329 Breaking Free from the Matrix and Living Mindfully with Carrie-Anne Moss

"When you are connected to yourself, you know what you need." - Carrie-Anne Moss If you enjoyed this episode, check out show notes, video, and more at http://lewishowes.com/329 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?

  This is episode number 329 with Carrie Anne Moss.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Maya Angelou said, "You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody." I've been connecting with so many more people lately out in the world and I've met so many of you who listen to the podcast and it just fills me up. It brings so much joy to me to hear your stories and hear how you've overcome so many challenges to get to where you are today. And I just want to let you know that you are 100% enough. Wherever you're at in your life right now, whether you're struggling to make money and make ends meet, whether you're going through a challenging relationship or breakup, whether you're opening up about something that you've never told anyone and it's terrifying you.

• 1:15Lewis Howes?

  I just want to let you know that you are fully enough with where you're at, where you're heading. You are 100% totally worth it and enough to have everything you want and everything you desire. We've got an incredible interview today and it's with Carrie Anne Moss, someone that I recently got connected to through a buddy of mine, Eric Handler. And as I started researching more about Carrie Anne and learning about her, I became more inspired by her than just what her characters are on TV and in the movies. Now, most of you might know who Carrie Anne is as the character Trinity in The Matrix, which was a cult classic instantly and inspired and moved so many people who watched that movie.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  And she had an incredible role and did an amazing job. But Carrie Anne is much more than that. She is a mother, a wife, an actress, and a yogi who came to Los Angeles. to pursue a career in acting. Now, over the last 20 years, her work in the entertainment industry includes roles in The Matrix and Memento and many other films and TV shows. Now, success as an actress has brought her fulfillment, but for Carrie Anne, it was marriage and motherhood where she found her deepest sense of purpose and her greatest joy. And we got to dive in deep today. I really enjoyed this conversation. We actually went for over an hour and it just didn't want to stop. I just wanted to continue diving in deeper to her soul, her heart, and really learning

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  how she's evolved over the last 20 years and how she moved from Canada to pursue a dream when she had no money, no place to live, and really no clue if it was going to work out or not. Then how she went from, you know, being a working actress, but not really breaking through anywhere and landing the job with Trinity for The Matrix. And what happened after that? Then how she went from being a movie star to becoming a mother and transitioning there? And all of the amazing, messy, and beautiful things that come along the journey. So I hope you guys enjoy this one. And some of the main things we cover are the incredible power of visualization to create the life you dream of and how Carrie Anne has done this her entire life.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  Also, how to live in the present moment, no matter how busy we are. We talked about the value of finding your self-worth outside of your job and outside of your career. Also, what Carrie Anne's training looked like in preparation for filming The Matrix and the story of how she got cast in such a big movie, and so much more. Make sure to share this out with your friends. It's LewisHowes.com/329. Share that link out on Twitter, on Facebook, post it on Instagram. And also, you can check out the full show notes back there at LewisHowes.com/329. And check out the full video interview that we did together in the Greatness Studio as well. So without further ado, let me introduce you to the one, the only Carrie Anne Moss.

• 4:17Lewis Howes?

  Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. We've got Carrie Ann Moss in the house. Good to see you.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 4:22Lewis Howes?

  Very excited for this. We got connected through Eric Hanler, who's a mutual friend of ours.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:27Lewis Howes?

  And a good buddy of mine. So I'm very grateful for Eric for connecting us. And I already feel really connected to you just in the last 20 minutes, hearing about everything and learning about your story. So excited to dive in. Now, a lot of people know you from The Matrix, right? Which was what, 15 years ago when that came out? Or 1999, I think? 2000?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 4:46Lewis Howes?

  And that was kind of like, it was such a huge thing. It's amazing that you're talking about all the things that we were talking about before about really this consciousness and this awareness that that's really what you started in your career that made it big, is this consciousness and awareness. And now it's really what you're doing with your work, working with mothers, working with other women about bringing this to life, right?

• 5:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's not so coincidental.

• 5:10Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:11Speaker 01

  And I'm in awe of the involvement of my own life and looking at all of those things that could appear to be coincidental.

• 5:20Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  And understanding that, that there's a journey there that is beyond me. And I'm beyond grateful for getting to play like that role and having that impact.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  And being a part of something that had that, that much of an impact on people.

• 5:38Lewis Howes?

  Still today.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's, the consciousness of it is so deep and layered. And I remember at the time, that I didn't at all understand the depth of it. I was, you know, on the spiritual journey. I understood the layers of consciousness in it, but I didn't understand it at all from an intellectual point of view.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:00Speaker 01

  The directors and the writers that created it, they, very smart people and

• 6:05Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 6:06Speaker 01

  Really bright.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Brilliant.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Brilliant.

• 6:08Lewis Howes?

  I mean, it's like to come up with a script like that.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Totally brilliant. And I, I remember I had a rock at my door. In fact, I still have it. It's in my office. And it said, "Believe." And I remember thinking about Trinity and I understood her heart completely. I'm not a very intellectual person, like I, I completely come from instinct and intuition and my heart. And I understood her that way. That was my way in. And I always felt like she was the heart of the three of them, Morpheus, Neo and Trinity. And, and I had the greatest time playing her and bringing her to life and being a part of that.

• 6:47Lewis Howes?

  What an experience.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:49Lewis Howes?

  I mean, was life just completely changed after that? Because before you were working and you were a consistent actor, right? And you were a model before that, but then that really kind of like took it to a whole nother level.

• 6:58Speaker 01

  It did. I,

• 6:59Lewis Howes?

  Everyone watched the movie, right?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it was, it was one of those moments where I remember shortly before getting it, where I thought, oh, you know, I'm gonna be turning 30 and maybe I'll never be in movies. Maybe I'll just have this mediocre television career. And that's like better than most people.

• 7:17Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't get that.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Most people don't ever get that. I make a living as an actor. I understood how big that was. Uh, I had a lot of friends who were actors and most of us weren't making a living as an actor. So I understood, I, you know, I bought a house as an actor. I was paying my bills as an actor.

• 7:31Lewis Howes?

  You weren't waiting tables.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it wasn't that far off, but, but you know, I was making a living.

• 7:38Lewis Howes?

  Some months where you're like, well, maybe I need to go get a second job, right?

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely. In fact,

• 7:43Lewis Howes?

  You're never certain then as an actor.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  In fact, wait, when I, after I shot The Matrix, that year of shooting The Matrix, I wasn't sure if I was gonna need to wait tables in between it and coming out.

• 7:52Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  I wasn't sure. And I thought to myself,

• 7:56Lewis Howes?

  Was it not that big of a paid gig or?

• 7:57Speaker 01

  No, no, I was like, nobody, right? I,

• 8:00Lewis Howes?

  So they became you, so you didn't get a big, like, key on or didn't, you know?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  No, I was, it was, yeah, I would have done it for free. And they all know that, right? When they're making your deals. But I remember thinking, you know, I got offered a few things before it it came out. And things for like a lot of money, but they weren't great. And I had to trust that the movie, I didn't know if the movie was going to be big. I didn't know if um if my career was going to take off or not. Uh, and I just had to know that it, I had to trust and really get into that place of trusting that.

• 8:35Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 8:35Speaker 01

  And

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  So you turned down bigger paying jobs for a potential of a potentially be a bust?

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 8:41Lewis Howes?

  Who knows if the movie's gonna do well or not, right? These guys weren't like, uh, were they known directors or producers before?

• 8:47Speaker 01

  They'd done like a, a, a, a movie that had done well, but there was no

• 8:51Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha, but who knows?

• 8:51Speaker 01

  I had no idea.

• 8:52Lewis Howes?

  It was a weird concept, or it was like?

• 8:54Speaker 01

  So many people didn't understand what the heck we were doing and, and yeah, I, I had to, I had to believe and I hadn't seen like a piece of it. I didn't know what it even looked like. And I just, I remember getting one offer in particular that was quite big. I'd never seen an offer like that.

• 9:12Lewis Howes?

  Like a TV deal or a commercial?

• 9:14Speaker 01

  It was a movie thing, but it was, it wasn't in alignment with like what I was about.

• 9:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, you're true.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  So it was, I couldn't, I couldn't say yes to just the money.

• 9:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's the worst.

• 9:22Speaker 01

  Couldn't do it. And I'm glad I, I didn't do it, you know? I've never done that.

• 9:27Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  So, so it wasn't really that hard of a decision. And if I had to wait tables, I would have waited tables. You know what? I loved waiting tables, I gotta tell you. I waited tables, I was um very good at it. I almost managed restaurants when I was like seventeen, eight year, eighteen years old in Vancouver. I was the waitress that people would bring their families and I would hold their kids while they ate dinner and their children would bring me photographs that they had drawn.

• 9:52Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 9:53Speaker 01

  And I loved being of service and I loved serving people food and I loved being in the energy of a restaurant. I thought that's what I was gonna do uh as a career was perhaps manage and, you know, I was, I was going up the ranks in the restaurant chain that I worked at pretty fast because I was good with people and I loved what I did and I enjoyed it.

• 10:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:14Speaker 01

  And then I remembered, a friend of mine came in and I was, I remembered that I had a dream of being an actress. And I didn't know exactly how I was gonna do it because I'd never seen anyone do it before. I didn't know anyone. I mean, Michael J. Fox had gone to my elementary school.

• 10:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Although I didn't-

• 10:31Lewis Howes?

  He's Canadian, huh?

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And although I didn't know him, he was like a light for me, that someone who, who walked in the same school that I went to was able to-

• 10:42Lewis Howes?

  Make it.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Make that. And it would just seem so far away. And I just rekindled that idea that I had that dream and it lived within me. And sure, I could go into restaurant business and, and probably do really well at it and really enjoy it, but that I had this deep yearning to be an artist and to be an actress and to tell stories and to do that. And I went and I studied. I came here to Pasadena to, to go to school for a year. And I, you know, I had a job to pay for that. I, you know, I, I mean, it really was a hard thing to do. I went to school full-time and, and had like three jobs or something.

• 11:21Lewis Howes?

  How old were you at this time?

• 11:22Speaker 01

  I think I was eighteen or nineteen.

• 11:25Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  I was young. And, and then I traveled and I did some modeling and that was really an incredibly eye-opening experience for me. And then I moved home to Vancouver after being in, I'd been in Japan, I'd been in Spain, I'd been in, um, in a few different places, in Belgium. And I came home and I thought, okay, I'll, I'll try to be an actress here in Vancouver.

• 11:48Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:49Speaker 01

  And after a few days, I started to feel kinda blue. And my mom was like, "That's not like you. I normally have quite a-"

• 11:58Lewis Howes?

  Sad, you mean?

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Blue isn't sad. You don't say that?

• 12:02Lewis Howes?

  No, I just didn't know if you were like-

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Is that a girl thing?

• 12:04Lewis Howes?

  Sick or what?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  I felt, yeah, I felt kind of sad and not very turned on energetically for what was happening in my life. I mean, I'd literally been home like a few days. You know, I probably needed to ride it out a little bit, but I remember like, since I was a child, I saw myself living here.

• 12:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Driving on the PCH, wearing all white, which is interesting because now I'm a Kundalini yoga teacher and-

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Wearing all white?

• 12:29Speaker 01

  Where I wear all white all the time. I lived right off of that PCH. And I envisioned that since I was a child.

• 12:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:37Speaker 01

  I envisioned the life that I have since I was a child. When we talk about, you know, visualization and manifestation, those were naturally within me since I was a little kid. I was making vision boards when I was seven and eight years old.

• 12:51Lewis Howes?

  Did you know what you were doing?

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Had no idea.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  He was like, here's a dream. It'd be cool to do this.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  I was meditating when I was a kid with other children and asking and going in a circle with them and, and having a love for yoga, which I didn't even know what yoga was. And I was just very tuned in, I guess, to some of those things that now I have such a great love for.

• 13:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  And I can see the seeds and they weren't planted there by other people. They were in me. No, they weren't.

• 13:18Lewis Howes?

  You didn't see it on TV or movies?

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Well, I could have seen a lot of what my career was in television, absolutely, because I grew up watching a lot of television.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  So that's was the inspiration, maybe it came from the things you saw in Hollywood or whatever, right?

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 13:31Lewis Howes?

  You saw the PCH.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Exactly. How would I have known that? Yes.

• 13:34Lewis Howes?

  Baywatch or something.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Probably. I think we're talking way pre-Baywatch. We're talking Three's Company. We're talking Happy Days. We're talking, you know, all those shows. And I remember like, just as a family, we would go to Seattle once a year. And to go like across the border into the United States of America was huge. And I could get like all the candy and the chocolate that I saw in the commercials.

• 13:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:59Speaker 01

  Because we didn't have that stuff. It was like a big deal.

• 14:02Lewis Howes?

  You had the fake M and M's, not the real ones.

• 14:03Speaker 01

  I don't know. We had, we had different stuff. But I remember like thinking like America had something that.

• 14:11Lewis Howes?

  You wanted.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  That I wanted. And although I can see now that it's not necessarily true, Canada, America. I mean.

• 14:18Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 14:18Speaker 01

  There's so many great qualities in both countries, but I was definitely attracted to the vibration of the United States of America for me as an, as a wanting to be an actress and stuff.

• 14:28Lewis Howes?

  It's funny, we were just talking before we started recording that, you know, you might move out of the country now at some point, like depending on who's like the president based on where things go. It's kind of interesting how you got what you wanted and now you may want to.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Well, who knows? I think I always want to move. And I, I think, you know, one of the things that I'm exploring right now at this phase of my life is where is home? And when it comes down to it, home is in, is within me, no matter what. And I know that, I believe that, but there's another level that I'm exploring. I was just writing about it for Annapurna Living about home. And I've written a lot about it because it's, I think, as the mother of three children, that I think about it a lot. My husband and I think about it a lot, about the memories that we are creating for our children and where we're choosing to be and where we're laying down roots and what kind of life we want for our children. And the reality is, you're having the life you're having.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  So you can live in your mind of thinking that things could be better somewhere else. And yet, you need to be where you are. Because as Ram Dass says, be here now, or wherever I am, there I am. And I'm really exploring that right now. We're in a rental house in the Palisades because we sold our family home a couple of years ago, thinking we were going to move out of California. And I love the house that we live in. It's an old house, but it's not mine. I still have like boxes in the closet. We've moved in. It's like we're going on our second year, but we didn't unpack everything. And I didn't realize I was loving it at a distance.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  I didn't realize until just a few weeks ago, went away to London to work and I had this breakthrough. Sometimes I have those when I pull out of my life and have a moment of space, mental space. I think as mothers, it's not often that we have the mental space to be thinking of other things other than what we're doing.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  And your children, your husband, your life.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, and all of that. And so I had this moment and when I came home, I just saw the house in a different way. And I started loving it in this way. I had this dream of living on a farm and having animals and having green and having...

• 16:48Speaker 01

  A garden, all of these things. And so I started a little one, like not a big one. And of course, then, then this is what my mind does. I thought, oh, I need to go to like the right store and like get the right plants. That, well, I can't do that right now. So I went to Gelson's and got the organic herbs that just were there. I, that, three plants, three ninety-nine each. I don't have to wait till I can get to the perfect store to get the right combination to have it done right. It's not about that. I put these three little potted plants in my window and a fern, and it's bringing me so much joy to look at it every morning with

• 17:26Speaker 01

  my tea. And I thought, wow, I've been waiting. I've been waiting, thinking that over there, somewhere else, I'll have that. But I can have it here. I can have it now. And that's what I try to live my life exploring.

• 17:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Where am I not living my desire of how I want to be living, like right now, intimacy with people? Well, my life is filled with people that I'm interacting with all the time. How can I connect in that way without leaking all over the place or squandering my energy?

• 18:02Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean by leaking?

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Well, I think that I have a tendency, although not as much as I used to have, this used to be something that I definitely dealt with. And when I was younger, sharing too much or leaking, like having my energy leaking out of the boat, basically.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  And I know when I'm doing that, that it's a sign that something's off. So when I look at that, and I noticed it recently, I hadn't noticed it in a while, hadn't felt that. I thought, okay, what is that telling me? Like, it's a, a red flag or a red light saying, okay.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Where am I not taking tender care of my soul? Or myself, or what I have right in front of me? And what I love about consciousness and awareness is that it happens in a moment. And so I try to look at my life that way in everything I do.

• 18:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 18:59Speaker 01

  And when I feel off, I don't beat myself up. I go, oh, something needs my attention. Thank you for showing me that. Okay, let's shift here or shift there.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  I call that feedback.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:11Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's not like we're failing at something in our life, or our relationships, or our health. It's not a failure, it's just like, it's information for us to say what's working and what's not working on our dreams, or where we want to be, you know, so.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 19:23Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. What do you think's missing the most for people right now? At least in, let's say, in America, what's missing for people? What do you think that they're lacking the most of?

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Well, the thing that comes to mind is connection. I'm pretty passionate about that, because I think that when you're connected to yourself, then you know what you need. And I think that we're bombarded with so much information right now, and we don't need any more information. What we need is wisdom to know what information works for us. We don't really need another course to do, to get ourselves distracted into another idea. And there's so many people that are teaching so many great things, which I'm all about, and I'm so grateful. But really, how can you discern for yourself what you need? And not just get lost in the information, and feel overwhelmed and bogged down, and then start to spiral into the same issues that brought you there?

• 20:18Speaker 01

  Which are not feeling like you're enough, like so-and-so has a better life than you, and maybe you're doing it wrong. But when you're connected to yourself, and that's why one of the things I teach are three-minute meditations, so that people don't...

• 20:31Lewis Howes?

  You're a yoga teacher as well.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I've been studying Kundalini Yoga for a long time, like over 20 years. And I became a Kundalini Yoga teacher. I took the teacher training, which I highly recommend to absolutely everybody.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Just to get it, even if you're not going to teach it.

• 20:45Speaker 01

  No doubt about it.

• 20:46Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 20:46Speaker 01

  It's the single best thing I've ever done.

• 20:50Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  The tools for living a life, a modern life, right now are in there. And I knew I needed it. My husband had taken it, and I watched him really transform. And then, I knew I knew all this, I'm, you know, I...

• 21:04Lewis Howes?

  You'd experienced it before, you heard it.

• 21:05Speaker 01

  I know, well, I've been taking yoga forever, I've been studying with Gurusingh forever. I've... You know, I've been awake for a long time.

• 21:13Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  But I was starting to feel a lot of anxiety, daily anxiety.

• 21:20Lewis Howes?

  When was this?

• 21:21Speaker 01

  Hmm, probably after I had my kids started growing a little bit. So this is a few years ago.

• 21:25Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you have three children.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  I have three kids, 12, almost 13, he's almost 13, and then I have a 10 year old, and then I have an almost seven year old.

• 21:32Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  And I started just to feel the manicness of my mind, just, you know, at night, not sleeping well, thinking about what schools they should go to, what the world was going to be like for them, and feeling just overwhelmed and leaking with looking for the best schools and looking for what I could do, when really what I needed was to connect to myself.

• 21:56Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Finding, there's no perfect school out there.

• 22:01Lewis Howes?

  There's no perfect garden.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  There's no perfect garden. There's no perfect neighborhood. There's no perfect anything. And so I started to take the teacher training, which I did over a nine month period. And at that point, I couldn't even imagine like leaving my life for one weekend a month. I mean,

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  So much, right?

• 22:18Speaker 01

  I would go home at night, but I, up until then, I hadn't, I barely had a babysitter for my children. So it was a huge deal.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  Huge commitment.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Huge commitment. My children play sports on the weekend. I like to be there. I don't like to miss stuff.

• 22:30Lewis Howes?

  So what made you decide to do it?

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Well, it was time. I knew it was time. My husband said, we can do it. We can, we can take, I can take care of it. You go do this. This will be the best thing you do. And so he was very supportive of that, which always helps. And I know a lot of people don't have that kind of supportive partnerships, but I was really grateful. I needed that. I needed that support because I don't think I would have done it quite then. And then I did it and started, you know, if I could say one thing that I got out of it, like I got a million things, but one of the major things was having a regular meditation practice.

• 23:04Lewis Howes?

  So powerful.

• 23:05Speaker 01

  So powerful because when you can meditate and start taking out the garbage of your subconscious mind. And you go through that period of getting there. And then you get to that place where when you close your eyes and even if it's only for three minutes, that you have a moment of not being in that craziness and all of that manic.

• 23:27Lewis Howes?

  The matrix.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Yep. And you connect to yourself and you connect to your soul, even if it's for a moment. When you catch a glimpse of that, your life changes.

• 23:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Because you, you just, it's, it's the sweetest thing. And it doesn't cost any money. You don't need anybody but you. And it's not always blissful or easy or any, I'm not suggesting that, but when you catch a glimpse of that, it's, for me, it's heaven. It's just the most euphoric, like, I love that. And so I do that every day.

• 24:02Lewis Howes?

  That's great.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  And sometimes I don't want to do it and sometimes I don't have that euphoric moment of it. But the more that I do it, the more that I'm able to handle stressful situations, the more that I'm able to go with the flow. And what did I, the other day I was taking my daughter somewhere and we were, what did I say to her? I said, well, let's go, let's go to Sweet Rose Creamery and it's ice cream place, organic ice cream place on the corner. And she was like, really? She was so shocked. And she was like, I said, yeah. I said, let's just do it. She was like, and she's walking ahead of me and she goes, you know, mom, sometimes you just gotta go with the flow. And I thought, how many times have I said that to her when I've been able to get her in the car?

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Right. Or you're late for practice or whatever.

• 24:41Speaker 01

  It was so cute to hear it mirrored back, of course, in a situation that she was so excited about. Sometimes she's gotta go with the flow.

• 24:47Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  So, yeah. Uh, yeah. So meditation and has been such a big deal for me. And the Kundalini yoga music that I listen to a lot raises the vibration of my, of my life. The sound, the sound actually.

• 25:02Lewis Howes?

  Do you do the bowls too?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  I don't.

• 25:04Lewis Howes?

  What's that called?

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:05Lewis Howes?

  Where they like put the sticker on the bowl?

• 25:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. I mean, I love.

• 25:08Lewis Howes?

  It's a great sound.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know.

• 25:10Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  I think it's bowls.

• 25:11Lewis Howes?

  Bowls. It's like crystal bowls or something, right?

• 25:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It's not part of my practice, but I sure appreciate that. But my practice is real simple. I'll put a sheepskin in my kitchen on the floor, tune in, meditate. I'll do it in my kid's playroom. I'll do it in the bathroom while they're, one of them, when they were little, having a bath. And that's what I. Feel that I want to share with women and why I work with a lot of mothers on Annapurna Living and with my mother course and with Fierce Grace Collective is demystifying meditation. I'm really teaching to the householder. Kundalini Yoga was brought for the householder, not for the, you know, for the person living on, you know, in the cave and solitude and, and all of that. Like, we're living these modern lives.

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  People like you who've got a career, busy career, three kids.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  Full on.

• 25:56Lewis Howes?

  You know, full on.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Full on.

• 25:58Lewis Howes?

  You were saying that you used to say no to things like this, you know, in the past. You just say no to everything because you said you didn't have the time. And so you've got a lot going on. So how do you meditate and how do you develop the practice in this, in the messiness? Right?

• 26:11Speaker 01

  Well, I try to keep it super simple.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  And...

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  How, how long is it? For a few minutes, you said?

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Well, like, my sadhana, which is like some exercises, it can be more like half an hour to an hour.

• 26:21Lewis Howes?

  With yoga mixed in.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. But if I, if I really can't do that, then I'll, I'll literally, it takes me five minutes to tune in and, and do a meditation and that'll make such a huge difference in my day if I, if I do that.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting. I've been talking a lot about meditation on this with people. And what if there was no meditation? What would you be doing to give yourself that inner peace? If there was no meditation or yoga, you couldn't do it. Do you think there'd be a substitute for it? For people that are like, you know what, it's just really not for me. Like meditation, yoga, just not something I'm even going to think about doing. But is there another solution for people who are similar to you, who have busy lives?

• 26:58Speaker 01

  I think they should try meditating.

• 27:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Because I think that when I come back around to any issue that I have in my life, that if I'm meditating on a regular basis, even if it's just sitting still, putting your hand on your heart and inhaling and exhaling and connecting to your breath, I'm not talking about doing, I don't do like hardcore yoga. I do like Kundalini, you know, that kind of physical downward dog. I mean, I do, I'd love that, but that's not the kind of yoga that I do. Kundalini Yoga is different. It's the yoga of awareness. It's a different kind of yoga. That when I do that regularly, it's not that things don't happen, but I'm able to clearly move through them energetically and I'm able to sort of see how I need to,

• 27:42Speaker 01

  to do things. And when I don't do, do that, then it's a lot more complicated. So I say try it. You know, I, I don't believe that any of us, I can't...

• 27:55Speaker 01

  You have to experience something.

• 27:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  And if you really don't want to, like, maybe ask why. Like, what is that? Whose voice is that? Because if somebody, if you, if you could sit down with yourself and connect to yourself, and maybe there's too much pain. Maybe there's too many voices in there. Maybe you just can't imagine it. Maybe you judge that, or whatever that is. Look at that. What is that? Because there's probably something to really learn there.

• 28:21Lewis Howes?

  Sure. Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  And maybe it's running for some people, or hiking for some people, and looking at nature. I mean, there's so many ways in.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  Swimming, or whatever, yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  There's so many ways in, and you have to know yourself to know what works for you.

• 28:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Who was the most influential person in your life growing up?

• 28:40Speaker 01

  My mom.

• 28:41Lewis Howes?

  Why is that?

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Well, she loved me so much that I remember feeling incredibly loved as a child. And I remember feeling like the world was a good place. I think that's really important to give our children. And I think that because we're exposed to so many things today, it's hard to protect them.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  And you want your children to be aware. But sometimes I hear, like, really young children worried about GMO food, and worried about the environment, and of course they are, because they're hearing us, and we're having more intimacy with our children today than perhaps the parents of my, you know, my generation of growing up. Uh, I think that we are much more intimate, so our children are really experiencing us in a different way, which is wonderful.

• 29:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  But I have to be mindful of not bringing too much to them too soon.

• 29:32Lewis Howes?

  What do you mean, too much to them? Too much protection, or too much?

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Too, too much information. Let them be children. Let them believe that the world is a beautiful, safe, incredible place. Because you need that foundation, I think, to really thrive in life.

• 29:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  That's something that I believe is really worth a lot. And it's hard to have that. You know, I have an older child now too. So my younger child's getting exposed to all kinds of stuff, so much younger. And, and there isn't any perfect way. And I, I'm all about connection to my children and being present and meeting them where they are and all of that. But my mom, I, I look back and I felt we didn't have a lot of money. We didn't have any of that material stuff. And yet I felt like our house was magic. I felt like, I felt like there was so much possibility in the world. And I got that from her. And it's not necessarily that she is like this super positive person. She created that for us.

• 30:34Lewis Howes?

  How so?

• 30:35Speaker 01

  I have a memory, like my own, I, I, one of my biggest memories as a child was, were these placemats we had and they had that yellow happy face.

• 30:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  And we had like things that hung that had like happy faces on them. And she had like sayings about parenting on the wall that were all about respect. And she talked to me like I was a human being, a person. We had a relationship that was that way. And she, I remember her talking about that she wanted that, that it was important to her. And she put herself through college when my brother and I were little. And I went to the nursery school at the college. She took my brother to classes. We watched our mom get her high school diploma and go to college and learn, learn how to do something. I remember my mom coming home with her one

• 31:28Speaker 01

  day from there, it was Langara College, and like she picked up a hitchhiker, a kid, and like gave him a lecture about like why it wasn't a good idea to do that. And I was in the car. And she wasn't like, she was super, you know, reading and into, into being self-taught. And she wanted us to have like a better life, right? She wanted that.

• 31:52Lewis Howes?

  Were you parents together?

• 31:53Speaker 01

  No, they weren't.

• 31:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow. So she was a single mom?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  She was a single mom for a big part of it. And then she got married to my stepfather for a few years in there. But I think of our family unit as my brother and her and I.

• 32:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:03Speaker 01

  And she always believed in me too. And I remember when I was a kid.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  She would come home and I would have literally called all the acting agencies in Vancouver. And like set up appointments. And she'd come home, I think I was like maybe sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth grade, I don't know, somewhere in there. And she'd be like, Carrie Anne, you're gonna have to call and cancel that. And when you're old enough to drive yourself, you can.

• 32:34Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  And I'm so glad that she did that. And

• 32:37Lewis Howes?

  That's hilarious.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  But she took me, you know, I was in dance class and I sang all over Vancouver. I was part of this troupe called the Ormiston Entertainers. And there were, we were like this, we would go into this, this woman taught us and we'd sing show tunes and we'd go and we'd perform. I was a Scottish dancer and I performed that way and I sang and I was in all the school plays and I wrote the school plays and I, I loved that. And my mom always played music and she played the guitar and she sang. And so I was around a creative, you know, she was a creative person. I think the thing that I have that's surprising is the fierceness that I have. I think that's where if I look at my mom and what she might be proud of me for, and I know she's proud of me for lots of things,

• 33:20Speaker 01

  because she shares that with me, is that I'm, I'm pretty hardcore.

• 33:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm very compassionate and have a lot of heart, but I'm also really strong.

• 33:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I feel that about you.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  But like, you know, I moved here knowing absolutely nobody. I had one person that I knew. I had no money. I had no green card. I just had a dream. And I wasn't super savvy. I mean, I was, I have a great deal of naivety at the same time.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  That helps.

• 33:56Speaker 01

  In a, in a, yeah, totally helps. I don't know how. I, I lived for Oprah back then because she was my three o'clock. You know, I knew I, I knew I had something that I could do at three o'clock because I didn't have auditions. I didn't have friends. I didn't have anything here. That first year of living in LA.

• 34:12Lewis Howes?

  Where did you live? Where did you?

• 34:12Speaker 01

  I lived right around the corner on Melrose. My manager, I met my, I met my manager who's from Vancouver. She and I have been together for 24 years. She still lives there.

• 34:22Lewis Howes?

  So she was in Vancouver, she said to go to LA?

• 34:24Speaker 01

  I met her, I, I was walking by her office, bringing a guy that I knew to meet a modeling agent. And she saw me and she said, you, come in. And I, we ended up talking and she said, what do you want to do? I said, I'm, I'm going to LA to be an actress. And she said, I'll help you. I was like, okay. She became my manager and her ex-husband lived here. And part of their, you know, he, they had a child and I lived, I rented a room and I paid her the $500. It was part of his, like, his support or whatever. And he was, he's a comedian and a talk show host and he's amazing. And I, he was always traveling. And so I lived in this one room in his apartment in, off Melrose. Sweets are in Melrose.

• 35:09Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  And I didn't have enough money to go for a coffee and I'm not exaggerating.

• 35:14Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Okay. Not even in the least. And I just knew that.

• 35:19Lewis Howes?

  Did she start sending you out on auditions or what happened?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  She connected me with an agent and I met an agent and I started auditioning and I started to work.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  Acting classes and.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Started to do acting classes and I.

• 35:31Lewis Howes?

  You got work early on.

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Little bits, little things here and there.

• 35:34Lewis Howes?

  Extra work here and there.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  No, I never did extra. I did extra work when I was really young, but no, no, like, like parts, like I, yeah. You know, little parts here and there.

• 35:42Lewis Howes?

  And how old were you?

• 35:43Speaker 01

  I was, I moved here on my, on my, almost my 25th birthday.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. Well, so you were here for about five years before you got The Matrix, right?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I did TV. I did like Models Inc. I, I did different, you know, some Canadian stuff. Cause I was Canadian, so I could go and do Canadian stuff quite easily. And, you know, being a Canadian actually really helped me to support myself as an actress because I, they wouldn't have to deal with that, that Canadian issue.

• 36:12Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  So it actually worked out in my favor. Who would have known that Canada would become so.

• 36:17Lewis Howes?

  Cause a lot of filming is in Vancouver, right?

• 36:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I actually would work more in Toronto. Very rarely worked in Vancouver, but yeah, so that's.

• 36:24Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  How it unfolded for me.

• 36:26Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What's the biggest lesson that you've learned as an actor that you apply to real life?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Hmm, so many. I just don't think there's any separation. I, I look at myself as an actress.

• 36:40Lewis Howes?

  Do I call it actress or actor?

• 36:42Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter. Sometimes I say actress, I don't say actress. I don't know. Sort of whatever.

• 36:45Lewis Howes?

  Trying to be politically correct here.

• 36:46Speaker 01

  No, politically correct with me. I'm like, depends on the day. Sometimes I call myself an actor and other times I call myself an actress. I don't even know why that is. I like that I can be mercurial like that, I guess. I um, geez Louise, that's a big question.

• 37:01Lewis Howes?

  Biggest lesson you learned?

• 37:02Speaker 01

  It's, I mean, every day. I look at life as an ongoing exploration of my soul and of my things that are in the way. What I love about acting is that so often the parts that I get are something that I'm actually working on in my own life.

• 37:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  In some way, shape or form. So I look at-

• 37:22Lewis Howes?

  Can you give me an example?

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 37:23Lewis Howes?

  Of one?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Let's see.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  Maybe from the past where you're like, oh, I'm working on this right now and-

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, it can be very subtle. It might not even be in the material. It might be just a theme, an overarching theme of when I think of the character.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  It's, you know, maybe I need to be exploring a certain part of myself that I'm not. So it's not as literal as that. I just went and spoke with some kids at our school because I like to work with the young actors. So I was talking to the eighth grade about the play that they're doing. They're doing Fiddler on the Roof. And what I love to do for them and what I love about acting is where in your life are you like that? And where in your life are you judging that? So like, one of the kids is playing a guy that could be really judged. And we, you know, we brought in some political figures that are, that could be judged. And we, we, we looked at like, what's happening in the world right now that we can look at this old, old play and bring ref, bring modern thinking to. And,

• 38:21Speaker 01

  you know, whenever we're judging somebody, it, there's something in there that, especially if you're playing it, you can't, you know, if you play someone and you're judging the character you're playing with, playing, you're, you're not getting in to the person.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:35Speaker 01

  So one of the things that I have always applied in my acting career, and I'm actually thinking a lot about it lately as a woman, is I would always think when I, when I'd get a job or something, that I was part of the wheel, right? Like, you have your wheel with the spokes coming out of the wheel, like on a bicycle.

• 38:52Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  And that my value as an actor was no more important than the craft service, than the sound guy, than the camera operator, the producer, the, the writer, all of us. It takes all of us. We all have these equal pieces that create the function of this wheel.

• 39:11Speaker 01

  And so it's always been very important to me to understand that because sometimes as an actor, you get treated so well, can be, not always, very, you know, probably pretty rarely for most people, but I've had that experience where I've been treated so well. People bring you a coffee and what do you need and oh, can you get me that from my trailer and you know, those kinds of things that are pretty.

• 39:31Lewis Howes?

  The sound guy doesn't get that treatment necessarily.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  But I want, I always want to remember that, that, that part of the whole.

• 39:41Lewis Howes?

  If the sound guy isn't doing his job, then you're going to suffer. The wheel's going to suffer.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  And it's just holding that we're all creating this, we're all creating, part of this creative process together. We're all making, like if you look at The Matrix, it was this, it was this coming together of all of these people that all had such big heart and expertise and passion and drive to create this product.

• 40:07Lewis Howes?

  Unbelievable.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  And it's, I love being a part of that. I'm a team player. I love to be on a team. I'm not alone. I don't want to do it on my own. I love collaborating. It turns me on to collaborate with people. Like I need that. I'm not an island unto myself. I need that interaction with other people. So as an actress, I think, and then, you know, and then some basic things like with, as an actress, often you're unemployed. So I remember feeling and I, feeling like if I needed to know that I was enough, regardless of whether I had a job or not. So I worked hard at that.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  That was an ongoing.

• 40:48Lewis Howes?

  Cause it might be a year or two, you don't have something, right?

• 40:50Speaker 01

  Can be. I mean, I, if you were to look at, I have every journal I've ever written in since I was 10 years old. I have journals and journals and journals from that apartment on Melrose and Spitzers saying, I am enough.

• 41:00Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 41:01Speaker 01

  I am enough. I am enough. I deserve, I deserve success. I, I worked through all of that really vigorously. That was, I would wake up in the morning and do my morning pages from The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's Artist's Way, and I would write, get it out, and I would. Apply that and go into an audition. My mom was just saying the other day, I saw her and my brother in London. And she was saying how, what she was so impressed with when I was younger and auditioning a lot was that I was able to do it and let it go and move on. And I remember-

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  With an audition?

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, like not tearing on to it.

• 41:41Lewis Howes?

  I gotta get this role.

• 41:42Speaker 01

  I always applied to auditions that if it was meant for me, then I would get it. That if I did the work, if I did the preparation, that if it was meant for me. Not like, I gotta get it. I never had that attitude. It was if it was meant for me and if it was part of my journey. And if someone else got it, it was part of their journey.

• 42:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  And I trusted that completely and totally.

• 42:06Lewis Howes?

  It's a great way of looking at it. Because I'm so many people, whether it be acting or anything, like they go after something, a pitch in business, they want to get the gig, they want to get the client, but it may not be the right client. You know, it's like it's not the right job as an actor. And it may be actually take away from your life if you get that client or the acting gig, right? It may-

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 42:24Lewis Howes?

  Or you make that sports team or whatever it is.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You have to trust it. How many times did I almost get a job? And feel like I wanted it and it not happened and something-

• 42:36Lewis Howes?

  It was down to you in the last two, right?

• 42:37Speaker 01

  And something so much better happened. Matrix included.

• 42:40Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  I would have, if I'd gotten other things that-

• 42:42Lewis Howes?

  Higher paying ones.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  I thought, no, no, just things before that that seemed great. I couldn't have imagined the matrix being in my, I couldn't have seen that, but it was the right time. I was, it was meant to be in that way. And it doesn't mean that you don't show up and do the work.

• 42:59Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  There's work to be done, you know? Success is when opportunity meets preparation. That was one of my founding thing as an actress. My acting teacher drilled that into us. You don't just show up and think it's just gonna, you have to be prepared. You gotta do your work. You've gotta do your homework. You've gotta be growing and looking at yourself.

• 43:16Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  But I want to also do all of that. And like have a good life. And not be living in insecurity and panic over all of the things I can't control. So I've worked, I've worked hard at that.

• 43:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  And now I look back and I don't even necessarily know, but I spent years doing that. And now I'm reaping.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  Not being aware of it, but you were.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  No, I was aware. I was deep, I was in it, but like now I don't even remember who that was that ever felt that way. Who, who felt, I feel different things now, but.

• 43:51Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  And sometimes they'll come up and I'll go, oh yeah, I remember that. But really I think awareness and consciousness and having that awakening, you almost don't recognize yourself. You become new. And you can become new in a moment by changing the way you think. So I'm doing that dance all day long and I love it. I love life in that way.

• 44:12Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. When you look yourself in the mirror, how often do you look in the mirror?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  Not a lot.

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  Not a lot? When you look yourself in the mirror, what do you see?

• 44:18Speaker 01

  Hmm, sometimes when I'm very tired. I really don't, I'm not a big mirror person. In fact, when I did the Matrix, I had them take all the mirrors out of the, the part, the hotel room. There was just mirrors like everywhere.

• 44:32Lewis Howes?

  Really? You had to take them out?

• 44:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't really a huge deal.

• 44:36Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  But it was like too much. And I said, I'm, I said like, um, this is kind of driving me crazy. I have to live here in this hotel room for a year.

• 44:46Lewis Howes?

  Where, where was it filmed?

• 44:47Speaker 01

  In Sydney.

• 44:48Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 44:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think I covered a few with like cloths and stuff like that. I'm not, I'm honestly, I would love. Part of what I love about my life, I guess, is that I don't have to think about that too much, except when I'm working. And I really, even when I'm working, I have a friend who's a producer. I worked with her a few years ago and she was like, you really need to check your hair before you. I was like, I don't want to.

• 45:10Lewis Howes?

  Who cares, right?

• 45:11Speaker 01

  I. I do care because if it's on a show or something, but like there's people that are hired to do that.

• 45:16Lewis Howes?

  They're doing it for you.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  I have, I have to trust they're doing their job because I don't want to care. I don't want to think about it. I mean, I.

• 45:22Lewis Howes?

  Put that much energy into the way you work.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  I just can't, I want to look healthy and I want my skin to look good. I want my eyes to be vibrant. I want to feel beautiful from the inside out.

• 45:33Lewis Howes?

  But to fixate on it.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I can't.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I just. Yeah, I always, even when I was younger and auditioning all the time, I'd always just pull my hair back and I wouldn't wear any makeup. That was always my, where I felt.

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Natural beauty, I love it.

• 45:45Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 45:46Lewis Howes?

  That's where it's at.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  That's what I felt most beautiful.

• 45:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Was in that place. And my brother.

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  All women are the most beautiful when they have that natural.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  My brother used to say it to me when I was really young. He'd always say, "Don't wear makeup."

• 45:58Lewis Howes?

  It's the best. It's the best, yeah. So, a year, so you were, the filming took a year, right? It took a year and it was in Sydney the whole time?

• 46:06Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  Is that right?

• 46:07Speaker 01

  The first one.

• 46:08Lewis Howes?

  The first one. What was that, like, when you were in the middle of it, did you feel like you were on to something? You guys were like, part of something bigger than yourselves, like, different than other gigs you'd done?

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Oh, it was.

• 46:20Lewis Howes?

  You're like, "This is actually going to impact people," or were you like, "Uh, who knows still?"

• 46:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I didn't know.

• 46:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 46:24Speaker 01

  No. I just knew it was an ama- I knew that I was having a personal exploration.

• 46:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  You know, facing a lot of fears and dealing with a lot of expansiveness within myself.

• 46:36Lewis Howes?

  You had to grow a lot.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Yes. And I knew, I knew that was happening.

• 46:40Lewis Howes?

  What was the biggest lesson you learned during that year?

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Oh, what didn't I learn?

• 46:45Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  What didn't I learn? I couldn't put it into one.

• 46:48Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Did you feel like you were worthy of that role and that, I guess you didn't really know how big it was gonna be, but if you knew like, this is gonna be the biggest movie of the decade, or whatever it is, that everyone's gonna see this, did you feel like you were ready for it? Or you were worthy of it, or you were enough for that? And I don't know if Keanu was as big then as.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  He was. He was pretty huge.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  He's pretty big.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, we had this, we all were very close, and so we spent a lot of time together, so I really.

• 47:14Lewis Howes?

  The three or kind of like the whole cast?

• 47:15Speaker 01

  All of us. Yeah, the three of us, and then Hugo Weaving, and the directors, and.

• 47:19Lewis Howes?

  Spent a lot of time together.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did.

• 47:20Lewis Howes?

  Going over the vision, going over.

• 47:22Speaker 01

  No, having dinner.

• 47:23Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  Talking, having conversations, a training. I mean, we trained for four months here in LA before we went, so I really, you know, had this team of, the martial art team that taught us who didn't speak any English, but who were.

• 47:35Lewis Howes?

  But they were like masters, right?

• 47:37Speaker 01

  They were masters and they, they were. Supporting us completely.

• 47:42Lewis Howes?

  Was that a couple hours a day of training?

• 47:43Speaker 01

  It was all day, every day.

• 47:45Lewis Howes?

  Martial training?

• 47:45Speaker 01

  Monday through Friday. Yeah, it was like the first hour was stretching and then, you know, you, the second hour was kicking and then, then learning your fight and then I'd work out with my Pilates trainer and then I'd do my cardio and I was there, we were there from like nine to three or four every day. It was fun. I loved it. It was great.

• 48:02Lewis Howes?

  It's like being a pro athlete, just training all day.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  I love that. I really do. I love that. I love that. I love training for a job. It's fun. It's something that I, you know, it's different now, but I look back at that as just really enjoying that time in my life to have, to have all that time to train. So we got to really know each other.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  You didn't have kids then either, right?

• 48:28Speaker 01

  I didn't. I wasn't married, didn't know my husband even. I was.

• 48:32Lewis Howes?

  You're a full dedicated kid.

• 48:33Speaker 01

  I think I turned 30 on the day I, on the day I screen tested. I had like a quite a length, lengthy, lengthy screen testing process, but like on one of the main days I turned 30 and we wrapped it on my 31st birthday, the first Matrix. So it was that entry into 30. And I did feel that, I felt a freedom in turning 30 and I remember, I laugh now because 30 seems so young, but I, I remember feeling like the whole world opened up to me, literally on my 30th birthday and, you know, I.

• 49:06Lewis Howes?

  I felt that way too when I had 30, yeah.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I really felt that, that, that awakening, that opening of possibility.

• 49:14Lewis Howes?

  How long did it take when you first heard about the role or the casting happen for this? How long did it take from the first time I heard about it till you actually got the gig?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  A few weeks.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  Not that long, huh?

• 49:24Speaker 01

  Well, it was, you know, I like, I think I auditioned for it and the casting director said, I think I'm going to bring you back. And I thought, really? Okay. Like I just didn't in a million years think, it's hard to get in there. So then I had.

• 49:37Lewis Howes?

  Isn't it funny that the casting director pretty much has all the power, right? Is it that person's vision or is it, was the director there also?

• 49:42Speaker 01

  She was, her name's Mally Finn. She's no longer alive and she was a really amazing casting director and she had a vision and she knew them and knew what they wanted.

• 49:54Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  So she brought, you know, she's bringing me to them and bringing all the other women that wanted it too. And so, so I, then I met with them, with the directors and auditioned for them and then you wait.

• 50:09Lewis Howes?

  That's the worst, right?

• 50:10Speaker 01

  It was okay. I didn't, every, every part of it, I felt so grateful that I got to do it another day. I remember my agent at the time saying that I may screen test and I screamed. And he said, well, don't get too excited. And I said, oh no, I'm going to get really excited. And I remember in that moment thinking, he won't be my agent much longer.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Because I didn't like that. Don't get too excited. I was like, and I, and he was, he was a great guy and all of that, but I remember in the moment thinking, if I don't celebrate this, what the heck am I going to celebrate? Whether or not I get this or not, this is the closest, this is like the biggest audition I've ever had in my life. But I'm actually possibly screen testing for a Warner Brothers movie. And I really didn't think I would get it. But I trusted that if it was meant to be that I would get it. And that's what I, and it, then when I finished the screen testing process, which was many days, I had to do a fighting audition.

• 51:10Lewis Howes?

  And you weren't trained at this time, like martial arts, you just had to fake it, you're like?

• 51:13Speaker 01

  Well, I'd done Billy Blank's aerobics classes.

• 51:16Lewis Howes?

  So you had like some kickboxing.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Well, and, and the, the director said that what they loved about my audition video of my fighting was that they, that there'd be like these cuts and every time that they would come back, that the martial artist team that I was fighting were padding themselves up because I was actually making contact.

• 51:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh man, that's funny.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  And that, you know, I, I didn't know not how, not to make contact, but the fact that I wasn't afraid to make contact was something that they, something that they noticed. And so when they, when that whole process is, was done of auditioning, because then I had to audition with Keanu and I had to do screen tests and all that.

• 51:57Lewis Howes?

  Because he was already chosen.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I had to wait, then I waited, they had like a week to tell me. And on the Friday that they were going to tell me, they asked for another week. And from what I understood, nobody wanted me except the directors.

• 52:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  No. And, and I just went about my life. And by the time I got the phone call the following Friday, I pretty much thought it probably wasn't gonna happen. And my team told me that I got that.

• 52:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:26Speaker 01

  I can almost remember it like it was yesterday. I think I like fell to my knees and cried and got instantly sick. I instantly got sick, like got a sore throat.

• 52:35Lewis Howes?

  Like nauseous or just like?

• 52:35Speaker 01

  No, like I think I was, it was so, I was holding so much that I didn't even know I was holding.

• 52:41Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:41Speaker 01

  And, you know, called my mom, called my best friends and, and just was in it.

• 52:49Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:50Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  It's exciting.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible. You know, it's interesting, a few things I'm picking up as you said these things, that your agent told you, your manager told you not to get excited. And when are we supposed to get excited? When the thing happens? When we achieve the dream? So are we not supposed to get excited along the journey, along the ups and downs, right?

• 53:12Speaker 01

  You have to.

• 53:13Lewis Howes?

  It's like we, we gotta, you know, I love this book I was just talking about the other day, The Alchemist. I don't know if you've read it.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  It's all about the journey, you know, it's very simple that we forget sometimes. And sometimes I get so focused on like the launch of my book or whatever, the product or the launch of their movie. But the day in day like work is what we should be celebrating, right?

• 53:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I'm really.

• 53:34Lewis Howes?

  Like the little things, each day.

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Your, your life, the way you live your life, it's.

• 53:39Lewis Howes?

  That we're alive today.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And I think one of the things I've been thinking a lot about, you know, I create this content for my, what I'm, what I'm teaching here on, online with the Fierce Girls Collective is I teach these different ideas. And I, I thought, sort of thought about the summer, this summer, and I thought, okay, I've got next month's done and maybe I'll do the next couple of months. Like I'll just really get in there.

• 54:02Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  But then I, I thought, no, I'm, I'm living my life and sharing the process. And so there, I actually can't apply that model of business to what I'm doing. Because it would put me into my, into here. And what I'm really trying to share is simple ways to live your life from the inside out. And so I, I'm doing that in order to create it. So sometimes it's hard because I have to look at my vacation schedule and my children are going to this and doing that and all of that, but. But I, I was thinking about this today about some of the women that are part of the collective that I have and, you know, we have like a comment section and how sometimes that can be

• 54:44Speaker 01

  so distracting and how I really, I think that it's, I want to take the tools that I'm sharing and that I'm living and put them into my life, not stay in my head with them.

• 54:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Like go out and live them.

• 54:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:58Speaker 01

  And be

• 54:59Lewis Howes?

  Apply it.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Living it and be an example of that, not just the idea of that. I remember always thinking like people would be teaching something, but they wouldn't necessarily, you knew they weren't living their life that way. And it never really, I didn't ever liked that if I ever caught a glimpse of that. And yet somebody told me once that you don't have to be great at something to actually teach it. Some of the best acting teachers might not be the best actors.

• 55:24Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Some of the best relationship therapists might not be able to actually have great relationships.

• 55:29Lewis Howes?

  Be in a relationship.

• 55:29Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, but for me, I'm not doing this to be like an idea of somebody. I'm really want to like reach my hand out and give women who may never have access to this kind of information because of where they live or their family structure, these simple tools to elevate their lives.

• 55:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 01

  Because I'm so darn grateful that I was led to come to this city and that because of how difficult what I do for work is, that I had to dig so deep to have a rich, beautiful life because the alternative was not acceptable to me.

• 56:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 56:13Speaker 01

  The alternative of, of being competitive in the face of envy or all that kind of thinking or not feeling good about myself or beating myself up or being

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Full of anxiety and stress and all that stuff. That's not an option for me. So I'm so incredibly grateful and so I'm really passing it forward and wanting to give that. So.

• 56:37Lewis Howes?

  What's the program again? Where can people get it?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's called Fierce Grace Collective is one of the things I offer. It's an, and a print of living has lots of, is my website and has lots of just storytelling. I like to tell stories. And I have other people that also write for it too, that are sharing stories just about living your life from the inside out. And living in a simple way that feels nourishing to yourself. And I think one of the big things, Mythbusters, and we all know this, but it's like important to remember that nobody else has got it figured out. Nobody else has got a better life. Nobody else is, just because they might have the nice house and the nice car and the perfect family and don't judge your insides by other people's outsides. It's what I've lived by my whole life. I remember being a kid, we lived in an apartment in a co-op in Granville Island.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  My mom and I, and I went to a school where everyone was very wealthy and I commuted there for the drum and the music. And I never felt like ashamed of like where I came from. Like I always felt super proud of my apartment and my friends lived in beautiful mansions and, you know, I, I remember that, but I never felt less than because of that. And I, so much of the world is built to make you feel less than if you don't have the things that you, that you, you know, you can buy, which is all, as we know, manipulating us through media to buy and want and want to be into that system that we all don't want to do anymore. And I don't want my kids to do it and I don't want my kids to feel like they have to do it.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  And it's like waking up to your life. Waking up to the truth of the life you have right in front of you and how can you connect better to it and deeper to it? And in a way that is nourishing and isn't waiting until the new job, the guy, the kids, because you're going to get those things and still feel the same ache.

• 58:29Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you're talking, I mean, not to be like cliche here, but you're talking about the matrix. You know what I mean? It's like when people are like, they're stuck in this way of being. They need something to feel a certain way. And what do you think is the biggest challenge today for people staying stuck in this? Energy? Is it the media? Is it smartphones today? Because we didn't have that back in, you know, 1999, I got my first cellphone, actually. That's when the matrix came out, but it wasn't really a thing then. But now people are connected to it nonstop. Um, what is, you know, what's holding us back the most? How can we break free of these things?

• 59:04Speaker 01

  It's very tricky. I think technology, I have a love hate relationship with technology. I do.

• 59:08Lewis Howes?

  It helps you get your message out there, helps you connect with your women.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  So much goodness in it, and yet it's so addictive.

• 59:15Lewis Howes?

  So addictive.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  It's so addictive. I am so.

• 59:17Lewis Howes?

  Are you on Snapchat?

• 59:18Speaker 01

  No.

• 59:18Lewis Howes?

  Okay, don't get on it.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't even know. I probably need to know it though, because my children are growing up in this.

• 59:24Lewis Howes?

  Sure, they're probably on it.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  Let's not go there. It's another. I think technology is tricky.

• 59:31Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  And I think we, we have this ability to have to, there's so many great things about it. But, but really having parameters, I think, I think it's massive addiction that we're dealing with. We're an addicted society to so many different things. And I think that, that what we're looking for, what are we looking for on our phones? When we're going through Instagram, checking out this person's thing and then going down the rabbit hole to there, to there, to there. We're looking for connection. We're looking for inspiration. We're looking for, I think, connection. And so again, if we can be connected to ourselves in a, in a way that's deeply meaningful to us, that's personal.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Then we might notice when we're doing that and say, oh, wow, I must, you know, oh, gosh, I'm really feeling like I could spend hours doing this. What am I not taking care of right now? What do I need? What's that telling me? Because it's a cycle of, it's a slippery slope.

• 1:00:32Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and you think the best way to figure out what we need is to meditate and to

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  To connect to ourselves.

• 1:00:38Lewis Howes?

  To connect to ourselves. And you think meditation is a good channel for that?

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  I do, I do. I think that when we can spend time connecting to ourselves away from the ego, because the ego is important, right? The ego, there's, there's lots of good things, but when we are, when we think that the ego is who we are, and we start making our decisions based on our ego, then we're screwed. We're in pain.

• 1:01:00Lewis Howes?

  We're screwed.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  We're in pain.

• 1:01:01Lewis Howes?

  Offensive, we're angry, we're resentful.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:01:03Lewis Howes?

  Not enough.

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  We have to have a glimpse of the truth of our soul, that, that place. We have to have a glimpse of it. If we don't have a glimpse of it, we don't know. And so, and the more that I meditate, the more I, the easier it is for me to get into that energetic space. And then I, I just think that life flows in a, in a way that I'm enjoying so much more. I know the difference when I don't meditate versus when I do.

• 1:01:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, me too. I, I use Headspace right now. I've done different types of meditation, but I don't know if you've heard of Headspace.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  I haven't.

• 1:01:39Lewis Howes?

  It's an app on your phone. The unfortunate thing is you have to have it next to your bed when you're, or wherever you're at, meditating, but it's just 10-minute meditations.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, somebody leads it, leads you through it.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  Guided meditations. I like that. Just keeps it, keeps me on track, you know, don't have to like do it myself and just kind of relax and just go into it.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Lewis Howes?

  But that's cool. I feel like I could talk to you for another couple of hours, but I wanna, I wanna be conscious of our time, and I wanna ask a few more questions, if that's okay with you. What's something you've done, maybe that a lot of people don't know about, that you're really proud of? Maybe something smaller, or something that you haven't really announced to the world, or not a big movie, or something that you've just done. Maybe it's a role, maybe it's a way you've given back. The work you're in.

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Well, I'm pretty passionate about midwifery and midwives, because I had all my babies with midwives. And I'm a pretty passionate birth advocate, and at the same time, I'm passionate about women.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Not feeling like, see, this is interesting because there's this whole natural birth movement happening, or there has been for quite a few years with Ricky Lake. She made that great documentary. But what happens is that women start to beat themselves up if they don't have the perfect birth, or they don't have the perfect natural birth.

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  They took the drugs, right?

• 1:02:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's, so we continually perpetuate, the reason why we wanted to do it, or why we feel this inclination, it continues to be sabotaged by the same thinking that took us away from it. And so, I'm very passionate about families and mothering and advocating for women to know what they want, and to understand their journey into becoming a mother is uniquely theirs, and is something that they can't control. One of the things I talk a lot about with my friends who are having babies, and you know, I'm out of that now, because most of my friends, we've all had our kids, but, is that it's actually your baby's birth.

• 1:03:38Lewis Howes?

  It's not your birth.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  It's actually your baby's birth, and even though you're, I mean, I gave birth three times.

• 1:03:44Lewis Howes?

  Facilitating it, right?

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  I gave birth three times, I could do it 10 million more times. I never felt more empowered, more in tune with my soul, with myself. I had two of my babies at home. I believe in the power of birth, I believe in a woman's body to give birth, I believe in all of that. And sometimes it doesn't go well, and sometimes things happen. And so, I wish that there was more of a space of that kind of healing for women that are disappointed with their births, because it's your entry into being a mama, and, and so, I'm pretty passionate about that conversation. What else? Yeah, so that's something that maybe people don't know about me, or...

• 1:04:25Lewis Howes?

  And you write about this on, how do I say it?

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Anapurna?

• 1:04:28Lewis Howes?

  Purna, Anapurna.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Anapurna, yeah.

• 1:04:30Lewis Howes?

  Dot com. We'll have it all linked up, all the stuff we've talked about.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't even know if I even, I don't even know if I've talked that much about that on there. Where I talk about it is actually in the world, meeting somebody I don't even know, who within 10 minutes is crying over a C-section that they feel guilty about. Or feel like they failed or something and or someone who lost a baby. And I I'm it's really not something that I actually that Annapurna is all that much about. But I move through my life in a way that I'm open to having that conversation with with women. And sometimes it's a conversation that women have never had. Or about miscarriages and and the sadness that a lot of women have around their birth experiences.

• 1:05:14Lewis Howes?

  Sure. If this was a a vision board right here and you got to put a few things on it right now for what you see for the rest of your life. You already had an incredible career, you've got, you know, great kids, marriage. You've done so many good things in the world so far. Um, but again, if this was your board and you're creating it right now, what would be just a few things that you'd want to put on there?

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  Oh, something I saw on Instagram yesterday.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  I was showing my daughter yesterday. My daughter's very crafty. She's very creative. She is so divinely creative. It just blows my mind. And she was making this thing and it just was gorgeous. Okay, what would it be?

• 1:05:54Lewis Howes?

  Your vision right now?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  My vision for the rest of my life. Oh, I wouldn't do that.

• 1:05:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay, for the next five years?

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  No, I wouldn't do that either.

• 1:06:00Lewis Howes?

  No?

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  No, I'd do it for right now.

• 1:06:02Lewis Howes?

  Okay, what's your vision?

• 1:06:03Speaker 01

  I want to be so out of my mind, out of the mind, the construct of my mind to create my vision. And that for me is about staying current to who I am, which changes all the time.

• 1:06:15Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 1:06:16Speaker 01

  So literally, I

• 1:06:17Lewis Howes?

  Could be a different person in six months.

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  Well, one of the things that I do a lot on Annapurna Living and one of the things people might not know about me too is that I I share a lot about the moon and the cycles of the moon. And and like, understanding that there's a cycle to things that

• 1:06:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  That there's a cycle to life. And so one of the things that I've been doing this year that I love is I have like a simple altars. I have them all over my house. Super simple, nothing fancy, no gold Buddhas or anything like that. Sometimes there are flower. And a plant, or a picture that one of my children did, drew for me, or a picture of myself at a certain time in my life, or an award that I've won, or whatever. And I, on the new moon, I change them. Because, and I change my wishes, because if I'm really current with my soul, then the wish and the dream I had a month ago, might not be the same.

• 1:07:08Lewis Howes?

  Could it still be the same?

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  It could be.

• 1:07:09Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  But I find that the more in tune that I am with that, that it's a kind of a mental construct, and probably more a male way of thinking, actually. You know, having a very kind of compartmentalized sort of...

• 1:07:21Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  You know, for women, we're very creative. We have the potential to have fifteen children. And most of us, most of us never do, but we have that potential. So whether or not, whether or not a woman has had a baby or not, she's infinitely creative. You know, we can have a baby on our hip and be making a meal.

• 1:07:39Lewis Howes?

  On the phone.

• 1:07:40Speaker 01

  And on the phone, organizing this over here, tending to somebody's sore knee. You know, answering a business call, I mean, we can do that. We have that infinite creativity. So, my board today would have wood, it would have a sheepskin on it, it would have white curtains, and this is what I'm living right now, I put my grandmother's curtains in my window, her lace curtains in all my windows, just the other day, and it makes me so incredibly happy to see them. And, they've been sitting in my closet that I got handed down from my great-grandmother, my grandmother, but literally, that's what my dream board would be. It would be about this, this feeling of, it's not a car that I want, I don't, there's

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  no car that I want. It's about a sense of feeling in the world that, that feels rustic and authentic and natural, and happens to have green, and happens to have this energy around. But there's nothing that I, I don't want a pair of shoes, I don't want a new dress, I really don't. And that's not to say that I might not see something, go, "Oh wow, I really want that." I'm not a purist, in any way. But my dreams aren't about that. My dreams are about feeling connected to my children, truly connected to them. And I'm not always at all. And I know when I'm not, when I'm in my mind of how it should be and how they should be. I want to, I want to live a life

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  that feels like it's living and breathing and changing. And so that when my children are changing, I notice. And that I'm showing up in a way that I love and not a nag and not trying to control and judge. I can be controlling, judgmental.

• 1:09:30Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  In my mind, that's reality for me. And I go in and out it, in and out of it all day. And so really, my dream board would be that I would love, I could see telling a story. I have a story that I want to tell. And I see it in it, in, in, in some kind of, you know, film medium. And I can see the actors that I'd want in it to be part of that. So that's ruminating. And then I have to actually put the legwork into making that happen.

• 1:09:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  And I trust that I will. And it's not a grind. And I'm not putting that on myself. But I want to move gracefully through my life and enjoy it and enjoy it all and be present to it. And when I'm not, to remind, to have people around me to remind me or to check in with myself and remind myself.

• 1:10:17Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. I like it. I like that vision. It's great.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 1:10:21Lewis Howes?

  Um, since you don't go to the mirror that much, but when you are there, if you had to, do you have any tattoos on your body?

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  You do?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:29Lewis Howes?

  If you had to put one on your forehead, that was a word or a saying that was in reverse, that when you looked in the mirror, you only you could read it. You could see it then. What would the word or saying be?

• 1:10:41Speaker 01

  Well, I, I'm remembering when I was younger, I had next to my mirror, I am perfect with my imperfections.

• 1:10:47Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:10:48Speaker 01

  That was something that as an actress coming into my career, that, that was my mantra in the mirror. So I did have a saying next to my mirror. Um, what would it be on my forehead? Keep on keeping up. There's all these sayings in Kundalini Yoga. And one of them is keep on keeping up. Another one is when the pressure's on, start and the pressure will be off. You know, vibrate the cosmos and the cosmos shall clear the way, like create that vibration in your life and your life will just unfold in that way. Recognize the other person is you. These are all Kundalini Yoga Sutras for this age that we're living in. These are these little tools, these little ideas and you know, recognize the other person is you, like that person you want to judge.

• 1:11:29Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Where am I like that? Where am I like that?

• 1:11:33Lewis Howes?

  Does that show up in my life?

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  How does that show up in my life? So I definitely have a lot of tools that I have in my tool belt that I'm constantly leaning on.

• 1:11:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, that's cool.

• 1:11:44Speaker 01

  And so probably would be keep on keeping up because sometimes I feel weary, like tired and like

• 1:11:52Lewis Howes?

  overwhelmed and

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, I don't like the word overwhelmed. I don't use it.

• 1:11:55Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:11:55Speaker 01

  I choose not to use that word.

• 1:11:56Lewis Howes?

  Well, edit that out. No, I'm just kidding.

• 1:11:58Speaker 01

  No, it's okay. But I really, it's like a word that when I start to want to say it, I'm not a big fan of that word. I have a kind of

• 1:12:05Lewis Howes?

  It's not a good feeling.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  I have a fierceness around feeling victim, being a victim.

• 1:12:09Lewis Howes?

  Oh, that's good.

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  And so I don't like, as soon as I, it's not that I deny that I'll feel, have a moment of feeling like, oh, I can't believe they did that to me. But nobody can make me feel anyway. So I turn that around. I turn things around.

• 1:12:21Lewis Howes?

  Choice, yeah.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I, yeah, keep on keeping up. Yeah, sometimes I just feel like, oh, so what do I do? I run the bath. I throw in three scoops of Epsom salts. Now I throw in a cup of coconut oil and I get in the bath and even if it's for 10 minutes and I look at a magazine that I may have gotten or a book or just something inspiring that I have and I just, that 10 minutes and I, I give that to myself a lot. I give that to myself a lot, sometimes twice a day if I have to.

• 1:12:54Lewis Howes?

  Really? Wow.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do.

• 1:12:56Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  I do. It's my like, it's my getaway.

• 1:12:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure. What are you most grateful for in your life recently?

• 1:13:02Speaker 01

  Oh, my gosh. My marriage, my partnership, my family. My husband and I have been married for almost 18 years and I feel like

• 1:13:12Speaker 01

  I feel like we're still growing in this way that is so exciting and turns me on and like makes me so excited to be with him and be his partner and it's imperfect and I'm so grateful that we've gone through that, all of that, to be here and to continually grow and change.

• 1:13:35Lewis Howes?

  Is he in the entertainment world?

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's a writer and an actor and an amazing guy and an amazing dad and we disagree on tons of stuff and you know, it's like, I always thought like, these people had these marriages that were like super perfect or that I saw and I remember thinking, oh wow, I really love what that person has when I was younger. Then you'd find out that there were all these things that were happening that they weren't

• 1:14:02Lewis Howes?

  Showing or telling.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  Showing or telling. So I'm, I love having like, you know, my husband is amazing and he's so straight and like, straight up with the, with the information with me. He'll just look at me and go, you're spinning. You need to stop. That's, and be, and I hear him. I'm open to hearing him. And that's extraordinary to have someone on your team that can really see who you are and that when you are struggling, for me, that I can, sometimes I'm not open at all. I'm just like, oh my God, I hate you. You know, I'm not listening to that. But

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  I come, but I, then it's like, there's a certain way he communicates with me that I, I can see that and it, and I do the same for him.

• 1:14:54Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm pretty grateful about that right now and, and definitely grateful for my career too, right now, having this resurgence right now of working a lot because I took a lot of time to raise my children. So it's exciting to feel creative.

• 1:15:07Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:08Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Couple of final questions. And before I ask the last couple of questions, where do you like to connect most online? Twitter, Instagram? Where do you, where can people connect and reach out with you or?

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, I mean, I have some different things that, for Annapurna Living, that we have Twitter and we have Facebook, but I actually don't really interact with that all that much. Instagram, I do.

• 1:15:32Lewis Howes?

  Personally, you do, yeah?

• 1:15:32Speaker 01

  I do.

• 1:15:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  I don't often comment and get into all that just because it's, it's sort of a, I don't want to. I don't want to leak my energy either there.

• 1:15:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  And, but I definitely see things and part of that, you know, we hashtag within my group of things. I'm checking out people's altars that they've made or their children meditating or their special space that they bring whatever to, but uh, yeah. And then I have, you know, I have this fierce grace collective that is this group that I'm putting a lot of energy into and share and I'm part of that. I do live calls with them.

• 1:16:10Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:16:10Speaker 01

  Once a month and.

• 1:16:12Lewis Howes?

  That's for, that's for mothers mostly.

• 1:16:13Speaker 01

  No, the mother one is called mother and it's, yeah, it's different. But both of those I'm, I'm interacting in there. I have to be mindful of my energy as you know, because we can just give, I could be up all night, every night writing content and I, and sometimes I do, there's certain times when I feel really creative like that and I honor that and I get up and I do it. But in general, I'm, I'm finding the balance and finding, this is all new to me. I created this a couple of years ago and it's been incredibly exciting for me to find this, you know, that I can, creating all the content that I'm creating, but also just not burning myself out so that I don't want to do it anymore.

• 1:16:52Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah, that's cool.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Lewis Howes?

  We'll have it all linked up, everything we talked about on the show notes.

• 1:16:59Lewis Howes?

  Okay. This is a question I ask at the end for everyone. It's called the three truths.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:17:03Lewis Howes?

  So it's many years from now for you and it's going to be your last day and you know it's your last day, everyone's there. You've had, everything you wanted to achieve has happened. Everything you wanted to create, you've created, but for some reason, all the movies you've done, all the articles you've written have been erased. And so there's nothing to remember you by physically that people can watch or read. And um, somebody in your family says, can you write down, here's a piece of paper and a pen, can you write down your three truths? Three things you know to be true from everything you've experienced and learned in the world, from acting, motherhood, marriage, whatever it may be, um, that you think could be the three things, if you were to pass three things on for us as lessons, what would those things be?

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Love is everything. Be in your life. Don't look outside of yourself for validation and love. And I have to say, when I, when my kids were little and I was at the height of my career and I would get offered something, I would look at my kids and I'd think, at the end of my life.

• 1:18:08Speaker 01

  Will I care that I have another movie on my resume? Or will I care that I help my babies and I always chose holding my babies?

• 1:18:15Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:17Lewis Howes?

  That's cool. Well, before I ask the final question.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, see, it's got me teary there. Just seems like yesterday, you know?

• 1:18:25Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  You have them so little and now they're so big, so it just goes by so quick.

• 1:18:29Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine, yeah. I mean, my mom had four of us.

• 1:18:32Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:18:33Lewis Howes?

  And she still calls me her baby, you know, I'm thirty-three and I'm like, Mom.

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Totally.

• 1:18:36Lewis Howes?

  You know, I was like, I want to tell her, like, Mom, come on. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it's like, it probably went by so fast for her.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  It does.

• 1:18:42Lewis Howes?

  You know? And I just remember being in high school and I'm like, how did the last fifteen years go by?

• 1:18:46Speaker 01

  I know, when you're really little, it goes by so slow.

• 1:18:48Lewis Howes?

  So slow.

• 1:18:49Speaker 01

  And, and then all of a sudden, it just goes by so quickly and you think, I, I remember people would always say, you better appreciate, you know, your kids are gonna grow up. People tell you that used to drive me crazy. Because I was, well, I was so present and I, I was there. I don't have regret in there.

• 1:19:03Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  But it has gone by real quick. And I don't think anyone could prepare you. I don't know if you'd do it if you knew that. If you really had, that your tiny little baby could be. And it's so great that they're getting bigger and changes, you got, you know, now we're going to movies and doing all that stuff.

• 1:19:19Lewis Howes?

  Dynamic, right?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's great, it's awesome.

• 1:19:20Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  But those, those beginning, those, those. Goes by quick.

• 1:19:27Lewis Howes?

  Well, before I ask the final question, Karen, I want to acknowledge you. Uh, I want to acknowledge you for a lot of things, but I'm gonna keep it short. I want to acknowledge you for your fierceness in going after your dreams because I'm a big believer that our dreams are what matters the most. And I think it's so inspiring to know that you went for it. And not only did you go for it, but you have created such incredible work in your creativity to inspire so many people. I mean, you are literally a catalyst for so many people, especially just with The Matrix alone, you know, what it did for people. And I don't think anyone else could have done what you did. So your courage to step up to the challenge, you know, in that situation, which was probably foreign to you.

• 1:20:10Lewis Howes?

  And really lay your heart on the table that entire time is like such a gift to the world. And such a catalyst for so many people. So I want to acknowledge you for really your, your courage, your fierceness, your. Feminine grace as well to be able to stand in the messiness and continue doing it all with the kids, with the marriage, with the career and just be an example, a symbol for what's possible for so many women. So.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:20:37Lewis Howes?

  I acknowledge that. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:20:39Lewis Howes?

  Uh, the final question is, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  What is my definition of greatness?

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  Hmm. It's hard. I don't really have a, I know that it's a big word for you, right? And it's not a word that I think about greatness or that I'm really, I can't even really feel it, the word.

• 1:21:03Lewis Howes?

  The reason I ask it, I ask it for everyone because there's a different definition for everyone.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'm trying to find my way into it.

• 1:21:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, for sure. You know, it's different than success for me. You know, success is, a lot of people think about it as like money and achieving things.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  So what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:21:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you know, right now, my definition is discovering and cultivating the unique talents and gifts within us to pursue our dreams and in that pursuit, make the biggest impact on the people around us as possible.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Hmm, that's awesome.

• 1:21:32Lewis Howes?

  So there's, it's not about making money.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:21:34Lewis Howes?

  Although you can make money in that process. It's not about achieving things, but I think it's about using what we're born with to cultivate our talents and gifts and then figure out our dream like you did and, and go after that. Cause that could, that dream is going to create a ripple effect on people.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:49Lewis Howes?

  When we're in that pursuit.

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:51Lewis Howes?

  Even if we never achieve the dream, in the pursuit of it inspires other people around us.

• 1:21:55Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:21:56Lewis Howes?

  And I think our world, our life is about service. You know, we're the most fulfilled when we're in service and we were given so much. This world was given to us, you know, we were born and it's like we were, we have this playground to live and breathe in. So I feel like it's our duty to give back to the world and to everyone else in the world who's supported us, whether they know it or not.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:16Lewis Howes?

  So that's my mission. Yeah.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  I love that. I love that. You're doing it. You're doing it and you're creating it and it's inspiring and helping and healing people and it's amazing.

• 1:22:28Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:22:29Speaker 01

  To hear your story and I was telling you earlier, listening to your story and listening to your podcast. It's so great because too, it's, it takes women and men to both, to, to step up into this space of this sharing from this space of heart.

• 1:22:43Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:22:43Speaker 01

  Awareness and consciousness and creativity and.

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  To break that old way of thinking that has dominated so many of the things that we've done in our world.

• 1:22:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:22:53Speaker 01

  So it's exciting. It's an exciting time to be alive. I think greatness for me.

• 1:22:56Lewis Howes?

  There we go.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  So good at that. No, kidding. Greatness for me is the exploration of creating a life from within, inside out, however that might look for someone. And if that means doing something huge and solving something amazing and finding a cure for whatever, that's greatness. If it means tending to a garden and feeding your family, or if it means being a teacher or whatever it is, understanding that each of us has an impact on everything that we do and everyone that we come into contact.

• 1:23:40Speaker 01

  And true greatness is when you understand that and are in flow with that and it's aligned with the values of who you are as a person. And your life all flows in that way. Whether or not you have a job that you love or not, but are you, can you be the person that shows up at that job and emanates who you, who you are and isn't waiting for something else? I think that's greatness, to live your life that way in alignment with your own values and your own soul and your truth of your, of yourself.

• 1:24:13Lewis Howes?

  Awesome. Carrie Ann Moss, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  A pleasure. Thank you.

• 1:24:18Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I enjoyed being in it. And I hope you learned some valuable lessons. If you did, make sure to check out the full show notes at lewishouse.com/329 to see all the links that we talked about, where you can connect with Carrie Ann, how to find her on social media, and check out her websites and programs as well. Today's episode was brought to you by Lisa Mattresses. Again, I've been trying this new mattress, guys, for a few weeks now, and I'm getting great sleep and I love the quality of it. I love to optimize my performance in all areas of my life. Cool thing about it is this mattress isn't that expensive. They start at 525 bucks.

• 1:25:02Lewis Howes?

  And again, they're 100% American made. I didn't have to do anything. I didn't have to go to the store to go pick it out. They shipped it to me. I just took it out of the box, put it on my box springs, and there I had a brand new bed. Now, the Wall Street Journal again is calling Lisa the Uber of mattresses. And on top of that, the Lisa donates one mattress for every 10 they sell to a shelter. So think of them like Toms and Warby Parker, but for mattresses. Again, you can try the mattress today, risk-free, plus get $75 off your purchase by going to lisa.com/greatness. Again, that's L-E-E-S-A dot com slash greatness. Go ahead and check it out. Check out the site, see all the great reviews, and let me know what you think.

• 1:25:46Lewis Howes?

  Again, lisa.com/greatness today. Again, this episode was brought to you by Design Crowd. For those looking to build a website, create a logo, do a book cover, create a t-shirt design, and design anything you want online, Design Crowd is the place to go. If you don't want to hire a premium, high-end designer that's going to cost you $5,000 to $10,000 for a specific logo design, or maybe $20,000 for a website design, then go to designcrowd.com/greatness. Again, you're going to post a brief description of the design you want, and then Design Crowd will help you with their half a million designers to respond. And within hours, you'll start getting a few designs back, and you can leave comments,

• 1:26:31Lewis Howes?

  get feedback, and tell people what you're really looking for to get the best design that works for you. And a typical project, again, receives about 50 to 100 different designs from all over the world. You can start a project on Design Crowd for just $99. And again, for those listening, this is your first time on Design Crowd, you get $100 off for being a VIP listener. Just use the coupon code GREATNESS when you're posting a project on Design Crowd. And again, go to designcrowd.com/greatness. Uh, let me know what you guys think. Leave a comment. In the blog and let me know the biggest thing you took away from this, the biggest lesson you learned, or what you loved about it the most. And again, I would love it if you share this out with your friends.

• 1:27:15Lewis Howes?

  So please post it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, anywhere you want to share with your friends and who you think would find this fascinating and interesting. We post episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We're over 1.3 million downloads a month, and it's all because of you. You continue to spread the message, to share the word, to get the message of greatness out there, and it allows me to bring on great guests like Carrie Anne and share her message. So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for constantly listening to this podcast. When there's hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, you continue to come back to this one. It's my job, it's my responsibility to curate some of the most fascinating people in the

• 1:27:59Lewis Howes?

  world and bring you their greatest gifts, their greatest wisdom. And that's my duty and responsibility every single week. I'm going to continue to do my duty. My request from you is to continue to share this out with the world. I can't do this alone. I need all of you to get this message out there, and together we can make such a huge impact on the world. I love you guys. Make sure to let Carrie Anne know what you thought over on her social media, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.