← The School of Greatness
The School of Greatness
3 Secrets To Manifesting Anything
01:11:01
Discover the transformative connection between your emotions and physical health in this powerful mashup featuring Gregg Braden, Gabby Bernstein, and Yara Shahidi. Learn scientifically-backed methods to heal emotional wounds, break free from limiting beliefs, and align with your authentic path to success.
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- [00:00]
A
I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to make moneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money and this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode on the School of Greatness.
- [00:46]
B
As America's leading business lender, bank of America is on your corner and in your corner. With $215 billion in business loans and and over 3,700 business specialists across the nation, we help businesses thrive so communities prosper. What would you like the power to do? Learn more@bankofamerica.com LOCALBUSINESS bank of America Official bank of FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Copyright 2025 bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.
- [01:17]
A
The School of Greatness is proudly sponsored by Amica Insurance. As Amica says, empathy is our best policy. That's why they'll go above and beyond to tailor your insurance coverage to best fit your needs. Whether you're on the road at home or traveling along life's journey, their friendly and knowledgeable representatives will work with you to ensure you have the right coverage in place. Amica will provide you with peace of mind. Go to amica.com and get a quote today. If you've listened to the School of Greatness podcast for a while, you know how important acceptance is when it comes to personal growth. And you know who else is big on acceptance? Discover. You see, Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. That's a whole lot of places and a whole lot of acceptance. Which is great for Discover, but even better for you. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen report. Learn more at discover.com credit card what happens when someone who is experiencing some type of mental or emotional altercation in their in their body decides to go the medical route versus the healing somatic route?
- [02:19]
B
Well, I'm going to answer it in two ways, and this is not separate from this conversation we're having about human divinity. And I'm going to tie back into what we're now exploring and I just want to give context and structure here. We're exploring getting into the nitty gritty of the power of human divinity and why we want it. And what happens if we give it away, if we give our humanness away? We no longer have the abilities that I'm going to share right now. So this is, it's, it's part of the conversation. First of all, when, when someone feels that, it's always good to get it checked out, because you don't know, you can't, you cannot determine. And unless it's happened in the past and you recognize this is exactly what happened in the past, you really can't.
- [03:02]
A
It's terrifying.
- [03:03]
B
It's scary. It is, it is. And fortunately, we live in a city where we had. It's a small Santa Fe, New Mexico. It's not a big 80,000 people. You know, it's not a big community. But we had, and I had good, good medical care to answer the question. We have to understand what's really happening. Every emotion that we've ever had in our lives, from the moment even before we emerged into the world through the birth canal, while we're still in the womb, every emotion that we're having has a chemical equivalent that is called. Candace Pert was the first Harvard trained medical physician that linked emotion and chemicals in the body in a scientific way.
- [03:48]
A
Wow.
- [03:49]
B
I had the honor of knowing her before she passed in 2013. She wrote a book called Molecules of Emotion. I'm sure a lot of your viewers are familiar with that. And she identified these chemicals are called neuropeptides. Neuropeptides typically will be created by the emotion and they metabolize through the body. No big deal. Unless we're having an emotion that we can't resolve. Then the neuropeptides, our bodies are so smart, the neuropeptides will stay in the body. The body will actually store the neuropeptides. And this is where it gets really interesting. In the organs, tissues and glands that we associate with our trauma. And everyone has trauma and everyone's trauma, your trauma, you might have a trauma. And I'd look at it and say, what's the big deal? Because my filters interpret it differently. Or I would have a trauma. And you would look at it and say, come on, Greg, you know, suck it up and get over it. Because your filters are different. But we all have trauma and it's personalized. And those neuropeptides will stay with us 10 minutes or 70 years until we have the tools to resolve the trauma. Sometimes they'll give you a little nudge to let you know they're still there. It might be a little irritation, might Be a rash in the body or inflammation or swelling. And we will take a pill or put on a cream to make the symptom go away, but that neuropeptide is still there. And then they'll say, well, maybe you need a little bit more, a little bit more of a nudge. And then we start developing symptoms of things that we call illness and disease. But this is. This is so fascinating to me because the science is showing us rarely do our bodies break. Rarely do we have illness and disease in the way we think we have it. What we are experiencing is our body in the presence of the conditions, the epigenetic conditions that we've given it to work with. It can be nutrition, it can be environment. And the most powerful environment is the emotional environment. Over 90% is the emotional environment. So rather than saying our bodies are broken, which ruins the trust that we have in our bodies, it's useful to say, what. What am I giving my body to work with? What. What is the environment? The emotion? And sometimes emotional environment is a subconscious. In my case, it was subconscious. I had a subconscious fear of not being safe because I wasn't when I was a child.
- [06:25]
A
Even though you were in your late 60s at that point and you were an adult. And you could logically say, well, I have resources, I have protection, I have a home, I have money, I have safety. But the little boy in you didn't feel safe.
- [06:39]
B
It's exactly. Well, it makes sense because the first seven years average, first seven years of a human life, we are in an altered state of consciousness. It's actually called a hypnagogic state is the term that psychologists use, where we have very few, if any, filters. We are absorbing behavior patterns from our caregivers. This is nature's way of preparing us for life. Nature believes that we're going to be in the same environment that our parents are. So we learn from our parents how to deal with conflict and how to treat people that you like and how to treat people you don't like.
- [07:17]
A
And we mimic them.
- [07:19]
B
We do consciously and subconsciously. Those are consciously. Those are the programs. Up until the age of seven, the Jesuits knew this. Maybe you've had other speakers talk about this. They would say, give us your sons because it was a male organization. Give us your sons until the age of seven and they'll be ours forever.
- [07:36]
A
Wow.
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B
So what they meant, give it. Give them to us for this first seven years. They can go home to you, but they won't want to because they will be indoctrinated into the patterns of the Jesuits and their home life will no longer make sense. That that's an example of how powerful those first seven years of life are.
- [07:53]
A
It's the programming, right?
- [07:55]
B
It's programming so. So the neuropeptides can stay in the body as long as they need to. And there are techniques, breath work techniques, heart, brain coherence. You know, my brother Joe Dispenza taught. He and I have taught together and we use these techniques. There are all kinds of body eft and, you know, body memory therapy, and it's a whole conversation. But there are a lot of ways to resolve that. And it's fascinating to me because when we do resolve them through a breathwork session, for example, those neuropeptides are made of chemicals in the body and elements, minerals. And you'll actually begin to taste metallic taste in your mouth or your urine. Your urine will smell funny because it's not the typical urine. These are chemicals. Or your tears or your perspiration will taste different and it'll smell different. You'll sweat and you'll smell different when you're going through this. Because now those neuropeptides are metabolizing through the body, through body secretion, processing body secretion. So it's tears, perspiration, saliva, sexual fluids, feces, all of those things is how we release. Wow, they've been fascinating. This goes, this goes back to the power. Human divinity is a part of us that's timeless, it's ageless, it's all knowing. It is the part of us where our healing begins. And what the science is showing is that divinity doesn't live. Those patterns don't live in our bodies. This is where it gets really, really interesting. It was already interesting. Now it's going to get really, really interesting. They don't live in the cells of our bodies. The cells of our bodies, the neurons, DNA and the cell membranes literally are antenna that tune us to an energetic place in the field that underlies all existence that we now know. Science confirmed it in the year 2012 that the CERN Superconducting Super Collider, they actually announced it on July 4th in America. 4th of July 2012, that there is a field that underlies all existence. 2022, the Nobel Prize in Peace and no in physics. The Nobel Prize in Physics was given to the physicists that confirmed that in this field everything's connected. Entanglement really is what it's called.
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A
What is this field that we're living in?
- [10:19]
B
It's an energetic. It's an energetic field. And we are that field. Every human, the average human, is about 50 trillion cells in the body, approximately, give or take. You've got more cells than I do because you're taller than I am.
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A
Oh, wow.
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B
And every One of those 50 trillion cells has about a hundred trillion atoms. And every one of those atoms is doing this. It's emerging from that field and collapsing into that field every nanosecond of the day. Like, right, this nanosecond. And as it emerges from the field, it is building our bodies to fit the template that we hold in our consciousness.
- [10:58]
A
That's crazy.
- [10:59]
B
Of who we are. And this is why healing is possible. This is why spontaneous healing is possible. When we change the way we think and the way we feel, we change that blueprint, we change the template, and that information will now fill in a new and healthier blueprint. And this is all very well documented. I mean, the science knows the bits and pieces. Science is reluctant to bring them together because it tells a story that many scientists are reluctant to embrace.
- [11:30]
A
What's that?
- [11:31]
B
The story is that we are not what we've been told. We. We're more than we've been led to believe. And that is the essence of why I've written this book. Yeah, I'm going to answer that question for you right now. What I'm going to say is this, Louis. There's something inside of us, we humans, that is so powerful, it is so beautiful, it is so ancient, it is so precious that there are organizations in the world today, and there always have been. Societies in the past will go to any length to shield us from that part of ourselves, because that's where we find our power. When we are in our power, we are less vulnerable to fear. And fear, I think you'll agree, is probably the greatest commodity in a world that is moving toward authoritarian authority. The ability to create authority and centralize that authority in the world. That is our divinity. This is why we are the prize. We are literally the prize. And I want to make this conversation relevant to our viewers, because so many people, they write to us, and we see the comments and say, okay, you know, these conversations are cool. What's that have to do with the world?
- [12:45]
A
And what's that have to do with.
- [12:46]
B
My life right now? Yeah, the world out there. So here's. Here's what it has to do with the world that we're living in, that part of us that is so beautiful, powerful, ancient, precious, is the reason for everything we're seeing happening in the world. Those powers that Be will stop at nothing to distract us and keep us diverted. Nations will go to war with nations. Economic systems will be collapsed. Pandemics will be unleashed. Climate will be engineered. Nations will rise and fall, all in an effort to distract us.
- [13:22]
A
Wow.
- [13:23]
B
Because we are the prize. The human body is the prize. Because our humanness is the link to our divinity. This is why I began talking about an ancient battle. There is an ancient battle between good and evil, and evil means different things to different people. But the ultimate evil is to shield a human from their divinity. When we are kept from our divine nature, our ability to love fearlessly, to forgive, to heal, to imagine, to innovate, to create. That is a form of evil, and that's a form that is playing out right now. And this 2030 window of time is the window of time when it is proposed that our humanness, our biology, be replaced.
- [14:10]
A
Wow.
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B
With technology, with AI, with computer chips, chemicals in the blood that mimic the systems that we do with synthetics. Computer chips in the brain linking us to the. To the computers now. And it's a very different way of thinking now. I'm a systems thinker, so I look at the big picture so that I understand where the nanosecond of my life fits into that big picture. And then I let it go. We don't have to know any of this, but I want people to know that what we're seeing. And it's not a crazy world. It's insane. It's not crazy. There is a method, there's a system, there's a process, and it won't last forever. It's this little window of time where you're seeing the powers that be jockey for position. And our humanness is a problem. Wow. Because we are such powerful beings, nobody's telling our kids that. Our kids are being told that they're flawed forms of life, that they need something outside of themselves to be the best version of themselves and to compete in business and compete in the world. So our kids are willing to give themselves away to virtual reality, to computer chips. I mean, I had some young people in one of my courses earlier, it was in the summer, and we were talking about neuralink, the chip that FDA just approved from Elon Musk. This is his company, and it allows a human without any wires at all to communicate directly with the hard drive on their computer. And so here's these young kids in. In the room, and they're saying, this is cool. They're saying, Mr. Braden. And I said, no, please, Gray. And I said, okay, great. I said, I'm only 70. I'm not a Mr. Braden yet. They said, are you telling me that all I have to do is put a computer chip in my brain and I can play Grand Theft Auto with no wires, no control, sync, no controls, Sweet, or there's some other words they use, but sweet was a lot of it, because they don't realize this, the biological imperative. There. There is a. An adage in biology that says, use it or lose it. Perfect example. When I was back in the 50s and 60s, I was taught, and you probably were when you were young as well, that we were born with a fixed number of neurons in the human brain. And so this was leverage in college. You know, when you're in college, every beer you drink, you're going to lose some neurons, so you better not drink too many beers. You know, this is what they're saying. But now we know up until the last breath, the hippocampus in the human brain is creating new neurons. But there's a catch. Every time those neurons are created, they must be engaged in a meaningful way within about seven days, or they will atrophy and die. So that is true for all the systems in the body. We are a biological system that works on demand. If we don't use our systems, then they begin to atrophy. So you begin to replace the human brain with computer chips or here's. Here's a study, an actual study that was done. Young kids, 3, 4, 5 years old get up in the morning. They eat their bowl of Cheerios or whatever it is. Their parents sit them on the floor with an AI visor, and they leave them there for a few hours. And here's what's happening in that AI world. They're seeing stuff they would never see in their backyard with. Yeah, they're hearing sounds. They're seeing images, colors. And what has happened. This has gone long enough now that psychologists are able to do the studies, those young people are. Their physical stature is demented, their brain size is stunted, their cognitive development is stunted, their visual cortex is enlarged. Because look at what they're doing. They are simply watching rather than engaging in creating. When you and I were kids, I mean, we go out, we take a blanket off five holes in the backyard. Yeah, yeah. We make a tent and make a fort, and all of a sudden, we've got a fort and we're using our imagination. They're not doing. They're just watching. It all done for them. And so the psychology magazines are actually showing that. And it can all be Reversed through epigenetics. So they're not lost, but it's showing that it's not harmless. There is an impact, There is an effect. And it's another example. When our biology is replaced with technology, the gift of our humanness begins to atrophy in many different ways in one generation. Next generation comes along through epigenetics. Now it's passed down, and the body says, oh, you know, we don't. We don't do those functions anymore. We used to. But it's a vestige of our past because now we've got a chemical to create the immunity in our bodies, for example. And that's something that's actually proposed, you know, right now. Right now, policies are being written, laws are being enacted to implement many of these technologies in our bodies. And the term. There's a general term for this, Louis. It's called transhumanism. Trance simply means beyond. And human is. Is our biology. So it's beyond our biology. And I did an interview recently, and someone asked. I said, well, isn't this a part of our natural evolution? It's not. Not a part of our natural biological evolution. It is a form of a technological evolution that's not good for us. It's not good for us humans because we lose the very essence of what it is that we cherish in our humanity. We lose our ability to love, forgive, sympathy, empathy, compassion. We lose the ability to discern rather than judge. We're taught to judge, but the healing comes from our ability to discern.
- [20:01]
A
Wow.
- [20:02]
B
We lose all of those things when we begin to give our humanness away. So we've just covered a whole lot of ground. I'm going to come back. There's a concerted effort right now in these next few years to diminish the power of our humanness. One of the ways that's being accomplished is by us either being encouraged or mandated. Some of the policies will be mandates coming from the UN through our United States Congress. They're going the legal route to accept technology into our bodies to replace our humanness. When we do that, we relinquish that precious, ancient and sacred gift that we were given when the first of our kind stepped onto this planet 200,000 years ago. You know, we've only been here 10,000 generations, 200,000 years, not that long. And we were given these abilities, given to no other form of life. And now we're being taught and indoctrinated to believe that we are flawed, powerless victims of a world that we have no control over. And that we need something outside of us.
- [21:15]
A
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- [25:00]
B
So this the, the flip side of this now in the new science, and this is exciting, is showing us, wow. That we are literally a highly advanced, technologically sophisticated soft technology neurons. One of the reasons that science is beginning to think of us, maybe some of your guests have talked about this, is that we've been conditioned to think of our biology is this soft, gooey, sticky, wet stuff, you know, inside the cells. And that is one way of thinking of us. But now the scientists are looking at us from a perspective of information technology. These are it's perspectives. And so the discoveries, they're not showing up in biology books, they're showing up in engineering journals like ieee, you know, and these, these engineering. Who's reading those? I mean my community's not reading, but let me just give you an example. There was the Journal of Advanced Computing Technology, which I don't read and my most of my colleagues don't as well. Unless we're researching a book or something. Came out with an article and it showed that human DNA is literally a fr. Fractal antenna is the term that they use. So what's that mean? It we think of antennas being tuned to something very specific, like a specific TV station or radio station or you know, CB station or Whatever fractal antenna are receiving multiple signals from a broad spectrum of bandwidth simultaneously. We're, we're pulling in information from the world around us all the time across this broad spectrum. And the, we're transducing it into meaningful signals in our bodies. That's a very different way of, of thinking of the human body. So I'm, I'll just run through this really quick what the science is showing. 50 trillion cells in the body. Every cell is a miniature, a micro circuit. It's a gated circuit is what engineers call. It's got input, output. All the functions within our cells, they function as transistors, as resistors, as capacitors that are massaging that, that information. Every cell has a voltage of about 0.07 volts, say. Well, that's not very much, but you do the math. 50 trillion times 0.07 is over 3 billion. No, over 3 trillion volts of a light. 3.5 trillion volts of electrical potential which.
- [27:34]
A
Is in our body.
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B
In our bodies. Now, we don't actualize it all the time, but what if you could harness that for your own healing or to optimize, optimize cognition, optimize whatever it is we're going to do in our lives. But it doesn't stop there because we're receiving photons of information. We're transmitting photons of information. We already said the DNA in our bodies. Our DNA stores information, and let me just use the terminology and see if you've heard this before. The DNA in our bodies stores every successful genetic transaction in our species in a way that's transparent, it is immutable, and it's secure. And if that sounds familiar, it should, because that is the basis for what is the new financial system of the world. The decentralized financial system we call blockchain technology. Blockchain technology mimics the way information is stored in the DNA of our body. Really? So once again, I'm saying all this, that we build around this is, is mirroring what we already do in our bodies. They compared a human brain to a microprocessor. The Salk Institute in La Jolla is where this actual. I'm doing this from memory. Salk Institute in La Jolla. And the way they did it for our, our techie engineers out there is they equated the synapse in the, the human brain between neurons to the transistors on the chip. And interestingly, the numbers are very similar. On a modern microprocessor, it's about the same number of synapses we have in the brain. Then they did the studies and what they found is the human brain is a hundredfold faster than the processors.
- [29:18]
C
Wow.
- [29:20]
B
Here's the beauty of where this goes. All of those computer chips, man, they're fast. They're accurate, hands down. But are they scalable? They can only scale as far as the limit of the physics of the stuff they're made of allows. So if it's a silicon chip, the atoms are in predetermined geometric patterns that make silicon. And information can only move so fast across those. So fast, yes. Efficient, yes. Scalable, not so much. Now, human neurons, every time they push a human neuron to the edge of the limit that has been accepted in the textbooks, we do what humans do. The neurons morph and they adapt and open up an entire new vista of processing capability. And we do this again and again and again. What is the upper limit of a human neuron? We don't know. We may be infinite when it comes to scalability. That's soft technology.
- [30:30]
A
How do we manifest something that we really want or desire in our life when there are parts of us that have completely traumatized and ruined our lives? Is there an ability to create the life we desire and want without healing or transforming traumas and pain that ruins us and cripples us?
- [30:53]
D
Still, we manifest what we believe. So if we are stuck in a core wound, traumatized story, neural loop of fight, flight, freeze, we're living in a way where we're so afraid or blocked because of those core belief systems, what ends up happening is that no matter how hard we try to manifest, no matter how much we deepen spiritually or how much we hold the vision like you said, right. And have the intention, things may show up because your focus is redirected. But then it may show up and you can't keep it or it falls apart or things just aren't in the flow. And that lack of flow is often truly because of the core wounds from our very early, early, early years.
- [31:50]
C
Yeah.
- [31:51]
D
And so my, it's funny, this is my most therapeutic book. It's. I. I went and I got trained in internal family systems therapy. It's a therapy that I've used for a decade and with my own therapist. It's about a. It's coming up on a deck, maybe nine years now. And then I got trained in the model and I was so moved by it that I wrote this more therapeutic book. Now, while this is my most therapeutic self help book, it's very spiritual too. But it's probably the most important Manifesting book, not because it's got lessons on manifesting, but because the secret to truly manifesting what you desire is to heal the beliefs that block those desires, period.
- [32:38]
A
So if we believe that we are not worthy of something, it what are we, what are we saying about ourselves and what's possible for us?
- [32:47]
D
Well, most people, I think, are walking through life with beliefs of being unworthy, unlovable, inadequate, not good enough. Maybe they feel worthy in one area of their life, but they're completely blocked in another. And so the areas in our life where we lack that confidence and that clarity and that connection and that calmness that you talked about when you were manifesting the house, sort of like the just relax, knowing it'll come if it's meant to be. The places in our life where we don't have that are the places where we have the most wounds. If you were to say, okay, I'm really great at detracting things into my career, but my relationships, I'm just a show. Okay, well what is the core wound that's tied to those relationships? What happened to you as a child? What do you know about relationships? Was there trauma there? And this is sort of Self Help 101 or Therapy 101. We all kind of understand this on a kind of in the periphery, we're like, oh, yeah, I get that this thing happened to me and then I'm going to hold onto it. But this book is like, no, no, no, no. The life you're experiencing is a result of the roles that you play, the parts that you play each and every single day. The world is like this theatrical event that we show up for on a day to day basis. And the parts of us that show up are different characters in our life.
- [34:08]
A
That's interesting.
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D
These extreme parts, these addicted parts, these are fearful parts. So we're like lots of different actors in the show that is our life.
- [34:17]
A
It sounds like every human being is kind of schizophrenic or has multiple personality types.
- [34:23]
D
So in IFS internal family systems therapy, I'm going to break this down. So just talk around it. Let's just break it down from the get go. Okay? So my gift in this lifetime is to just simplify big ideas. And so. And my gift to Dick Schwartz, who's one of my cherished friends, the founder of ifs, is to take his extraordinary body of work that healed my life and to translate it and demystify it from.
- [34:43]
A
Simplify it.
- [34:43]
D
Yeah, simplify it and democratize it. So here we are. Internal family systems therapy. Is not about your external family. It's about an inner family of parts of us. So we have these lots of little.
- [34:56]
A
Children inside, which sounds crazy to think.
- [34:59]
D
About it does it doesn't. Let me, let me keep it simple. Right. Have you ever said a part of me gets really outraged when. When Marta does this? Or a part of me flips out when I can't control something?
- [35:11]
B
Sure, sure.
- [35:12]
D
Yeah. Yes. You're kind of familiar with those parts of yourself. You even said it earlier. A part of me is really. I don't even know if you said a part of me. Maybe, but you're like, I can be really impatient.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
- [35:21]
D
That impatience is a part.
- [35:22]
E
Right.
- [35:23]
D
And these parts of us, often the extreme ones, are protection mechanisms. So the controlling aspects, the. The managing of the day to day things that we have to get done, the perfectionism, the overthinking, the playing small, these extreme roles that we play in momentary situations in our life or really sometimes all day, every day, are protection mechanisms.
- [35:57]
A
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- [37:05]
F
Degree on your terms at Capella University. Our flexpath format is available in select programs and lets you learn on your Schedule A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu.
- [37:21]
D
So if you look at your life and you're saying, okay, there's parts of me that I don't like, or there's parts of me or ways I act out that feel extreme, or there's behaviors that I have that I just can't kick. Addiction, overeating, drinking. And you see these. These things that you do, these behaviors that you have that you just don't know how to change. It's because they're very, very young parts of yourself. They've been around for a very long time.
- [37:47]
A
They haven't grown up yet.
- [37:48]
D
They never got a chance to grow up. These parts of you and these.
- [37:52]
A
And where do these parts of us live?
- [37:53]
D
Okay, so let me get this. Let me keep it simple. So they keep coming back to the simplicity. Okay, Like, I'm putting my. Like, okay, let's keep it simple.
- [38:00]
A
How many parts of us does each individual have?
- [38:02]
D
You can have many, many parts of us. So let's keep it simple. So very young, we grow up where we come into this world, we're like these perfect little people. We're so happy, everything's beautiful. Hopefully we enter the world in a safe, peaceful way. And from a very young age, we start to experience the burdens of the world. A parent that doesn't have a strong attachment, in the case for you and myself, having sexual abuse as children. So sometimes it could be extreme, extreme traumas like that, or it could be something along the lines of being bullied in the classroom or being told that you're stupid by your teacher. These moments in time are so extreme for our child brains to process. We don't have the resources, we don't have the brain capacity, and oftentimes we don't have the parents or caregivers to help us process these extreme disturbances.
- [38:55]
A
They don't have the tools either to.
- [38:56]
D
Teach us, or in the case of you and me, we don't have anyone to tell.
- [38:59]
A
Right?
- [39:00]
D
Right. Or we're too afraid to tell. Or in my case, I dissociated, didn't even have the memory right. And so what do we do? We build up protection mechanisms. For me, one of those protection mechanisms was straight up dissociation, like, left my body, like, dissociated from reality. For others, it could be, and this is young, at a young, young age, you know, it could be, okay, this thing happened to you as a child, and all of a sudden you go into this extreme protection mechanism of trying to Be perfect because you had this shameful experience. So perfection makes you feel safe or you give my son for an example. I have a six year old son. When he was three years old, he was in a Montessori program. And so it was three to six year olds. There was a six year old in his class and he was just out of diapers. And that six year old was sort of like, you know, who is this three year old? I don't make the dude. It was just get away from me or whatever. And at a very young age, Ali learned like, I gotta be the boss. Cause that was so extreme. This kid is bigger. I want to be like him. He hates me. He tells me he hates me. He tells me to leave him alone. Kids are mean. But my little boy has this thing of, I gotta be the boss. So he's got this misguided belief I need to be a boss. So what does he do? Walks around with his Nerf gun, you know, and he walks around like, like with his, like his shooter. He's like, I'm the boss. You know, it's like little innocent six year old, but he wants to be the boss because he's protecting himself from that feeling. From three years old. Okay. I watched this whole part develop in a person. So an extreme thing happens, big or small. In the case of Ali, it was a six year old, Right? In the case of me, it was. It was something much more extreme. Hopefully Holly never has to experience that. But whatever it is, we have extreme experiences. And we exile them. We exile them. Those are called exiled parts of us.
- [40:42]
A
Exiled parts.
- [40:42]
D
These are the little young traumatized children that had nowhere to go, no one to care for them, no one to support them. And we said, I'm going to lock that up, send them into the basement. Don't want to ever talk to that person, see that part of me ever again. And at three years old, five years old, whatever it is, we start to decide, I'm going to do this to protect myself from feeling this. So Ollie's the perfect example. I got bullied. I'm going to start to be the boss so that I never have to feel that fear again of that bully.
- [41:12]
B
Right.
- [41:13]
A
So we have we. And does everyone build these defense mechanisms?
- [41:16]
D
Everyone.
- [41:17]
A
It's just they look different for each person.
- [41:19]
D
Yeah. And we have. And then lots of different protectors. And there's two types of protectors. So you're still tracking with me here. I know you are. I just want to make sure that the audience is still tracking with me. I'm going to take this slow. So exiled parts of the young, traumatized little children don't want to feel those feelings. So they're too extreme. Right, Louis? It's like, how could a child. You can't understand it. Your brain's not able to process it. Most adult brains are. Don't have the ability to process that. Or most parents would say, you're fine, you're fine. Just get shut down.
- [41:48]
C
Yes.
- [41:49]
D
If you even did bring it to somebody, you'd be shut down. Right. Especially with or in cases of, you know, real extreme trauma. You don't feel safe enough to talk about it, shut it down. Then you build up these protection mechanisms. Protector parts. There's two types of protector parts, but in my book, I really just focus on one type. So we'll focus. We'll stay close to that. There's managers and firefighters. And so the managers are who we talk about in the book, because the firefighters are who I want people to go to therapy to work with, but the managers are the control free. You know, for me, I'm just gonna name my managers, you know, like, one would be like, knives out is another one I named. Like, if you with me, I'm like, knives are out. Like, you know, like, you know, destroy you.
- [42:32]
A
Yeah, that's a manager.
- [42:33]
D
Vigilance. He's a manager for me, just sort of like, anxiety was kind of a manager for me. Think about it. Anxiety, right? If I'm anxious and I'm, you know, moving, moving, moving so fast. Like when you first met me, totally out of my body, hadn't remembered the trauma yet, totally scared it's gonna cry. When I think about that time, you know, that anxiety was actually a form of protection, of course, because if I'm an anxious state, I don't have to feel the horror and the. The fear and terror of that other state. So that's a manager. The parts of us that are with us all day long, managing the big feelings of the exile. Okay? And then when the managers don't work anymore, like, let's say something very big happens in your life, something extreme, and the managing is no longer working. That's when the firefighters come in. The firefighters will do whatever it takes to. To put out the fire of those impermissible feelings. And that's when you pick up the drugs, pick up the workaholism, pick up the alcohol, the sex, the porn, the binging. The extreme, addictive parts of ourselves, and those are the most extreme parts of us, are the ones that are working the hardest to keep us safe. From those feelings. And then there's good news. You ready for the good news?
- [43:57]
E
Yeah.
- [43:58]
D
We all have an inner parent inside of us. So. So those are all the young children inside. Right. The exiles, the managers, the firefighters.
- [44:06]
B
Right.
- [44:06]
D
The protectors and the exiles, they're all, like, running our world. Right. Where, like, one trigger happens, this protector shows up, another trigger happens, it's like protector to protector. It's like a boxing match all day long, walking through life.
- [44:19]
A
Exhausting.
- [44:19]
D
Exhausting. Why do people have burnout? Why do people have stress? Why do people have.
- [44:23]
A
Have chronic pain?
- [44:25]
D
Chronic pain, of course. There's a whole chapter in the book called body parts. How the body, like, physical pain is a protector.
- [44:31]
A
Yes.
- [44:32]
D
Like, if I have back pain, I don't have to feel my childhood wounds. We're gonna get into that. But the good news is that we all have. What Dick Schwartz has coined is self with a capital S. And self is our adult, undamaged, resourced part of who we are. It's the truth of who we are. It's the spirit of who we are. It's the God within us. It is an energy. And self has eight C qualities. Compassion, calm, connection, creativity, courage, clarity, commitment. I'm missing one. I don't even know if it's a cl. I always miss a C, like any. They're all in there, so. And. And connectedness. I. I think I got to them. We'll. We'll. We'll find the eight C's in the book, and we'll get these things out.
- [45:22]
A
Yes. Curiosity, compassion, calmness, clarity, creativity, connectedness, courage and confidence.
- [45:27]
D
You know, it's so funny. Confidence is the one I always miss, but it's the one that I often feel quite connected to. So I won't forget confidence anymore.
- [45:34]
A
There you go.
- [45:35]
D
So I'm gonna really try to keep this simple. So just think about it like you have an inner parent, and so everyone.
- [45:39]
A
Has an inner parent.
- [45:40]
D
We all do. And let's just keep it simple. Let's keep it super simple. You know those times in your life when, let's say, Marta came to you and she was really struggling with something, and you just. Your heart was filled up with compassion. No matter how extreme the thing that happened to her, you just felt connected to her. You were a calm presence for her. You had deep compassion for her experience. You had clarity on how to communicate. You felt like you had the courage to speak up for what was true, and that really just. It wasn't even what you said, but it was that presence alone that helped her.
- [46:16]
A
Yes.
- [46:16]
D
You Know what I'm talking about?
- [46:17]
A
Yes, of course.
- [46:18]
D
That's self energy with a capital S. With a capital S. And the thing is the adult self, it's your true self.
- [46:27]
A
Yes.
- [46:28]
D
It's your essence. There's a really beautiful quote in the book that I share that's about how self is like the sun behind the clouds. And it's there, but the clouds are just in the way. So self is always been there.
- [46:49]
B
Right.
- [46:49]
D
You feel self in Shavasana. You feel self. The after a long run, you feel self. You're. We're in self right now. Like this is our creative force, right. We're in the flow. Like we have so much connection, we have so much creativity. Right. We have clarity about what we're talking about. This is self energy right here. Like if you're watching and you're feeling elevated, excited, calm, soothed, that's because our self energy is coming through the screen or through the audio. And so we all have it. It's that we have to release the blocks through the presence of it.
- [47:22]
A
And how we release the blocks is how. So is that through the core beliefs of like understanding the.
- [47:28]
D
It's a four step practice that I put in the book.
- [47:30]
A
It's a four step practice. Okay.
- [47:31]
D
Yeah, the whole book. So what I've done is I've taken this huge therapy, internal family systems therapy, super in the zeitgeist right now. God bless. It's the most valuable healing modality, particularly for trauma. And it's the kind of thing that I felt only people that were going to find their way to a IFS therapist were going to get this. And I, I, I, I was sitting at a dinner with Dick Schwartz. I hosted a dinner for him. Just again, he's the founder of IFS. Started this about 40, 43 years ago. 44 years ago. And I was sitting next to Dick. And this was shortly after I'd taken the training and we'd become friends. And I looked at him and we're at a dinner I'm hosting for him and it's like having Lady Gaga at my house. And, and I look at him and I'm like, I don't have to tell you something. I'm like, I'm scared to tell you this, but I want to write a book called Self Help. Self Help. And I want to make ifs self help. And he looked at me, his eyes just like widened and he was like, I've always wanted somebody to do that. And in the foreword he says, you know, I've always been looking for that person with the self help, spiritual bona fides. And then Gabby's here.
- [48:38]
A
Wow, that's cool.
- [48:39]
D
And so that's, that's one of the greatest privileges of my life, is to take someone else's body of work and translate it.
- [48:45]
A
Right. And you created the four step process.
- [48:46]
D
The fourth step is not ifs. It's an ifs informed self help practice. And that's really important for me to say, Louis, because if you're going into ifs therapy, you have a, you have a therapist with you. You're doing a, you know, six step inquiry, almost like an interview with the parts. It's like an unburdening process. You can work with firefighters and exiles. And I am not doing that. I am not a therapist. I'm a spiritual self help author and teacher. I am trained in internal family systems therapy, but I'm not a therapist. So it was really important for me to take this and make it ifs informed.
- [49:22]
A
Yes.
- [49:22]
D
So there's four steps, ifs approved. Ifs approved, ifs informed. It's backed with Dick's blessing. And it's the way that you can take this model into your own hands safely. Safely is a really important point because I'm not trying to guide you to those exiled parts. The book is not trying to work with firefighters. That would be, and I say all throughout the book, like, if this happens, if you want to, you're with a firefighter, there's an xil go, there's an IFS therapist registry, go find somebody. But I'm trying to help you access these managers, the extreme parts that are with you all the time, day to day. And through a four step inquiry, let self help. Okay, so you let me know when you're ready for that.
- [50:15]
A
Yeah, ready to go.
- [50:16]
D
I feel like I'm just so excited about this. This is my first real interview about this, so it's like very thrilling to me. Questions before I go on?
- [50:23]
A
Well, there's something you said in, in chapter three about core beliefs, because I think a lot of people hear about their behaviors and beliefs and that we have this a block based on our beliefs, whether that's a childhood belief or a current belief as an adult. And you say that the hard truth is that although we can make surface level adjustments to our actions, true change can only happen when we heal from within and address the core beliefs that block us from manifesting the life we desire. So I guess, would this four step process help us address the core beliefs that are blocking us in manifesting what we want?
- [51:02]
D
Exactly.
- [51:03]
A
And if so, then what is that process?
- [51:05]
D
Okay, so first of all, 100%. That's exactly the answer. This is the four step process. The other thing is, is how many personal development programs have we sat in where someone's like, oh, you have limiting beliefs and the limiting beliefs are blocking you. But then you're like, how the do I get rid of these limiting beliefs, right? Like you never leave. And you're like, okay, I know the playbook, right, for changing. Maybe you have a little tip here or manifesting tool there. And look, you know, I've, I've written, this is my 10th book. So I have nine other books with other practices which are all work, all are valuable, all have their own purpose, right? Particularly spiritual practices in these other books. And they all are bringing you to self for sure. But this is addressing the actual neural redirection in the brain. Because when you practice this four step method, what's happening is you're rewiring your experience and your relationship to these parts of who you are.
- [52:04]
A
So you're connecting higher self currently to the self that was destructive or harmed or the manager to the parts. The parts. The manager or firefighter parts of you. That's correct, baby, that cause stress or anxiety or control or perfectionism or whatever it might.
- [52:21]
D
You're taking all these little people inside of you that have these belief systems that are holding you back and you're bringing the internal parent of self to them to help them.
- [52:32]
C
What is the biggest challenge with having success, fame and money at a young age?
- [52:39]
E
I think anecdotally it's the feeling of have I peaked? Because there's always that feeling of why is this coming? Sometimes there's a. I deal with the question of why is this coming easily? Why? Why is this coming easily? You know, I've, I've had, I've just felt very lucky in that I wasn't the kid that woke up and said I had to be an actor. For me it was, I have a creative urge and instinct. I started in printing commercials. I said no to auditioning for my first movie when I was 7 because I'm like, I love printing commercial commercials. I go play like I play and half the time I'm playing with my family just taking photos. Most of the time, yeah, I'm taking photos or a commercial. Like you're hula hooping, you're, you're biking, you're just doing different things. And so when I had done my first movie at seven, I think what it unlocked in me again wasn't even the instinct of, oh, I have to do this for the rest of my life. But was. That was a lot of fun. I learned how to ice skate, I got to make pancakes. I got to work with these cool people. That was super fun. And I think because again, I've always had this diversity of interests in some ways as much as I think every actor. And I'm always dealing with rejection and misdirection. It's come kind of easy in that I'm like, I've gotten to go to school and be on a show that's unheard of. And they made it happen after a call. It took a lot of work, but after a call, they were on board. There was no convincing that had to happen. I think if it wasn't for Covid, they were gonna move the entire shooting schedule to the summer. So I just had an unencumbered, again, unheard of. And that comes from everybody from the president of ABC to the president of Signature to the president of. To the wine producer, all working in tandem.
- [54:25]
C
Do you ever feel like, guilty for how easy it's been?
- [54:28]
E
I think that's the flip side feeling of like, is this right? Is this right that it comes with ease? But I think I've started to realize ease is the alignment and it's because.
- [54:40]
C
There should be ease.
- [54:42]
E
Yeah, when there's alignment, there's ease. And I think the thing I've been and my family's always been is pretty discerning. There's still ways to become more discerning. But I think I was like, oh, some of the ease is because there's been such a discernment of pretty immediately of like, oh, that's not for us.
- [54:57]
C
Right.
- [54:58]
F
Imagine what's possible in your business career when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University, our game changing flexpath learning format is available in select business programs and lets you learn at a time and pace that works for you. That means you don't have to put your life on hold while earning your business degree. Instead, enjoy learning your way and earn your degree without missing a beat. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more@capella.edu.
- [55:30]
C
You haven't said yes to every shiny opportunity. You've been like, no, no, no, this is for us. We're going to do that. I like this.
- [55:38]
E
And I mean, there have been challenges within that, but for the most part, I'm like the fact that macro. I'm not walking out with any crazy stories about being on set as a child actor I'm not walking out with any crazy traumas from 10 years on set. Like, I'm like, how lucky when you're.
- [55:52]
C
Hearing all these other child actors coming.
- [55:54]
E
Out about all these other stories. You know, I have a family that takes pride in us as individuals, both me and my brothers handling our money and having a grasp of money management. So I'm like, we never had a fear that one day it's gonna be gone. Cause I know where it all is. You know?
- [56:09]
C
You don't have any money wounds or traumas.
- [56:11]
E
Huh? I was doing an interview about money yesterday, and they're like, so what were your money troubles? And I'm like, you gotta see how I was raised. I'm so. Again, I feel so lucky. I'm like, I was raised with a family that was so intentional about being like, we want you to feel in charge and autonomous, and we're here to guide you. But I was going, mommy set it up. So I'd go make friends with accounting at Blackish, and I'd go pick up my check every week, where typically you don't see it as an actor. It gets sent to your. And then you see kind of the end result. I got to see it. I got to see how much the percentages were. I got to see what the taxes were, and I was able to check. I remember one time there was the wrong amount on my check, and I was savvy enough at 14 to be like, hey, this isn't the right amount.
- [56:49]
B
Wow.
- [56:49]
E
They're like, oh, yeah, you're right. So I'm saying, like, I. Like, again, it is easy to feel guilty, to be like, why have I. Why have I had it so good in the. In the general scheme of things? And I really couldn't tell you why, but. But I think I'm coming to terms with the fact that even on this road to self discovery, I do have to say I've known myself pretty well. And so I'm realizing that some of this is the result of having known myself and continuing to learn myself.
- [57:22]
C
Yeah. Well, it sounds like your parents have been an amazing foundation for you for knowing yourself, being yourself, you know, empowering you to.
- [57:30]
E
They let me be so quirky, you know, it's amazing. Like, it did not crossed my mind.
- [57:35]
C
It's interesting that the first thing we talked about, I don't know if it was when we were rolling or right before you mentioned how you want to learn how to build mental fortitude and how to overcome challenges.
- [57:45]
E
Yeah.
- [57:46]
C
Does it feel like. I mean, because it kind of sounds like from your perspective, what I'm hearing is that you haven't had a lot of challenges in your life. Like it's come pretty easily. I'm sure you've had to. Yeah. Work 18 hour days and fly back and forth from Harvard to LA and do like work at a high level.
- [58:03]
E
Yeah.
- [58:04]
C
But not a lot of extreme adversities is what I'm hearing. Is that what I'm hearing?
- [58:08]
E
Yeah, I think, I mean, part of.
- [58:10]
C
It, like intense work and effort, but not extreme adversities.
- [58:14]
E
Yeah. And I think for me there are two things I realize. One, I think I minimize maybe some of the challenges I do face.
- [58:22]
B
We're also dealing with a lot of.
- [58:24]
C
Pressures from just being in the industry and all these different things.
- [58:26]
E
Yeah. So it's, I think some of it is that because I've moved through it eventually sometimes I think my ability to look back with the rose colored lenses, I'm like, no challenges.
- [58:36]
B
Yeah.
- [58:36]
E
It wasn't that hard, mind you, while we were in it. Deeply challenging. So some of it is that I do know I'm minimizing past challenges and I'm trying to come to terms with just being more honest with that. But I think some of it too is just knowing. Again, coming back to the cause and effect thing. So many things happen to good people. So many. Yeah. So many things you can't account for. It has nothing to do with how morally upstanding you are. Has nothing to do with how many resources you have, what you have, what you don't have. And I think maybe it's just, maybe it's hitting my quarter life crisis a little a couple months early. But I think I hear, I hear stories of what people go through, whether it's, it's family members passing, certain things like that. And I go, would I be not able to overcome, willing to overcome? I think I have the capacity to do things, but I'm like, do I have the willingness really to see a challenge and push through it? I'm always. Part of it comes from just my genuine amazement of the courage that people muster in times that feel almost impossible, at least outside looking in. So maybe some of it, it comes from that space of like, I'm truly amazed. I can't wrap my mind around it when I hear other people's stor of like, what made you double down and push through these hard moments? Again, part of why we started the podcast was being like, I wanna hear what did make you go through that. And it's been really clarifying to me because I think it almost felt like there's some sort of magical alchemy that I couldn't name that's happening versus, like, no, it's a mixture of human perseverance and the fact that hopefully, God willing, what. The traits that you need come to you when you need them. The qualities that you need come to you when you need them. And so that's helping me make sense of it. But I think for me, I'm like, what is the mental fortitude regimen that helps us as young people just continue to build a sense of not even just discipline in terms of schedule, but discipline in terms of being like, I know what my mind is doing. I'm kind of aware of it.
- [60:43]
C
That's interesting.
- [60:44]
E
I'm able to move through this. I'm able to move through the inevitable losses. We're going to deal with challenges. We're going to deal with the things I can't account for.
- [60:51]
C
Yeah, that's really insightful, though.
- [60:53]
E
Yeah. So it's been top of mind, but I don't know how helpful it is to be thinking about it, too, because.
- [60:59]
C
I think if you're not willing to invest in doing hard things now, you're going to experience a lot of pain later, and it's going to be a lot harder to manage them mentally, emotionally. And so learning how to navigate your own minds at this age and investing in. I'm going to. Which I don't think people should say, I'm just going to experience pain all day so that I'm prepared for pain later. And it doesn't hurt me as much because I really do believe life should be about creativity and flow and joy and love and fun. I believe that's what we should be focusing on and intending to create every day if we can. How can we bring joy and love and service to this moment? And how can I be my creative, authentic, honest self, like you talked about, which is alignment? And when we're in alignment, things flow to us easily and we can see and discern things like you talked about. But I do believe there is a level of time every day where there's discipline, where I'm going to say no to temptations or no to the coke all day, or no to the alcohol all day, or no to partying every day, all night, or to only fun, extreme things. Because if you're not fortifying your mind, it will be hard to face adversity later. When it will come, it will hit you hard, it'll be unexpected, and it will hit you. And if you're not Preparing little by little, it's going to be daunting.
- [62:24]
E
I think that's the thought that keeps me up, which is, what should I be doing? Do you feel like you've always been disciplined?
- [62:30]
C
No, no. I mean, as a kid I was confused and scared and, you know, rebellious and, you know.
- [62:35]
E
But even as like a college athlete, like that, that's something. Even while I was flying back and forth and doing all that, my friends that were Waking up at 5am Every day, I was like, no, I learned it.
- [62:47]
C
I mean, in high school, I learned how to be disciplined because then I had a goal of sports. And so it was 5:00am you know, I was waking up at 5:00am and doing study hall and reading the Bible in the morning. I went to private boarding school when I was 13, so it was like very strict in terms of you study from six to eight, you go to bed, you get up, you work out, all these things. And in college, when it was like you didn't have the house, parents in the dorm kind of telling you what to do, you had to create your schedule. But I was so clear my vision and my dream that I was willing to sacrifice anything. So I would give up all of the fun of life. You know, I would have fun, but I want to do the things that people said were fun. Drinking and going out and do these things. I was like, that's not fun to me.
- [63:30]
E
That's a great way of naming it because I think that's something I've struggled to name. Being like, it's not that I'm sacrificing these things. It's not a sacrifice. I wasn't interested.
- [63:38]
C
Wasn't interested. Yeah. And learning that skill set of disciplining my mind to say no and to be okay with people not understanding me, that was the scary thing. Because I wanted to have friends because I kind of felt alone as a kid. So I wanted friends, but they didn't understand me because I was going off chasing a dream and I was getting up at 5 or going to bed at 10 or whatever it was because I was committed to something. And so maybe people didn't understand you. Oh, you're on set 18 hours a day. Just come hang out with us after school. We're just going to go hang out and run down LA or whatever. But you're like, no, this is fun to me and this is part of a dream and a curiosity that I'm leaning into, and it's providing financial abundance and opportunities that are going to set me up for my future. So it's just making a decision. Do you think a lot of your peers, in terms of people your age, struggle with discipline and they just chase fun and hours of social media distraction that isn't supporting their vision?
- [64:44]
E
I'd have to say it's 50, 50. I'm pretty lucky to feel surrounded by people that are chasing a dream. And all of it looks very different. Some of them I don't even understand, but I see the passion. And so I think just by the nature of maybe just who I've ended up in community with, I'm surrounded by people where I feel like generationally there are a lot of people that are moved by whether it's their art or their career. I think I saw that both in the creative landscape. I saw that at Harvard and, and.
- [65:11]
C
So Jupiter communities are people at the top of the top. These are people that are like working full time, that are in the acting world or the production world or Harvard, which is a very elite level commitment.
- [65:24]
E
But I think even in the creative space, what was a good example is I'm like all my friends were at the top of the top now, but they didn't start that way. And so many of them had really interesting kind of non traditional ways of getting into their respective field which required just a lot of belief in self, not necessarily traditional school to be a musician, traditional this to be that. And so in that regard I see a lot of discipline there. And I think what's funny is I hang out with people that all have bedtimes that are like well cool tapping out and also people that are very sure about what is fun to them and participate in like, oh, this is what's fun to me. It's different for each of us. But it's cool to be like, oh yeah. People are only showing up because this is enjoyable to them and they have felt freed of showing up for the sake of showing up.
- [66:09]
C
But that's a lot of people that are like again, who are striving to be at the top that are very creatively talented, that are in elite rooms. But that's not, I wouldn't say that's most 20 year olds or 24 year olds or people in their late teens right now in America.
- [66:22]
E
Right? Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's a mix. Like when I see somebody like my, my little brother 16, we're technically same generation. It feels like a world of difference.
- [66:31]
C
What generation is that? What is it?
- [66:32]
E
Gen Z technically. Gen Z still. And you know, he's someone that's also very creatively inspired. But I think the difference that I see is that even having, like, Instagram didn't come about till I was 13. And even though that was young, it was enough time for my brain to have had a life before social media. And it was. Sorry, it was years before it became a regular part of my life.
- [66:54]
C
Right.
- [66:55]
E
And it was years before we were using that to compare. So I just feel like I had more mental tools about how to deal with it. Still hard, still on my phone. Way too much. I. I turn on grayscale at random times to be like, let me. I don't know, does it disrupt the serotonin? I don't know the science behind it, but on the grayscale. But I think the thing that I see is like, oh, their world is so busy all the time that I can't even blame the feeling of distraction because I'm like, between all the news that's being taken and between the fact that I feel like when I was growing up, I was only preoccupied with the life that I was living because there was.
- [67:30]
C
You were watching everything online about every problem in World, the world, all at once.
- [67:33]
E
Yeah. And there was also no way of seeing the life that even my friends were living, except for the handful of times we were having a play date. Yeah. I'm like, there was just no way of checking in on that.
- [67:44]
C
They could see everything all at once.
- [67:46]
E
And I think even, like, creatively, like, I've had the privilege of being in all these luxury fashion spaces, but that was all tied to work. I did not find myself in any of those stores prior to working with these brands because it just wasn't on my radar. The way my brother has friends where it's like, oh, they know all of it all the time. They're tracking Fashion Week.
- [68:04]
C
Really?
- [68:04]
E
And I was like, I think I learned what Fashion Week was when I got an invite to attend, because I was working in this space. I didn't have, again, all these worlds I was checking in on that didn't have anything to do with me right now. And so I. I do feel like there's a particular challenge. And I have a lot of empathy for just generationally, that feeling of, what are we gonna do with this information overload? Where it's even hard to parse apart what do I need to intake? I'm a severe over news listener, and I think my task has been listening to a little less news because it's like, there's only so much you can do about it. And it pushes, at least for me. I Think it pushes me into a space of feeling very overwhelmed versus feeling activated. So I've been trying to be like, okay, what amount of news makes me feel activated but not overwhelmed?
- [68:50]
C
Yeah. One of the things. Early on, I was just taught never to watch news and entertainment. Just get updates, because you can easily, emotionally, especially if you're empathetic. You can be like, 10,000 people died today in this other part of the world. What is wrong with that? Can take over your whole life. One person died in my town, and there was a shooting that could take up your whole life. And if you're seeing it sensationalized, if you're entertained through the visual, expression, sound, audio, video, making it like a movie, it's. For me, it's exhausting. So I can't watch the news. I can read it and be informed and educated and be like, okay, but the entertainment of it or the clips of it just constantly. It's just. I don't think it's good for the brain. And I think building mental fortitude is learning how to block out that and say, how can I be educated and updated but not entertained by fear?
- [69:50]
E
Yeah. And some of it is a great point, because some of it was that I've always been an audiophile. We grew up in a house where we didn't watch TV except for Saturdays for an hour, which I love, but it meant that I love audio. That is my form of entertainment. And so you're absolutely right. There was a time, even though I don't know if I would call it that, while I was listening. Yeah, it's different that it was more so like, oh, I'm listening to npr.
- [70:12]
C
But, yeah, it's different.
- [70:13]
E
You're listening to NPR so much that they're sending you free merch. That may be a cue. That may be a cue that you're listening to too much npr. Because I was like, I have the app on my phone. I'm not even waiting till I'm in the car. I'm listening all the time. I'm waiting for the midday update. I'm waiting for the end of the day update. I'm cycling through local news. I'm typing in local stations. And so I think changing that, because then I was listening to political podcasts at night. I was falling asleep to them. I was like, oh, bedtime, time to turn on.
- [70:41]
C
And every. Every news channel and every political podcast has their bias and their opinion. So they're going to be, you know, spreading opinions one way or another. But when you read it and you just read the Updates. Usually you're just saying, okay, this is what happened.
- [70:54]
E
Yeah.
- [70:55]
C
And you can form your own opinion. You know, that's what I've learned.
- [70:58]
E
I love NPR because I'm like, it is pretty. It is pretty straightforward. But I think for me, the amount I was consuming of just of like every podcast available again was fulfilling more of an entertainment side. So it's been nice to literally reintroduce. I have those moments where I'm like, okay, time to get updated here.
- [71:14]
C
Yeah, that's good.
- [71:15]
E
I'll do. I want twice a day. Maybe I'll get to a once a day person. I'm a twice a day person, but in between, I'm back to listening to old time radio shows. Johnny Dollar is my favorite insurance investigator, played by Bob Bailey. And so I'm like, oh, if this is fulfilling the need to be listening to something, what else could I be listening to? Back to this American life. Back to just like, feed your soul. Yeah, feed your soul.
- [71:39]
C
This has been awesome, y' all. I want to ask you a couple final questions. That's cool. One of the things, you know, I got to meet your mom, lovely lady, and just seem super wise and fun at the same time. So congrats on calling in your mom as a child and entering this world with your parents. But I read that you grew up with your parents, either teaching you or showing you how to live a life of service. Like living a life of service was important and how can we add value and contribute to whatever might be, friends, family, society. And I'm curious, what are your thoughts about service and what have you learned through being of service, being a giver, finding ways to add value? What have you learned about how giving allows you to receive as well?
- [72:30]
E
Yeah, well, like you said, I come from two really wonderful, thoughtful parents, Afshin and Carrie, who I call Bubba and Mommy. But really wonderful people that have their own global background. So, you know, my Bubba moved to the States from Iran when he was 8. Comes from a very global, service minded family. My mama comes from a family where it's like my papa and Nana. My papa in particular was really involved in the civil rights movement. So direct idea of what it is to be of service, to sacrifice kind of your own comfort for the greater good. And so much of the dialogue around being of service just happened at the dinner table. Happened in a very natural way where I don't think I even realized, oh, I'm having these heady conversations. Prepare me. And I think there were also things that they did that were very supportive of that of going to schools that had volunteer requirements, whether that was the Montessori or the public school or the Catholic school I went to, they all had volunteer requirements. And so I think it was also being modeled for me in every environment I was in of not just how money is a resource, but how your time is a resource. The idea of giving as being just a part of the fabric of life and not as something that you wait to do once you have quote unquote made it. Even when they were giving me and my brothers just allowance again, having really thoughtful parents, what mommy had done was we'd put all of the money that we made from acting right into savings. But they'd give us an allowance for being on set. And from that allowance from those 10 bucks or however much we decided they had the save, spend and donate bucket and we got to choose how much are we donating, how much are we saving, how much are we spending? And again, I think these were. I say this all as a foundation of saying I had a great foundation of ways in which being of service can be integrated into our day to day life. And I think even still that's cool. Having mommy as a business partner. One trait I think I admire most that many people can attest to. I was in a room she wasn't in talking about something random and literally somebody else. Another actress paused to be like, can we talk about Kerry Shahidi? Because what she is is so deeply tapped into the world around her and so deeply curious that I think she is constantly of service by giving kind of her mind as a resource. We will see someone at the airport who say, oh. Who says off randomly, oh, I really want to start this shirt company. She's like, oh, that's interesting. I've cataloged. Oh, I met this one entrepreneur that makes shirts. I would love to connect you. She's connected authors with lawyers for their multi million plus book deal. Not real and not realizing that's what it was for, but just being like, oh, you're an interesting person. This is another person that's interesting. You guys should be connected. That's cool. But it comes from just being so deeply attuned and paying attention attention in spaces that we're in the same rooms. And she's picking up on things where I'm like, huh? Oh yeah, I guess that did. That did happen. But I say that to say I feel like it's an example of what it means to be attuned towards service. And it's not even necessarily, oh, I'm working with this organization or this foundation. It's truly I'm operating from an anchoring place of how can I be of value to you even if it has nothing to do with me? Most of these things never serve circle back. It's it's a thank you that's beautiful that you may get. But to answer even your question on on giving, on being of service and then receiving, I think I've had a lot of examples of how things, time, resources that I've given have come back around in ways that I could never expect. I wasn't expecting it when I gave. And I think even in our starting our production company, we were both astounded by how many people wanted to work with us when we were just opening our doors, had yet to prove ourselves as producers because they knew what it was like to be in relationship with us and the things that we'd give generally without saying, hey, we're gonna circle back around in a couple years when we have our own offices. Da da da da da da. And so I think a lot of what I've received has been the result of giving and I think I've learned so many lessons about how that happens. My papa has this great term he uses relationship equity, which is one just logistically, especially for us 20 year olds, call between needing things, especially from the people around you. It's okay if you need things and you need to call people, but call between, see how they're doing.
- [76:47]
C
Yeah, check that. Not when you need that calling, not.
- [76:49]
E
Just when, not hey, how are you by the way? Yes, but more than just calling between needing things, I was raised on relationship equity, which is the priority in this world is building relationships with the people around you. It's not building networks, it's not building contacts, it's building relationships.
- [77:08]
A
I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter and now it's time to go out there and do something great.
- [78:04]
F
Earn a business degree on your terms at Capella University. Our flexpath format is available in select programs and lets you learn on your schedule. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella. Eduardo.