3 Secrets To Manifesting Anything

Leave an Amazon Rating or Review for my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Your biology isn't broken - it's responding to your emotional environment. In this enlightening mashup episode, three visionaries reveal the hidden powers within you. Gregg Braden explains how your body stores emotional trauma as physical symptoms, while Gabby Bernstein unveils her four-step method to heal the limiting beliefs blocking your manifestation abilities. Meanwhile, Yara Shahidi shares how alignment creates ease in life, challenging the notion that success must be difficult. Their combined wisdom creates a roadmap for accessing your inner divinity, healing emotional wounds, and living with intention – proof that true transformation begins by addressing what's happening beneath the surface. Gregg’s books:Pure Human: The Hidden Truth of Our Divinity, Power, and DestinyThe Divine Matrix: Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, And BeliefSecrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer: The Hidden Power of Beauty, Blessing, Wisdom, and HurtGabby’s books:The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to FaithSelf HelpSuper Attractor: Methods for Manifesting a Life beyond Your Wildest DreamsYara on InstagramIn this episode you will learn:How the effects from unresolved emotions can remain trapped in your body for decades, creating physical symptomsWhy human divinity is our greatest asset and the reason certain forces seek to replace our biology with technologyThe four-step IFS-informed practice to heal core beliefs that block manifestationHow to identify and work with your "manager" parts that try to protect you from emotional painWhy ease isn't something to feel guilty about - it's actually a sign you're in alignment with your purposeThe importance of building mental fortitude through daily discipline without sacrificing joyHow news consumption as entertainment can drain your energy and overwhelm your systemWhy building "relationship equity" through genuine connection creates unexpected opportunitiesFor more information go to https://www.lewishowes.com/1769For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Gregg Braden – greatness.lnk.to/1726SCGabby Bernstein – greatness.lnk.to/1714SCYara Shahidi – greatness.lnk.to/1699SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  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 makemoneymeasibook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money 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.

• 0:44Lewis Howes?

  What happens when a someone who is experiencing some type of mental or emotional altercation in their body decides to go the medical route versus the healing somatic route?

• 0:57Speaker 01

  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 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.

• 1:32Lewis Howes?

  100%.

• 1:32Speaker 01

  You can't, you cannot determine, unless it's happened in the past and you recognize this is exactly what happened in the past. You really can't determine.

• 1:40Lewis Howes?

  It's terrifying. It's scary.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  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.

• 1:58Speaker 01

  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 and in a scientific way. Wow. 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.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  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.

• 3:22Speaker 01

  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. Wow. 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. Little bit more of a nudge and then we start developing symptoms of things that we call illness and disease.

• 4:06Speaker 01

  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. Ninety, over ninety percent 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?

• 4:48Speaker 01

  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.

• 5:03Lewis Howes?

  Even though you were in your late 60s at that point and you're 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, the little boy in you didn't feel safe.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  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, the term that psychologists use where we have very few of 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 and.

• 5:55Lewis Howes?

  We mimic them.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  We, we do. We consciously and subconscious, those are consciously, those are the programs up until the age of, of seven. The Jesuits knew this. Maybe you've had other speakers talk about this. They, 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. Wow. So what they meant, 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's an example of how powerful those first seven years of life are. It's the programming, right? It's programming. So the neuropeptides can stay in the body as long as they need to.

• 6:40Speaker 01

  And there are techniques, breathwork 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 E F T and you know, body memory therapy and that's a whole conversation, but there are a lot of ways to resolve that. 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. It's, these are chemicals

• 7:21Speaker 01

  and, 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 secretions. Processing. Body secretions. So it's tears, perspiration, saliva, sexual fluids, feces, all of those things is how we release. Wow. All the fascinating. This goes, uh, 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.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  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, the DNA and the cell membranes, literally our antenna.

• 8:20Speaker 01

  That tune us to an energetic place in a field that underlies all existence that we now know, science confirmed it in the year 2012 at the CERN Superconducting Super Collider. They actually announced it on July 4th in America, 4th of July 2012, that that there is a field that underlies all existence. 2022, the Nobel Prize in Peace, no, in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Physics was given to the physicist that confirmed that in this field, everything's connected, entanglement. Really? Is what it's called. What is this field that we're living in? It's an energetic, it's an energetic field and, and we are, we are that field.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  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. Oh, wow. And every one of those 50 trillion cells has about 100 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. That's crazy. Of, 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

• 9:46Speaker 01

  blueprint, we change the template and, and that information will now fill in a new and healthier blueprint. And this is all very well documented. I mean, it's, 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. What's that? The story is that we are not what we've been told. 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, 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

• 10:30Speaker 01

  is so beautiful. It is so ancient. It is so precious.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  That there are organizations in the world today, and there always have been, societies in the past that will go to any length to shield us from that part of ourselves, because that's where we find our power.

• 10:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  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, 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 it have to do with the world?

• 11:23Lewis Howes?

  And what's it have to do with my life right now?

• 11:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that 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.

• 12:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  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

• 12:45Speaker 01

  that our humanness, our biology be replaced

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  And our humanness is a problem. Wow. Because we are such powerful beings and 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.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  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 the 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 they said, okay, Gray. 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 controls. Think, no controls. Sweet.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Or there's some other words they use, but, but sweet was, 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 gonna 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

• 15:26Speaker 01

  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 a study, an actual study that was done. Young kids, three, four, five 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 their friends. Wow, yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  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'd go out, we'd take a blanket off the bed. Bicycles in the backyard, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'd 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 it. They're just watching it all done

• 16:51Speaker 01

  for them. And so the psychology magazines are actually showing now, and that can all be reversed through epigenetics, so that 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

• 17:33Speaker 01

  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, is called transhumanism. Trans simply means beyond. And human is, is our biology, so it's beyond our biology. And I did an interview recently and someone asked, they 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.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Because we lose the very essence of what 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. We lose all of those things when we begin to give our humanness away. So there, we've just covered a whole lot of the 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.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  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.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  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. So 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, that maybe some of your guests have talked about this,

• 20:16Speaker 01

  is that we've been conditioned to think of our biology as this soft, gooey, sticky, wet stuff, you know, inside the cells. And that is one way of thinking of us, but now, scientists are looking at us from a perspective of information technology. These are IT 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 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.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Came out with an article and it showed that human DNA is literally a fractal antenna, is the term that they use. So what's that mean? 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 pulling in information from the world around us all the time, across this broad spectrum. And we're transducing it into meaningful signals in our bodies.

• 21:43Speaker 01

  That's a very different way of thinking of the human body. So I'll just run through this really quick, what the science is showing. Fifty trillion cells in the body, every cell. Is a miniature, a micro circuit, it's a gated circuit is what engineers call it. 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 three billion, no, over three trillion volts of like 3.5 trillion volts of electrical potential, which is In our bodies. In our bodies.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  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, 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.

• 23:10Speaker 01

  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 of 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 actually, 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

• 23:52Speaker 01

  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. Here's, here's the beauty of where this goes. All of those computer chips, man, they're fast, they're accurate, hands down.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  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, so fast across those.

• 24:44Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  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.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  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

• 25:38Lewis Howes?

  without healing or transforming traumas and pain that ruins us and cripples us still?

• 25:46Gabby Bernstein?

  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

• 26:21Gabby Bernstein?

  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

• 26:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 26:40Gabby Bernstein?

  very early, early, early years.

• 26:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:43Gabby Bernstein?

  And so my, 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 it with my own therapist, it's about it's coming up on a decade, 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.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 27:17Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 27:29Gabby Bernstein?

  Period.

• 27:30Lewis Howes?

  So if we believe that we are not worthy of something, it won't happen. What are we saying about ourselves and what's possible for us?

• 27:40Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 28:12Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 28:13Gabby Bernstein?

  The, if you were to be, if you were to say, okay, I'm really great at attracting 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, okay, I get that. This thing happened to me and then I'm gonna hold on to 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.

• 28:56Gabby Bernstein?

  And the parts of us that show up are different characters in our life.

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 29:01Gabby Bernstein?

  These extreme parts, these addicted parts, these fearful parts. So we're like lots of different actors in the show that is our life.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  It sounds like every human being is kind of schizophrenic or has multiple personality types.

• 29:15Gabby Bernstein?

  So in IFS, Internal Family Systems Therapy, I'm gonna 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 people.

• 29:35Lewis Howes?

  Simplify it.

• 29:36Gabby Bernstein?

  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 children inside.

• 29:50Lewis Howes?

  Which sounds crazy to think about.

• 29:52Gabby Bernstein?

  It does and 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?

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm, sure, sure.

• 30:04Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah, yes, you're kind of familiar with those parts of yourself. You've been 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.

• 30:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course, yeah.

• 30:13Gabby Bernstein?

  That impatience is a part, right? And these parts of us, the 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, the overthinking, the playing small, these extreme roles that we play in momentary situations in our life, or, or really sometimes all day, every day, are protection mechanisms.

• 30:49Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 31:15Lewis Howes?

  They haven't grown up yet.

• 31:17Gabby Bernstein?

  They never got a chance to grow up, these parts of you.

• 31:20Lewis Howes?

  And where do these parts of us live?

• 31:22Gabby Bernstein?

  Okay, so let me get this, let me keep it simple.

• 31:24Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 31:24Gabby Bernstein?

  So they keep coming back to the simplicity, okay? Like I'm putting my, okay, let's keep it simple.

• 31:28Lewis Howes?

  How many parts of us does each individual have?

• 31:30Gabby Bernstein?

  We can have many, many parts of us. So, so let's keep it simple. So, very young, we grew up where we come into this world, we're like these perfect little people. We're so happy, everything's beautiful. Hopefully, we, 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 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.

• 32:13Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 32:23Lewis Howes?

  They don't have the tools either to teach us.

• 32:25Gabby Bernstein?

  Or in the case of you and me, we don't have anyone to tell.

• 32:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:28Gabby Bernstein?

  Right, or we're too afraid to tell.

• 32:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Gabby Bernstein?

  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, 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 want to make a deal with him.

• 33:15Gabby Bernstein?

  I mean, it was, it was just like kind of bossy to him. And at a very young age, Ollie 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, which 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. And he's like, I'm the boss, you know, this is 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 Ollie, it was a six year old.

• 33:56Gabby Bernstein?

  Right. In the case of me, it was, it was something much more extreme. Hopefully Ollie 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.

• 34:10Lewis Howes?

  Exiled parts.

• 34:11Gabby Bernstein?

  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, 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.

• 34:40Lewis Howes?

  Right. So we have, we, and does everyone build these defense mechanisms up?

• 34:44Gabby Bernstein?

  Everyone.

• 34:46Lewis Howes?

  It's just, they look different for each person.

• 34:47Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah. And we have, and then lots of different protectors. And there's two types of protectors. So remember, you're still tracking with me here. I know you are. 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.

• 35:17Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 35:17Gabby Bernstein?

  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. And there's two types of protector parts. But in my book, I really just focus on one type, so 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. Destroy you. Yeah, that's a manager.

• 36:01Gabby Bernstein?

  Vigilance was 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. When I think about that time, you know? That anxiety was actually a form of protection. Of course. Because if I'm in anxious state, I don't have to feel the horror and the this 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,

• 36:46Gabby Bernstein?

  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 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?

• 37:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Gabby Bernstein?

  We all have an inner parent inside of us. So that, so those are all the young children inside, right? The exiles, the managers, the firefighters, right? The protectors in the exiles. They're all like running our world, right? Or 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.

• 37:47Lewis Howes?

  Exhausting.

• 37:48Gabby Bernstein?

  Exhausting. Why do people have burnout? Why do people have stress? Why do people have, have

• 37:52Lewis Howes?

  Chronic pain.

• 37:53Gabby Bernstein?

  Chronic pain. Of course, there's a whole chapter in the book called Body Parts. How the body, like physical pain is a protector.

• 38:00Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:00Gabby Bernstein?

  Like if I have a 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. I always miss a C. Like any, they're, they're all in there.

• 38:45Gabby Bernstein?

  So, and, and connectedness. I, I think I got to them. We'll, we'll find the eight Cs in the book and we'll get these.

• 38:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes, curiosity, compassion, calmness, clarity, creativity, connectedness, courage and confidence.

• 38:56Gabby Bernstein?

  You know, it's so funny. Confidence is the one I always miss, but it's the one that I often feel we're quite connected to. So I won't forget confidence anymore.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 39:03Gabby Bernstein?

  So I'm gonna really try to keep this simple. So just think about it like you have an inner parent and

• 39:07Lewis Howes?

  So everyone has an inner parent.

• 39:08Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 39:44Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:45Gabby Bernstein?

  You know what I'm talking about?

• 39:45Lewis Howes?

  Yes, of course.

• 39:46Gabby Bernstein?

  That's self energy.

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  With a capital S.

• 39:50Gabby Bernstein?

  With a capital S. And the thing is

• 39:52Lewis Howes?

  The adult self.

• 39:53Gabby Bernstein?

  It's your true self.

• 39:55Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 39:56Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 40:11Gabby Bernstein?

  And it's there, but the clouds are just in the way. So self is always been there, right? You feel self in shavasana, you feel self 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 to the presence of it.

• 40:50Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. And how we release the blocks is how?

• 40:54Gabby Bernstein?

  So.

• 40:54Lewis Howes?

  Is that through the core beliefs of like understanding?

• 40:57Gabby Bernstein?

  It's a four step practice I put in the book.

• 40:58Lewis Howes?

  Four step practice. Okay.

• 41:00Gabby Bernstein?

  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 an IFS therapist were going to get this. And 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 forty, forty three years ago, forty four 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 I look at him and I'm like, I have to tell you something.

• 41:41Gabby Bernstein?

  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 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 the self-help spiritual bona fides and then Gabby's here.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  Wow, that's cool.

• 42:07Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 42:13Lewis Howes?

  Right. And you created a four-step process.

• 42:15Gabby Bernstein?

  The fourth step is not IFS. It's an IFS-informed self-help practice. And that's really important for me to say, Lewis, 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.

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:51Gabby Bernstein?

  So there's a four steps.

• 42:52Lewis Howes?

  IFS-approved.

• 42:54Gabby Bernstein?

  IFS-approved, IFS-informed, it's, it's, 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.

• 43:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:09Gabby Bernstein?

  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 exile, go, you're 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's self-help.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 43:42Gabby Bernstein?

  So you let me know when you're ready for that.

• 43:43Lewis Howes?

  Um, yeah, really, yeah.

• 43:44Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 43:52Lewis Howes?

  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.

• 44:03Lewis Howes?

  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?

• 44:30Gabby Bernstein?

  Exactly.

• 44:31Lewis Howes?

  And so then what is that process?

• 44:33Gabby Bernstein?

  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 yourself for sure.

• 45:13Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  So you're connecting higher self currently to the self that was destructive or harmed or the manager.

• 45:40Gabby Bernstein?

  To the parts.

• 45:41Lewis Howes?

  The parts.

• 45:42Gabby Bernstein?

  Yeah.

• 45:43Lewis Howes?

  The manager or firefighter parts of you.

• 45:44Gabby Bernstein?

  That's correct, baby.

• 45:45Lewis Howes?

  That cause stress or anxiety or control or perfectionism or whatever it might be.

• 45:49Gabby Bernstein?

  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.

• 46:00Speaker 03

  What is the biggest challenge with having success, fame and money at a young age?

• 46:07Speaker 04

  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 an ideal, the question of why is this coming easily? Why is this coming easily? You know, 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 seven because I'm like, I love printing commercials. I go play, like I play and half the time I'm playing with my family.

• 46:46Speaker 03

  Just taking photos mostly.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm taking photos or a commercial like you're hula hooping, you're biking, you're just doing different things.

• 46:55Speaker 04

  And so when I had done my first movie at seven, I think what 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.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  I think if it wasn't for COVID, they were going to move the entire shooting schedule to the summer. So I just had an unencumbered year. Again, unheard of. And that comes from everybody from the president of ABC to the president of signature to the president of, to the line producer, all working in tandem.

• 47:53Speaker 03

  Do you ever feel like guilty for how easy it's been?

• 47:56Speaker 04

  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.

• 48:08Speaker 03

  It should, there should be ease.

• 48:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, when there's alignment, there's ease. And I think the thing I've been in, my family's always been is pretty discerning. There's still ways to become more discerning, but I think it's 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.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  Right. You haven't said yes to every shiny opportunity. You've been like, no, no, no, this is for us. We're gonna do it. I like this.

• 48:34Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. 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.

• 48:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  I'm not walking out with any crazy traumas from, from 10 years on set. Like, I'm like, what, how lucky?

• 48:49Speaker 03

  When you're hearing all these other child actors coming out about-

• 48:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, you hear all these other stories. You know, I have a, a family that takes pride in us as individuals, both me and my brothers handling our money and, and having a grasp of money management. So I'm like, we've never had a fear that one day it's gonna be gone. Cause I know where it all is, you know?

• 49:06Speaker 03

  You don't have any money wounds or traumas, huh?

• 49:08Speaker 04

  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 team. 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 a wrong amount on my check and I was savvy enough at 14 to be like, hey, this isn't the right amount.

• 49:46Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 49:47Speaker 04

  I'm like, oh yeah, you're right. So I'm saying, like, I, like, I, 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, 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-

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 50:12Speaker 04

  I'm, I'm realizing that some of this is the result of having known myself and continuing to learn myself.

• 50:19Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, it sounds like your parents have been an amazing-

• 50:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  -foundation for you for knowing yourself, being yourself, you know, empowering you to step into yourself.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  They let me be so quirky, you know?

• 50:30Speaker 03

  It's amazing.

• 50:30Speaker 04

  Like, it did not cross my mind.

• 50:33Speaker 03

  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 wanna learn how to build mental fortitude and how to overcome challenges.

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 03

  Is 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 eighteen hour days and fly back and forth from Harvard to LA and do like, work at a high level.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:01Speaker 03

  But not a lot of extreme adversities is what I'm hearing. Is that what I'm hearing?

• 51:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think, I mean, part of it.

• 51:08Speaker 03

  Like intense work and effort, but not extreme adversities.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  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.

• 51:20Speaker 03

  Well, also dealing with a lot of pressures from just being in the industry and all these different things.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, so it's funny, 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.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, wasn't that hard?

• 51:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, 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 of 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.

• 52:17Speaker 04

  And I go, would I be willing, 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?

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Really?

• 52:28Speaker 04

  To, to see a challenge and, and push through it. I'm always, part of it comes from just my genuine amazement of, of the courage that people muster in times that. Feel almost impossible, at least outside looking in. So maybe some of it, it just, 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 stories 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 want to hear, what, 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, I couldn't name that's happening versus like, no, it's,

• 53:09Speaker 04

  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, 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.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  That's interesting.

• 53:41Speaker 04

  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.

• 53:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's really insightful though.

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. So it's been top of mind, but I, I don't know how helpful it is to be thinking about it too much.

• 53:56Speaker 03

  Because I think, um, you know, 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 going to just go experience pain all day so that I'm prepared for pain later and it doesn't hurt me as much. Cause 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.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:32Speaker 03

  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 where 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, a level of Time every day where there's discipline where I'm gonna say no to temptations or no to the coke all day or no to the alcohol all day or no to partying every day

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:59Speaker 03

  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 gonna be daunting.

• 55:21Speaker 04

  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?

• 55:27Speaker 03

  No, no. I mean, as a kid, I was confused and scared and, you know, rebellious and, you know.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  But even as like a college athlete like that, that's something even if I was flying back and forth and doing all that, my friends that were waking up at 5 a.m. every day, I was like...

• 55:43Speaker 03

  No, I learned it, I mean, in high school, I learned how to be disciplined because then I had a goal of sports. And so it was 5 a.m., you know, I was waking up at 5 a.m. 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 like you study from 6 to 8, you go to bed, you get up, you work out, all these things. And, um, 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 in 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 wanted 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.

• 56:27Speaker 04

  That's a great way of naming it, because I think that's something I've struggled to name of being like, it's not that I'm sacrificing these things, it's not a sacrifice, I wasn't interested.

• 56:35Speaker 03

  Wasn't interested, yeah. And, um, learning that skillset 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, you know, getting up at 5 or going to bed at 10 or whatever it was, because I was committed to something, you know? And so maybe people didn't understand you, oh, you're on set 18 hours a day, like just come hang out with us after school, we're just like going to hang out and run down L.A. or whatever, you know? So, 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.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  And it's providing financial abundance and opportunities that are going to set me up for my future.

• 57:23Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 57:24Speaker 03

  So it's just making a decision.

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:26Speaker 03

  I think, do you think a lot of your peers, in terms of

• 57:31Speaker 03

  people your age, struggle with discipline? And they just chase fun and, you know, hours of social media distraction that isn't supporting their vision?

• 57:41Speaker 04

  I'd have to say it's fifty fifty. I'm pretty lucky to feel surrounded by people that are chasing a dream and all of it looks very different.

• 57:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  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 so

• 58:09Speaker 03

  But you've been in communities of 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 of like commitment.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  But I think even in the creative space, what was a good example is I'm like, all my friends are 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 require just a lot of belief in self. Not necessarily traditional schooling 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. They're like, well, I'm 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.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  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 twenty year olds or twenty four year olds or people in their late teens right now in America, right?

• 59:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. I think it's, it's, it's a mix. Like when I see somebody like my, my little brother, sixteen, we're technically same generation. It feels like a world of difference.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  What generation is that? What is it?

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Gen Z. It's 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.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:52Speaker 04

  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 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, the 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 intaken 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.

• 1:00:27Speaker 03

  You weren't watching everything online about every problem in the world all at once.

• 1:00:31Speaker 04

  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 playdate.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  A handful of times.

• 1:00:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm like, there was just no way of checking in on that.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  And they could see everything all at once.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:00:54Speaker 04

  Because it just wasn't on my radar.

• 1:00:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:56Speaker 04

  The way my brother has friends where it's like, oh, they know all of it, all the time. They're tracking Fashion Week.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  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 do feel like there's a particular challenge and I have a lot of empathy for just generationally, that feeling of what are we going to 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.

• 1:01:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:32Speaker 04

  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?

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, one of the things, you know, my.

• 1:01:51Speaker 03

  Early on, I was just taught never to watch news as entertainment. Just get updates. You know, 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. Like, what is wrong with you? That can take over your whole life. One person died in my town and there was a shooting. That could take over 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.

• 1:02:35Speaker 03

  And just, 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?

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  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, that it was more so like, oh, I'm listening to NPR.

• 1:03:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's different.

• 1:03:10Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:03:38Speaker 03

  And every news channel and every political podcast has their bias and their opinion. And 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.

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Speaker 03

  And you can form your own opinion, you know, that's what I've learned.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:04:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's good.

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  I'll do, I'm a, I'm a 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 can I be listening to? Back to This American Life, back to just like.

• 1:04:32Speaker 03

  Feed your soul.

• 1:04:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:33Speaker 03

  Feed your soul.

• 1:04:36Speaker 03

  This has been awesome, yeah. I want to ask you a couple of final questions.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Please.

• 1:04:39Speaker 03

  That's cool. One of the things, you know, I got to meet your mom, lovely lady, and just seems super wise and fun at the same time. So congrats on calling in your mom as a child and entering this world with your, 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 it 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?

• 1:05:22Speaker 03

  What have you learned about how giving allows you to receive as well?

• 1:05:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, like you said, I, I come from two really wonderful, thoughtful parents, Afshin and Carrie, who I call Bubba and Mommy. But really wonderful people that.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  Have their own global backgrounds. So, you know, my, my bubba moved to the States from Iran when he was eight, comes from a very global service minded family. My mama comes from a family where it's like my papa and my papa in particular was really involved in the civil rights movement. So that very 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

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  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, they, they, again, having really thoughtful parents, what mommy had done was we had 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

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  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.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 1:07:18Speaker 04

  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 Kiri 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'll be like, oh, that's interesting. I've catalogued, "Oh, I met this one entrepreneur that makes shirts that I would love to connect to." She's connected authors with lawyers for their multi-million-plus book deal. And not realizing that's what it was for, but just being like,

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  "Oh, you're an interesting person. This is another person that's interesting. You guys should be connected."

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  That's cool.

• 1:08:07Speaker 04

  But it comes from just being so deeply attuned and paying 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 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?"

• 1:08:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Speaker 04

  Even if it has nothing to do with me. Most of these things never circle back. It's a thank you that you may get. But to answer even your question 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.

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  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 a relationship with us.

• 1:09:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:12Speaker 04

  And the things that we'd give generally, without saying, "Hey, we're gonna circle back around in a couple of years when we have our own offices, dah dah dah dah dah." 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.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:45Speaker 04

  Check in.

• 1:09:45Speaker 03

  Not when you need it, only.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, not just when, not, "Hey, how are you, by the way?"

• 1:09:49Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:09:50Speaker 04

  But more than just calling between needing things, I was raised on relationship equity, which is, you're, 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.

• 1:10:05Speaker 05

  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

• 1:10:50Speaker 05

  now it's time to go out there and do something great.