TrueLife - Whispers of Wisdom: Illuminating the Path to Authentic Leadership

Episode Date: January 21, 2024

One on One Video Call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_US🚨🚨Curious about the future of psychedelics? Imagine if Alan Watts started a secret society with Ram Dass and Hunter S. Thompson… now open the door. Use Promocode TRUELIFE for Get 25% off monthly or 30% off the annual plan For the first yearhttps://www.district216.com/https://www.samskara.co/Supriya Venkatesan – a force whose narrative transcends boundaries, inviting you to explore the boundless potential that lies within the artistry of communication and the vast landscapes of human achievement.Embark on a journey into the extraordinary as we unveil the narrative of Supriya Venkatesan – a luminary whose influence spans continents, cultures, and the very fabric of human connection. With a dynamic fusion of expertise drawn from an 18-year odyssey encompassing marketing, journalism, and military service, Supriya stands as a beacon for executives and entrepreneurs seeking the pinnacle of their potential.A maestro of communication, Supriya’s mastery extends across the intricate tapestry of the mind, the art of dialogue, and the harmonious orchestration of collective consciousness within organizations. Armed with a Masters degree in Strategic Communications from Columbia University, she is a certified Trainer and Master Coach in Neurolinguistic Programming, weaving her insights seamlessly through the realms of media, military, and mindfulness.In the realm of accolades, Supriya’s brilliance shines brightly. From receiving the ADCOLOR award for exemplary leadership in DEI to being honored with the Commandant’s Award by the US Army, she embodies excellence at every turn. A combat veteran with six years in the US Army, Supriya’s leadership prowess was honed leading diverse teams across three continents.Her written words, like echoes of wisdom, resonate in prestigious publications such as the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Redbook, and beyond. Global brands like Apple, Dropbox, Nissan, and The Wall Street Journal have been touched by her strategic acumen, while her passion for small businesses has left an indelible mark on over 100 SMBs and their visionary founders. One on One Video call W/George https://tidycal.com/georgepmonty/60-minute-meetingSupport the show:https://www.paypal.me/Truelifepodcast?locale.x=en_USCheck out our YouTube:https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPzfOaFtA1hF8UhnuvOQnTgKcIYPI9Ni9&si=Jgg9ATGwzhzdmjkg

Darkness struck, a gut-punched theft, Sun ripped away, her health bereft. I roar at the void. This ain't just fate, a cosmic scam I spit my hate. The games rigged tight, shadows deal, blood on their hands, I'll never kneel. Yet in the rage, a crack ignites, occulted sparks cut through the nights. The scars my key, hermetic and stark. To see, to rise, I hunt in the dark, fumbling, fear. Hears through ruins maze, lights my war cry, born from the blaze.

The poem is Angels with Rifles. The track, I Am Sorrow, I Am Lust by Kodak Serafini. Check out the entire song at the end of the cast. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Friday. It looks like we made it. I'm so excited that we're here up. I hope everybody has a cool weekend plan. But more than that, I hope the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the wind is at your back. the wind is at your back.

I've got an incredibly inspirational show for you today with an amazing individual, the one and only Supria Venkatation, embark with us on a journey into the extraordinary as we unveil this narrative, a luminary whose influence spans continents, cultures, and the very fabric of human connection, with a dynamic fusion of expertise drawn

from an 18-year odyssey, encompassing marketing, journalism, and military service. Supriya stands as a beacon for executives and entrepreneurs seeking the pinnacle of their potential. A maestro of communication, Supriya's mastery extends across the intricate tapestry of the mind, the art of dialogue, and a harmonious orchestration of collective consciousness within organizations. Armed with a master's degree in strategic communication from Columbia University, she's a certified trainer and master coach in neurolinguistic programming,

weaving her insights seamlessly through the realms of media, military, and mindfulness. in the realm of accolade Supriya's brilliance shines brightly from receiving the ad color award for exemplary leadership in DEI to being honored with the commandments award by the U.S. Army. She embodies excellence at every turn. A combat veteran was six years in the U.S. Army, Supriya's leadership prowess has honed leading diverse teams across three continents. Supriya, thank you so much for being here today. How are you?

Great. That was quite an intro. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. it's like an opportunity for me to get to frame the person with whom I'm speaking and in a way I see them and I want the rest of the audience to see them and and now it's your turn to back it up a little bit. I feel like after reading some of the stuff you've been doing and writing and some of your articles,

I feel like you've lived multiple lifetimes already. Yeah, it does feel like that. I feel like I go through a rebirth like every two years. Yeah. I can see it too. Like in a lot when I was when I was making the promo video, like you have so many different. looks. And all I could think about was like, I wonder if that's because of the different perspective she sees the world in. Like you see it to the military perspective and you see it

through a journalism perspective. Maybe we could touch on that a little bit. Like, how do you have all these just diverse looks at how you see the world? Like, where does that come from? That's a really good question. And I agree that I think that I've changed because of the perspectives I've held and it's evolved over time. And it's not like dropping the old perspective, but merging with the new. And then each time, and just merges and evolves into something bigger and more expansive. But as far as it were, comes from, I think a lot of my childhood, I lived between two different countries for the first eight years, no, first nine years of my life.

I'm originally from the Fiji Islands in a small, tiny village. And for most people who probably don't know the history of the Fiji Islands, there was a coup in 1987. So I was two years old. It was our first coup. We've had, I think, four total since then. And a lot of the Indian population left at that time. At that time, about 85% of the population is Indian and the remaining was indigenous.

Today, it's 50% Indian. So a lot of migration occurred. And my mother was one of those people. She moved to Los Angeles. My father stayed in Fiji. They were going through a divorce, a separation, and then eventually divorced. So because of that, I switched countries every six or 12 months. So I was in L.A., in like downtown L.A., very urban, very like impoverished L.A.,

eating McDonald's, wearing jeans. like just, you know, living a very American lifestyle, urban American lifestyle. And then six months later, I'd be in this tiny building in Fiji where I'm not allowed to wear pants because I'm a girl. I speak Hindi. I don't speak English or Spanish, which I'm now learning. There's no McDonald's anywhere in the country. You know, just very different ways of living just became my norm. And I didn't think it was weird until I got older. And I'm like, oh, that's not how people live.

So I think I became very adaptable and able to hold different perspectives. Wow. it's amazing to think first off thanks for sharing that story and it's amazing to think the way in which we are we live our lives as children can give us in a unique perspective and later in life and sometimes these things that we think are tragedies can end up being almost like a superpower like the ability to translate culture like that's a beautiful superpower to happen oh you you don't know that oh you don't know that like you're talking about two different worlds there yeah yeah and I think it's it's pros and cons for my brother for him is very challenging for me it was as a gift I loved it so I think it

is your personality is a lot to do with it which is changeable but it's how you approach it yeah it's well said and it seems to me that you've covered this idea that you speak multiple languages like I think that's another lens in which you have to see the world because you have to think in a certain language or speak in a certain language and often when you're translating those languages in your mind you have to think about well what does that mean mean or how do you say that and like that gives you a whole other world of empathy and perspective on things you find that to be accurate as well 100% and i take it further like even dream in a different language or love in a different language the way we feel um my native language is Hindi but i

barely speak it today english is how i just go through the world but even now if i watch a bollywood movie there's just some tug in my heart that an american film can like it can i can never occur for me. And it's just because of that language, it's so like deep part of who I am. Yeah. All right. We got to, we got to dive on. What does it mean to love in the language? Well, even like in Hindi, like the word love, there's five different ways of saying it. And English is only one word for love. So right away, it's like love has many facets, right? There's romantic love. There's familial love. There's lust, which is different than infatuation, which is different than a marriage has been around for 40 years.

Like love has so many aspects to it. So I think for the perspective of language, that's one thing. Yeah. Even like with my daughter, sorry, go ahead. No, please. With my daughter, I have a child. She's eight years old. And, you know, I do slip into Hindi sometimes when I call her.

Like Beatty is how you say daughter in Hindi. And it's just different than saying in English for me. Because in English, you wouldn't say, oh, my daughter come here. Like, we just don't do that. But in Hindi we do. So it's a different kind of endearment. So my love opens in a different way, if that makes sense. Yeah, it does.

I think that it has profound consequences on all relationships when you can think, speak, and live in another language, whether that be a cultural language or it just gives you so much more empathy. Like when you may have found yourself in this situation, and I have a couple times, and I know a lot of my listeners have, when you don't speak a language well and you're in a foreign country, And you're trying to understand what someone is telling you. Like you're really focusing on their facial features, their body language, because you know some of the words,

but maybe they're speaking it fast and you can't really compute it. So you're really digging into all these other symbolic forms of language. And that particular idea is translated. Like that kind of becomes second nature. And then you find yourself in business or in a leadership role. You really, you are again using that skill to look deep into the person. Like, what are they really telling me here, right? Yeah.

Well, language is only a small component of communication, which most people don't realize. But body language is a huge part of it, as well as tonality of your voice and the way you control your voice and how people perceive it. Right. If I say, you know, come here or come here, they're two very different interpretations. Right. Yeah, and that's just tonality. So I think speaking of business and leadership or even traveling, I always try to pick up

some words because people always are more open when you just know even a few words of their country. They're like, oh, this person actually cares about me at some level. But aside from that, I think picking up on all the nonverbal stuff is really, really powerful. Yeah. I love the idea of communication and language and symbolism and the whole aspect of relationships to me is fascinating. And you have a really intense background in communication. Is that what did that, do you think that that love of communication is something that was formed out a necessity for you or is it something you're attracted to or is it just something that you've been around your whole your whole life so you were kind of drawn to like what's your what is

your relationship with communication yeah communication is the undercurrent i'd say of my entire life starting from a young age um but you know i i always wonder like why are some people one way and not somebody else like my brother i would use he's no longer alive but it wasn't for him right it was storytelling communication wasn't a part of his life but it was for me but with the same experiences as children so i think it is something that's unique to me, where does it come from? I don't know. It's just when my brain was shaped compared to his, maybe prior to birth. But when I was very young, when I was in fourth grade, I remember writing a story about my experiences in Fiji. This was in America, though, and my teacher

called my mother and brought her to school and said, your daughter is really good at writing stories. We need to encourage us. And my mom's like, she's Indian. She's not going to, she's not going to write stories. She's going to be doctor and engineer. No, arts. That's not going to work. And I was like, nope, you can't do that. It's not allowed. And then it left my brain until I got much, much older. Well, actually, it was when I was an eighth grade. I was an NPR because of a story that I wrote in school. But I didn't know at the time, like, what that meant, right? Because, again, it was an encouraged at home. So it was very much suppressed, the love of storytelling and I never thought it was an option for me as a career or even a form. I didn't even know people could

go to school for it. Like, that wasn't, this is before the internet, right? Yeah, yeah. So I couldn't go to Google and type in like communications degrees. So yeah, it took a long time to figure out that that's my jam. Is that how, you know, a lot of times we unfairly classify people as like linear or nonlinear or engineers think like this way or really very logical down the road? I'm curious as like, is your inner dialogue, like do you, is that how you see your life as a story or is it like you approach your life as a main character in a story or what? What's your philosophy on how you, your inner dialogue and how you approach the world?

Look at your narrative. Like, how do you do that? Yeah, I definitely approach life as a story. I feel like everyone goes to the hero's journey over and over again. But that template is there for a reason and we all live it. You just have to recognize the patterns when they occur. Do I see myself as a main character? That's a great question.

I do, but I also see myself as a guide going to the hero's journey. Because I coach, that's what I do for a living. I guide people. So I feel that that's the character I play. these days more. Yeah. You're like the Obi-1 Canobi in Luke Skywalker, the Star Wars, right, where you're finding people.

And is it, do you find that your lived experience is something that attracts the people that need help in your life? You know what I mean by that? Like, you've gone through these different things and these different walks and you've taken these different paths. Do you find that the people that reach out to you are on a similar path? And that's why they're attracted to you? Yeah.

I'd say the people that I attract are multi-dimensional and like multi-passionate and very global. And those are all aspects of who I am, who I am. I've lived on multiple continents at this point in my life, not just travel, but like lived. I've, you know, been exposed to so much professionally, both, you know, military, corporate, running my own business. And most people are just like one piece of life. And but not everyone is like that. So I think the people that I attract are like, yeah, multi-dimensional is the word I would use. And their blend, I would say, of like being very.

spiritual and open to that, like beyond emotional intelligence. Like there's some energy there, which is a big part of my work, but also let's be very, you know, real. Like there's business outcomes me to focus on we need an ROI. There's objectives. Like that doesn't go away. It's really true. It's on some level, I think this speaks to another dimension of language. And I see it with all the people that I've been talking to lately in my life. And it seems it if you slow down and pay attention that there's a language to life and an example of that is you know i remember not too long ago was sitting out in my my back patio i'd taken a rather large dose a medium dose of some mushrooms i was sitting out there just thinking and i saw like this vine that it climbed up this tree and it had like

this flower was blooming out of it like it's already a beautiful thing right i'm like wow but then i started thinking to myself how does it know to climb two-thirds up that tree and then produce a flower at a 45 degree angle on August 7th at 333 p.m. How does it know that? And then all of a sudden I realize it's talking to me. Like, how do I know to leave this job that I don't want to be at and take a chance to start this new place over here? And I'm like, oh my God, like that's the world talking. That's the language of the environment that is speaking to us if we have the courage and the eyes and the ears to listen to it. Do you, is that part of your jam? Are you vibing with that? Is that a language? Yes, 100%. I would call that energy.

You know, and that's also backed by science, which people don't realize, like, oh, it's this world of woo-woo, but energy is very real. Yeah. We can measure it. We can see the effects of collective consciousness. There's been so many numerous studies done. So that's energy. To me, that is the even below communications is that. Yeah.

It's interesting to think about how the energy that we need or the energy that we get is, it's always around us. Like there's a world of communication around us. And I think that speaks to the idea of of being successful in life or even being depressed or having anxiety in life. It's like there's all this communication around you. And if you can tap into it, then you can find the direction on the path. But there's a lot of noise out there. How do you separate the signal from the noise? I think it's learning to quiet your mind. And I would say there's going back to what you're describing of the plant climbing and you making a decision and knowing what to do when in both both you and the plant there's a universal intelligence at play you know whether you call it god the universe

the name of a deity it doesn't matter i think it's science it doesn't matter what you call it but it's undeniable there is a universal intelligence that's beyond this planet earth right there it's been there and then being um harmonized with our own energy with that intelligence and being able to tune into it and that's like true flow state it's beyond just measuring your brainwave patterns. When you're able to just flow and see synchronities, you know, pop up in your life constantly, that's when you're in tune with it. But it starts with quieting the mind.

That's how you get, if they get rid of the noise, there's so much things that we have, you know, emotions, beliefs, all of these things, these mental habits that prevent us from quieting the mind. So that's, I think that's the path. I love the way you said that. And when you talk about synchronicities, like it, I just recently started working with Susan Brown and this company called Token of Me. And they have this, it's like a, you hook up this, they call it a soul compass.

And it's really amazing. Like they're able to use like 32 different metrics to find when you're in the flow state. They're still fine tuning it a little bit. But it's amazing to think what's possible, not only when you're in the flow state, but when you start monitoring how you get into that flow state, I think it speaks to the energy you're talking about. Maybe you can talk a little bit more about the flow state and what's your relationship with it. Sure. Yeah.

I love flow state. I love being in it. I love guiding people into it. As you know, it is measurable through different mechanisms. Brainwave patterns is how I've measured in the past, but I'm sure there's other ways. And then heart coherence. I don't know if you're familiar with a heart map. Yeah, that's another aspect to it. But flow state is an experience. It's very similar to what some people call like runners high. You know, if you've ever, for anyone who's listening to a runner or done any sort of, you know, physical exercise, you get in this feeling of like, oh, my God, like I'm high, but I'm not using. drugs. So that's like that's like flow state. I mean, it's not psychedelic, but it is, you know, an expression or a feeling of just being different. And when you're working, it happens often in a creative process or even a non-creative process. You just feel like everything just flowing, things just come out of you. To me, when I write, it's almost like I'm channeling. And I think that's what a lot of creative say, you know, people throughout history, not just today. It's like something just pouring through me and it's not me. It's something bigger than me. So to me,

the flow state is when you're, again, going by the divine universal intelligence. So like you're at one with it, you're connected to it. But to me, that is like the most profound experience of flow state. I love it. I think in some of your videos that are watching, you talk about journaling. And I think you bring up this exact idea of co-creation where something is kind of writing with you, like you're writing this thing together. Maybe you could share a little bit about that story with the audience today.

Sure. Well, it just happens. I mean, when I started meditating was the first time it occurred. And I remember I was an undergrad. I lived in an ashran type of community in Fairfield, Iowa, where everyone meditates all the residents in that town. And I've written about it as well for the Washington Post if anybody wants to read it. So it's a very different environment that's meditating by yourself because you've got the support of thousands of people who are meditating with you twice a day every single day. But after shortly, if I're living in that community, one day, I just felt like writing.

It was like late at night. It was like 9 p.m. I just couldn't stop writing until 5 a.m. I was just pouring out of me and I couldn't control it. And that was my first experience. So since then, I've learned there are ways to like trigger flow, right? Through meditation is obviously some, you just begin. With meditation, what occurs is the analogy that I like to use is like dipping a cloth.

Like back in the day when the way people used to color clothes, those would die, like food dyes and whatnot. You would dip the cloth once and you'd bring the cloth out and you'd have some color but not enough, right? And you'd hang it out and you'd hang it out and draw it. You'd dip it again and bring it out. It'll color again. Just keep this process and eventually it just becomes that color.

So consciousness of your mind is the same way. When you meditate, you dip it into that like deep reservoir of, you know, intelligence. That's collective. And then you dip it again. And over time, you just become one with it. So to me, when you're in flow or tapping into that. channeling experience through any creative work, it's coming more and more. It becomes a habit. It becomes a natural part of you. So I think that's one example. But there's other things,

too. You can trigger flow through, you know, reducing cognitive load by creating somatic triggers in your body. The analogy you like to use here is like Pavlov's dogs, right? There was a very real thing that occurred. The, you know, the stimulus used to be the food and the response was a salivation, but the stimulus became the bell and the salivation of the mouth was there. And the same way in our body, we're programmed to have triggers. So again, you can change that and play with it. So there's many ways, I think, to get into flow and to have it more often than not. And those are the experiences.

Yeah, it's really that those are beautiful ways to describe it. What do you think is a relationship? It's, you know, sometimes when you become aware of something, you mess it up. You know, then we have the idea of like the Schrodinger's cat when they come in there. It's not something they mess it up, but like just being aware of it changes the outcome. Maybe I shouldn't say mess it up. Just being aware of something like changes it. And I've noticed that sometimes when you're in the flow state and you become aware of it, it's kind of slippery.

You're like, oh, I'm out of it right now, you know? Or maybe you could, like how, since you have such a great background of communication, how can I better describe that? Maybe you can help me with that. Yeah. So I think we, yeah, the example of the Schrodinger, I think is the way you pronounce like cat is a great example. and also of the particle and the wave function, right?

Yeah. So for anyone here who's listening, is not familiar with it, science shows us that if you look at a particle, it can become a wave or it can not become a wave, and it's through the observer effect. So as soon as you introduce the observer, like just somebody in eyeball,

looking at it, it changes. Energy at its most minute level changes, just through the process of observation. Like atoms change. So that means every moment of life that we have, whatever we are observing and thinking about in the moment of observation can impact our reality. This is like, it's real science. And so I try to be very conscious of my thoughts personally, and I teach people to be that as well. It is a very slippery slope.

But I also believe in parallel realities. I don't know if that's too much for this audience. No, it's beautiful. We'll get into it after this part. Okay, cool. So I think when we're in my experience, if I'm changing my thoughts and changing my observation, I'm jumping into a different reality and I can change back. Like if it's something that I don't like, like you're saying, oh, something went wrong.

I just need to change my thinking and become that identity of the person who's an other reality. And I can just shift back. Sometimes depending on how far that gap is, it can take a long time or can take a short time. Right. It can take seconds or it can take a year. But you can definitely shift it back. And I think that's the mechanics. I love it. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of that. And I've thought about that in different ways,

but I don't know that I've ever heard anybody put it exactly that way. That's wonderful. Can you give me an example of me and the audience, an example of like when you've been able to shift those realities? Was it a large shift? What is a small shift? Or, you know, give you an example. Yeah, done both small and large. Yeah, I'm guaranteed. I'll give a, I'll give a smaller example, which that might be relatable. I remember I was in Europe. I was traveling and we were going to Heathrow the airport to leave. And somehow there was some giant accident or something happened in the traffic. This was a few years ago. And I couldn't get to my plane on time, right?

I had left extremely early. I was actually, I think driving from Paris, we're on this like road trip through Europe adventure thing with me, my friends. And we're on our way to heat through, but we were like three hours. Like the Google Maps that were three hours to it. And my flight was going to like leave an hour. And I'm like, and I'm like, and we're already. been sitting in traffic for hours. Like it was, I don't remember what was happening, but it was really bad.

Like half a day just sitting there trying to get there. And I was like, what do I do? Like, this is, if I miss this flight, I had to be somewhere very important the next day. So I was like, this was really, really bad. So I just shifted my thought. And I'm not kidding you. Within five minutes, like the traffic just broke. And I got to my flight on time because the traffic changed.

So, you know, the driving time reduced. And I made my flight just fine and got there. it's it's mind-blowing to me to not only hear these these particular stories but also in my life sometimes i think that the outer world is a direct manifestation of what's going on in your mind and if it's cluttered and if you're just in this wavelength or this mood where everything is shitty then your life is kind of shitty like all of a sudden these bad things start happening to it's like you're making those things happen yes you can choose if that's a good thing like you can't maybe you can't choose what happens but you get to control the meaning of that

even. And that's even more powerful, right? Yeah, I agree 100%. I think, you know, our reality is created by the thoughts we have. And going, sorry, just going back to that story, I think part of it is also surrender, which is an emotional component. So it's going beyond cognitive. Like I'm 100% about, like, changing your belief systems. But there is an element of surrender as well, which I think is important. Yeah. Maybe you can speak about that. For me, the idea of, I went, let me just tell you this quick little journey that I was on. For a while, I thought surrender was like this weak word. Because I always thought about it like, you know, I would read the, who's the greatest generals. And you start looking at these different like, Sipius and you just start reading all these generals.

And like you start getting this idea that like surrender, surrender sounds weak. And I think especially in the Western world, we have this idea like you're quitting, you're giving up. But then the more you begin to embrace the idea of surrender. You start reading a little bit of Sufi poetry. You start thinking about, hmm, maybe I should surrender. surrender a little bit to these silly ideas that I have, you know, and like it changes the whole aspect of it a little bit. And it does allow you to get out of your own way. But maybe you could speak to the idea of surrender, what it means to you and how it's helped you become a better person.

To me, surrender is about dropping the ego because there's different parts of who you are, right? There's these layers. And ego is the part that wants to control, that wants to force, that wants to make things happen. And that's great. It has its place. It's part of our identity. It's important. But if you can drop the ego and surrender to, you know, lack of a better word, your higher self, which is beyond this identity and this incarnation, this lifetime, and this reality amongst parallel realities, if I can surrender to something bigger, which is still me, that can see all of these things that I can't see and know things that I can't know, then that's, that's to me a surrender.

Yeah. On some level, I think surrender is, surrender is sometimes a pathway is to say. self-love. Yes. Right? Does that kind of make sense? Love is a big part of it. Going back to the, you know, you're talking about flow states, so heart coherence, right?

We talk a lot about brain intelligence, but the heart has his own intelligence, which the Heart Math Institute has, you know, codified at this point and then numerous studies on, but there is an electricity controls our body and it's everywhere, and it's part of the heart, and you can measure it. And if once you can get your heart and your brain to be incoherence, then that's opening up the heart like literally. You're literally opening up channels in your body on a physical level, but you're also experiencing love, right? Both love self-love and then love for others and other sentient beings. It's beautiful. I was just talking. There's a great book you should check out.

I'll introduce you to Shana's Sony. She's a she works at NASA. She's like an aerospace. She's incredible. I'll stop right there. She's an incredible individual. She's like so many people that come on this podcast like yourself. And she was speaking quite a bit about, the idea of heart coherence. And inside this book, the quantum being, she got some really cool imagery of like the fields that are around you, the way you interact with those fields and especially like the coherence of the heart, which I got to check out the institute you're speaking of, but, you know, it's if we take it all the way back to language, like there's so much in the lexicon of like listen to your heart, follow your heart. And when you start talking about heart coherence,

that adds like a real tangible part to it, doesn't it? Yeah, that's science, right? When we love science. Like it just proves it. It's not something, you know, philosophical at this point anymore. Right. Yeah. Right. To me it's beginning. I think we're beginning to bridge the gap or maybe just return to the idea that science and spirituality are part and parcel, right? Like they're the same side or the opposite sides of the same coin. What's your take on the relationship between spirit and science? Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think so much of spirituality has these, you know, modalities and techniques that we knew to be effective, but no way to prove it. And then science, when I think in the beginning of it was like, no, this is like so different. No, we need, but we didn't have the mechanisms

to prove it. That was it. We didn't have the tools. And now we have the tools. Like we have EEG scans, which didn't exist 100 years ago. We do today. So now we can say, oh, actually, you do. Something does shift in your brain. Now we can measure neuroplasticity. We can see the integration of the hemispheres of brain. We measure heart currents. We can see blood, pressure dropped their meditation. There's all of these different mechanisms of measuring. And I think as science continues to evolve and our ability to measure and, you know, see the efficacy of things continues to evolve, we'll see more and more how, you know, modalities from ancient roots are actually, like, viable and true. But having said that, I think there's also a lot

of, like, dogma that's often wrapped in spirituality. There are still tools that don't work. You know, some of it is just, you know, placebo effect, which is true in medicine as well. Well, a lot of medicine is placebo, but the same thing is spirituality. So I think having science is really important and critical for us to know what is the most effective. And it'll become more apparent as we evolve in our technology. Yeah, I think we're going to find out that there's a real big bridge between spirituality and placebo. You know, I think there's like a real, like we don't understand it. We might as well call it magic.

You know, I'm going to, there's a few comments here I want to read as we're going through. I want to speak out to us. So shout out to Jenna. Jenna, we love you. She got a great album out right now. Jenna Longmeyer says, Walking Between the Worlds. Yes, energy is everything.

Shout out from Mark Davis over here. Mark Davis, the connector. Hi, George and Supri. Nice to see you both. Hello from Niagara Falls. And then we have Jenna again says, I love hearing about you talk about the timeline, jumping or parallel lives.

Maybe we could talk. I want to jump back into that for a moment. There was a while back, Supri. I remember having a few years ago, I remember having like this profound. thing that happened to me. I was at work one day and my my phone started blowing up like just blowing up off the hook and I'm like what is this? And I was driving so I couldn't really pick it up and it was a strange number so I was like, maybe it's a marketer. But it just like call hang up, call hang up.

I'm like, okay, this is clearly something. And then I looked down again and it was my wife. My wife was calling me and she's like, George. She's like, are you driving? I'm like, yeah. I'm like, I pulled over and she's like, is there something you want to tell me? And I'm like, oh my God. And I'm thinking it's like my wife. I mean, is there something I want to tell me? I'm like, no, I don't, I've got nothing to hide, love. Is everything okay? And she goes, the FBI showed up at the door. They want to talk to you.

I'm like, what? What are you talking about? Me? And she's like, yeah, they've just left here. They said that they can't tell me what's happening, but they really need to talk to you. And, you know, they're concerned at some of the things you're doing. I'm like, okay. What are they talking about?

Like, I'm trying to rack my brain. I'm like, man, because I bought some weed. And I'm like, they didn't care about if I bought some weed. I just started thinking about all these silly things. And I'm like, man, I got nothing to hide. So then those guys call me, as I'm thinking about them, these guys call me up. I'm like, Mr. Moni, we got to meet you. We're going to come to your work.

I'm like, that's a horrible idea. Do not come to my work. We're not going to meet there. Let's meet over here at this other place. And so we meet over at the UH campus and they show up. And I'm watching them show up. And I'm like, I start sizing them up. I'm like, they're fully younger than me.

Like, who are you? You don't like FBI agents? Who are these guys? So they come over to me and they're kind of giving me the stern look and they hand me this binder. And they're like, could you take a little. look at these individuals inside this binder, Mr. Monty. So I open it up. Like, I don't know, I don't, like, dude,

I don't know any of these people. It's like this strange looking looking looking people. And I'm like, and then like, as I'm looking through the binder, I look up at them. And like, they're like watching me? And now I'm like, are they just watching me, watch this bind? Tripping out on my mind, right? I go to crazy questions. And so I hand it back to him and I'm like, man, I don't know

any of these people. What is it all about? And they're like, well, maybe you can explain to us how this guy has your license. And I'm like, hmm. I look at them again. I'm like, oh, you know what? I got pickpocketed at the mall like six months ago. And I just saw all the air come out of them.

They're like, damn it, you know. And they thought they had some big criminal on their case. And I was like, oh. And so long story longer. I come home that night and I tell my wife what happened. It was kind of a, you know, just a misappropriation of who it was. But at that moment, I remember thinking that night, like, what if I was? Like, what did the first off, what do those guys think I was doing?

And second off, what if I was the guy? guy that they thought I was. What if I was this mastermind criminal? What would I do? And I lived in that world, Supriya, for like a few hours. I was like, I just became this international mastermind. I started thinking about all these things that I would do. And I felt like I was that person. And then all of a sudden, it was this shift in my mind is like, you could be. You could be that person if you wanted to. You just lived that life for two hours and you lived it. Why not? And from that point forward, I felt like there was this neuroplastic change that happened in my life. Not to be a criminal or not to be that, but the ability to become who I wanted to be. And I've been able to

draw back on that, you know, on that instance, I'd be like, yeah, I can change. The world is inviting me to become whoever I want to be if I'm willing to believe on that person. And I think that that speaks to the idea of parallel universe. It speaks the idea of jumping between different realms like that. Thanks for letting me share that story. Is that a little crazy? Or what do you think? No, that's beautiful. I love it. Yeah. And you've had like a direct experience. So now you know you can do that again. And for you, it seems like having this experience with other people, like creates that anchor for you and being able to change your brain. So if you wanted to in the future become somebody else, you could recreate that, but not, you know, not the FBI and all of that.

But whatever it is that you want it to be. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's interesting how those stories go because you start looking back on those stories and you realize that the circumstances through which you created a story to change you had. certain powerful anchors. And you're right. It was being out in public. It was an authority figure. There's all these, you know, um, archetypes that were in there and elements that allowed me to have that shift. And then when you start to think about the big picture, you're like, oh, I'm beginning

to understand how my mind works. Yeah. I need these things in my mind or I need to conquer these things or I have this problem with authority or I had this weird relationship with these things and they're playing out in your life. It's kind of magical and wonderful to think about, right? It's amazing. Yes. It's like the best playground. Yeah. It is.

You know, it's, I'm also curious with your journey spans marketing, marketing journalism, military service. How do these diverse experiences converge in shaping your unique approach to unlocking the potential of executives and entrepreneurs? I think it's twofold. One is there's that all of the stuff that happens in the brain and the body, that change that for people would change. changes their reactions, changes their behavior, behavioral output.

So then they have different results. But also in the business side, I have real world business experience, scaling both Fortune 500 companies as well as small businesses. So that's also there because people need, you know, business leaders need help with both, navigating both parts of it. It's an interesting dynamic. And I'm curious how, you know, being in the military, I think that you become familiar with the flight or fight syndrome.

Like if you find yourself in this, maybe it's another dimension. You know, maybe it's a different world in which your sense of awareness is heightened at a level that it's not in the business world. Like, is there something you're able to bring back from that world and apply it to the other worlds in which you were? Oh, yeah. Constantly, constantly. There's just so much, yeah. You know, in the military, you know, there's an acronym called Vuca. I don't know if you've heard of it.

I can't remember what all the letters mean, but basically is volatile. like ambiguous, complex. That's the combat environment, right? Because things are changing all the time. You don't know. Warfare changes, especially when I was in Iraq, I switched to urban warfare from traditional warfare. So the military as a whole was like, what do we do strategically?

Like how do we fight the enemy who are now like going into houses and civilian homes and like going to a window and then doing things from there? Like how do we fight back without hurting innocent civilians? Like that's an example of how warfare changed like in my own direct experience. things are always different and complicated. And the world maybe was the state, like the world at large was to a certain extent that way. But today certainly with rapid technology,

with more and more globalism, like those two things aren't going to stop. That VUCA environment is occurring more and more for us. So I think those things that help soldiers become more resilient and able to navigate those environments is critical for business leaders today in all of the ways, both from becoming personal leaders, being able to influence those around you.

Like, how do you get an 18-year-old to, like, be willing to die? Like, that's not an easy task. Like, that's the definition of a soldier, right? Like, you have to be willing to give up your life. That's what you're signing up for. That is the ultimate sacrifice to ask somebody to make. So that's a high level of persuasion. Not saying that you need to do that in the business world to that degree,

but still, how do you influence people to do things they might not want to do, right? How do you see, get them to, you know, buy into the greater good? That's an example of influence. But again, that resilience within yourself, the ability to adapt to changing environments, especially like today with AI, it changes like every month. There's a new feature in chat GPT. And like new apps are being created, right? Constantly.

It's like, how do I keep up with it all? How do I have all of this information overload, cognitive load, this overwhelming experiences, but not be overwhelmed and still be able to make really smart decisions and have clear, you know, decision making throughout at all? Wow. Thank you. It's wonderful. And it brings up, it brings up an interesting thought for me that, you know, this idea of persuasion. Like, how do, like here's, here's an interesting question. If a crime fighter fights crime and a firefighter fights fires, what is a freedom fighter fight? Yeah, I think morally, that's a whole other rabbit hole is going to create a lot of division. I think it would go down that. I can't help but think about persuasion because I love it. Like I see it.

Like I read Caldini. I read, you know, the art of propaganda and persuasion. And, you know, on some level, I have such an affinity for language. And I think if you have an affinity for language, you can't help but be attracted to the idea of persuasion on some level. Yeah. But when you talk about being in military service and then coming back and applying some of these things to the world of business, you know,

On some levels, a young soldier that's willing to give up everything and die for what they believe in is a lot like a founder of a company. Founder of a company is willing. Go ahead. I was going to clarify, most of the time, the soldier doesn't believe in it. They're just willing to do it. Which is another layer. I think Darren lies the PTSD, right? Yes, and moral injury.

Yes. I'm sorry. It kind of makes me want to cry. I need to give me goosebumps a little bit. Like that, I think we nailed it on the head. The willing to do it, but say it again, willing to do it but not believing in it. Is that what you said?

Yeah. Like in my case, I didn't believe in the Iraq war when I was there, but I was still willing to die. And we were bombed a lot. And that could have occurred. Like I saw people die around me, not to, you know, get to graphic or like trigger warning here. And, but I believed in.

my comrades. I believe in their safety. And I still believe to a certain extent that we were, I saw the good that we were doing. I saw the bad that we were doing, but I also saw the good that we were doing. So a part of me was like, yes, I'm willing to, like, if I needed to, if it occurred, I'm not going to create it. But if it happens, it happens. It's like, it's okay. Maybe it's necessary for, you know, the same way in which we stop habits in our life is becoming aware that they're destructive to us. Maybe so too on a global level when so many people are finding themselves in a situation

where they're willing to do something but they don't want to do it. Maybe that's part of the awareness of change. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And I think having empathy for others, if I could share a story from Iraq. Please do. Yeah, I would love that. So I did feel a lot of guilt while I was there that

ate me out from the inside and it didn't also do with it because I started feeling that shortly after arriving in country and I had a 15-month deployment. So, like, I think, like, month two, it was, like, really hard. And, like, I wanted to leave. I was, like, I still have 13 months left. There's no way to, like, leave unless, you know, get kicked out, which is not a good thing to have on your record, even as a civilian.

Like, it's just life is not going to be pretty for you if that occurs. So I decided what I was like, well, how do I make this better for myself? I decided to volunteer. I used to work for the U.S. embassy at the time in Baghdad. And because of that, I had a lot of connections. And so I basically got a letter from a high-level doctor who worked at the embassy to get me a volunteer position at a hospital, which typically you need to be like a trained medic to do. Like you have to have the training which I didn't have. But I was like, I just need to do something.

And they agreed. They wanted to help me. So I went to the hospital and started volunteering. At the time, I was learning Arabic. And I spoke. I love languages as well, obviously. So I worked specifically in the ICU, the intensive care unit for local nationals. So the hospital primarily served soldiers who are coming, you know, injured, but I worked in the Iraqi side.

And during the time, for the majority of it, I was treating either Iraqi soldiers that had come in or Iraqi civilian casualties. But one day, we had a terrorist that came in that didn't, a suicide bomber who had, you, partially failed, so he was still alive. And according Geneva Conventions, which is the international law, we must all abide by, we had to treat him. It was, it's the law. So we did treat him. He was obviously in a separate section with a police officer, an MP, and it was a different

kind of environment, you know, set up in his room. We did give him medical care in the same way. And the day that I was there, I was normally, I didn't think that me being like a volunteer position in this manner would go trade him, but my supervisor asked me to do it. I said, okay. And I was very, very frightened to go into that room because I thought this man is going to memorize what I look like and then go kill me because that's what terrorists do. And it was not unheard of. It was actually very common for translators who worked there to be victims of terrorist attacks, right? They are taking their own risk by helping the United States military. And because

I look, I had my, my hair was not colored at that time. It was my natural black color. And because I spoke Arabic, people often assumed I was of Arabic descent, right? Because of just my manner reasons at the time, but that, okay, this guy's going to think that I'm like a local person who's betraying their people and he's going to remember any of a name tag on your uniform. He's going to know my name. You know what I'll just like, like all of these things in my brain were going on. Like, I'm just scared. He's going to kill me. Like, I'm going to die. But I have to do this because it's what I signed up for. When I first walked into the room, I looked down at the ground. I couldn't even like like look up goes again i had so much trepidation i cannot tell you it's probably the most

fearful moment of my life was was this day um and then but then i went around um to the side of his bed like i was like walking um you know around his bed and i went there and i looked up and because i finally made eye contact with him and when i made eye contact i saw he was an incredibly old man he must have been like 70 years old and when he looked at me we made eye contact he began to cry like there was just there was a tears like just going down it was just silent there was no spoken words and he just started crying in that moment i felt this deep level of compassion empathy for him and i was realized that he is who he is because of circumstances i don't know the full complexity of his circumstances i was like maybe he got paid by a terrorist group to do this and he needed the money because he has no food for his family i don't know i don't know the full story maybe he really is you know believes in some ideology i don't know but in that moment like some something occurred that transcended both of our professions, for lack of a better word and who we are. And it fundamentally changed me in that moment. And yeah.

Wow. Thanks for sharing that story. You know, I think it's stories like that that real life lived experience from individuals like you or me or just anybody out there who's had these. I think that that's what translates into people understanding the greater good. You know, sometimes I just have a problem with that word, the greater good, because who gets to decide what the greater good is? But maybe there's something bigger than that. Maybe the greater good is the compassion between two people who are on opposite sides of the line.

Maybe that's the greater good. Yeah. I don't know what the greater good is, but I think we have hope, because without hope, we would shrivel, right? our soul would shrivel. We need going back to love. We need love to survive. We know that if babies, if they don't experience emotional touch and emotions,

they do die. Like we need, I think we need hope. Even if it's not real, we need it. Yeah. Yeah, Hart, Harlow, Hey, buddy.

Right when he said that my cat rolls in over here, imagine that. Yeah, I'm reminded of those studies. I think Harry Harlow had these monkeys. And they took, they did some, they were really mean experiments,

but they would take the monkeys away from the mom and put them with like a steel monkey and they got no love and those monkeys would end up suffering and dying. And I think that that speaks volumes to who we are. Like if we don't have love, and that's probably a trigger for us. So many try to find love or are lonely. And so we end up doing these things that we think will get attention for us

and it's crazy to think about. But yeah, the idea of hope is a powerful one. It's this idea that we're part of something bigger. And I think that takes us full circle back to you know the idea of you know profound experiences whether it's jumping in different dimensions or whether it's language or moving between countries this idea that we're part of something bigger than both of us like we're a divine spark of the world what's your take on that like being a part of something bigger yeah i think it goes back to we're talking about like this universal intelligence i think i'm just

a facet of it right just like a human body is all of these cells all those cells are different and they have their own micro-intelligence, for lack of a better word, that can create, you know, like an organ, right, in the body, but it's still, they all have the same DNA, right? They're still the same intelligence. I think humans are the same way. We're all part of this broader intelligence in the entire universe, but we all, within us, are like the DNA. We still have that intelligence to its full capacity within us.

Yeah. So we've touched on this a little bit, but this question goes into what we're talking about talking about a little bit deeper. As a combat veteran leading teams across three continents, how has your military background influenced your coaching philosophy, particularly in fostering teamwork and cohesion within organizations? I think there's two parts of that question. The first part has it influenced my coaching. Second is specifically with teamwork and cohesion. But the first part, I'm a very direct. I'm like a no bullshit, very direct person in my coaching. Some people, I mean, all my clients like it, but I don't think it's for everybody, right? There are a lot of people who are

much softer in their approach. And I believe in being soft and loving and heart coherence, everything you talked about, but I'm very direct. I'm very focused. I believe in like focused rapid results. So that's that's the military part of me like coming out in my coaching style, no matter like what I do that's always there. As far as teamwork and cohesion, there's a lot. So I, you know, team morale is really, really important and creating inspiration is something that I think is important that business leaders don't always put a focus on. That's a big part of creating team cohesion, creating bonding, creating trust between members of the group, between hierarchical levels of hierarchy, like whether it's yourself or different layers of management that exist.

But, you know, there's different methods to do that, both at a subconscious level through the way you speak, the way you communicate, as well as very, like, real world tactical ways of doing it, like various activities you can do and, you know, types of meetings you can have. and whatnot. So that's how it comes out. It's interesting. Has been, has your experience in life taught you that there's a problem with hierarchies? No.

It's probably not what you're expecting. Can you expand on that? I know it's kind of a nebulous question, but I think it's a fun one. And I'm curious to get your thoughts. Maybe you can expand on it. Well, the concept of leadership inherently means there's hierarchy as a leader in charge. And I believe we need. leadership in order to make things happen.

So I think that's why. If we didn't need leadership, then then yeah, we wouldn't need hierarchy. But fundamentally there needs to be someone that can make decisions that can, you know, great strategy can help lead people to different ways of thinking and being. I think part of it is also most people don't have the desire or capacity to to go beyond survival mode often. So leaders do. They go beyond survival mode. They're willing to expand who they are in many,

many ways to then help people go beyond that mode that they're in. Again, whether it's just purely business or life or in any capacity. So leadership is critical to progress. And if you have leaders, you need hierarchy. Yeah. There's lots of masks of leadership that you can see play out

through your own life, through my like people see leadership and through different lenses through different parts of their life and I'm wondering who do you see as a leader and why I see lots of people as leaders can you give us some examples of them uh people you know honestly the people that inspire me the most are um business owners of like small and medium there aren't like in like in big business because it's so much harder for them to do it there's um so much more effort so much more sludge to go through both inside of yourself and in the business world and market forces, you know, your people that you're leading, et cetera.

So to me, that's who inspires me the most. But certainly, you know, people who have been like leaders at a global level, both historically in the past and today, I'm especially inspired by, I think, female leaders because they had a, especially today and in the past, the people had to fight through so much to accomplish what they did. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting to see people on the entrepreneurial journey, you know, especially, you know, you start looking at what kind of a person is willing to walk away from a life

of normalcy, whatever that means, or a life that's somewhat comfortable until their partner or their kids like, hey, I'm going to be mentally gone for a while. I'm going to focus on this dream that I have for everybody. Like that's a tough conversation to have with people you love. Hey, just excuse me for a minute. like a work on this dream that's going to make us all better. Your loved one's like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like what about this dream that we have right here, pal?

What about this? It's working great. Why are you breaking? Yeah, totally. Right? And you can see, like, you start, when you start digging down into, like, reading people's stories that have made it to a certain level, you know, the phrase you can't serve two masters comes to mind.

And there's a trail of broken relationships. There's a trail of broken relationships, whether it's a father or a mother. or a husband or a wife, you know, like on some level, do you have to leave behind everything in order to begin an idea that will change the world as an entrepreneur? I think it depends on how big your dream is. You know, when I study people who are like, like Elon Musk, for example, or, you know, people who are like at a very, very high level of entrepreneurship

and running many, many companies, they have sacrificed more than I would say like a small business owner because they're so committed to that vision, you know, so committed to doing it and being it all the time that they sacrifice their relationships. But I think for the average entrepreneur who is not that way, no, I don't, I don't think that's required. But I do think some of it does stem from maybe broken relationships in your past. What I find interesting as most entrepreneurs that I've worked with, they're trying to prove something. Yeah, you know, maybe there's Maybe they came from poverty. Maybe they had a parent who was very hard on them.

It's always something. They're trying to prove something. And there's some like broken relationship that lies in their past. Yeah, I can totally see it. I have a family member that investigates corporate security fraud. And it's interesting to be abreast of some of the things that happen there and some of the stories that may or may not be true. are alleged to be true, like these people that have built up like a huge corporation and then something goes awry and money gets taken here.

It's just the stories that are that happen when someone puts their life on the line to create something. It's fascinating to think of. And I think that all of us who find themselves on that journey can find empathy with people who try their best to create something and then has it fail on a level. Like your heart goes out to them, right? Like do they put everything on the line? than that happened? No. I know.

But failure is part of the process. It is. Yeah. And I think once you can embrace it, and most people can't embrace it, right? That's what makes entrepreneurs, because they're willing to embrace failure and no is just part of the journey.

Right. A lot of people say that maybe that's not even the right word for it, right? Maybe it's like... Feedback. Yeah. That's awesome. I heard somebody say the way they put it is like, You know, when your kid's young, you don't give up on them walking.

Like, they're going to, how long it's going to take for them to walk? As long as it takes, they're going to get up and they're going to fall and get up and they're going to fall. But they're going to keep trying until they walk. You know, they said the same thing is true with all of us. It's like we would just continue to get up and keep trying. Like, we would get it. And I believe that. I wish people had that same sort of drive and fortitude that we had when we were young.

Like, whether you're going to tie your shoe or whether you're going to learn to walk. Like, you can do it. I think everybody can be better if they just dig down or they have someone to, maybe push them a little bit to become that person. I think that you do that. I think you do that for your people is like you provide them with a form of no bullshit can do. Like get up and do it. Come on.

You know, I think that that's something that you do for people. I love it. Is that something that was done for you or where does that come from? So my origin story is as I had a very hard life as a child. So I also feel like I have to prove myself. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I had people that were hard on me. But, you know, it's made me who I am. And everything has its pros and cons. I'm grateful for it. But definitely in the military that was obviously reinforced, right? Right. You know, from the beginning of a drill sergeant yelling and screaming at you, if you don't do something, you better drop and do like 50 pushups.

And whether you like it or not, you know, and you have to run really fast. Even if it means you have to walk the whole way, you're going to walk those five miles, even if you can't, you know, keep up with everybody, no matter what, you just do it. Like there's no, there's no, quitting is not an option. So that is a part of, I think, my development, you know, up until like I was 25, like, that's when I left the military, which is when your brain stops forming itself aside from neuroplasticity.

So my own neural pathways, yes, mimic that. I think part of also what you're describing, you know, when we're children, we, we don't quit, right, tying our shoes or walking, et cetera. But part of it is because we see everyone around us. doing it. And I think as children get older, they do start quitting on themselves with different things. I see with my own daughter who's eight, but there's times when things get harsh. She's like, well, I'm not going to do that because the other kids in class don't necessarily do that. Only like some kids do that. Like they're the ones who are like reading extra or doing their math longer,

you know, whatever the tasks are. And part of it is her peer group. When she was younger, it wasn't that way because the peer group was doing the same thing. I think as we get older and older, the peer groups that are doing the harder things shrink. So I think it is important as entrepreneurs to always be in a community of other entrepreneurs who are also, because if you surround yourself with people that are doing the same thing, then it feeds your mind like, oh, I should do this too. Like there's an element of peer pressure. Yeah.

What's that saying that you are the amalgamation of the four people closest to you? And it makes sense. Like the same way you said it with your daughter, like which group are they in, you know? Who are they with and what is possible and who wants to be around them? It's amazing to see that from that angle like that. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah. So you have mastered the three levels of communication,

unconscious communication with the self, conscious communication with others, and collective conscious communication within group dynamics. Can you share a transformative moment where understanding these levels made a significant impact on a client's journey? Oh, yeah, all of it. I love it.

I think the first level is unconscious community. So, you know, typically when we even think or thinking at a conscious level, and when we communicate or communicating on a conscious level, you know, whether that's like fast thinking or slow thinking, it occurs prior to us speaking. So what I, on that unconscious part, I teach clients to communicate with themselves at an unconscious level. And there's different, you know, like hypnosis is a great example of that. There's lots of modalities and techniques.

But when you're in a state of hypnosis, you're able to tap into the unconscious mind. meditation is another example. Then you're able to have your conscious, unconscious mind communicate with each other. That's part of it. And that's where the belief formation and emotions and all of that stuff come into play. So whenever I work with clients, you're able to let go of really, really deep and big things by mastering unconscious communication with themselves, which, again, has like a trickle effect in their life in huge ways.

Maybe you're afraid of something, right? Like fear. And then if you can let go of that, if you can identify where it is in your unconscious mind and then release and let go of it, and it doesn't stop you from doing whatever it is that you need to do to create success. That's the unconscious part. The conscious communication with another being, a lot of that's influence and persuasion, right?

When you're with another person, you need to step into that level. So we have something called mirror neurons in our brain. Are you familiar with mirror neurons? I am. Maybe you can explain it for everybody now. Sure. So mirror neurons is something that has developed through evolution in our brains.

to help us identify who's a friend and who's an enemy. And initially, like, you know, millions of years ago, it was a survival thing. We would know just by, like, quickly seeing somebody like, are they of our tribe, essentially? Are they of our group of people? They're not going to kill us. So, yeah, they're a friend. We can hang out with them or no, we need to, like, bash them with our sticks or whatever it was. Right?

And that has evolved. And the mirror neuron still is in our brain today. So when we see somebody who is similar to us, it actually creates unconscionable. conscious bias. So mirror neuron has a downside that is something to, you know, counteract if anybody who wants to be, you know, evolved in that perspective. But also you can work it to your advantage. If somebody is similar to you, then they want to like you, they want to trust you, they want to be your friend. It creates more influence. So there's ways with body language and voice and all of that to then be like somebody else, right, at a subconscious level. So that's

that subconscious part. And there's a lot, there's like many, many layers, like literally and figuratively to this. But that's, it's really the dynamics of mirror mirror neurons. At the collective conscious level, now you're, you know, beyond one person and you still need to create both influence and persuasion in a group. And you also need to get that group to work with each other. So there's many, many elements to it. And science shows us that collective consciousness is a very real thing. I think your cat is moving something behind your chair. You know, I referenced a meditation study earlier. You know, we've seen through, you know, like if a group of people are meditating,

a war, a crime, crime rates of the entire city will go down. So that, so that, that group of people meditating affects the entire group. We see that. We've also seen this in like various studies with animals. You know, one animal like learns something, then the group of animals, like, in that study will then like automatically learn it even though they weren't directly taught that technique of whatever it was. So there is a collect.

So we know through science, collective. consciousness is there. So part of my work is helping people learn about that collective consciousness, both through their own direct experience of tapping into that energetic space, and then again, through influence of multiple people. I'm reminded of the hundred monkeys, right? I was just reading that yesterday. I know. It's a fascinating study. Yeah, it is. For those that may not know, and correct me if I'm wrong, I might get this wrong, but there was an island, I think it was off the coast of Japan and these particular sort of researchers went and they saw that this particular monkey was washing a potato or washing some fruit or something the way I heard it. And it was it was odd

because it was like the only one doing it. And then they they went to another island and all of a sudden they, I'm probably butchering it. But they noticed after a while all the monkeys were doing it. So it was like this direct exchange of consciousness between a group of similar primates that didn't even know each other. Like there's clearly something going on there, right? Yeah. And, you know, when you related to humans, that same idea, you can see like inventions, like ideas. Yeah. Like it's, right? Like one person has an idea. But the same time, there's a whole other groups of people like all around the world that have the exact same idea at the exact same time. It's also an aspect of the hundredth monkey effect on humans. How about the four minute mile? The same thing. It's impossible. No one will ever do it. The one guy breaks it and then everybody breaks it. You know? In some level, it's, speaks to the wonderful, magnificent mystery that is the human condition and like the idea that

knowledge is there to be revealed to us. And if you just listen, you can receive the great idea. You can have the great invention. And by you, I mean all of us, because you is just all of us, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, we're one and the same. It's like, be the change you want to see. I love that quote.

It's like, I know. And I've seen that in my own life, like, as I evolve, the world evolves around me. You know. Yeah. Yeah. I think it speaks to the idea of, you know, mirror neurons. If we just jumped back to that for a moment, it's this. Sometimes it's so frustrating to see somebody that you thoroughly dislike doing something

and then realize you dislike them because that's exactly what you do. You know, you're like, I hate, oh, I see what's happening. It's me that I don't like. Yeah. The shadow. Right. That's the root of shadow work. Yeah. Yeah. It is. We got some people chiming in here, Supriya. So I'm going to, I'm going to fire some things off here. Coming from the one and only Mr. Wizard, thanks for hanging out with us, Ben, perhaps same universe, a different story playing like a lightning strike or a river running through the land. I love the way he put that there.

But the whole idea of jumping through parallel. What do you think? Yeah, it's a beautiful analogy. Yes. It's, yeah. I don't think there's a question in there, but I like it. I love what he wrote. Yeah. Yeah. He's got some great stuff going on. Ben, I'm going to reach out to you, man. I want to talk about a few things.

Jenna Longmeyer, this is profound. Thomas Hutchison, fellow Octopi. Willing or programmed with conditioned responses. Love the dimensional talk about quantum thought or shifting. Willing or programmed. Yeah. Both. Conditional response.

Yeah. So I think we are programmed unwillingly throughout our whole lives, starting from birth, like, or actually from the womb. When we're in our mother's womb, we know. that the emotions that the mother feels, the baby also feels. What the mother eats affects the taste buds of the baby when they're born. So the programming starts at the moment of inception,

you know, starting from there and then everything that we see here and feel throughout our whole lives. So that's the program part. And the willing part is when you recognize that that is occurring and you take control of it, right? Then you consciously decide what you'll be programmed with through different, you know, modalities and what you're willing to be deprogram by it as well.

like going back to the example of Pavlov's dogs, you could change that stimuli in response, right, in those dogs. It's just a matter of doing it. So in the same way, in our own mind and body, just a matter of undoing it or doing it. Yeah, I think that the bridge there is awareness, right? The fact that you have been conditioned, just knowing that allows you to break that conditioning.

It's the thing we were talking about, like being aware of something. Oh, I see what happened. That whistle makes me sell out. You know, I'm getting that guy's whistle out of here, man. Yeah. Exactly. Or changing for the whistle no longer does it. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Or really mess with them. Be like, every time you blow that whistle, I'm going to bite you. Yes. That's a better one. Clint Kyle's awesome podcaster,

amazing human being. Great conversation, folks. You can think on this comment later, reflecting on a previous topic. In his book, Sacred Knowledge, psychedelic researcher, Dr. Bill Richards, shares a beautiful story about his late wife. As a little German girl, she survived the bombing of Dresden.

As an adult nurse, she had the experience of attending to the needs of a dying elderly pilot, who as a young man was one of the U.S. servicemen who dropped those bombs. Pretty amazing to think about. Yeah. On some level, I think it speaks to the idea of timeline shifting. You know, we spoke about different dimensions, but time is an aspect of that too. I've had plenty of experiences where I felt like I've lived an entire lifetime

and I've got to go back and live through choices that I've made or that I should have made or that I thought I should have made and like see how it plays out. There's some really interesting states we can find ourselves. And maybe through meditation, maybe through psychedelics, maybe through being quiet or being in the right areas. But you can really begin to experience the illusion of time in different ways. what do you think? Yeah, I would add to that also, I think if you in your, if you think back to a time

that's triggering for you and then sort of like see that event through, you know, your now current self and then try to find like what is a lesson that is there for you to make sure it's not a trigger anymore, then I feel you just step into a different timeline because now your mind has changed, right? The thing is no longer a trigger and now you're in this reality where it never occurred in that way. Yeah. I think that's time traveling. I think you can go back in time, right? And that's how you do it. Thank you for putting it that way. And I think that this is, you know, I know that the world of science doesn't like woo-woo, but it's a great way for people to help overcome tragedies in the past is the idea of time

traveling. And I think it says it in a way that makes it like digestible. Like, look, today we're going to come and we'll do some time traveling. We're going to go back to the very time when that thing happened to you. We're going to fix it. You're going to change. I'm going to give you the option of changing what happened to you. Because once you change the meaning of that event, then you would change all the events moving forward, right? Like, it's, it's kind of beautiful, like to know that you're capable of going back and changing the past, even though they say you can't.

Science says you can't change the past, but I think you can. Like, you think you can? I, from not from a scientific perspective, but from like a metaphysical, spiritual. Yeah. The only moment is now, right? Everything else is past, present, parallel reality. The only moment is now. And that all, all that matters is the most.

moment of now, really. Even let's, let's just say you couldn't change the past. Does it matter? Like, as long as you believe you can and you've changed it in your mind, like, that's all that matters, right? I focus on the output. Yeah. Yeah. It's well said. I, you know, I think a lot of people began to see the shift when Eckert Tolley's, the first time they read Eckert Tolle's book, the power of now, right? Like, that for me was like the beginning of understanding, oh, that's all that's all there is actually you know and depression is being trapped in the past anxiety is being trapped in the future but right now currently having an amazing conversation with an amazing person we're talking to other people here like now is what matters how do you feel right now like in the moment

you start slipping out of that is the minute the problem starts fading in on some level exactly and then go back that observer effect right yeah right now what your observations are right now and everything behind your eyes like your brain you know you're what you're seeing hearing and at like a neural level, which is the observation of now, that's all that matters. That's creating your outcomes. Yeah. Where do you think the idea of uncertainty fits in here? Like a lot of people, myself included, and a lot of people I know, that's where things

start really getting, they kind of start going sideways, is this concept of uncertainty. Like, you can't be certain, but we really want that certainty sometimes, right? Yeah, I agree. I think certainty is important to prove things to yourself. And I think it starts with doing small things. Whatever it is you're trying to become certain of, you can always do it in a small way and then build up, build up from there. And then the certainty just becomes bigger. And then you're like, okay, it's undeniable.

It's unquestionable. Yeah, that's a great way to do it. And it's, and it's, you can chunk it down and digestible moments. Like, I'm sure I can have a couple coffee right now. I'm sure I can tell this person I love them. And I'm sure I can do these things. And then all of a sudden, you know, you begin manifesting more things into your life. and it becomes a pattern.

You know, maybe we should talk a little bit about patterns, you know, is what are some effective techniques that you use with people to disrupt negative patterns? A plethora techniques. It depends on the pattern itself, right? So, yeah. So with NLP, like, one of the things we talk about is timeline, which we sort of alluded to earlier of, like, going back to this choice points, you know, in our past. And if you can, that is a way to disrupt a pattern.

of emotions as well as beliefs that were formed. Because any emotion, this is a concept of Gestalt, right? I don't know if you're familiar with Justal Psychology or that world, but for the audience here at large, Gestalt psychology comes from a man named Justalt, who's a psychologist, and he discovered that any emotional response we have today is actually not because of what's happening today.

It occurred in the past. It's like layers, right? It's the analogy that's often use is pearls on a string. So if you can get rid of the pearl from the past, the entire necklace is false. out. So that's your emotions. Those are you call your just dolls. You have like layers of that same emotion building over time. So with one of the techniques that's timeline is we go back to the past, we find that root cause of that moment of when that emotion was first created or the belief

that was first created, get rid of it, and then the rest of it falls away. So your response today and moving forward will no longer be in the same way. Can that be applied to like generational trauma as well? Yes. Yes. And that's a really good question that you asked. because that's very common. So much of what we have in our psyche is not our own. It is conditioned pre, you know, being in the womb. And we know from science that trauma can be passed down 14 generations. Wow.

It's been proven. We can see that like the children of Holocaust survivors have PTSD today in the same way their grandparents did. So again, science shows it like the same stimuli response situation. That's just one famous example of a study that was done. but there's been lots of studies done that it's actually passed down at the DNA level, like generation. And according to the world of spirituality, it's further back than that, right?

But science has proven 14 generations. That's pretty compelling. So, yes, you can resolve it through, you know, various techniques like the timeline. Yeah. In some ways, I find it both dangerous and beautiful to see the way that that generational trauma plays out, Like on some level, the thing that happened to you, if it goes unresolved, there's a very good potential that you'll become the person that did the thing that hurt you. You know what I mean?

And like, it's really dangerous. But on some level, the pattern of what is possible to be passed down for generations is beautiful, not because of the abuse, but because there's generational love that could pass down as well. We talk about generational trauma, but the generational beauty that gets passed down in patterns is something that people don't talk enough about. I absolutely agree. Yes, there's so much wisdom that gets passed down, right? You know what I, like in my own family,

like intuition has been passed down. I can see it very clearly, like all the women in my family. And I see this in a lot of other people. Like intuition is often like very strong, different, you know, members of the family like going back. There's other things too. But it's like that's a very powerful like tool to have. Yeah, especially, I mean, you hear it in folk tales

or you hear it in stories or, In science fiction, too, I see quite a bit of it is like a woman's intuition. Like that's a thing, you know, because it's been sacred for so long. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's the emblem of the earth goddess from Starbucks.

Like there it is embodied right there. You know what I mean? It's in all this. We should talk about symbolism, superiors. I love the idea of symbolism. And there's so, for me, it's the yin and yang sign that's moving, like the spot of order and chaos. chaos and order and the way it's constantly turning.

And that's one of my favorite symbols. And I think I like that symbol so much because it speaks to me in my life and the way my family's been. And it just speaks to me on that level. What is a symbol that you find speaks to you? And what are your thoughts on symbolism? I think symbolism is very powerful. It's how our brain thinks, right?

Going back to the brain science, we all and everyone has their, I think, own personal relationship to symbolism. but also like a collective relationship to symbols as well. It's very like young, right? Like he talks about that a lot in his work. But to answer your question for me specifically, you know, I don't study a lot into like totems or like power animals like from the Native American shamanic culture. But I have noted, but in my own life, I have been drawn to certain animals at a symbolic

level. And I've, and whenever I have sort of just like been with that energy, interesting things occur in my life. So that's interesting for me at a symbolic level. and then dreams. Again, I think it's very personal. There's all these dream dictionaries, but that's so generic. So I do try to be aware of the symbols that are in my dreams and then try to interpret them when I wake up. Like, what is the deeper meaning behind this that I'm seeing in my dream? And then it's always an interesting message for me that I can, you know, rely on to

shape my day. Do you keep a dream journal? I don't. I just, just when I wake up, I just reflect on it, you know, for five or ten minutes. But it's better to, to, to, to keep a dream journal so you can make a habit of remembering it. I used to keep a dream journal when I wasn't able to remember my dreams. And now I can't. Maybe that's why I don't feel like I need to. I'm sure it would get stronger. But it's not a huge part of like what I do.

Yeah. I keep saying I'm going to have one. Like I always like I'm similar in that. For me halfway through my day, my dream will be triggered. Oh yeah, I dream up that thing. That's what it was. You know, there's like a strange sort of shaking hand relationship with, oh, I lost you there for a minute.

There's like the same. Let me switch this back on. Okay. I think that's working now. I can hear you. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay.

Now can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Okay, fantastic. I can. Yeah, I got all excited and I pulled out my earphone. So, yeah, I don't know. I love dreams and I think that there may be a way in which you can strengthen that bridge if you were to use writing and underscore the dreams like that.

But yeah, let me ask you this one here. So being awarded the Ad Color Award for exemplary leadership in DEI is a remarkable achievement. How do you infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into your coaching strategies to create lasting cultural change within organizations? That's a great question. So first of all, it starts with a person, like letting go of the unconscious bias. We talked about the mirror neurons, right? We talked about the influence part, but it also creates unconscious bias. So helping people dismantle that within themselves is really important.

And I only work with leaders who are focused, like that's a part of their work, right, is making sure that DEI is always there. It's not something to be ignored because there's a lot of marginalized groups that need, you know, help and different types of attention in their workforce. You know, something simple, like changing a job description. Like, you know, there's so many studies that have been done that women will not apply for the same job that a man will, even if she's more qualified than a man when they read the same job description. but changing the language of it to be more open to female candidates.

It's a small thing, but it's also a big thing, right? You're not like giving a handout, but you're just making it more approachable for a group of people that might not necessarily see themselves as a great candidate for the job. So then there's those tactical aspects of it as well. Do that answer your question? Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting topic.

I see a lot of people talking about it today. And when I think about like DEI or I think it's a necessary part of the world we're building. But I think that and I'm hopeful, I think the DEI will do this. But I think we've got to change the idea of not only education, but we have to change the idea of labor and work in order for all of us to work together. On some level, I think DEI is becoming this wedge that's pushing everybody apart. Like, it's not supposed to be that. It's supposed to be the thing that brings all together.

But I think coming from the top, it's being used as a wedge to divide people. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah. Can you tell me more on how you're seeing it divide people? Yeah. Like, it seems that on some level, the focus on particular groups is like, you know, where you focus, where your focus goes, so your energy goes. And we constantly say this group is this, this group is that. like even the groups that may be marginalized

are competing for one spot now. It's like, wait a minute. That's not what's supposed to be. It's supposed to be like this is the big tent and we're all have different ideas and ways of life and we're going to put those ideas together and we're going to move this thing forward. But it feels like it's being a wedge

to push the people on the bottom against each other. That's just my take. I don't know. Yeah, I can see what you're saying and I agree to a certain extent on that. I think creating harmony is more important like focusing on a specific group. And I do think that like white men get ignored in that process.

Like I was just talking to a client yesterday who's a white male. And it was a and he was just opening up to me about all of the pressures he's facing as being the breadwinner in the family. As a man, you know, he's a wife who works, but he's the primary breadwinner. And it was a very, you know, beautiful intimate session and we worked through a lot of stuff. But it's like, this is a group that doesn't get talked about. But he has a lot of, you know, things that are important. to him as a human being, to his family, to the community at large, that is also important to address. So I think there's two parts of it. Like, let's not ignore other groups for the

sake of one group because everyone is important and everyone has their own stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then also let's not work on separating a group and making them special in any way, whether it's positive or negative and instead focus on harmony. Yeah. And I think also one of the one of the one. more aspect is let's not repeat stories because then we just deepen that narrative. Yeah, it goes back to the idea of like neuroplasticity in LP, once you start giving, once you start giving, you know, I heard it, I heard it put this way one time. I thought it was a really beautiful way.

It's like going to a ski resort and the first time, you go up and you get fresh snow, right? And like, all of a sudden you make this fresh track and you're like, okay, that's the first time you do something. But as a day goes on, like that particular track gets super rooted and like it's super deep and all this snow. That's how we think. And if all of a sudden like your thought process is this deep root, it's very difficult to think outside of that deep root. And so once we start telling these stories, especially when we start amplifying on a level, that becomes a narrative for people to fall into instead of just think of their way through. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to perpetuate negative stories. that just continues to harm a group of people. Like it's not good to say that over and over again, in my opinion, like whatever the thing is. You know, one thing that I'm really excited about in this time we live in, I think we live in a time of profound change.

In a time of profound change, when we look at the hero's journey, maybe the first threshold guardian, or it may be the call to the wild or something like that. But I think we're living in these times. And I'm so excited to talk to you today because I think we have an opportunity to begin to change the narrative on a level that is harmonious. What do you think? Yeah. That's why I do what I do.

I know. To change that like, you know, collective narrative as well as for the pandemic. I think it's the most important work. I agree. So to further this particular area or just to move forward a little bit, having worked with global brands like Apple, Dropbox, Nissan, and the Wall Street Journal,

how do you navigate the balance between tailoring strategies for large corporations and fostering meaningful connections with small businesses and their founders. Hmm. Well, it's different. So when I'm working in a corporate space, it's really coaching executive leaders. So their problems are different. Their approach is different. Everything is like two different worlds.

So it's not about balancing. It's just like just two different ways of operating, both for myself as a coach and them and everything that they're doing. Yeah. Can you share a story from your coaching journey where overcoming subconscious blocks played a pivotal role in propelling a client toward peak performance and achieving their professional goals? Yeah.

It's a huge part of the work that I do. All of my clients end up having peak performance, it's like the culmination of the different things that we're doing. Like, let's get rid of all this stuff. But the goal is obviously like outcomes in your business and in your life, whatever it is, but also peak performance. Like, that's how you get there. Like without it, you're going to get burned out.

So all my clients live in flow states on a regular basis. And that's how they're able to use energy over, you know, like grueling effort to accomplish with you. One example I'll give is that, you know, we often use willpower to get something done, but willpower is finite. And the reason we use willpower, we have as a conscious effort. So if you can change things at the subconscious level, you no longer need to rely on willpower to do. do whatever it is that needs to get done. So, you know, so the outcome specifically can be anywhere from creating more work-life balance, seeing your family more, increasing revenue in your business, you know, increasing market share for your business, going into a new area,

developing new products, new services. You know, the results are all, you know, like, it's, it's a large gamut of potential results. What I've just listed are actual results my clients have had. But that's where it starts. It's that, you know, no longer needing willpower, because you're in those flow states. We talked a lot about like flow states, and I love the way in which you've just used the word grueling effort and burnout because I think that those two things are definitely, they go together on some level.

Of course you're going to get burnout. If you just have this grueling effort, like there's no reward in that. And you're getting close to your goals. It's interesting. Maybe you could speak to the idea of burnout a little bit. Like it seems to happen in so many people that have a dream. And then they get close to it and then things start happening.

It doesn't work the way they want it to, and so they start trying to force things. But maybe you could speak to the idea of burnout a little bit. Sure. I think burnout fundamentally comes back to so many of the things we're talking about. Like when there's all of this stuff in your brain that gets in the way, like these emotions, emotions have a lot of like, they take a lot of energy from your body to feel as, like, literally, like your heart rate will go up when you feel anxiety, right? So then your blood is flowing more.

Your body has to work harder to feel that emotion, which takes more energy. So you're going to get burned out. That's an example about emotion. So managing your emotional regulation is key to prevent burnout, changing the way you approach works or changing those mental strategies, the cemented neural pathways of how you approach a problem or a task or even the way you interact in certain scenarios. We all have these like mental shortcuts we've created throughout our lives. So identifying them and changing them to be different.

So those are different things that can change energy in our body, which then prevents burnout. And then the other part of it is aligning the unconscious mind with the conscious mind. So at a subconscious level, right? Yeah, really. So I'm sure we've all had experienced, you know, activities in our life. It's like, this is fun. I can do it all day long. It's like so easy. I don't have to work hard at all. It's just yay, even if it has work, right? And other things like, man, this is so hard to do. Why is that? It's because your unconscious mind and your conscious mind are not aligned. There's something preventing alignment. So part of the work I do is figuring out where that misalignment is between those two layers and aligning it. So then you're like,

oh, yay, this was fun when it was hard like yesterday. Yeah. I've seen that in my life and I know other people that were that that misalignment. Like the unconscious mind is just begins to knock so loud. Like you can't deny it. And I think that happens to a lot of people. Like you want, hey, it's going good. it's going good, but inside you're dying. I can't do this anymore. I'm dying inside, you know, and like something will happen. You know, you'll act out in a certain way or a circumstance will arise and it'll force you out. It's really hard.

Like, for me, it was very hard to listen to that voice. I didn't listen to it until it forced me out. Is that a pattern in people? Or how can people begin to listen to that voice and become more aligned without having to get to the devastation at the end? Or is that just part of it? I think you're trusting that voice, like going. back to like having that certainty, like trusting it in small ways. And then you can begin to trust it.

I think the heart is the path. Like at the end of the day, like, you know, follow your heart. It's an adage for a reason. There is some quiet voice that is wiser than your ego. So listening to it and trusting it and then taking those small steps to trust it, which then your trust in it becomes bigger. It's fascinating to me. When you talk about heart coherence and we talk about energy and we talk about

about flow state. I've been I've been reading not a whole lot, but I've spoken to people about this idea of human design and the way in which these different charts are hoping people see some of their strengths, some of their weaknesses, some of their patterns. Have you looked at that looked at all into human design? Yeah, a little bit. So I wouldn't say I'm an expert, but I got a report of my human design like a website, like this like 25 page report and who are you? It was very helpful. You know, I, like one of the things that said in the, I'm a manifester, like, that's my type. So one of the things is you must say things before you do it. So I've experimented with that.

I think it helps for a certain extent. But one of the other things that said in there is like you're a trailblazer and you're not meant to like do what's the status quo. And that is something that I don't think I would have adopted philosophically for myself until I read that report. So like being more like owning that about my own work, like be willing to say, hey, I'm doing something. that's never been done before at scale. Like, the type of coaching that I do isn't traditional coaching. You know, for example, the methodology that I use is not, it is my own like melt of stuff and like owning it.

But that was a big part of my report was that like you're supposed to be a trailblazer. And at first I'm like, well, that's a big word. Like, let me just do it. And my success has come as a direct result of that instead of like copying what was done before by others. So I think human design is very interesting. It has been beneficial for me. in my own life, but I'm no way an expert in it.

Yeah, nor am I. But I've spoken to some people that are beginning to use it, like in human resources. And it's interesting to see the way in which they were showing me like I had a, I was looking in my chart and I was checking some things out. And then they showed me a relationship chart between someone else. And it seemed at the very least. Like, I thought it was really interesting. But it seems that it could be a very valuable tool for introspection, no matter how you

looked at it or what you thought. about it like just reading into some of that stuff i think it's going to lead people down a hole of relationships which they may not have thought of which could be very beneficial i'm i'm watching it because i think there's some real there's some real juice in there yeah i didn't even know about uh you know a relationship from the context of human design so that's something i'm going to have to like look into now too that's cool yeah yeah it really is um there's a girl name ania zebra i'll put you in contact with her she's really good at it and uh jason sheffield is another gentleman i talk to It's really interesting to think about.

So your academic background includes a master's degree in strategic communication and a bachelor's degree in media communications with a minor in Vedic science. How do these academic foundations contribute to your holistic approach in coaching, integrating both modern communication strategies and ancient philosophical principles? Yeah, it's the underpinning of what I do. So my master's degrees from Columbia and I studied neuroscience, specifically in, you know, all aspects of strategic communications. But that's marketing, journalism, corporate communications, user studies, like,

really like any aspect of communication and, like, why we communicate and how we communicate and the meaning and aspects of it. So the neuroscience, again, is like 90% of it, right? Like understanding the brain science. So that's where my love of science comes from and being very, like, strategic and codified. methodical with my work and also in the way explain it and teach it to people that I work in my clients. So that's that.

And my undergrad was also in communications, but more from a storytelling perspective. There was no science. It was a Bachelor of Arts, right? So there's no science. It's studying the hero's journey, analyzing movies, understanding the different types of writing that exist, different styles, editorial styles, et cetera. And then my minor was in Vedic science, which, so I told you I lived in that community in Fairfield, Iowa. So my undergrad was at Maharshi University. So I, oh, I think we lost her for just a

minute, but she'll be back. She has an incredible background in communications and strategic marketing as well as the, oh, there. She's back. Okay. Hi. Are you there? We're back. We're back. I live in Chicago and we're in the middle of a blizzard, so I think it might be affected my kind of activity. I apologize. I think that's what occurred. You left us right off at Vedic science, right off at Vedic sciences. Yeah. So my minor was in Vedic science. So then I studied the Vedas, which is the ancient text of India that was written, you

know, approximately 5,000 years ago, but from a scientific lens. So again, being very, but so being codified with that, like with all of the, the sutras and all of the Vedas. So understanding Ayurveda, which I don't work with as, like, I'm not an Ayurvedic practitioner, but does come into play sometimes when I see like energy management, like, okay, well, You can change this in your diet a little bit. You can change like the elements are this way in your, you know, the season that you're in. So this might be worthwhile.

But then also for the meditation side. So meditation can be very scientific, right? And there's different types of meditation. There's different levels of meditation as well. So that's the Vedic science part of it. And then obviously part of it is philosophy, which I think is very valuable. Like karma theory is something that I absolutely love, which is why my brain is called samskara. Smskara.co and the system is subskara system because in karma theory, which aligns very

beautifully to neuroplasticity, is in karma theory, the reason we have karma is because there's a moment that has occurred, whatever that moment is, and that causes an impression in our mind. And that is smithra. That impression will then lead to a tendency. So you're more likely to do something. An example is the first time you eat chocolate for people who like chocolate. Not everybody does. The first time you eat you're like, oh, this is good.

So that's your tendency of like, oh, I might eat it again, right? And then you have it. And then it's given in your environment and then you eat it again. And then that's another moment of impression and that karmic imprint occurs. And then next time you have that impression, the desire, it's stronger. Now that tendency has deepened, which is a cementing of that neural pathways. So your tendency grows into larger tendencies. And eventually, on the other side of the spectrum is addiction, right?

Everything that we have. So to undo karma. you have to get rid of the impressions of the mind. So that's what I focus on is like undoing the impressions of the mind. So at an energetic, philosophical, spiritual level, we get rid of the karma, but we also changing your brainwave or changing your body. You're changing all of these things and who you are as well. So I bring in all of these models of thinking from the Vedic science world.

Wow. Yeah, it's impressive to think about that. And on some level, it's mind-blowing to me to think about the profound changes that can come from a simple idea. Right? Like changing this impression. Like, it sounds easy, but it can have profound effects on not only you, but the relationships you have with people, the way you see the world, the way you interact with the world. And just it's kind of mind-blowing me to think about. Yeah.

It's like your story of the FBI. Yeah. want to answer. Just changing fundamentally for like many hours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think about wellness as being contagious?

Often we know when we get sick, people like, oh, don't be around George. You've got the cold. You're going to catch the cold. But can wellness be contagious as well? You mean like being well and being happy and being well and like.

Yeah. Like talking on this conversation, like I feel pretty good about it, you know, or when you're around certain people, it's almost like you pick up the vibe from them or you pick up the, Maybe it's an energy. Maybe sickness is an energy.

Oh, here's an awesome one for you to be. Okay, so what is the difference between illness and wellness? Just think about it for a minute. Think about the language of it. I've got the answer for you. Tell me then. It's dis-ease, right? Like, disease is dis-ease.

When you're not at ease, that is illness. Right. And wellness is at ease. It's alignment of all of the things in your body and your mind. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's another hint in there, too.

Like, illness, the difference between illness and wellness is I and we. Illness being I. Wellness being we, right? Yes. There's another little, someone dropped that one on me and I had to take a knee for a minute. I like that. I like that. Yeah.

But I do think wellness is contagious. Like, we see that in, you know, different studies, right? Like groups of communities that live longer than others. Right. There's obviously like nutrition and exercise and all of that. But the biggest component is often the social factor, right? We see that there's a like a community. There's like a bonding that occurs between people.

And that's what actually enables them to live longer. So there is that component of it. Like the blue zones. Like you start looking at the blue zones, right? Yeah. And also this, I can't remember the name of the town, but it's in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book in upstate New York. He talks about it.

Rosetta, the Rosetta effect. That's what it was, right? These people lived very unhealthy. They had a horrible diet and smoke. and drank like too much, but they all live longer than anybody else. It's because of the social aspect of it. Yeah.

I think that that particular idea of wellness as a contagious energy is also a way to help you treat others in a more effective and wonderful way. Like when you begin understanding that my wellness depends on these people in the community being well, you can begin to see the fractal nature of it a little bit. Hey, Jordan needs a little help. over here. Let's go cheer him up or

all of a sudden, anybody who's ever done that, anytime you've ever gone to be in someone else's presence and you bring them a small gift, maybe it's a card, maybe it's a kind word. That makes you feel good in some ways. Like, you're exchanging that energy, right? Yeah, and it's mirror neurons, right?

Yes. Going back to it, yeah. And part of like when I'm coaching, before I start any session, I always like check in with myself. Like, am I in the right headspace? Am I in the right mind? Like, am I going to have me in a good place to have a good session. And if something like doesn't seem like it's going well,

I'm always like, what am I doing wrong in me to cause this reality for this other person and any interaction? So it's like getting, that's getting really meta, but I think it's a very powerful, like, perspective to have. Do you ever feel like with the more clients you bring on, the more people you help, the more you're learning about yourself?

Yes, that's why I, selfishly, that's the biggest reason. And with everyone I coach, I get to work on myself with this. I know it. It's just like burning through the karma much faster. Yeah. Yeah. It's beautiful.

So what is your relationship with plant medicine? I'm so sorry. My notifications are on if you could hear that. Yeah, no worries. No worries at all. I had it on for a certain time, but I love this conversation. Okay, good. Okay, good.

You're okay on time because I got some of the questions. Yeah, no, I'm good on time. Okay. So with plant medicine, so when I was in my 20s, I did a lot of like trips, like big plant medicine journeys. Right. And it was very incremental to my growth. I don't think I would have been as open to non-plant-based ways of healing and exploring consciousness

if it hadn't been open for me first through plant medicine, specifically mushrooms and also LSD, which is not a plant, but that as well. And I did some piety as well. I live in Arizona and it's legal in churches there. So, yeah. But today, I don't do plant medicine at all in journeying. I have it in combo. I don't know if that's be considered plant medicine,

but it's the poison from the frogs that you get. Yeah, I have the, like, probably can't see the marks on my skin that are there. So I do that. And then I have microdosed here and there on mushrooms in, like, the last five years. But it's not a big part of my life today. But I think it's a very powerful medicine. And it opens you up permanently to a lot of things. Yeah, I think that there's a relationship between plant medicine and language.

And it speaks earlier to the idea of like seeing the vine grow. And for me and some other people that I've spoken to, there's this thing that we bump up against in life. And it's like the inefficiency of words, the ineffability of an experience that's like, I want to tell you about this thing, but I can't because I don't have a, I don't have a linguistic pathway for it. Yeah. But I think that the Vedas, the Sufi poetry gets really close. Like I get goosebumps when I think about reading Rumi or the Vendantra tradition of the sutras. Like there's something so beautiful in there.

And I can't help but think that the language used in those texts provides me a similar feeling to a deep trip on a psychedelic plant madness. And have you felt that or what's going on there? Yeah, I agree. So the Vedas, specific to that, the Rishi's, the sages that cognize it, they said all Vedas and all knowledge and all wisdom is either Shrithi or Smrithi. So Shrithi is what is heard. So you have to like listen very quietly for it. And then smriti is what is remembered. That's just a remembrance.

Nothing is invented or created. Everything is heard or remembered. And I think probably in your experiences and many people who are on a journey, so it's happening. You're able to remember things. It is within you. Like you are a piece of the cosmic, you know, nature, right? Like going back to the analogy of the DNA and the human body, we are a piece of that universe, that wisdom, that intelligence, that's there.

We just are a remember it. I believe that remembrance begins to occur. And we also at some level can hear things. I don't know if you've ever actually like literally heard things, but that occurs as well. Yeah, I'll never forget. I remember one time I taken a really large dose. And I remember, like, it hit me super fast. And I was like, who's going to be a deep one right here?

And I remember, like, I got to, like, take a bath or something. And I remember being curled up in the bathtub and, like, just hearing this voice talk to me. And it was the first time in my life where I heard a voice talking to me, but I couldn't see anything, you know. And that is a very scary feeling to be like, dude, whoa, who are you? What is this, you know? And like, I found a way to make friends with the monster under the bed, if that makes sense for people. And like, but in the beginning, like, it gave me a lot of empathy to people who find themselves in a psych ward, who find themselves, you know, and ultimately, I think that that's what some of this medicine should be used for is like this idea of like, look, these are real states people that are having. Yeah, I agree.

Like, it's scary. Like, it's crazy to think about, right? Yeah. I think that a lot of people who are in psychiatric care are probably in the middle of some spiritual breakthrough. Yeah. And we just need to, instead of treating it as like a disease, like, let's support them and like pushing through it in whatever capacity. Yeah. And psychedelics is a very powerful medicine to do that. Yeah. I was listening to a lecture from Dr. Rick Strassman and Abigail.

I'm sorry, Abigail. I'm having a tough time remember her last name. But they did this lecture recently. recently, and it was on the idea of de-realization. And I had to stop for a minute and think about, like, what is de-realization? And some of the things they were talking about was the prolonged use of psychedelics may lead some people into states of de-realization. And they were talking about the negative aspects of it, but I couldn't help think about the positive aspects of it. Like, on some level, the idea of de-realization is the idea of waking up from this conditioning

on some level. And it's kind of a newer word that I haven't heard throwing around so much. But when I say the word de-realization to you, what do you think of? Yeah, I was going to ask you, like, how do you define that? That's like the first thing in my head. But if you're asking me to define it, I guess not, maybe not making assumptions about an experience or a object of focus, including myself. And, you know, any aspect of experience. experience. Like, understanding that reality is not reality.

I heard a great quote one time. There was something along the lines of. Your reality is not reality, even though it is reality in actuality. It's interesting to think about. But this gets us back to the idea of the vendantra tradition and the relationship between psychedelics. You do get this.

perspective, whether it's in the verses or whether it's in these different states of awareness. And that perspective, be it a third person or be it an observer, that can have really compounding effects on how you deal with traumas in your life or relationships. Maybe you could speak to a time when you found yourself in a different state of awareness and how it affected the outcomes of things in your life. Do psychedelics or just any altered states of conscious experience? Let's start with psychedelics and then we'll move into another one. Okay. Oh, gosh, really flip. So I've had experience with like telepathy.

Okay. Let's hear it. When I was tripping with, you know, friends and lovers. So when I was in my 20s. So that has been very, that was very interesting. It's probably the most powerful experience of like sensing another person's thought and like verbalizing it. Like that's what you're thinking and feeling it. And, and, you know, remembering in this moment. They're like, yes, it is. And then they would do it for me. So that, yeah, that's probably the most powerful. one from psychedelic experience. What does it? Yeah. It's just your question on communication earlier, right? Like that energetic exchange. Like how much that, that to me is an incredible bond for, like, that is something they

can bond people together. The fact that you can think on the same level as them and have the same thought as them is something they could really, and maybe this is why it's psychedelics are having such profound effects in couples therapy, you know, whether it's MDMA, which is not really a classic psychedelic. But these particular states of awareness are really helping bring people together. Yeah. Is that a common experience?

I didn't know it was, this telepathic exchange. I think it's more common than people think. Okay. You know, I think there's something to be said about picking up other people's energies. And like you had mentioned earlier, some of these different states allow us to listen to the sound of other people's heart coherence. Or at least that's what it seems like in my level. I don't know how common it is, but I think I've been. heard about it in different trip reports and in different people's experiences before,

especially, especially this one, Supri. Like, when you listen to some people that have used psychedelics in a group setting, or more importantly, a ceremonial setting, that's when you really begin to see that type of telepathy start taking place. Maybe you could speak to the idea of states of awareness and ceremony. Yeah, I think ceremonies are more powerful than, like, you know, doing that as opposed to not doing it if you're doing psychedelics. And the reason is because, well, first of all, you're setting an intention or you typically

you're not. And just the power of intent in the Vedic term that's Sankalpa, just the act of setting an intention, you're the observer effect, right? And you're creating that effect that it's powerful on so many levels. So just that alone, just setting the intention, forget everything else that goes on into the ceremony. Like that in itself is incredibly powerful. But then, you know, a good shaman or a good guide will do things like put up a protection

around you because there are also energetic forces that are negative out there that can come. I don't know if you've ever experienced them. I did in my 20s for sure, felt some negative entities that I wasn't sure what they were, but I felt them and experienced it. But I think if I was in a shamanic setting, which I have also experienced, it would not have occurred. So that protection is there. And then guiding you, guiding your soul and helping you purify through the layers in a more easy way than that, could be otherwise. I mean, certainly people have like good journeys and bad journeys, but can

become, I think, easier if you have a guide there. You know, it brings up an interesting question, especially for someone who has a foot in both worlds. You know, early in the conversation you spoke about moving between these two different cultures and being able to navigate the cultures and language between them. How do you see or do you see an absence of ceremonies in the Western world versus the Eastern world in which you have a more familiar background with. Yeah, I do. And it's always very interesting. So I referenced my brother earlier.

So he died two years ago. And in the Hindu tradition, when somebody dies, there's a lot of, we have rituals for, you know, birth, death, marriage. Like those are three big ones. They have rituals for everything. And, you know, there's multiple rituals that his actual like funeral, one week later, we'd do something for her soul because the idea is the soul is still traveling and, like, trying to get latched.

I could become a ghost. They're basically preventing him from becoming a ghost. And then exactly one year anniversary, which has passed this last summer, when you do another big ritual. And whenever I tell, you know, people are like, oh, I need to travel. Like, I have to, you know, go to the country to do this thing for the anniversary of my brother's death. And we're actually going to celebrate. Like, it's going to be a big party.

And, you know, for Westerners, like, what? Like, death is celebration. And then there's a ceremony and all the things that occur. But to me, it's very power. obviously there's all these like religious reasons whether it's you know real or not dogmatic or not there there's a lot of layers there but just having that ritual just for the family is very healing and powerful like just this death when i see i've never went to a western funeral in my life i've only seen movies when i see in movies people are crying and getting drunk so i'm just like that's very

different than my own experience of how death is is done it's through these rituals and ceremonies that have various meanings and purposes behind it. And there's other rituals, too. Like, that's a big one. But, you know, when like a woman gets here, period, in the Indian culture, there's a tradition that's done. It's a right of passage, right? And that used to be in all cultures across the world.

Now we don't do it. So I think these moments of transition, I think maybe is a good way of thinking about in our life. Having rituals or ceremonies can be very powerful, whatever they are. Yeah, I love that you brought that up. by, you know, I like to read. I love to read. I love to learn.

And, you know, there's, when you read all this Huxley's work, like, you can almost see a rite of passage. It's pretty meta, too. Like, you know, you start off with the doors of perception and then you move into Brave New World, but then you move into the island. And you can see, at least in my opinion, the way in which he was able to define the potential use of Soma or psychedelics into the world. And when you look at Brave New World, you look at Brave New World,

see this sort of caste system that's built where people turn to Soma to escape reality. Hey, this is too much. I'm going to escape for a little bit. This is using as an escapism. But then you look at some of his later works like the island and you see it as this ritualistic use where kids at the age of 12 find a mentor and climb this mountain and sit at a church and start to understand what is possible when we begin to use our brain at a level that is resonating for everybody. And I think that like the right of passages is something that leads to escapism. You know, when we when we have young girls that don't understand like, hey, you know, this is marking you into this world of womanhood. And the same for a man.

Like, this is marking you from a boy into a man. Like we get stuck. We don't have these cultural road signs to say, okay, you're next level now. This is the new way. I wish, like, what, how can we, is. Is there a way where we can reintroduce some of that into the culture? So I think there's different, you know, like men's group and women's group that do for people specifically. There's a lot of people that do that work.

I can't think of one specifically, but it exists. And I think a lot of that work that people do is like helping men and women realize you're no longer a girl or a boy. In some part of your subconscious is still stuck there. But I think it also starts at the family level, right? Like having some tradition. It's never too late to start. They do it with your families now. And it's not only for the person, it's also for the collective, right?

Like in the case that you're describing of a child becoming an adult and either gender or non-gender, then it's not just for that person to realize they've changed, but it's for everyone else to realize they've changed, right? It's for everyone to see that. So I think creating new ceremonies, new rituals for your community, for your family is a good place to start. But certainly it exists. There's groups out there that do this. I wonder if we could harness some of the strategies of like the DE the DEI for this.

You know, when you look at Audible or you go to the bookstore or you watch a movie, you can see the influence of like the DEI message out there, right? Like wouldn't it be wonderful if we could supplant, not maybe not supplant, but we could inject into all of the literature, this idea of ceremonies. Like, hey, in this story, this girl becomes a woman. Hey, in this story, this boy becomes a man. And it doesn't matter what gender or whatever it is. Like we could begin to inject a new cultural or revisit the old cultural miss and start

putting that back into the stories. I think that could be a way to like kind of pepper it through the community on some level. Yeah, I agree. I think storytelling is like, you know, mass change, right? Yeah. People hear stories or consume stories and then they adopt those things, whether it's a book or a movie or whatever. Yes, I think that is a good mechanism. Yeah.

I think I read somewhere that like you need 3% of the population to start enacting a change. And I think that if just the people we talk to, if we could maybe just talking about just talking about it here is a way we're enacting change on some level. But yeah, are you hopeful to see the positive change? Like a lot of people right now think that we're in myself included. I think that we're in this time of profound. change. Like what, when you look into your crystal ball or when you look into the future, what are some of the biggest changes that you're extremely positive about in the near to midterm future?

Sustainability. That's the biggest one. You know, this obviously like an emerging trend that is needed of people becoming more focus on the environment and nature. I think we've been focused on ourselves and changing ourselves, but also changing our relationship to nature and becoming more sustainable and I'm very excited to protect the earth and see the earth in a different way. And I think it's only going to keep growing at, you know, rapid levels in the near future. Yeah, yeah, me too. I'm a big fan of Ellen Watts. And one of his quotes is that you don't come into this world, you come out of it.

And I've really begun to think about that aspect, you know, like, wow, we are part of this earth. And then we are, getting back to the quote that you like from Gandhi, like, we are the change that we want to see in this world. And you can really kind of dive behind it a little bit. And I don't know. It's fascinating to me. And Supriya, I got to say I'm always fascinated and thankful and grateful to have conversations like this where I get to meet someone and then our conversation just blossoms into this more amazing thing than I thought. And we get to share it with everybody online here today. And I'm super thankful for that.

But before I let you go, where can people find you? What do you have coming up and what are you excited about? Sure. So I have a website, www.sumscara.co. Or you can follow me on social media on anything, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. I'm not on Twitter slash X anymore for ethical reasons, but I'm not going to I get into right now. But on all the other platforms and TikTok. So I'm on all those platforms are my website.

So that's where you can find me. What I'm up to, I'm just continuing to do the work. And I'm doing more podcasts. This is, you're like my third podcast. So I'm up for more, more conversations. And this has really been amazing. I did not know where our conversation is going to lead today or that we were talking for two hours. So this has been wonderful.

Like, you're amazing to talk to. You're a great host. I love all the rabbit holes that we went into and the questions and comments that came through. So it's really been a pleasure. Yeah, thank you. And I know that there's already a few podcasters on here that were reaching out. So they're probably going to reach out to you too. And I admire the conversation that is, you know, we don't know where it's going to go.

It's like a nice walk with a friend investigating some territory. So I really appreciate it. And we'll be back more and we'll get more. The next step, I think, is to have more people in the room, more voices, and it creates a better harmony. So ladies and gentlemen, hang on briefly afterwards to appear. I still want to talk to you for a moment. But ladies and gentlemen, Thomas, Jenna, Clint, everybody, Mark, thank you so much. for hanging out with us today.

And I hope you all have a beautiful day. Go check out our site. Reach out to her. She's an amazing individual. And that's all we got. Hello.