suffering. We'll see. We'll see. There's always a nice debate between the directors and producers on the name, but we went to Iceland and the. The impetus was to do a film with Matthew Ricard. He's a famous author, photographer and Buddhist monk. He was a biologist, PhD in biology and then became a monk at age 27. So some similarities in terms of, you know, having a science background and then choosing to go towards spirit. And so I was introduced to this. I was brought in, brought in as a director, my friends producing it. And what we didn't expect was that his wife, not Matthew's, but my friend's wife, would get sick right before the journey. So part of the trip is really the main push of the trip is her asking Matthew questions like, how do I deal with this suffering? I'm dealing with a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety about being about having Cancer and about being sick and having to face death. So it's quite a deep look at suffering and where it comes from and how we use a practice and a meditation to. To alleviate. Alleviate some of the suffering. But. But you can never escape it. You know, you can never escape it. And Matthew is really, really relatable and really, I think he's an easy teacher to listen to when it comes to. To Buddhism and meditation. Yeah.
- [46:01]
Warwick Schiller
You mentioned the death thing then. I was going to bring it up later, but I'll talk about it now, you know, in. When you get into maybe a little bit of the spiritual path or whatever, and you start to understand that there's more to it than just this physical reality.
- [46:20]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [46:21]
Warwick Schiller
And you, you know, you start to understand our souls a bit and spirit and all that sort of thing. And it. And it. And I think sometimes the reason people really get into it might be because. So it will resolve their fear of death.
- [46:39]
Adam Schoma
Right.
- [46:40]
Warwick Schiller
You know, there can be. There can be a bit of that. And so once you've had those experience of those otherworldly experiences and you know that there's more than this here, it probably, I would think, yes, because I'm kind of going along that path. It's kind of like, yes, that's going to help me in the end. That's going to help me be able to go, yes, this is just temporary, whatever. But in the road to Dharma, you had an experience where you almost drowned in the river.
- [47:09]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [47:10]
Warwick Schiller
And when they interviewed you afterwards, it kind of hit me because these are the thoughts that I've had was you were kind of shook up and did it. Did it kind of. I'm being kind of long winded here, but did it kind of rock you as far as shit? I thought I had. I thought I had a better grip on that. I thought. I thought I was ready for the next incarnation. I thought I was ready to let go at any point in time. And then you have an experience to where you're going under and, you know, tell us about that.
- [47:46]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, I would say it. It did. It definitely. Right. It definitely shook me. And definitely I could feel it afterwards in my body. You know, in my experience, I was. I did not want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to kind of breathe and look around and get my bearings again for. For hours. I say that like it's a long time, but it was like at least five hours before I was playing soccer again with kids, you know, but, you know, that's my way back into life. Right. Is like, okay, let Me. Let me kick a ball around and remember. But you did. In that moment. I forget how much I say in the. In. In the show, in the series, but when I was going under, because they say to float, just let yourself float if you're in a problem. We're in the Ganga river, and I was caught in an eddy, and I didn't realize that's what I was caught in. But when I would let go and just float, I would be taken under. And so that was a problem. And I was getting more and more tired and I didn't know what was going on. And I remember going under and thinking, oh, shit, my mom's gonna be so pissed. You know, like, just these real banal thought. I mean, basic thoughts, but like, oh, it was my birthday. It was like, oh, on my birthday. And I'm like. And I'm young and I'm like, ah, she's gonna be pissed. Like, not pissed, but, like, she's gonna be really disappointed. And I felt disappointed too. Like, I don't want to go yet. You know, I really don't want to go yet. Very. Just slow, rational discussion with myself like, oh, this sucks. So I was not ready to go. And thankfully, and I had that will to live, and that was a. That's a good thing, you know, to have the will to live and desire to live is, oh, I'm not. I'm not ready. But I was less. I would say less free from fear than I would have thought I would have been.
- [49:36]
Warwick Schiller
That's.
- [49:36]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah, there was. There was definitely fear. But it's strange because, like, there was fear, but there was this calm rashness and like, okay, just float. That's not working. Okay, I'm in trouble. Oh, shit, I'm drowning. This sucks. It's my birthday. My mom's going to be upset, and it's like, I got to do something. And thankfully there was boats nearby and we were able to wave them over and save myself. But, you know, in retrospect, do I wish I would have been able to more calmly, like, get out of the entity and go back into the river and float down more and figure that out? Yeah, of course. But I don't. Didn't really know the river like that. I didn't know rivers like that. And. And that's okay. Like, it's all right. I'm glad I chose to survive and not actually have my ego be like, no, I'm not going to get saved. I got to push through this thing until I'm totally, you know, dead. So there's a good side. But it still did shake me that I. How close I felt to it. It did shake me. And I was. Yeah, yeah, I did. I didn't want to. I think there's a shot, I'm just looking out these, this grated bar window in the. In the series, and that is how I felt. I just wanted to, like, look at the world for a while. I did not want anyone to ask me about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want anybody's opinion on it. And that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [50:54]
Warwick Schiller
And that was kind of at the end of the journey, wasn't. You've been up the mountains, been to all the sacred places, you come back to Vishakasha, the starting point, you decide you guys are going to swim across the river and you don't quite make it.
- [51:05]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. After all that motorcycling, right in the monsoon rains and through the traffic, and then it's just a fun little, hey, let's swim across the river. And yeah, that's what felt so ridiculous about the whole situation. But it made for great. For a great tv, right?
- [51:20]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, no, it was, it was really good. But yeah, that was the, that was the big question I had about that was, you know, were you. Maybe the question was, were you disappointed in your. That your spiritual preparation didn't. Wasn't exactly what you thought it was going to be?
- [51:42]
Adam Schoma
No, I was. I was disappointed that I couldn't myself get out of it. I was disappointed that here's where I was at. This is the lesson I learned. I was disappointed that I took on the fear of someone else. And it's hit me again since on another motorcycle trip, like, don't take on other people's fears. You really cannot. Because someone else was already kind of panicking in the water. And if that, if that wasn't going on, I think I would have been more apt to get myself out. And. And likewise, I could have also been like, hey, man, we're going to be okay. I could have calmed him down a bit, but I took it on like, oh, he's in trouble. And then I look around and I couldn't tell if anyone else had made it. I said, oh, I think we're all in trouble. So was that one. That was John. Yeah, yeah, yeah. John and Jen. They're no longer together, in case you're wondering.
- [52:32]
Warwick Schiller
I was going to ask you, did they. Because right at the very end, it's kind of like when Anan says, you know, some. Some souls are Meant to be together forever. And some souls are here to help each other along their journey a little bit and then they should go off and do other things. And they kind of left that hanging there. And I was, that was one of my questions was, did they stay together?
- [52:51]
Adam Schoma
They stayed together. I think for. I might be wrong, another year or so. But eventually they. She just emailed me yesterday actually, so a lot of us are still in touch. So yeah, yeah, it looks like they're coming together at the end, but then ultimately a year later they, they split and it's. Yes, it's great. This happens and it's. It was the best thing for them. But yeah, that was taking on other people's fear. That was. So that's where I was disappointed. I wasn't disappointed that I wanted to live or actually even asked for help. It was that I bought into someone else's fear and that amplified my own. And that was the thing. Oh, I, Yeah, you know, oh, that's where I need to improve. So it's not like my spiritual practice failed. It's like a soccer game where you're like, oh, that's where I need to learn experience and you know, I need to be more calm in that situation and understand what can happen and to take it into film. I mean, in this film I've been making selling Superman recently for the last two years, I've been really asked to lead strongly because there's been many times when the film was very close to just falling apart and those around me are, you know, not happy with me and, and, and you know, I could take on their fears, so to speak. And I just really held the line and knew what we were doing was good and I'm, I'm grateful we've done so. Yeah.
- [54:14]
Warwick Schiller
Tell us about selling Superman. So as far as I know, there's a dude, he collects all these Superman comics. They're all rare. He dies, family decides, should I. Because these are worth millions. The family decides, should we sell them? Should we not? Is that the short version?
- [54:29]
Adam Schoma
Short version is a 40 year secret collection. Family secret. Like they couldn't tell anyone. The father had Asperger's hoarded it destroyed the family. It he, the way the father acted destroyed the family. Really caused my friend a lot of trauma as a kid because he didn't feel any love from his father. This can happen with Asperger's where it's just ultra rational. And you know, I didn't know to the depth when we started making it that, that there was that stress and Anxiety in my friend and how much of a journey this really would be on an inner level for him. But that's what I love to make. Right. I love the inner journey. I love a pilgrimage. I knew there would be a journey of. What's he going to do with the Superman? That's the big question. Is he going to sell? Because he inherits a Superman number one worth probably three, $4 million, and then a collection of 300,000 comic books to boot. And it's huge. And what he does with it is amazing. And he's trying to get in the right hands and organize it correctly. But should he sell this heirloom? Should he not? It's a reminder of his father, and his father was terrible, and these comics killed the family. Can he rewrite that story? And the whole way along, you know, as we're going, it's bringing up very tough memories that he has not resolved yet in terms of his relationship with his father. And we get into it. We get into stress, we get into anxiety. We get into, like, he wanted the film to end. That's how we start the movie, is him wanting the film to end. He doesn't want the film to come out. And that's what. I mean, there was this struggle of, like, the main character at one point wanting the whole thing to stop, but us kind of just keeping the faith and going and everyone eventually coming around to like, this is. I'm glad we all did this. So. Yeah, yeah, that's. That's in the movie. I mean, there's a.
- [56:12]
Warwick Schiller
So there's. There's the Superman number one. That's worth 3 or 4 million.
- [56:16]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [56:16]
Warwick Schiller
What's the value of the other 300,000?
- [56:18]
Adam Schoma
15, $20 million. Yeah.
- [56:21]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, so it's a big. It's a big, big deal.
- [56:26]
Adam Schoma
This collection is. It's on a worldwide scale now. It's now well known in the collecting community of this fantastic collection, as he calls it. It got its own special label from the grading company. Yeah. It's amazing. And when you're in it, you realize how many books. 300. It's three shipping containers full of these books. It's just boxes upon boxes, and each box like, oh, that's $80,000. But more. So it's these books, the people, that are so pristine and beautiful. And I to this day, don't understand why people pay money for them, to be honest.
- [57:05]
Warwick Schiller
Right. Was the father or the family wealthy anyway, or they lived like a frugal life, but had this amazing collection of stuff worth a lot of money?
- [57:14]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, the father, you know, was a. Did well as a lawyer and businessman. And so, you know, they, they were fine, but they weren't rich by any means. And he was just, he was in a good, in a smart way. He was trading law services with a comic store and getting some comics along the way for 30, 40 years and he was buying comics. No one really knew. And as part of it is like, wow, no one knows how we got the Superman. We. And we dive into that. No one. Even his friends in the comic book world didn't know he was amassing this kind of collection and how much he was getting, you know, because he's just picking up here and there and I mean it's, it's mind boggling. It's a full time job to collect like this. So people didn't really know. But. But Darren himself, really the key thing here is the main character himself is independently wealthy. You know, from it, from his father, from this collection, his own businesses. Tech World does not need the money at all. So it's not this story of found treasure, it's really the story of found treasure that holds the key to unlocking like your family story. So it's a different kind of treasure than one would be like, oh, you won the lottery. It's like it's. No, it's not about that. It's. He almost sees this as a burden, but a burden that he's trying to do the right thing with another responsibility that ends up, you know, not like he would have wanted to, really kind of pushing him faster to look at it himself and his father and that relationship, you know, and it's fun along the way. We have a good time with. I mean we talk about comic book addiction, but we do it in a light way. You know, we talk about the shit show that is media. I talk about at least like how media wants us to be addicted to these heroes and things. And I make a fake reality show in there and so, you know, some of my comedy roots get to come out. And as we make fun of how insane we are with our desire to have everything and keep everything and they want us to have everything. They want us to want everything and all the powers and they want us to. And the real power is inside. And that's what we try to say by the end of the movie is that the real power is inside and you can see yourself and you can see life in a different way if you choose to. You know, it takes work, but you do have that power and no one can take that away.
- [59:31]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, speaking of that power, your probably your best known work was the heel documentary that. I guess it was on Netflix. Is it still Netflix Heel?
- [59:43]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, it's on. It's on prime now, but it was on Netflix.
- [59:46]
Warwick Schiller
It's on Prime. You know, so Deepak's in that. Dr. Joe Dispenza's in that. Is Peter Crone in that?
- [59:52]
Adam Schoma
Peter Cron's in that? Yeah.
- [59:54]
Warwick Schiller
So my wife is at the bio. Dave Asprey's biohacking conference in Dallas right now, and she saw Peter Crone yesterday. She's sitting in the front row and she said, oh, he was amazing. I'm a big Peter Crone fan. So she just texted me, like, you just texted me while you're talking about Superman. And she says, Dr. Joe in five.
- [60:15]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, so we met. Dr. Joe. We met. You know, it was great to be. It was great actually to be in the room with Chopra, who, you know, started my spiritual journey when I was 15. And here we are sitting right next to him, and he's just a fun, fun smart guy. He's just fun. He likes to laugh like anyone.
- [60:32]
Warwick Schiller
Did you tell him about that?
- [60:35]
Adam Schoma
No, not at that moment. No, I. No, I don't think I have ever. But it's usually. It's usually a little quicker. You know, it's like, you know, a couple niceties, a few things, and then. Okay, it's all business. We got to sit down and. Right. We only got two hours with you. Let's go. Yeah.
- [60:50]
Warwick Schiller
So how did the Head. The Heal documentary come about?
- [60:53]
Adam Schoma
So Heal, amazing project. Kelly Gores is the. The director, and so she brought me in to produce it. She had this idea of basically an idea for a film and said she needed help with the document producer. And so Soup to Nuts. From that moment, she'd already done a lot of research, but from that moment, she brought me in, you know, created the budget and everything and went out and found the people we wanted to find for the film, got our crew, made the thing all through post production, you know, storyboarding. So myself and the editor and Kelly, everybody are working on how do we tell this story? Because it wasn't definitely. It wasn't outlined. We. She just. She really works on intuition, and I really trusted her intuition, to be honest. I said, kelly, whatever you want to get, let's go get it. And even some of the late add ons, you know, looking back on the film, we. Some of the last people we interviewed were Anthony William, medical medium, who's really good in the film. He's. He's amazing guy and a few other people. Radical remission. That lady Kelly in New York. And so making that was great because it was an act of intuition on Kelly's part and really putting all these people together. But one thing, again to come back to Pilgrimage, we knew is we wanted to follow people on a journey. So we really wanted to find two or three people to integrate. And it didn't have to be a happy story. And as you know, with he, like one of the. One of the main characters, her story doesn't really resolve. It just shows us, like, how hard it can be when society has told you your whole life the healing's one way, and then now you're getting open up to this, all the new stuff. But it takes some resources financially to do that, and it takes some effort. And if you have kids and a family and sometimes emotionally, it might be telling you to make a big change. And that's not easy to do. So hopefully, like we showed that, that healing really does encompass all these things. Emotional support, purpose, how much we want to change, meditation, stress. But that it's healing holistically is quite a. Quite a thing to take on. Especially when our society doesn't really support that. That viewpoint, I wouldn't say.
- [63:06]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't support it. But also it was funny. I did a bit of research about the Heal documentary earlier.
- [63:13]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [63:13]
Warwick Schiller
And the word pseudoscience pops up a lot. And that's strange. And one of your other things, I'm not sure which one it was maybe Chasing the Present, I can't remember. But you talked to Graham Hancock. Yeah.
- [63:34]
Adam Schoma
Now, Chasing the Present, I consulted on releasing that film. So I didn't make a film. I just helped them release it.
- [63:41]
Warwick Schiller
And was that Graham Hancock? Was he in that?
- [63:44]
Adam Schoma
He was in Chasing the Present, yeah. Yeah.
- [63:46]
Warwick Schiller
Okay. You know, because he's one of those guys that. That like the mainstream. So he's a, you know, he's a whack job. But like. Like say Rupert Sheldrake or what, you know, Dean Raiden, those kind of guys. But have you ever read Dean Raiden's book Big Magic? I know Real Magic. Sorry, Big Magic is Elizabeth Gilbert. It's about. It's a book about magic. And we're not talking sleight of hand magic, but. Yeah, connecting to consciousness kind of magic. But he was talking in there about he. He was a died in the wolf scientist, you know, and then got into all this other stuff and he was talking to all of his scientific colleagues and he said. And they're like, that stuff's all bullshit, you know, and he said, if I could prove it to you scientifically, would you believe it? Then they looked him and they said.
- [64:35]
Adam Schoma
No, I know exactly.
- [64:37]
Warwick Schiller
You know what I mean? Like, that's too far outside of my, I can't wrap my head around that. So even if you could prove it scientifically with scientific methods, and I'm a scientist, I still won't believe you because that's not possible.
- [64:52]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, and that's what I, I am blown away that it refers to the word pseudoscience with heal. Because heal to me is very 101. You know, that movie is very much what I would call very proven science. Around our emotions, our stress do affect our ability to heal. Like this is well, well documented. Right. Laughter, support. Maybe it's harder to scientifically prove that when you make some spiritual, emotional changes in your life that can then shift things dramatically. Yeah. But I know I've had that experience. So to me it seems kind of 101 in that everyone should know that this is part of the healing process. It's not pseudoscience, it's just kind of being human.
- [65:43]
Warwick Schiller
Right, right.
- [65:44]
Adam Schoma
And so, so why not at least have that, that information at hand? It's not saying like, don't get surgery. It's not saying don't listen to, you know, Western medicine is saying, wouldn't you like all the tools possible? And I think we do a good job, to be honest. And we made sure, we, we made sure Kelly was never preaching. She was always questioning and inquiring and, and asking and, and we didn't throw pharma too far under the bus. We threw pharma a little under the bus. But we weren't trying to make this hard hitting journalistic piece. We're more saying, look, this is what's possible and if they did it, you can do it. And why not open up to that possibility? Because God knows people are sick, you know, that's for sure.
- [66:23]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah, most certainly. Now I think, I think farmers standing directly in the middle of the road, so they'll probably will end up under the bus. You know what I mean?
- [66:31]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not like all medicine wind up under the bus, but the way they've approached it and the way they've, you know, the way like the chemicals going into our food system, then that make us sick and then the same chemical makers need to, quote, unquote, have the solution and keep you on a treadmill of meds rather than actually ever heal you. That's. That's what's going to get shoved aside. But there's going to be use for medicine, of course. You know. Yeah, it's like, it's powerful. Good stuff. I'll take a. I'll take a Sudafed. You know, it's okay. I don't mind a Benadryl now and then. It works.
- [67:06]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, no, it's just the. It's just the, you know, like the mainstream rejecting anything that's not. Yeah, not mainstream and rejecting it just to reject it more. So kind of like, you know, kind of like Dean Radin's colleagues. Like, we would never believe that even if you couldn't. Even if you could prove it, you know, it doesn't.
- [67:27]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, it doesn't surprise me. So that's also what the whole willingness thing that we talked about earlier, there's no reason to really preach to people that aren't willing or committed to learn. You know, you make these things like Rhoda, Dharma. The people that find road to Dharma love it. And like there's. I see people do email me and reach out all the time. It changed my life. I went to India. I started a new thing. Like, it hit them at the right time. They were ready for it and they were willing to like, make a change. Is it on HBO or Netflix and affecting millions? No, but like, the people that are ready for it. It's hitting.
- [68:05]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, yeah, exactly. Like, you can't shove that down people's throat because most people aren't going to take it. But if you. It's like when the students ready, the teacher will appear and that movie will show up in front of people when they're. When they're ready for it. Let's talk about some of your other movies. Tell us about Women of the White Buffalo. That sounds like it was fascinating.
- [68:27]
Adam Schoma
Fascinating. One thing my dad instilled in me as a kid was a love for Native American culture and spirituality. At least the books were around the house also. That's another part of those things were around. And I was reading Tom Brown Jr. If you know him, he's a famous tracker and survival. Yeah.
- [68:44]
Warwick Schiller
So I'm reading. I'm reading Tom Brown book right now, actually.
- [68:49]
Adam Schoma
All right. We were considering going to. Yeah, yeah. I was going to go to the tracker school. Yeah.
- [68:54]
Warwick Schiller
So one of the guys I went on the gaucho derby with, he was actually just here the other day. He has been to many Tom Brown things. Like he can start. He can start fire with two sticks sort of thing. You know what I mean?
- [69:05]
Adam Schoma
That's what we want to learn. We're going to do it this year, like, with my dad. My dad's 82. Me and my brothers are going to probably hire someone to teach us that stuff, just because he's always loved it, and I've always wanted to take the course with him. We can't go to the court anyway, so he instilled the love of Native Americans. He still loves going to Native American, like, ancient sites or finding them in Michigan. And so when. When a friend came to me and said, hey, I have this idea for a film, and this is what we want to do, I was actually very busy with the Road to Dharma and post production and editing that. But I said, I can't say no because it's about the Native American culture. And, you know, what was going on for a long time. It started way back in history and still propagates now, which is in many ways a genocide and in many ways a. You know, the trafficking and the looking the other way while these atrocities happen in the Native culture blows my mind. So I very much had to help. And it was no wonder that she was able to raise the money, like, within months. Within a couple months. And we were. The next thing you know, we were in South Dakota at the Lakota reservation. We stayed for about five weeks, which was amazing.
- [70:18]
Warwick Schiller
Pine Ridge and what was the other one?
- [70:20]
Adam Schoma
We're in Pine Ridge, basically, that area. I mean, it's a big area of South Dakota, but it's a Lakota reservation. We also went down to Taos and. And we're in with the natives there as well, especially the drum makers there. Yeah, I. I don't know what else you want to know, but it was. It's, like, heartbreaking but inspiring. And there's. It's just so much land there. Even though it's the dead of winter, you just. It's. It's very spacious and beautiful place to be. But, you know, we also heard of. Oh, yeah, my friend got shot today, you know, and we were with a lady that was housing kids that. Whose parents were on meth, and the kids had nowhere to go. And you're seeing it, you know, we're right there in that trailer home and realizing what it's like. And she's. And she's the one standing up to the meth dealers. Like, this one lady is standing up to the. The meth mafia. And it's just. You're just witnessing some amazing people against amazing odds. People that were trafficked as kids that then went through the Sundance pilgrimage, you know, Sundance Ceremony and do kriya yoga type stuff every day to keep themselves alive. That was some of the most amazing stories I heard was a woman that had been through such abuse as a kid and really had just pulled herself out. It's just amazing. So very inspiring and also very difficult history to watch. It's not a Women of the White Buffalo is not a.
- [71:55]
Warwick Schiller
It's not improv comedy.
- [71:56]
Adam Schoma
It's not. Thank you. Thank you. See, that was like the third time we've talked about it, and it was when you'd least expect it. Right. It's not something you're like, you know, having a mimosa watching on a Sunday afternoon. It's a tough ride. Be ready for that. But it's one you should be aware of. And it goes through the history of the natives and the current. Current situation.
- [72:19]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, the. The preview and the little blurb I read about it, it was talking about how that the. The Lakota was a matriarchal society. Is that correct?
- [72:29]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah. Back. Back in. Back in the day and. And leaning back toward that now. And they would put the chiefs forward because that's what the. The white man wanted, was to talk to the man. So they put the chiefs. They created a chief, even though it was a matriarchal chief, really, that was running the show. And that tends to be societies that are a little more connected to the earth and a little more understanding and less combative, I would say.
- [72:56]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting that those two things kind of run hand in hand in it.
- [73:01]
Adam Schoma
It is, it is. But not. Not like the fake. I wouldn't. Not like the fake matriarchal. Because a lot of, like, a lot of what we see sometimes is females, quote unquote, stepping in and playing the same male role. You know, it's the same. So male not meaning male or female. So it's just male meaning the more linear, rational or ego driven or agenda driven, or the female is more creation, community driven. And so regardless of your male or female, if you're still playing these archetypes over here of the male lineage, it's not really changing. So, yes, we want women in power, but it would be nice if women were in power. And in general, the shift was just more toward a matriarch mentality is really the idea.
- [73:51]
Warwick Schiller
Right. To me, you can have a woman playing. Playing a patriarchal role sort of thing.
- [73:55]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. You know, or. Okay, having a man play a matriarchal. As long as the system is more matriarchal. Yeah. I think then we're just leaning toward ideals that are a little more probably beneficial for society and for our long term survival. I would say.
- [74:13]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Don't you, don't you find that. I don't know how much you've had to do with other indigenous cultures, but it's almost like these are the only people that knew what they were talking about. You know what I mean? It doesn't matter what indigenous culture you go to. Like, this is the wisdom right here. This is the stuff that we've got away from.
- [74:33]
Adam Schoma
And here's the, here's one of the cool things, like, that blew me away. I was with this kid, Lakota kid, and he, as a kid, he was probably 20, you know, but he said, you know, it's. It's not like we want to go back to the old ways in terms of how we were living, that Lakota have always been adaptable people. You know, like, we didn't have horses way back. We adapted the horses and we, and we, and we master them and use, you know, use them. So they're like, we're an adaptive people. We're not trying to go back in time. But. But what we should learn is, you know, some of the spirituality we had behind things. The mind, body, spirit was always something they were taught, but they're not trying to go backwards. They're like, let's integrate it now. And that's what I really, you know, really like about is like, yeah, let's integrate the wisdom into the modern way of life and see if we can make this society work. You know, we're here. We can't really go backwards. So, you know, we all like cars, probably. You know, we all like to move around. It's pretty cool to be able to order food. It really is. You know, it's cool to have these computers and we can talk across the ocean. So, all right, how do we integrate with a mindset or a culture that's just a little more community oriented? I don't have the answer other than I just try to create community here in la, like where I try to do free meditations and free yoga and at least make sure people feel a little connected somewhere in what feels like a vast city of independent people just trying to all make it. And that can wear on people and can crush people. I mean, I think the statistics is 500,000 people flee the city. You know, come in and come out of the city every year. Like the, you know, it's. I want to make it as an actor. See, I'm gone. This killed Me, you know, this, this. This place will spit you out. It really will. If you come in like I'm going to be a star, it'll just eat you up and throw you right out. Louisiana is crazy like that. I think that was my feeling. My first year is like, any day you feel like anything's possible. And on any day you think this is absolutely impossible. All of it, this whole world of media, that was the first year it felt like that all the time. And it's like they prey on that. Everything is possible, and then it just spits people out and wears them down. And unless you find that, like, community and you find what you really want to be doing and you feel like. Because you're going to need that. Because every path is incredibly hard in this. In the media world, I think.
- [77:00]
Warwick Schiller
Right. Well, I think you're, you know, I think you're changing the world through your. Through this conscious media that you're doing, because all of these things are amazing. What. Tell us about the Polygon. It was about a village in, like, Russia somewhere that, that they did all the nuclear testing right by it. And they have all sorts of problems, don't they?
- [77:22]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. So this was my. That was my second doc. So after doing the highest pass, I felt, oh, I can do anything. You know, I didn't die in the. In the middle of the Himalayas. So. So when Kimberly Harlock. Kimberly, she. She's an Australian. She was on the Baywatch of Australia. She was on Australian Gladiators, I think, as well. Oh, really?
- [77:43]
Warwick Schiller
Wow.
- [77:43]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. And she was on a really popular UK tv. She was on this show Lost here in the US Anyway, a popular actress from Australia. And we got to know each other and she mentioned she had been a couple times to this place called the Polygon, in. In what's now Kazakhstan, used to be Soviet Union. It's where all the testing of their nuclear weapons had happened. 400 detonations, more or less. And if you can imagine, you know, the US really didn't care that much about its people when they were doing their testing. The Soviets could care even less about their people when testing. In fact, we're like, why don't you come outside and see the might of our. Told the villagers, come outside and watch this. This bomb explode so that the dust then falls on you. Now, okay, granted, people didn't know as much then about how bad it was, but I think they did know and they were somewhat testing their own people that. That's the theory. That's the theory.
- [78:39]
Warwick Schiller
Wow.
- [78:40]
Adam Schoma
And. And so we Went there to film two things. One, to just let people know this is what happened in this village. All these villages in the area still deal with it. Generations of DNA, water or land, the food, suicide. Like, the rate of death in these areas is absurd. And the government are there really high cancer rates, things like that, high cancer rates. And certain stories where one lady, they're driving on a bus back from their college course, and they stop and they jump and hop in this pond and swim. And she remembers, like, oh, I don't remember that pond from this crater lake from before. But she said, you know, five years later, every one of them had died but her, like, out of 20. And you're like, oh, you know, that was a radioactive lake. They had all jumped in. No one had. No one swam around in. And. And she's like that. It just can't be unlucky that you know that something's going on. And so, yes, the rates of cancer are absurdly high. The water. And we went to some of these sites, of course, you know, we got up close to some of the craters and so it's. It's again, similar in the. In the Women of the White Buffalo, a very tragic story, but we're trying to focus in it on the villagers or the people that are trying to empower their. Their brothers and sisters within the local community. These are the people that are standing up and saying, well, we're not going to just be victims. We're going to help rise up and we're going to adapt and at the same time keep fighting for some reparations. You know, they were just. They're just trying to say, hey, government, help us out. We're already pretty struggling out here, you know.
- [80:20]
Warwick Schiller
Right.
- [80:21]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. Crazy.
- [80:23]
Warwick Schiller
Where can people watch the Polygon on Prime?
- [80:27]
Adam Schoma
Amazon Prime. It's either streaming on prime or you can rent or purchase on Prime.
- [80:32]
Warwick Schiller
Okay.
- [80:33]
Adam Schoma
And then likewise, Women of the Buffalo, that might also be on itunes. And Heal, of course, is on. Is you can stream on prime, but you can also, you know, you can rent it on Prime. Anyone can get it in the world on Vimeo if you go to the Heal website. So a lot of these we have on Vimeo. So anyone you can watch anywhere.
- [80:51]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Now tell me about one I didn't know about until I researched it today. Chasing the Present.
- [81:00]
Adam Schoma
So again, Chasing the Present, you know, I didn't make. Right. I wasn't a producer or director, but they approached me because they saw how. How, well, Heal came out, you know. Yeah, yeah, he'll, you know, talk. Heal is on Netflix. But Netflix said no to heal the first time. And then we came out on itunes and the. And it flooded and became number one and stayed in the top three for three months. And then Netflix said, oh, maybe there's. Maybe there's something here we should look at. And so they brought it on, and it did incredibly well on Netflix. So sometimes you got to convince these guys. So Jason, the president, came to me and said, hey, you know, we know you can take a fill out. And so I helped them do that. Help them do a summit around it with Hay House, you know, do like some longer content with it. So I know James quite well, and I brought in some interviews for them to interview some other people in addition to it. It's a very amazing movie in that it really looks at stress and anxiety and depression and how meditation and such can. Can help. Can help us. He would have panic attacks and such. And although I didn't work on that one per se, it's a nice, you know, mental health and anxiety and meditation then propagate and show themselves in selling Superman. And, you know, my main character is going through a lot of the same thing. It's that stress and anxiety and panic attacks in some ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's. That's as much as I can say about that film, other than it's shot really beautifully. Well, you know, they shot a lot in India as well, and they got Russell Brandon in the film and a lot of really, really amazing speakers, I would say.
- [82:35]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, Russell is an amazing speaker.
- [82:41]
Adam Schoma
He's got charisma. Absolutely.
- [82:44]
Warwick Schiller
He does have that. So I wrote down your questions here at some point. Oh, here they are. I've got them. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. If it's all right with you, I'm gonna ask you a questions that you chose.
- [82:53]
Adam Schoma
Okay, sure.
- [82:55]
Warwick Schiller
And I can't wait to hear this one. What book do you recommend the most? Not necessarily your favorite book to read, but one you suggest to read.
- [83:06]
Adam Schoma
Yes. Old Path White Clouds is the. The book by.
- [83:11]
Warwick Schiller
Write that down, because I've not heard this.
- [83:13]
Adam Schoma
All right. It's one that my. My teacher Anand recommended. I read. I think he also knew how much I resonated with the. The teachings of the Buddha. That's where I started, you know, in Australia at some of those meditation centers. But it's Thik Nhat Han's book, and it's a. It's the story of the Buddha.
- [83:31]
Warwick Schiller
That's one of Thich Nhat Hans. Okay. Old Path White Clouds or Cloud?
- [83:36]
Adam Schoma
Cloud. I can Old path, White clouds. Yeah. And I'll tell you, it's a great story of the Buddha and it helps bring him into like a more human stance or a more human story of his trials and tribulations of, you know, even when he was the Buddha, you know, when he, when he's not, the young man is the Buddha and like him having a sangha and the people he meets and the people try to frame the Buddha and stuff like this, they try and make him look like he's killed someone, like they're trying to take him down, you know. But one of the things I love the most is that it talks about emptiness at one point. And it, it's what cleared it up for me because I think the idea of emptiness throws people off a lot and it throws people off meditation. I can't empty my mind, you know, I can't get to this place of nothingness. And it really scares people away from meditation, I think. And the idea is not emptiness. And Thich Nhat Hanh says he's like, it's just empty of separation. And that made a lot of sense to me. It's not emptiness. The emptiness is empty of separation, which is fullness. So if you go looking, in my opinion, if you go looking for emptiness or if you even go looking for like non dualism, in many ways it's somewhat a road for psychosis. Like you're going to be so frustrated now because even, even the experience of like a total connection or really dropping of ego or, you know, silence is not empty. It's. It is very full and it can be very full. Energy and meditation can be totally energizing. Energy can be just shooting through you in every way. And it's no less meditate. Like it's calm, but there's plenty of energy. It's definitely not empty, you know, so that's why, that's why I fell in love with that book was from that one line where he said, it's not emptiness, it's just empty of separation.
- [85:44]
Warwick Schiller
I got a question for you. Being a master, what was that word that starts with S?
- [85:51]
Adam Schoma
You can just say I teach, I teach meditation, breath work and yoga. It's fine.
- [85:56]
Warwick Schiller
Okay, you're just talking about energy and meditation. So I've had this thing happen. Yeah, a bit meditating to where I call it Jesus hands. But I will feel like there's a flame flickering. Like my, the palms of my hands get this energy in them and it feels like there's a, like a little like, you see picture, you know, a Portrait painting Jesus with his hands out. And he's got this little. And I, and I will have that. Do you have any idea of what that is?
- [86:29]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, enjoy it, is what I would say. Just.
- [86:31]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, I love it. I love it.
- [86:32]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [86:33]
Warwick Schiller
You know when I, when I first, when it first happened.
- [86:36]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [86:37]
Warwick Schiller
Do you know what, do you know what a muse is? That brain sensing headband? Yes.
- [86:43]
Adam Schoma
Yes. I've never, I think I have one, but I've never used it. Yes.
- [86:47]
Warwick Schiller
So I started out with headspace.
- [86:52]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. Okay, great.
- [86:53]
Warwick Schiller
That's what I started out meditating with. And then I went to this, this muse thing. And so what the muse does, it gives you feedback.
- [87:00]
Adam Schoma
Okay, okay.
- [87:01]
Warwick Schiller
As to whether your mind's quieter or busy or whatever. And that setting I have on is rainforest. And so if your mind's really quiet, you kind of get this like wind blowing through the trees. And if your mind gets busy, you hear these rain on these leaves. And if your mind gets really busy, you know, it's like heavy rain. But if you get really, if you get really good, you'll hear this chirp, chirp, chirp, chirps. I hear these birds chirping. That's when you're really in the right place. Well, I use this thing for a while and the first time I got a, you know, I've got the light wind blowing and then I got a chirp. And as soon as the bird chirped, I'm like, I got a chirp. And that's, you know.
- [87:41]
Adam Schoma
But, but that makes sense. That makes sense.
- [87:44]
Warwick Schiller
But anyway, the Jesus hands things was kind of the same. I'm meditating and then I get this feeling in my hands like, oh, that's cool. And it went away.
- [87:51]
Adam Schoma
And I went away and does it come back? Does it keep coming back?
- [87:54]
Warwick Schiller
Or it's, you know, what I stole and I'd still. I can't summon it at will.
- [88:01]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. I mean, no, I don't know, you know, I don't know exactly what that is. That's the cool thing is, and I, you know how I teach also is it's going to show itself in different ways. Meditation. Depending on one person, it might be Jesus hands. Somebody else, it might just feel like Kundalini shooting up their spine. Someone else that might feel calm and not neither is better or worse. And don't try and catch up to that person. Like really don't put this in the American model, you know, of step by step getting to this place. That's why it's. Enjoy it. Yeah, this is cool. And like, maybe, like, next time, you know, comes, like, you just kind of ask it, what is this? Or. Or just enjoy it and not need to know necessarily what it is. Unless, of course, it's, you know, really distracting you at some level. Then. Then we could talk and go, well.
- [88:53]
Warwick Schiller
No, no, it's super. It's. It's super cool. It's just. I didn't know. You know, I kind of want to quantify everything, and I think, oh, you're.
- [89:01]
Adam Schoma
You're at level six. Have the blue flame in your hands. Oh, yeah, keep going.
- [89:04]
Warwick Schiller
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [89:06]
Adam Schoma
I'm sorry.
- [89:06]
Warwick Schiller
I can't tell you I don't have.
- [89:09]
Adam Schoma
That answer for you, Warwick.
- [89:12]
Warwick Schiller
That is not an answer we should be looking for anyway. Okay. If you could spread a message throughout the world, one that people would listen to, what would that be? And I think you're doing it with your dear conscious media. But let's hear it.
- [89:25]
Adam Schoma
I would say I'd like to listen to that inner calling that wants freedom. So my message would be like, listen to your. To your inner wisdom. Listen to that part of you that wants to inquire, that wants to change, realize that's a powerful thing, and follow it, you know? No, no message of like, this is the answer. No message of like, this is the key. But like in Superman, we're saying, yeah, you have the power to choose. You have the power to change your life and wrote to Dharma, we're saying, like, freedom is something that's inside, but you have to be willing to go look for it and to go through a pilgrimage to really understand your Dharma, your truth, your path to freedom. So, yeah, that would be a message that. Listen to that call, really. And it can be hard because society or your partner might say otherwise, but I think it's one of the coolest things we can do in this life is to, like, look into it. Yeah. Which you're doing on your podcast every day, right? On your journey. So it's really. It's fitting, I would say.
- [90:33]
Warwick Schiller
There's a. There's a. A thing that Anand said that you played at the start of every episode, standing there, he's talking to you guys, and he said, you're not here to grow, huh?
- [90:46]
Adam Schoma
No, he says, you're not here to feel better. You're not here to feel better.
- [90:49]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, you know that's right. He says, you are not here to feel better. Huh? You're here to transcend. Yeah, I friggin love it.
- [90:56]
Adam Schoma
I know, I love it. I know. It's. That's that's why every episode, I'm like, every time, yeah, right. We think we're just here to, like. Yeah, exactly. It's not here just to figure it out and feel better. Like, we're here to continually evolve, which is not the answer everyone wants to hear, because we want to know how it all turns out. Right. We want to have a little control. But me personally, I think the coolest control is, or the coolest skill is like, having space for the mystery. If you can develop a relationship, maybe that's a better way to put a relationship with the mystery and the unknown. It's a really good skill to have. And I feel, you know, coming back to death, that meditation is preparing us for the unknown, and it's stabilizing the nervous system. Some of the breath work pilgrimages do that. They push us to, like you were saying, you know, to open up places we didn't know to head that kind of weakness off before it shows itself. All of this helps us have a better relationship. More faith, if you will, with. With the unknown. I think it's a really good skill. And I try to remind people when we do a meditation, like you are training, you know, your nervous system when you're doing this, it's just a skill and a muscle like everything else. So you're just getting a little better at being with things the way they are. That's like Peter. That's Peter Krohn language for you. Can you be with this? You know, can you be with this? Yes. Yeah.
- [92:18]
Warwick Schiller
Yes. Very good. Peter Crone language. Okay, next question is, what's something worthwhile that you've put your time into? Something that has changed the course of your life?
- [92:32]
Adam Schoma
I chose that question.
- [92:34]
Warwick Schiller
You chose that question.
- [92:36]
Adam Schoma
It was.
- [92:36]
Warwick Schiller
It was in red, which means you really liked it.
- [92:39]
Adam Schoma
I really liked it, yeah. Something worthwhile that I put my. So much. My gut. So much meditation, of course, is so worthwhile that I've put time and time into it. And I would say any pilgrimage, I'll keep coming back to that. Any. Any journey that can take you out of your comfort zone and put you to the limits and has that intention of growth. So I am so happy for the pilgrimages that I've taken. I'm so happy I chose to go to India. I'm so happy I jumped on motorcycles with my guru. It changed me so deeply in a way that only experience can. So I'm forever grateful to him for also, you know, welcoming into his family. Yeah.
- [93:27]
Warwick Schiller
You know, by the time we get to these questions, a lot of Times kind of like that one. They've. They've already been answered. But you mentioned something in your last answer that I was going to ask about breath work. What sort of breath work do you teach?
- [93:38]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, these pranayamas. Okay. Breathwork. Pranam. Let's say we translate prana as energy or consciousness, yama as alignment. So we're aligning the consciousness through breath. And I say this because also I think breath is a communication device to the whole system. So we breathe a certain way and it can really talk to your body better than English. So breath work we might do. We might do some Breath of Fire. If you're familiar with Breath of Fire. Yep. So certain breath to maybe enliven the energy. Then we have other breath sets that are to calm the nervous system, to really stabilize the nervous system. Other ones that are to expand the lung capacity. So cosmic breaths. Cosmic breaths. Breath three. I do quite a bit. We do the breath of Light quite a bit. I use Nadi Shodhana quite a bit, which is alternating nostril breath while pumping the belly. And that tends to really balance and enliven. We would do that a lot before we hop on motorcycles. So it's not like how I did.
- [94:38]
Warwick Schiller
The alternate nostril breathing before you get on the motorbikes.
- [94:41]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah. While pumping. So you're okay on the exhales on what you're inhaling through one nostril, exhaling through the other, but fast.
- [94:49]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, okay.
- [94:50]
Adam Schoma
While you pump the belly and so you're balancing the nervous system, enlivening both sides of the brain. And the breath of fire technique, when you're pumping the belly like that wakes you up. So it's really perfect. Before hopping on a motorcycle in India, like, let me get really in the zone. And we also use that actually before the Kriya meditation, the Nadi showed us a powerful one. So, yeah, lately I've been doing a lot of like 10 minute sets. So we'll do three pranayamas, three minutes each, 10 minute set, which really dials us in. And then I'll use words, English words or Sanskrit words to then like just tune a little bit deeper. This 20 minute meditation, I do it on Instagram with Heal. I do it on Zoom for people that are on my email list. It's so amazing, to be honest. I mean, for someone that's meditated for years and years and years, I get a lot out of just doing 10 minutes of breath and 10 minutes of some spoken word. It tunes us in so quick. It's so I'm really loving it. It's not a substitute for meditation, but it's a great, great add on, I would say.
- [95:54]
Warwick Schiller
Right?
- [95:54]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [95:55]
Warwick Schiller
Perfect. Super cool.
- [95:57]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [95:58]
Warwick Schiller
Next question is, what do you think your true purpose is?
- [96:02]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, I do more and more realize, you know, how some stars have aligned here to put me where I am making these, making these films. You know, studied enough of writing and then was enough of a sportsman and. Okay, like I have some background here to, to be able to make these documentaries. So I do think my purpose is, is to, to teach and to inspire, I think really inspiration to inspire people to look within and to do it in a accessible way. I think, I think that is, that is my dharma is I'm a regular dude and I, I speak, you know, I don't speak in a different voice when, you know, when I leave meditations. I don't turn into Yogi Adam. Right. Yeah. You know, so yeah, I think. And I make films that are, tend to be entertaining. Right. They're, they're life threatening and, and, or have pop, pop culture like Superman. So I really, I think that's what I was put here for, was to help merge these things and use our ability to tell stories to inspire people and say let's, let's look within. I mean that's what story has been around for before we bastardized it into, you know, commercialism and just craziness. But we are always using stories to inspire the human spirit to improve and evolve. I think it's a more recent phenomenon that it became a commercialized just bag of inner entertainment crap, you know, called reality TV and blah, blah, blah, or you know, this news network fighting that network. Right. It's, it's all entertainment anger. So I think I was put here to, in a nice fun way, bridge the gap and teach people through story. Yeah.
- [97:51]
Warwick Schiller
So I think that's, that is the mark of a real teacher is someone who can be relatable or you know, disseminate the information in a way that people want to hear it rather than being too obtuse or, you know, whatever.
- [98:11]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah. And you know, everyone has their, their pocket, so to speak. Like, like people will go to Anand in India that are like, I want to dive deep and go as far as one can, you know, go into these teachings. There's a need for someone else that's. Let me open it up to a broader audience through this show. Or you know, it's like even in the soccer world, like some people are teaching camps to a lot of people or some people are teaching high schoolers. Other people are teaching at the pro level. Not better or worse. It's just where you're suited for. And I feel like I'm really suited. I'm really suited for at this, at this level, you know, inspiring your people to. To make some initial leaps, you know.
- [98:56]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Well, as. As much have you, as you've done, like your whole body of work is all, you know, it's all of a similar thread and you're trying to help people learn some stuff.
- [99:11]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, learn some stuff, wake up a little bit and, and enjoy, like selling Superman. When it comes out, you'll see is it's the most subtle in terms of my hand in it. Right. In terms of a consciousness hand or in terms of a teachings hand. By episode four, I take my moment and I take five minutes and kind of say, hey, guys, listen to this. Because by then, like, you're in and I'm not going to lose you. So there's a real story that's pulling us through and there's these underbellies of, you know, underbellies of the mental health. And like, there's something deeper here and power and it's just all real building, but you're really entertained and pulled along. And then near the end, I start throwing in some Nietzsche, you know, and. And talking about the true Superman, the ubermensch, and like the real hero within. And by that time, you know, then. Then you feel, oh, that's the director talking. But other. Otherwise, Superman is a very. As one of my friends said, he goes, this is one of the most riveting doc series that I've ever watched. Like, it is a. It is a very pop. Like, its ability to be with everybody on this planet or on this, you know, continent is palpable. It gets very watchable for anyone. And then I get to slip some things in. So watch out, you know. Right. Watch out.
- [100:29]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, I had, I had a guest on the podcast from Australia. She's an author and she writes rural fiction.
- [100:37]
Adam Schoma
Okay.
- [100:37]
Warwick Schiller
So. So country fiction, you know, like, writes about farmers and, and their romance. It's, you know, it's farmer romance sort of thing. But she's really into regenerative agriculture and saving the planet.
- [100:52]
Adam Schoma
Wow.
- [100:53]
Warwick Schiller
And she puts that in there. She sucks them in with the story, but it's exactly what you're doing it. Like, people buy the book. They wouldn't buy a book about regenerative agriculture and saving the planet, but they will read the book about the girl meets the cowboy, whatever, you know, and she. She's Been doing it for years. And she just puts all the, like, she really. And. And like, certainly levels of consciousness in these farmer romance novels. And it's super cool how she does it.
- [101:23]
Adam Schoma
Oh, I love that. No, because regenerative farming is. Is huge. It's so important. That's. That's great to hear. I'm a fan of hers already. Yeah.
- [101:31]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You're like, if you watch. Have you ever watched Kiss the Ground.
- [101:34]
Adam Schoma
The documentary and the recent one, Common Ground, of course. Yeah. Yeah.
- [101:38]
Warwick Schiller
But if you watch those, you are kind of looking for that.
- [101:42]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, yeah.
- [101:43]
Warwick Schiller
You know what I mean? You like, it's kind of like. It's kind of like the road to Dharma. Whoever needs to see it will see it, but not everybody's going to see it. But. But Rachel, Treasure, she kind of sucks me in with the, you know, bit of romance and action and. And then. Yeah. And so it's such a cool. Such a cool way of doing that, I think. So you're doing the same thing. Okay, so the next question is, what is one common myth in your profession that you wish to debunk? And you have to kind of. Most people have on the podcast are like, you. You got your hand in a lot of different parts, so you got to kind of say what profession you're referring to.
- [102:19]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, documentary filmmaking. Let's say that.
- [102:21]
Warwick Schiller
Yep.
- [102:21]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. A myth within that is that or filmmaking in general. But I'll say documentary filmmaking, because that's what I know best, that it's always a creative process. I think it would be the myth. It is by no means always a creative process. It is a lot of disciplined drudgery, you know, meaning, like the hard work, just going through files and files, reading transcripts and transcripts of people's interviews until over three days, until somehow, boom. It. It all connects. And you go, oh, that. With that. With that. That's going to be what the scene's all about. That's how it's going to work. And so it's such a lot of discipline and a lot of work that is I would not call fun, you know, because sitting in front of a computer is, to me, not that fun. And I. My eyes start to cross, and then the creative moments are quick, and those are. And that's fun. And working with the team is fun, but it's just there's, you know, it's not like it. I don't know, maybe people outside of the film where think it's always creative, but you can't be. I don't think in that creative Creative mode, eight hours straight. It's just not how it. How it. How it flows for me at least. Maybe. Maybe some other Rembrandts work like that.
- [103:43]
Warwick Schiller
But maybe they do. Next question. What quality do you admire in a person?
- [103:52]
Adam Schoma
Honesty and humor. Both those. Yeah, they go together, though usually honest people are ridiculously funny.
- [104:00]
Warwick Schiller
Good one. And your last question you chose, what do you feel it means to be a leader and a follower?
- [104:06]
Adam Schoma
I'm learning more and more what it means to be a leader. And I know for sure that it means to live your faith, to have faith and then live it in the face of other people questioning it. And then a follower, oddly, like a true follower, you know, be it of a. Of a guru or of, you know, following a leader, taking you on a. On a journey or something like this. Not just a blind follower. Also needs the same thing. It must be a person of faith just as much. And the analogy would be like even riding a motorcycle. We have passengers in the rode to Dharma on the back. The people in the back are living with absolutely as much or more faith in the person riding. They're just total trust in this other human that they're not going to just drive us off a cliff. So I think both just take absolute faith, especially in the face of other people really freaking out, questioning. And I've seen that so much. That's where I've learned from Anand through experience is how many people come at him in the road to Dharma with, I'm not comfortable. This isn't good enough for me. And, like, he just laughs. He just laughs in their face because he knows it's not like an ego thing. It's just he knows what's right and what's good, and the ducks will fall in a row. So, yeah, faith, faith, faith, faith, faith. A thousand times faith, not faith. Yeah, not like a belief system. Just so you know, I'm not like, faith meaning like, oh, because Jesus came to this earth on this day. It's not like a belief system. I mean, faith, you know.
- [105:42]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, you mentioned when you first started talking about being a leader right there, and you talked something. You said a line that I was trying to remember about almost having. Sticking to your gun sort of thing when other people doubt you. That's not exactly what you said, but. Yeah. Do you. Were you referring to any particular thing? Because I'm just wondering, have you had. With the. With the. You know, everybody worked the documentary. If you've done. Do you get the. The naysayers?
- [106:17]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, absolutely. 100. I mean, just even you feel in a bubble sometimes too, doing something like Rode the Dharma. And okay, no network picks it up or. But you just know it's. It's what you feel called to put out there and you keep going. And I found a way to put it out there and we created a course around it. And we use that to reach out to people like Greg Braden and Bruce Lipton and. And to get it into people's hands. Like we. You just get creative because you trust in it and you have to have faith if you're asking people to invest in your projects too. And. But people, a lot of people actually, when I did Road to Diamond, they're like, why would you do a series? You make feature docs, stick to what you're good at, feature length. And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, this thing is screaming series to me. That's what I'm making. It doesn't matter that I haven't made a series yet. And selling Superman, same thing. Like I said, some people wanted to stop the thing, you know, and I knew it was for a good purpose. And so there was a. Also with that one. It started out as a feature and we just kept editing and I was like, oh, this thing is more than 90 minutes and this. And it just turned into a four part series and. And we'll see where that takes us. But to me, that was what the. What the body of work wanted to say. It wanted to be longer. It wanted to have more. More episodes to go into. So, yeah, there's always people going, like, what are you doing, man? Like, this is ridiculous. That's just part of. I don't know, that's just part of the film world, I think.
- [107:47]
Warwick Schiller
And these people, are they the sort of people you like? Do they make you question yourself? Like, these are the people. These are the sort of people that you respect their judgment and so do you. Do you kind of. Did they make you stop and think? Or are these like the naysayers? And it goes in one unit, the other.
- [108:05]
Adam Schoma
There's an element as a naysayers. Like even the main character, Darren, in selling Superman, like, naysayers came at him. The film's not even out. And people were shitting all over him because one news piece came out and it kind of got interpreted the wrong way. And it's part of why he started to pull back from the movies. Like, look at all the. I'm. Why am I putting myself out there? You know, why am I taking the heat? So there were those naysayers Were just the kind of outliers. But it still, you know, has its effect. But then, no, within. Within people I respect and things like the ones that were saying, no, why were you making a doc series? You make feature docs? Or I'll even say, like, just with. Internally, when you're making a film, like selling Superman about. He was my friend from high school, and it's a difficult moment, and he's having trouble with it. You wonder, like, is this the best thing to be doing? Is this really the best thing for this person? And real gut check, you know, because it's not. Again, it's in the movie. You'll see it's hard for him to be making the movie. It's pushing him. And so then there's this real question of, like, is that too much right now for this person? And I can thankfully say in the end, it's gotten to a good place where. No, it was a good thing. It was a really good thing for him to do. And I think it was still hard. And if he could choose to not do it again, he probably would not choose not to do the movie. But we're all glad we have. But there was plenty of pushback the other way. I was definitely alone on a mountain. I would say, yeah. Saying, no, no, this film's worthy. This series is worthy, and we should do this. Yeah.
- [109:45]
Warwick Schiller
Have you ever found that. That, like. I don't know. In my experience, for the most part, the naysayers, you really shouldn't listen to them, but I've actually learned quite a bit of stuff from my detractors in the past, too. You find that there's sometimes those lessons in there that maybe they can see your blind spot sort of thing.
- [110:07]
Adam Schoma
I mean, if there's someone close to me. Yeah. But the naysayers, like the outliers. No, I don't know. They're just. Well, the outliers are. It's just usually angry, you know, angry Internet people, people close to me. If they. Of course, if they were to question me, I'll look, you know, people. I don't know about you, but I don't like getting notes on my projects. Right. But I need people's notes. And probably the first reaction to notes is, oh, no, you know, I love my thing the way it is. And then the next day it's like, well, all right, maybe we could change that. That's not a bad idea. If I start thinking of this, okay. It's like, I'm like a classic guy that the, you know, the wife has an idea. And then a day later, the guy's like, you know what? I got a good idea. It's the idea you said yesterday, right? As long as I can come to terms with it and wrap my head around it, then I'm okay. So what. What can I say, Warwick? You know, still very human over here, despite my iterations with dying in the Ganga. Very human.
- [111:11]
Warwick Schiller
Have you ever heard of a concept called the Big Blue Boat theory? No, it's not in advertising, and I heard it from someone in print advertising. But, you know, when you're in print advertising, you know what sort of print ads look good and you how they should, you know, what sells or whatever. But then you've got the client who wants you to make an ad for them, but they always want to have their input. So this person, tell me what you do is you make the perfect print ad for what they're trying to sell, but then you take a big blue boat, you stick it right in the middle of it, and then they look at the ad and they go, that's really good. But you think you can get rid of that big blue boat? And they go, yeah, sure, we'd love to. And they take the big blue boat out, and now they've got their ad that they know is going to work, and the client has had his. Had his say in it. He got to have some input, you know what I mean? And so they know that someone's going to want to have some input and want to change it, so they put something ridiculous in there that shouldn't be in there. So that. That's the thing they change instead of changing the true concept of the whole thing.
- [112:15]
Adam Schoma
I'll try that next time before I get notes from someone. I'll put in something terrible in the movie.
- [112:21]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. And then let them take it out.
- [112:23]
Adam Schoma
Let them take it out. And then they'll feel good about that. That's a great idea. Someone will probably use that against me and it'll work on me.
- [112:32]
Warwick Schiller
Keep an eye out in the future. At the end of one of Adam Sharma's documentaries, the credits will rol. And at the very end, it's going to say, and thanks to Warwick Schiller for the Big Blue Boat Theory.
- [112:45]
Adam Schoma
Absolutely, absolutely. I don't know which one it'll be, but yes, I might do an AI one. I might do an AI doc. I'm talking with someone about this, about doing an AI doc, which I think is one of the biggest issues in the world right now. I really, really am passionate about it. I think we're going off a cliff with that AI stuff, man. I think. Yeah, I think we're in trouble.
- [113:09]
Warwick Schiller
I was going to ask you what. What have you got coming up in the future? Do you have any. Do you have any plans, get any other, apart from the AI one? Now you've told us that, yeah, the.
- [113:22]
Adam Schoma
AI is a possibility. We'll see. We're talking to someone about that, but I think by the time this podcast comes out, it'll be fine to talk about because we're signing in the next couple days to. It's called Aaron's Law, so I won't be directing it. I'm bringing in director Maureen Isran to direct it all, executive produce it, which in the doc world means I'm gonna oversee the whole thing. I'm gonna go get the funding for it, put the team together and make this doc. Now, Aaron's Law is. I couldn't believe I didn't know about it. Are you familiar with what Aaron's Law is? So it is aptly named after a woman named Erin. And Aaron created this law and pushed for it in governments, and she's got it passed in all but 10 states. And it basically allows states to teach kids in school to be able to speak up when there's been abuse, sexual abuse, etc, Right. When there's been some kind of, like, sexual misconduct. It teaches them how to give language to it and how to go somewhere in the school and talk about it, which is incredibly important because once they learn it in school, it feels right. And like, for example, in New York, when they did it, when it finally passed in that state after nine years of Aaron pushing for it. Okay, like. And it blows your mind that it's like, this is not a hard law to pass. But she works for nine years. It pushes it, gets through a school, passes it. They teach it to the kids. Within days of the kids learning, nine kids come forward and say, the principal is touching us all. And this guy has been touching kids for years and goes to prison for 26 years. Like, just takes them down, just like that. You empower the kids, and that's why it's within, you know, my purview. Like, you empower people and she, Aaron herself is so empowered and so pushed so hard for this because she was, you know, sexually abused as a kid as well, and she's used it to fuel her life. When you empower kids to speak up, you know, it's a good thing.
- [115:19]
Warwick Schiller
Is it? Is it. Is it given the kids a language to communicate it, or is it Giving them like permission. What's, what's the big crux of that thing?
- [115:29]
Adam Schoma
Giving them language permission, a way to. And then also really the law says. And we can teach that in a school. Right. So it's beyond just the language and all that it's saying. The law says, hey, in schools we need to do this because it is a safe haven for kids and if they learn it in school, they think it's okay so they can actually talk about it and, you know, tell on someone like a family member or a cousin or a neighbor. Yeah. Whereas usually there's so much psychological warfare going on with the person that's abusing that it's like you can't tell otherwise this is going to happen. And if you say anything, this is going to happen. And it's the numbers. You know, I won't bore you with statistics, but the numbers of sexual abuse in this country are just incredibly staggering. And if you can do a little something in the school at a young age to stop it, amazing. So again, I'm not the one to direct it. I, you know, I brought in a director that I think knows this topic well and can speak to it. But that's another project that I'll be out there raising some money for and I think is, will definitely raise money because it's a incredible story and it's a law that needs to be passed in every state. So a little more socially active.
- [116:43]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Have you ever read Gabor Mate is the Myth of Normal?
- [116:51]
Adam Schoma
No, I know, Gabriel Mate, but I have not read that book.
- [116:54]
Warwick Schiller
No, in that book he was talking about the, you know, he's always talking about trauma, but he was talking to someone who said, you know, when I was a kid, I, I really didn't have any trauma. And Gabor said, did you have an adult that you could go to and tell them anything? Tell them truly what was on your heart?
- [117:13]
Adam Schoma
Right.
- [117:13]
Warwick Schiller
And the guy said, the guy said no. And he said, well, there's your trauma. And it's, it almost sounds like this. Aaron's Law is almost teaching kids that that's a, a viable thing to do.
- [117:28]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. To me it's. To talk about it.
- [117:30]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Like, like to, to get to be able to go to somebody as an adult and tell them exactly what's going on. Yeah. You know, without any fear of repercussion or whatever.
- [117:40]
Adam Schoma
Yes, you get, you got it. And, and, and how quickly that can then stop the action from continuing and you know, and stop long term abuse and then maybe that kid more quickly can get into more therapy and talking and working through what's happened to them, and you stop the perpetrator in their tracks of messing with other kids, and you go, wow, we could save a lot of lives, you know, because a lot of it. A lot of this trauma propagates into people's lives in some pretty difficult ways. Yeah, well, it's.
- [118:13]
Warwick Schiller
But it's not just those kids lives. It's the kids of those kids, you know, it's everybody they come in contact with. Yeah. Yeah.
- [118:20]
Adam Schoma
I mean, Erin herself would say it's a whole myth. Like, abused people abuse. She's like, no, that's not. It's not the truth. That's a strange thing to believe, because then you're weary of anyone that's been abused. And it's. She's just, though, as a. As a mom of kids now, that. And she's been through it. She really doesn't let her kids have sleepovers. You know, like, she really is not gonna go trust. It's gonna take a lot longer for her to trust another family. Yeah, that's just how it is. And. And, you know, she's like, well, what can you do? Like, you're not gonna change me. I'm gonna. I have to be cautious. Like, it's happened and it does happen. So some of those effects like that too where just like. Yeah, over. I don't know if it's overly cautious. I can't even. You know, it's like, is that behavior wrong? It just. But it just propagates. Right. Like you were saying to the next generation.
- [119:16]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, but you think about those kids. How many? You said there were seven or nine or something or other.
- [119:21]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [119:21]
Warwick Schiller
Think about how. How that lesson changed their world, because they had this the week before. They had this secret that was weighing very heavily on them. They couldn't tell anybody. Just getting that off their chest. You know, forget the repercussions to the guy and he goes to jail, whatever. That's. That's his stuff. But just think about the difference in the weight lifted off their shoulders. One is I could actually say something about it and, you know, get it off your chest and then possibly get some help too.
- [119:56]
Adam Schoma
No, it's beautifully said. No. Yeah. There's a immediate therapy to it where like, oh, I've been heard.
- [120:03]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah. Yeah.
- [120:05]
Adam Schoma
And that the world. He can hear me. What's that say on there? Well, I see you. There you go.
- [120:14]
Warwick Schiller
It's the saying. I've got a T shirt on that. Adam's now reading. It's the saying from Avatar.
- [120:21]
Adam Schoma
Ah, yeah, yeah.
- [120:23]
Warwick Schiller
It's. That's. The top line is the language that they spoke. And then bottom line is that's. I see you.
- [120:28]
Adam Schoma
I'm glad you brought that up because it's like immediately being validated. Right. Seen. And then knowing that, oh, maybe the world's not as bad as I thought because there are people that will hear me. You know, your worldview can change a lot in that one moment of like, oh, wow.
- [120:47]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. On the basic, most basic level, the abuse has stopped. Number one.
- [120:52]
Adam Schoma
Number one.
- [120:53]
Warwick Schiller
Number two is they actually got, you know, tell somebody about that. And then it goes on from there. The door is open to. To heal.
- [121:04]
Adam Schoma
Yeah.
- [121:04]
Warwick Schiller
From there. But until you can actually say it. Yeah, I think that's. I think that's awesome. Okay. That's. That's Aaron's law. Anything else on the horizon?
- [121:16]
Adam Schoma
Oh, maybe a season two of road to dharma. We are talking about it. It's possible.
- [121:21]
Warwick Schiller
So do you need a motorbike rider?
- [121:23]
Adam Schoma
You know, I'll keep you posted if you're interested.
- [121:25]
Warwick Schiller
I'm. I'm looking for. After this gaucho derby thing, I'm looking for my. I'm like, oh, yeah, I need. I need to do something else like that. But something that. A big part of that was horse riding, which I'm totally comfortable with. You know what I mean? I said the next thing will. All of it will be outside my comfort zone, not just parts of it. And I. That, that would. That would be up, right up my alley.
- [121:49]
Adam Schoma
Because.
- [121:50]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, because I'm not a. Because I'm not a motorbike rider, you know.
- [121:54]
Adam Schoma
Good. We got another bit for those that don't know. There's a couple beginners basically in the road to dharma. And it's. It's interesting to watch, right?
- [122:04]
Warwick Schiller
Oh, yeah. You're riding up these mountain. You know, you're riding up this one lane road on the side of a mountain. It's like maybe 500 foot drop off one side, you know, and there's buses coming the other way and weaving in and out of trucks and buses. Like. Yeah, it's pretty crazy.
- [122:20]
Adam Schoma
Yeah. Not a place to be a beginner, but it's. It's. But it's also great if a beginner steps in because it's so, so much faith and you really get behind them, you know, like Fred. Right? Fred in the. In the. Fred is in. In the rotor. 75 years old. He hasn't ridden a bike in 40 years. And he's going on this. And you just. You're just so behind him because he keeps getting back up after. He keeps falling and falling. Right. So we love the underdog. So, Warwick, if you don't know how to ride a motorcycle, I'm behind you 100%.
- [122:52]
Warwick Schiller
I didn't say I don't know how to ride one, but I've never ridden on the road. I grew up on a farm, so you ride around on motorbike on the farm, but I've never been a road rider.
- [123:01]
Adam Schoma
Oh, that's good. You'll be well suited then, because India's roads are pretty much like the farm.
- [123:07]
Warwick Schiller
Okay. So, yeah, there's a couple of things. One is it would be an adventure outside my comfort zone, and I've wanted to go to India for quite a long time. And every time I talk to someone like you who's been to India and like, oh, it's amazing. It's like, yeah, you've got to go to India. So, yeah, if you're going to do a series three of. Or series two, whatever you want to call it, of the Road to Dharma, and you need a writer, look you up.
- [123:30]
Adam Schoma
All right.
- [123:30]
Warwick Schiller
All right.
- [123:31]
Adam Schoma
I'll let you know once we know you. I'll let you know. Absolutely.
- [123:34]
Warwick Schiller
Okay.
- [123:35]
Adam Schoma
If you're willing and committed. That's. That's really the main things. If someone's willing and committed and to do it, that's. That's. We don't really cast. Just, you know, we didn't cast the show. It was. These are the people that wanted to come, and that's who came.
- [123:50]
Warwick Schiller
Really.
- [123:51]
Adam Schoma
Yeah, it looks like.
- [123:52]
Warwick Schiller
It looks like you chose one of everybody. You know, we.
- [123:56]
Adam Schoma
There was. That's how many people chose to come. Yeah, There was no. On my part as a director. It was very clear, and I really. I'm glad we brought it up, because I want people to know this is. That it's a pilgrimage first. Anand is leading a pilgrimage to these four sacred sites on motorcycles. First and foremost, I have the privilege to then film it. So it's not a series. A TV series first, right?
- [124:20]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah. You didn't make it first.
- [124:21]
Adam Schoma
We're not funding it. Everybody's paying for their own trip. You know, everyone pays for their own thing. They're going on a pilgrimage. And I was always saying we might film it, we might not. Like, if the money comes through and we have money to film, we will. But otherwise, you know, just you're signing on. Not for a TV show. Don't do this. To be on a tv. TV show, you will get your ass to.
- [124:41]
Warwick Schiller
You you guys were going anyway.
- [124:44]
Adam Schoma
Exactly. We're going anywhere, whether the show. And that's the. That's the key. You don't want anyone coming because they want to be on a TV show, per se, because that's just the wrong reason. And you'll. Like I said, you'll get your ass handed to you really quickly if you do.
- [124:55]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, no, that's. That wasn't. When I was watching, I was thinking, I would love to do something like this. You know, like, I'm thinking, why do they do this once a year or something or other?
- [125:05]
Adam Schoma
I would. I would like it every couple of years. So, yeah, I'll let you know. Like I said, if you're willing and committed it pretty much the doors open, you hop in and we'll see who actually shows up. That's the thing.
- [125:16]
Warwick Schiller
That'd be super cool. Okay, so how do people find out more about you? Where's all your. What's all your websites and handles and those sorts of things?
- [125:26]
Adam Schoma
Sure. Two main. I think the easiest place that has both the meditation and the film together is. And the easiest website would be Adam Yoga. Instead of dot com, it's Adam Yoga that has links to everything. My films, courses, meditation, etc. But likewise, then my production company is living eye2eye.com and that lists really just the films. And that'll get you linked out to anything. To Rhoda, Dharma to heal to, etc. So either Adam Yoga, which might be easier for people to remember if they're listening in the car, or living eye2eye.com.
- [126:03]
Warwick Schiller
And living eye to eye is living the letter I the number two. The letter I. That's.
- [126:08]
Adam Schoma
That's right. And then on Instagram, I'm i2eye Productions on Instagram. That's the main places to find me. I'm not on Twitter or anything like that.
- [126:16]
Warwick Schiller
I'm not on all that stuff.
- [126:19]
Adam Schoma
Not. Not yet, I'm not. I'm not so political yet.
- [126:22]
Warwick Schiller
Well, I think you should stay away from there. Thank you so much, Adam. It's been such a pleasure having a chat with you, especially after watching some of your work.
- [126:33]
Adam Schoma
Thank you very much. Been a pleasure. I look forward to come visit up there at Paso Robles.
- [126:38]
Warwick Schiller
Yeah, you'll have to come see us and keep doing what you're doing. You're changing the world for making it the better place.
- [126:44]
Adam Schoma
Thanks, man. Journey on. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
- [126:47]
Warwick Schiller
No worries. And for you guys at home, thanks so much for listening and we'll catch you again on the next episode of the Journeyon Podcast.
- [126:56]
Adam Schoma
Thanks for being a part of the journey on podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video library@videos.warwickshiller.com Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights. It.