Sense of Soul - Get UNSTUCK with Anthony Meindl

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Today on Sense of Soul podcast we have Anthony Meindl, he is an award winning screenwriter/director, best selling author, and founder of the International Anthony Meindl's Actor Workshop/ Acting Classes and Workshops. He now has the largest scene study studio in Los Angeles and locations in 10 other cities around the world. He is the host of “In The Moment: The Acting & Theater Podcast”, Anthony tackling subject matters around social causes and what it means to be a human being in the 21st century.  As a filmmaker, Anthony has received a number of awards and acclaim. His latest feature film, Where We Go From Here sold to HULU. It premiered at Outfest, won the “Best Screenplay” award at Q-Films Long Beach, and the “Jury Award” at NYC’s East Village Queer Film Festival. His films tackle social causes ranging from gun violence to climate justice and the climate crisis to LGBTQ rights. Anthony has also written 5 best-selling books on creativity and silencing your inner critic, including his grounding breaking book, At Left Brain Turn Right, and his newest book UNSTUCK: A Life Manual On How To Be More Creative, Overcome Your Obstacles, and Get Shit Done. His book’s can be found on Amazon. Visit Antony’s website at https://www.anthonymeindl.com Follow his journey on Instagram: @AnthonyMeindl and @amawstudios https://facebook.com/anthonymeindl Check out his YouTube Channel, https://youtube.com@AnthonyMeindl Learn more about Sense of Soul Podcast: https://www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Check out the NEW affiliate deal https://www.mysenseofsoul.com/sense-of-soul-affiliates-page

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul podcast, enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world, sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more. Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have Anthony Meindel. He is a best-selling author, award-winning filmmaker, acting coach, theater podcast, where he tackles subject matters around social causes and what it means to be a human in the 21st century. Anthony has written five

bestselling books on creativity and silencing your inner critic, and he's joining us today to tell us about his new book, Unstuck, a life manual on how to be more creative, overcome obstacles, and get shit done. And it's my honor to have him here with us today. So please welcome Anthony. How are you? I'm great. How you doing? Good. Do you pronounce it Shanna, right? Yeah, like banana. Yeah. You know what? I'm super excited to talk to you. I was listening all morning. I was listening to your YouTube. I can't wait to hear about your new book. Yes, it's Unstuck. It came out last year. They're all creative manuals and how to get unstuck or get out of our left brain into the

right hemisphere. Yeah, they're all different insights about the creative process. I think being stuck is probably most people's issues, especially I think after COVID. Did you find that? I mean, I didn't have that so much during COVID, but I do think you're right because I think COVID brought up a lot of stuff for people where maybe they realized I'm not doing what I want to be doing. I'm not maybe being more intentional about my life or the things that I really wanted to do. I put on the back burner and now COVID was a reminder. We don't have time. The circumstances of life can like force its hand at any moment and, you know, create a reckoning. And so I think it made people realize like, wait, why am I doing the thing that I'm doing? And Jenna, I think that is important because I do feel like a lot of, like, since I work

with so many creatives, it is their, their desire to, I'm not big on that word purpose because I, I have a chapter in unstuck about that word purpose because I think sometimes it gets co-opted. So I like that we use the word intentional before, because our purposes change every moment, right? Now, like if I'm intentional about being with you and, you know, uplifting an audience or a listener, but that purpose is going to change when I'm done and I'm going out the door and heading toward my day, right? I also think like purpose sometimes is a word that we affix onto us and it's kind of more capitalist driven because you have kids,

I don't know how old they are, but what is the purpose of a child? It's not about having purpose, it's about being. So I think sometimes we get really worked up about, I've got to find my purpose in life and it has to be purposeful. And I think actually that can actually work against us finding our true value where we can serve different ways of being expressed creatively. And it wants to change. I think we get stuck on like, it has to look the same all the time. It doesn't. We get stuck on so many things I was just thinking just the words themselves yeah the words the labeling yeah yeah yeah wait were you always this smart I mean you know it's funny because I used to think I was so dumb

and I still kind of I don't ever tell myself that anymore. Like, you know, but I used to think that I was book smart, but not street smart. Not like, but now I realize like my intuition or my insight, not that I'm smart, but my insight comes from meditating and like just having a different, maybe understanding of the creative process that maybe can help illuminate people who are stuck. Wow, you're so positive though. And would you start by maybe telling me a little bit about who you are and where you came from? And what would you like as a little Anthony? Well, the short story is I grew up in the Midwest in Indiana. And, you know, I guess when I look at my life, I was always very creative. And I was also always sort of my role in the family has always been like

the mediator. And so I always feel like I was always on a very spiritual quest, even at a very young age, my relationship to spirit or I would dwell like, like I think kids do they dwell in another world, you know what I mean? And as we progress, and we get older, and we start listening to the left brain, we kind of pull ourselves away from that knowing or that imagination and that domain. And I guess at some level, I think that's part of the journey that we're all on. Sorry, I'm going off on like a philosophy I have. But like, I think life is about trying to come back to who we were as kids, which is more connected to some other awareness than just the labeling binary

world where the structured world we're living in. Right. And so, yeah, I was an actor. I lived in New York. I went to school in London and then I moved to LA 25 years ago and I started working, was still acting, but then I started working with creatives and actors. And then over the last 10

years, I have schools all over the world. And I feel like the work and the writing that I do in my books is not just for actors, like homemakers and moms and people in the military will seek me out and me out and be like, oh, my God, I read your book. And it really changed my perspective on the creative process. Relationships, too. I saw, right? Yeah. Things that, you know, you can use, like, any of this work, I think, in any part of your life, no matter who you are. Well, I think, like, it's great that you said that's you know

we were talking about labels because relationship how many kids do you have so i have four 26 to 11 oh my gosh you have a 26 year old and it's yeah and you're so young how old i am no i'm you're rocking it you look amazing thank you I think we get so, again, stuck on the identification with the label and then what we think it means. And if you think about relationship, it's not a noun. It's a verb. Because we're constantly changing and we're relating to someone. How you are now at 48 is different to how you're relating to your kids and your family and your in-laws than when you were 40. And I think we have a, I just think we get really stuck in life in,

we call something a name, and then we have a very strong picture of what we think it's going to look like. And then we see a media representation, which is not real about what it's going to look like. And then we see a media representation, which is not real about what it's supposed to look like. And then if you get this thing, then your life is happily ever after. And that's a fiction. And I think people are often their lives are really, they're unsatisfied because their life does not match the picture. Yeah, absolutely. And I tried to fit. Actually, I did a really good job. I'm not an actress, but I sure was acting most of my life,

playing the role and trying to be the best at everything. And my kids were going to be the best, and they were going to make me look better. And all of those, oh, yeah. How did that work out yeah see you know you know and really i was trying to live up to all of the mothers i saw before me and i i thought man i've i'm failing at this because i'm losing my shit like how did they do this and no it doesn't it doesn't quite work when you're trying to live everybody else's dreams. liver of their pie. You're not seeing when they go, it's like, this is why social media is so maddening to me because we see the curation of a 30 second or a one minute, you know, summation of their life. It's like, hashtag Ibiza, you know, hashtag whatever, Superbowl,

you know what I mean? And then you're not in their life 24 seven. And the common variable is we're all human beings. We're all fragile. We're all vulnerable. We're all stumbling towards some ending to a new beginning again. And nobody has it figured out. Nobody. No. So. I hate those fake, you know, family photos.

I'll look at them sometimes with my friends and I'm like, dude, they're like on the verge of totally ending. Like collapse. That's right. They're acting like they are so in love. That's so funny. This portrays to people that what's wrong with my life because it's not like that. And I find this with children often where they'll look at this beautiful family or this dad holding this sign on the side of the soccer field and think that that is what makes a good family, a good father and all these things when this dad over here who maybe has to work all weekend and can't make it would die for you, loves you no less than, but yet you think this because this is the picture that you see. And it breaks my heart.

And I think it causes that FOMO, fear of missing out. Yeah. Although I joke with my producer, I just finished this movie and she produced the movie and we call it JOMO, joy of missing out. Because that whole FOMO aspect, right, is you're scared you're going to miss out. And then you go to the thing that you were really scared that if you missed out, you were going to miss the party of the century. And then you go and you're like, it's these people and it's this, you know, right? So you realize, again, it's not real. It's just not, I think we live in a culture of distraction.

You know, again, I kind of blame the tech world and social media, not that, you know, the tech world has given us a number of amazing technological advancements, but in terms of social media and the sort of code that's embedded in it set up to make us addicted and always searching for that next endorphin rush, right? Like, I mean, they've all talked about it. And I also think it's created this fracture where we're seeking something other than, can I not just find a moment of happiness right now, doing nothing, being locked off or offline, just sitting in nature or in my garden and not constantly having to take the rush of something else. So I think that's where FOMO comes from. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And it's so freeing when you don't have to have that fear of missing out, which fear seems to be the root of all evil.

Yeah, it really is. And I'm sure you know, fear is false evidence appearing real, right? I like that. Yeah. In my own life, I'm always looking at, gosh, behind the excuse or behind the complaint or behind, I don't know, the no, when I say no to things, if I look deeper, there's always a fear attached to it. What, well, if I remove my first response and then I kind of unpack the fear, oh, I'm a fear of being vulnerable or a fear of being seen or a fear of failure or a fear that I'm going to be ridiculed or judged, right? And if we can just sit with that and then, I don't know, still move forward in that direction, having it. I think the thing is,

is we think that life is supposed to be devoid of fear. And I think, as I'm sure you know, you just have to take the fear along with you and And then you see it's like, it's like fairy dust. It's not really real. But it does occupy a big chunk of real estate in our heads. It's in our DNA. Yeah, that's right. Literally. right for us to like we wouldn't be here thousands of years of evolution has served us with the fight flight fright response if i said those right you know the reptilian brain is there but we're not fighting a saber-toothed tiger anymore again i think i'm not blind this is i promise this is not a podcast of blaming social media but social media does also as you have kids you know it does

trigger that response the reptilian brain does get stimulated. It's not healthy. I was just thinking my two older children didn't, they're like their first social media was just really coming out. They didn't have like TikTok and stuff at the end of their high school. They maybe did a little bit. So they kind of escaped that just a little bit. And of course they're in it now, but my son, Ethan, he's on the spectrum and he's 20 and he

really didn't ever do it. In fact, we're all afraid when he does, we're all monitoring him. And then my youngest is 11 and thank God she's not quite there yet. But it does make me worried because there are so many, you know, you get on the algorithm. That's what worries me is the algorithm. So right now when she's on something, she just sees Roblox and like for the kids stuff. And just one wrong search and God knows where she could end up. And that's what scares me. And I think this is what they've been talking about in Congress lately with all of the owners of all of the social media, which needs to be talked about. Because we didn't have to deal with this when we were little.

I mean, we literally had to wait to go to school the next day to find out what was going on. It's true. I mean, I literally sat on my kitchen counter attached to a wall, making emergency breakthroughs. Like, how rude to my friends. Well, you had call interrupting or whatever it was. Right. Yes. I didn't even have that.

I was so nervy. I had the old school phone with the long cord. And I would stretch it. The rotary would stretch it around the wall so my mom and dad couldn't hear me on the phone. Oh, my God. And if you, I mean, if you missed a number, good Lord. Busy, zing, zing, zing. Yeah. It's like, why are they talking on the phone for so long? There was no call waiting. It's so crazy just to imagine how things have evolved so quickly. Yeah. Right. Which is why people shouldn't be

so stuck because you just don't know what's going to be in five minutes from now. Well, I think that you speak to a really interesting point that's coming to me now is that, okay, first of all, our brain is not able to process the amount of data that we're receiving in 2024. It's just we're not equipped. Our own evolutionary process has not caught up with technology so it is stimulus overload right and i also think for i know a lot of your listeners are on a spiritual path or a meditative path you know i think it also is anathema in a way to just being like i think we have such an addiction to stimulation now that it's really can bring up a lot of anxiety when people are just being, but there's a lot of science that proves for me in

terms of working with creatives, we're at our best when we're just go for a walk without listening to a podcast, although I'll listen to yours, but we have to not always be doing things with something. I'm guilty of that too i listen to podcasts a lot but what is it to just like take a walk or be in the garden or sit yeah it's too much again i think it's like we've we're all taught that multitasking and processing all that information is you're you've got it like you're successful in doing all that yeah but also it's been proven that you're not processing really at a deep level. You're hearing sound bias.

That's right. Hey, listeners. So sorry for the interruption. I'd like to tell you about Uncovering the Mysteries of Kabbalah, an amazing opportunity to be mentored by one of Sense of Soul's affiliates, Rabbi Matthew Ponack. If you've listened to my prior episodes with him, then you know he has a ton of wisdom to share and is offering Sense of Soul listeners a special discount to take a deep and personalized dive into Kabbalah and the unfolding of your own personal journey. If you're interested, go to MatthewPonack.com backslash senseofsoul. That's M-A-T-T-H-E-W-P-O-N-A-K.com backslash senseofsoul to learn more and sign up. Now back to our amazing guest.

Hopefully people who are going to be listening to this podcast are just going to like be zen with it, just lay down on the couch and listen to what we're talking about. This is why I also chanted. They say that as Harvard Ellen Langer, she's done a lot of, that's her name. She was a Harvard sociologist. I think she's really amazing. And she has shown through her work that when we go on a vacation,

let's say a vacation is fun, not just because, okay, you're like a really beautiful Caribbean place or Mexico or whatever, or Europe, but also because it rewires your brain because you're experiencing something new. So you disrupted the way you habitually see life and how we are programmed. Like if you drive, this is one of the things that she recommends. If you drive to work every day, she says, and you take the same route, she says, just by giving yourself permission to go a different route, even if it takes a little bit longer, will re-stimulate a different neural groove.

She talks about it as noticing things. And noticing things creates a space of possibility, potential, hope. Yeah, it's really simple, simple, simple processes that I think are available to all of us. You know what I mean? Yeah, because half the time you're driving to work and you're like, how did I even get here? I don't even remember. Cause you're so in your head. You're completely unconscious. I know we're that's right. We're, we're not here. So to speak.

I love your sign there. It says more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds of planet. Oh, it's going to make me cry.

My best friend got me that. And I love it. And I used to not use my own background, but I just love it so much. That's like my mission. Me too. You know, I just came,

I just came back from, I just finished this movie. We shot in Greece and Canada and India and Taiwan and South Africa and Namibia. Yeah. And they're all love stories that then culminate in a climate crisis. Yeah. Really excited about just kind of sharing the human aspect of living in a

warming world and how, you know, I think people can really relate to love and how do we, you know, before we started podcast today, we were just talking about, cause I live in California and we've had how do we, you know, before we started podcast today, we were just talking about, cause I live in California and we've had historic flooding. And,

you know, as I think as our world warms, we're still going to love and get married and have kids and divorce and move. And, but I'm trying to explore that part in a world that's changing. And so, yeah,

I think when I, when I read that, that's kind of my mission in life. Yeah. You know, it's interesting. And so, yeah, I think when I, when I read that, that's kind of my mission in life. Yeah. You know, it's interesting speaking of storytelling, which, you know, I listen to people's stories all the time, but there is a point in my life in growing up, being vulnerable was a weakness in sharing your story. It's like, don't tell people you're busy. I hear that all the time. I mean, you don't want people to know, you know, you're struggling or anything like that. And so my best friend, Mandy, used to co-host with me.

I mean, she just like tells everything. And I'd be like, but the thing is, I learned that through that, through those stories is connection. And this is something that we've been lacking. I've been here. I've done this. I've been here. I've done this. I've been there too. And it makes people feel less alone because you can feel so alone sometimes, many times in this journey. And I think that also keeps you stuck. I love that you said that. Yeah. We have a convoluted relationship with vulnerability

and we think it means weakness, right right but vulnerability is really the core of being alive there's nobody on this planet who's not at their most basic self vulnerable like i always joke like you know we think the target is real or walmart or i don't know spotify and they are but in the big scheme of things we're all living on a chunk of rock spinning in the middle of dark matter in one cosmos, a part of one of many solar systems. You know what I mean? So in a hundred years, everyone we know right now, including you and I will no longer be here and a new generation or a new existence will begin for a new group of people and i think target as we know it won't be here either right and so these things that probably

yeah for sure yeah sorry target i hope target is one that is not sponsored by target or maybe they will sponsor you now i Nothing against Target. I'm just using it as like, we are so oriented toward, I don't know. It's attachment. The physicalness of things, but we're so more than that. But sorry, I was going to work on vulnerability and just trying to remind us all that's when I take a broad perspective of my place in the cosmos, it feels very,

for me, it can be very freeing. Right. But this idea of vulnerability, you know, Brené Brown said it best, you know, she talks about how vulnerability is really bravery because vulnerability

means I'm going to paraphrase it, but living in emotional uncertainty and emotional exposure without knowing the ack. And that is the core. Nobody here knows how the story is going to end. Nobody here really knows what's going to happen tomorrow. And so we are emotionally exposed. You're emotionally exposed talking with me because we don't know that I may say something that may open your heart and make you cry. But that's also the point of power, right? It's not weakness at all. It's really the ability to share, as you said, with someone your story and you

realize like, I can relate to that story. Yeah. Yeah. Your story is helping me. That's why for me with climate stories, I'm really interested in like social stories, like stories about what are happening to people in this time. I'm a little obsessed with time. So I feel like my movies deal with time in some way. Yeah. But I guess like, again, it's by sharing a story, somebody can call you or text you or DM you and be like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you gave

voice to that because I feel that all the time, but I feel like I'm crazy because nobody else talks about it. That's the point. Absolutely. I always loved to talk to my grandma. She was a moma. In Louisiana, we have momas. There's so much wisdom when you're able to listen. But yet there's this generational difference where you take like a 70-year-old man and like my 26-year-old son and put them together. They just have seen the world so differently that it's really hard for them to find a common ground. And I think that this, when it comes to even like politics and stuff, this is a huge issue because we haven't lived the same world. We haven't seen the same

scene, right? And so our experiences have been so different that it's hard to really relate. And so I have four different generations in one house. Wow. And it's so apparent to me that this generational difference or not being able to see eye to eye, but the one thing that you can usually connect with are like those stories. And so, and I think it's very important for the older generations to support these younger generations. Instead of saying, in my generations, we did this and worked until then, did this and that. That's not really could really, really inspire or connect with somebody. But I think that connection is so missing between generations. Yeah. I mean, also just between people, even. You kind of were talking about that. I mean,

it's incredible. You have four different generations, so you're learning a lot that way. But what jumped out at me, what I'm kind of working on is I'm realizing like, you know, the divide that's happening, not just in our country, but everywhere. And you feel like you're looking at someone across the line and you have

nothing in common. Like you're talking about, I've just really been practicing empathy in terms of, it doesn't mean I have to agree, but I've also realized like, whoa, you know what? If this person was born in my experience or had similar nature, nurture aspects like I had, they may see the world like I see it. And if I were born in New Orleans, I might have this perspective.

And so all of a sudden, you find the common ground. I think it's empathy that we have lost. You hold space for people. And I watched you do this in all of your videos when you were in groups. You really hold this very safe space, a non-judgment space, which is exactly what I think we're talking about. Like if we could all do that, you know, because what I see here that I think that is so good across the world, they may see it as absolutely something so bad. It doesn't make it good or bad necessarily. Right. Well, that's true, right? Except our own judgment about, I mean, also, if you look at the biggest spiritual picture of it all is none of it's good or bad, right? Like from a divine perspective, or even a scientific perspective, it's just neutral. I think it's also in our own life, the things that we think that happened to us that are quote unquote bad often proved to be really helpful for us in the long run, right? So it's all cumulative. But I guess for me though too is

again, I feel like this is a promo against social media. The reason why we lack empathy is because we're misinformed and that's's the job again, of disinformation. So if you hear a soundbite, and you glob onto it, because it's triggering your reptilian brain, and people get scared, then they hold on to something because the way it was or the way they're familiar, instead of coming and being really open-minded to hearing a different perspective based on truth, based on science, we've kind of lost that aspect. And that, to me, is why we cannot find this common ground. Well, I'll tell you what. When I started to read the Bible for the first time with new eyes, I was like, dang, I've been told some fake news my whole life.

That's how I felt. Yeah. You know, I feel like, you know, we've been sold stories that really are just trying to benefit those in power. In power. And who want to be in control. So truly, I mean, everybody can look at any scripture and have a totally different perspective. Interpretation, yeah. Absolutely.

I think that that inner journey is so important to shed all the conditions, everything you've been taught, and start to live by your own experiences and find your own truth. That's right. Like, I think the thing is when you start to do a deeper dive on like, I don't want to say religion because it's so, again, triggering for people, but sacred texts or philosophy or, you know, religious doctrine or whatever, you start to see they're really writing in symbology and metaphor and simile. That's right. Allegory. Great word. And from there, wow, like they're all the same. Then you see, oh, Islam is not different from Christianity, is not different from Judaism, is not different from Hinduism.

The core tenets of the teachings are the same. And we are the same. We are the same, but we've been, you're right, it's been co-opted by power. An organization makes money by teaching it this way, and it's often fear-based or exclusionary it seems quite rudimentary when you look at the challenge i think like when i look at like what we face in life i'm like well it's just really like low-level thinking we just kind of raised it up a little bit we get past the most basic interpretation of things. That's something that I think in the business

that I'm in as well is when I find an artist is up against something and the feedback they get is very basic or it's like a buzzword that's used all the time. I'm like, dude, that's low level thinking. Let's just come up with an original idea. You know what I mean? So I love that you brought that up yeah it's allegory yeah i think all of these things that we're talking about you really are fighting against it because all of these things are really hardwired within us and happened for generations i feel like for the first time we're able to find this sovereignty for ourselves without being called a heretic right or. Or a witch. Or a stake.

Yeah, yeah. Not really. I mean, that's crazy. But this is where we've evolved to. So it's beautiful. But it's like, so these systems are falling. And so you have this uncomfortable period where people are stuck because they're not quite sure. What should I do?

What should I believe? What's the next step? I'm going against the grain. It doesn't feel comfortable. I think this is just one of those moments in life, like that butterfly, you know, that's about ready to, you know, come out of the cocoon that's struggling. Yeah. I love that analogy. Yeah. I think the challenge of life is to be a free thinker. Yeah, me too. And to break sort of our genetic line, right, of my parents, God bless them, they're amazing. They were first generation American.

They were immigrants. Where from? From Germany. All right, wow. To be a child of immigrants. They were very poor. They grew up at the end of world war ii and anybody who has an immigrant upbringing knows that like for me it's breaking this you have to struggle and you

have to work so hard which okay yeah we one does work but this attachment to the struggle and how hard it is is something that i'm trying to break. That's part of, I get it. They had like a potato a day to live off of. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Yeah. So that's ingrained in their psyche and then that gets passed on to us. And then if I were to have kids- So generational. Yeah. So I think it's about you having to like forge your own path. That's scary though for

people, right? It's easier to just take what's spoon fed to us. Absolutely. I mean, I totally went against the grain. I mean, everything I do is, and then I feel defiant. Oh, right. You know what I mean? And so then there's that, you know, and of course I'm aware of it though, you know, as soon as I feel it come in, cause you need, it comes in and i'm like i'm so defiant they're gonna be so ashamed of me yeah they're gonna say why is she speaking so much well damn it because no one did before me and i'm reclaiming this power what's that sign i'm a taurus oh you're a taurus okay yeah that's a beautiful word though in a way yeah but i get it you're like why she's so defiant

i was so good my whole life oh yeah well not so good always but but they thought that i was the picture of it yeah yeah yeah you're abiding and going with the flow and the yeah yeah yeah but not but really inside there's turbulence. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. They're freaking out. Why is she saying so much? Yeah, but we haven't, you haven't said anything like we're just talking about creativity and being a storyteller and speaking your truth and finding it out for yourself. That's not, I mean, is that radical? Kind of. I mean, I'm definitely a recovering Catholic.

And I'm very open about that. I'm definitely open about it. I joked about that all the time. Yeah. And I also discovered that I'm French Creole. I'm French Creole, but I was told I was French and Italian. So I did six years of ancestry and pretty much broke this for everyone. And yeah, it affected a lot of people.

I mean, I'm not going to write that book yet. I'll wait for a while. However, I am writing a book on the Gnostic Gospels. And so here's the thing. I feel like part of what I discovered in my lineages is that women couldn't have a voice, especially women of color. And I would have been considered black. Even though my skin tone is not, I would have been considered black. And I would have not been able to marry anyone outside of my color. And my father was probably white and he wouldn't have wanted me to marry any. So, I mean, we're talking, I would have been a single mother with no voice. And the only thing I had was my children in the church. And then it made sense to me why I am who I am. And so that's when I just said, no, this stops with me and my daughters will not know that life you know own their their way in life and have their

own experiences rather than living by what everybody else told them to be you probably were a witch in a previous life oh absolutely and i had marie laveau in my tree so you know this is coming through wow okay wait who is that marie laveau is the voodoo queen of New Orleans from the 1800s. Part of your ancestry. Yeah. Yeah. She's in my two different lineages. And do you know, in the 1800s, she was a woman of color that was feared.

Can you imagine how much power that is? So I grew up thinking she was the boogeyman. Now I'm like. You're like, she was a goddess. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny., you're like, she was a goddess. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. But you're right on.

You're doing what you not going to use that word purpose, but you're finding your own way, which is really important. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. And there's so much sovereignty there.

You feel free. You no longer feel stuck. That's right. I'll give you an example. My son, he's 26 he had everything going for him in high school he was living up the dreams to all of the dreams of his parents his grandparents i mean he was going to be a baseball player before he was born

how fair is that i even chose his religion before he was born just think about that most of us do how fair is that you're gonna choose someone's beliefs before you even met him you know you're gonna choose his sport you decorate his entire room even by a college because that's your college you don't even know this child and his senior years aren't right now and I just thought this is a mom's worst nightmare like what you know and I remember even telling me I'll play but I'll play for you and I'll play for grandpa and all the and I said well you damn right because I spent my whole life this is how I was back then and then after high school when he couldn play, he didn't go to college.

And he basically looked at me and said, which place do I go to, mom? Coach me. Where's my fans? I don't feel loved. And it just broke me. I was like, holy shit. What did I do? What did we do?

Not just even me, the family, the community, your coaches, society. And then all I could do was give him the space to find out who he was. Wow, Shanna, I mean, that's an incredible story in terms of, that's why I love that. Yeah, like you chose, I never thought about it that way, but we do. We choose their identity in a way, right? Like we choose what they wear, how they look. For a lot of people, it's almost choosing their gender if they don't identify with that gender, you know what I mean?

But, you know, certainly their religion, that's hilarious. I never really thought about it. Yeah, you're like, you're my son and you're going to be baptized. You know what I mean? They may be like, I feel like I'm one with, you know, Buddhism or whatever, you know, and their freedom to explore. But, you know, you're just part of the structure of a society that says that's the way it's done, right? And I do think like, it sounds very similar to, I was a swimmer and, you know, I think a lot of famous athletes have talked about that. And a lot of them who have, let's say had Olympic success, and then that part of their life is over,

they're completely lost because their whole life was prepped for them to get this achievement, and then they got it or they didn't get it and then their life falls to shit so i think you need to just be gentle with yourself and also he's in his early 20s he's figuring it out you know and it may take some time there's a lot of undoing yeah yeah undoing and then like letting what his muses present itself. Yeah, we often this is kind of why this is a lot of my work is like, we do things because we're told we have to do them without realizing is that even what I want to do? I'm doing that for my mom or my dad or because I have to keep this legacy alive word, you know, these imposed doctrines, as opposed to I actually want to go travel the world and serve, or I want to make pottery or whatever.

Yeah. You know, it's so bizarre to me, but not because the system is entrenched. I think especially for me working with creatives, it's hard for people to own their creativity. It's kind of like a sacrilege because for many people they've been taught, and this is not parent shaming, but parents, I get it. They just want the best for their kids and they equate the best for their kids means getting a really great paying job. So you become a doctor or a lawyer or I don't know, an accountant. And yet the spirit of the kid doesn't, isn't that way. They're wired to be

a singer or a dancer, but that doesn't quote unquote have longevity or it's not safe. And so then they often, they have very strong parents and they themselves haven't developed that part of their voice yet. They go to school, then all of a sudden by the age of 30 they're a lawyer and they're miserable so it's being brave enough to like follow your inner story because we all have one you know but they're it's not practical that's the problem yeah right there's no box that you can check off sometimes for you know who you are. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also part of the fun of the journey. Or also, maybe you are an accountant until you're 30 and you're really successful at it. And then you're like, you know what? I want to do something else. That's the thing. We also are really obsessed with this culture

about you're a basketball player your entire life, and then you get into the Hall of Fame, and then that's your legacy. But maybe when you're done playing basketball you want to go open i don't know an engineering program for kids i don't or go to college yeah or whatever i think we were very i don't know what that word would be but we're we're very myopic and only one career path. It's weird. The cool thing about living today, we have access to so many different things that we can do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Especially women.

Yeah. So it seems like there's more opportunity today than there has ever been for all. For sure. So I'm a different mom today, right? And so is my younger one. She got a little bit luckier than the fake mom. I was watching one of your videos where you were talking about how we shift almost like who we are in different spaces.

And I know for myself especially this space like this is my most authentic space because I love to talk to people and what's interesting is that I've never I never thought that sense of soul would ever land on anyone's ears. I mean, I hope that maybe it would help one, two people, whatever. And I remember our first year, we were so happy. We were like 20,000 downloads. And now I have like over 1.2 million or whatever. It's like, I think that people, they want real. And I hear this often. But I also have people who will come in and say, you need to do this and this and this and this. And they try to put me on a different path, but it's due to more likes, more downloads, more video. This is what you have to do for social media. And it pulls me out of that space that I love just right here. I don't do it for likes. I'm top 1%. I'm proud of that. However, I never did it to be on the top of anything. It was really truly from my heart. That passion will get you

higher than anybody's strategic plan. That's right. It can move mountains, right? I think so. I think like what you said about, you know, when we start to do things for like, yeah, it's great if you want to monetize what your work is or, you know, for me, I mean, I can only use myself as an example. Like I've written books because I see that the work that I've done in the classroom applies to all kinds of creatives. And so I know that there's value in it. But like you, I didn't do it. I feel like I can't put the thing in front of the reason why I'm doing it. I'm not doing it for clickbait or for likes or that's great if that comes from that. But also I think Shannon, like that's the deceptive part again of social media is it's not real. It's not real. We've all drunk the Kool-Aid because there's, first of all, there's a logarithm.

Secondly, things are siloed. So you're only going to get the kind of information or the shows that you already kind of are wired to get. Third can be bought, you know only going to get the kind of information or the shows that you already kind of are wired to get. There can be bought, you know, you can get likes, you can have Russian bots, like your stuff or hate your stuff. Like it's not a real thing. And I work with lots of influencers who I'm not saying that their numbers aren't real. but I just, I guess, again, trying to peel back that curtain so that people see what's behind the curtain. It isn't likes and thumbs up because they're working hard

and they're really trying to find their own voice in the content they're making. And some of them, you know, I have some, let's say, students who have like millions of followers, right? But they're getting a little bit older and they're wanting to do the kind of content that really speaks to them. But now they're a logarithm or their numbers don't like it when they deviate from what they've already done.

But again, it's kind of we've come full circle, like the top of this show, I guess, was all about we transform beyond our labels. We're not the same as we were two minutes ago, an hour ago, 10 years ago. And we have to be brave to keep stepping into the new you that's calling us. Yeah. Be brave and be authentic. It does take a little bit of bravery to be real. A lot. It takes a lot. Yeah. It's a lot. Don't live somebody else's dreams, right? That's right. Don't live, just be you. But you're inspiring lots of people. And I'm so glad you had me on today. Yeah, you're amazing.

It's so comfortable. Tell everybody where they can find you, where they can get your book, plug yourself. Thanks, guys. If you're interested, I mean, you can find all my books on Amazon. I mean, the breakout book is called at left brain turn right. But also like my latest book is called unstuck. And it's really for creatives. It's really helping people get unstuck in their lives. So you can find me at www.anthonymindle.com. Or like I said, all my books are on Amazon. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Anthony was in the house.

Thanks, Shannon. It was really fun. Okay, God bless. Keep on keeping on. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sense of Soul Podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.