Nurturing Minds: Cultivating Mindfulness From Early Childhood

Alan Carroll: 00:00:00

Welcome to the mindful U podcast. Today's guest

Alan Carroll: 00:00:05

is Sam beard. Sam is a social entrepreneur has been involved

Alan Carroll: 00:00:12

in public service his entire career. He worked with

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Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Robert Kennedy. And the war on

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poverty, worked with eight presidents of the United States,

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and developed over 10 million jobs for the young,

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underemployed. He recently founded the nonprofit

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organization called gift gi f t, which stands for the global

Alan Carroll: 00:00:46

investment foundation for tomorrow. Which is designed to

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harness the full impact of mindfulness and meditation in

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order to solve the urgent challenges and problems that we

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as humans face today, in this world of ups and downs and

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agitation and chaos, he is the founder of the Jefferson Awards,

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which is like the Nobel Prize for service. And I'm also want

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you to know that in the show notes, there is a three minute

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video, which goes over Sam's entire life, of service and

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contribution. So please watch that beautiful video in the show

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notes, and is with a great enthusiasm and excitement to

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introduce you to Sam beard. Sam, welcome to the mindful you

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podcast. And I want to thank you very much for you taking the

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time to share with our audience, your your journey, and the parts

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of the journey, which about 10 years ago, you said really you

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went through a a stressful time situation in life that really

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ignited a flame in you that was a spark. But it was a flame of

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mindfulness. And so I'm excited to have you share a little bit

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about that, that journey into mindfulness, and how you've

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taken your resources available to you, and how you're bringing

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mindfulness out into the world specially with that with the

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GIFT program. That sounds like a very exciting thing. And I

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really would like our audience to hear it. So the first

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question would be, how did you get involved with mindfulness?

Alan Carroll: 00:02:52

And

Sam Beard: 00:02:53

I will answer that. But I just want to start off

Sam Beard: 00:02:56

Alan by saying, the privilege of being here with you, with many,

Sam Beard: 00:03:02

many years, decades of commitment to reducing stress

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and take mindfulness around the world, you are a treasure of the

Sam Beard: 00:03:13

globe. And I absolutely want to start by just saying that and

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underlining. So it's an honor for me to be here. And thank

Sam Beard: 00:03:22

you. Now it is true that the My whole life has been service. And

Sam Beard: 00:03:30

I'll explain it more later. But basically, I've my whole life, I

Sam Beard: 00:03:34

followed my intuition, or my DNA or my whatever you want to call

Sam Beard: 00:03:41

it, which was always service. From day one, as a young kid, my

Sam Beard: 00:03:48

whole DNA was serve others. And so I did that. Follow my

Sam Beard: 00:03:55

intuition, and it led to many things. And then in 2014, I was

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now 75 years old. And it was a personal crisis of great

Sam Beard: 00:04:05

tension, lawsuits and mud stuff. I'm a creative, let's build

Sam Beard: 00:04:09

something guide. And I built up a nonprofit which had $30

Sam Beard: 00:04:13

million. And we, as the introduction says, I had created

Sam Beard: 00:04:18

and then run a program for eight presidents of the United States.

Sam Beard: 00:04:20

And I've just very simple. And then the press, I put in charge

Sam Beard: 00:04:27

of the foundation to do economic development because I was doing

Sam Beard: 00:04:30

other stuff now. I went to a board meeting and the answer was

Sam Beard: 00:04:33

I was fired. So at age 75, that I didn't have a pension, and I

Sam Beard: 00:04:39

was unemployed. So I supposed to start my economics over at zero.

Sam Beard: 00:04:43

And that was not a great day. No, not at all. So tremendous

Sam Beard: 00:04:48

tension and I don't like pills and stuff. And I went to the

Sam Beard: 00:04:51

doctor and he gave me depression pills and I took two of them and

Sam Beard: 00:04:54

threw them away. I've been familiar with mindfulness and

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brought had Weiss I'd ever heard of him. But he 20 to 30 years

Sam Beard: 00:05:05

ago, I sort of got into it. And I knew it was powerful. And I

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tried to do it, let's say in my early 30s. And the funny part is

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the exercise to reduce stress and go to sleep, as you lie down

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and close your eyes and visualize and boom, you go to

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sleep, the exercise to reach your higher peak is to close

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your eyes and visualize stuff. And then you get connected to

Sam Beard: 00:05:32

mindfulness, and be really alert, and at the highest level.

Sam Beard: 00:05:36

And all I did was go to sick, so it wasn't quite what was

Sam Beard: 00:05:41

supposed to happen. But anyway, the Then, with this crisis, I

Sam Beard: 00:05:45

got back into it, and I got the Brian Weiss tapes, and I

Sam Beard: 00:05:48

listened to them every night. And with beautiful music and a

Sam Beard: 00:05:51

different voice that I never went to sleep, and I totally

Sam Beard: 00:05:54

went inside myself. And it, I could totally manage the

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pressure and the tension and the tremendous stress. And that

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opened the field to me. And once I did that, and understood the

Sam Beard: 00:06:10

power of going inside, and the heart of this, the thing I

Sam Beard: 00:06:17

learned was, return to your true nature of serenity, return to

Sam Beard: 00:06:23

your true nature of spiritual energy, return to your true

Sam Beard: 00:06:29

nature of service to others. And that was what it was all about.

Sam Beard: 00:06:35

And it was, it was like a whole new awakening of joy. And then I

Sam Beard: 00:06:41

am rambunctious. So I said, let's I live in Delaware. So

Sam Beard: 00:06:45

let's make it a product of Delaware. And let's take it all

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around the world. And in 19 in 2014 2015 gift really started 20

Sam Beard: 00:06:58

started in 2015. And then 2016, it was our very first beginning

Sam Beard: 00:07:02

in Delaware. And this is interesting because I didn't

Sam Beard: 00:07:06

know for the most part, no one would talk about mindfulness and

Sam Beard: 00:07:10

meditation in Delaware. It was like woowoo. And watch out. And

Sam Beard: 00:07:17

so that didn't bother me because I always been a pioneer. So I

Sam Beard: 00:07:22

researched I start meeting people. And then I'd find out

Sam Beard: 00:07:26

these extraordinary people. They said, I've been meditating for

Sam Beard: 00:07:30

30 years, but 30 years ago, I told someone I was doing it. And

Sam Beard: 00:07:33

they thought it was crazy. So I haven't told anybody since then.

Sam Beard: 00:07:37

And so we had an original meeting, or we had 25 People

Sam Beard: 00:07:42

come in the morning and try to find people in the afternoon 50

Sam Beard: 00:07:44

people. And out of that we started and it really was

Sam Beard: 00:07:51

groundbreaking because I was going to take it statewide and

Sam Beard: 00:07:56

Delaware. And I found that really key leaders had been

Sam Beard: 00:08:00

doing this for some number of years and would wouldn't tell

Sam Beard: 00:08:02

anybody. So it was really the coming out party of meditation

Sam Beard: 00:08:05

in Delaware. And we ended up training 25,000 people in

Sam Beard: 00:08:09

schools, veterans mental health, and then we also were taking

Sam Beard: 00:08:18

around the world. So that's how it all got started.

Alan Carroll: 00:08:20

Who imagined that that seed that was planted and

Alan Carroll: 00:08:25

how it grew and how it flourished and how we are

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experiencing the fruits of your vision and the network that you

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have in order to manifest that vision out into the world. Oh,

Alan Carroll: 00:08:38

that's wonderful. The gifts I just want to make sure that my

Alan Carroll: 00:08:42

audience knows is a global investment foundation for

Alan Carroll: 00:08:46

tomorrow is the is the is the name of of the organization.

Unknown: 00:08:51

If and if they want to go to the website, it's WW gift

Unknown: 00:08:55

hyphen connect.org. And gift is the global investment. The IRS

Unknown: 00:09:03

990 is a global investment foundation for tomorrow. That's

Unknown: 00:09:07

the official name of the website is WW gift hyphen connect.org.

Alan Carroll: 00:09:13

Perfect. Thank you.

Unknown: 00:09:15

Now thank you. One of

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the in our previous conversation you had

Alan Carroll: 00:09:20

introduced me to a doctor named Jim Walsh a different doctor.

Alan Carroll: 00:09:27

This was Lisa Lisa Miller. Oh, yes. Okay. And she wrote the

Alan Carroll: 00:09:32

book The Awakening brain. Yes. And so I read the book, and it's

Alan Carroll: 00:09:39

rich with valuable mindfulness information. And what she was

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talking about. And you mentioned that also is that mindfulness

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spirituality is a resource. Yes, that can be tapped into and

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brought out into the world in order to Reduce the call it the

Alan Carroll: 00:10:02

psychological suffering that that people have. And so I, so

Alan Carroll: 00:10:07

one of the the areas of your interest is the zero through

Alan Carroll: 00:10:11

three, age range and how how we can bring the resource of

Alan Carroll: 00:10:16

mindfulness into the zero to three year old and why that is

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important. So I'd like to ask you to sort of expand more on

Alan Carroll: 00:10:27

that, zero through three and the importance of mindfulness in

Alan Carroll: 00:10:30

your, in your view.

Unknown: 00:10:32

I will and thank you very much for these are

Unknown: 00:10:36

wonderful questions. And thank you for having looked all that

Unknown: 00:10:38

stuff up. But let me just start a little bit with mindfulness.

Unknown: 00:10:41

Because when we were taking it around the world, 1000s of

Unknown: 00:10:45

people would say to me, I've heard about it, but I don't have

Unknown: 00:10:48

the time. I've heard about it. But I don't have the time. It's

Unknown: 00:10:53

not really for me. And they've all very stressed. So So I would

Unknown: 00:10:58

address that issue, which is, don't worry about mindfulness or

Unknown: 00:11:02

meditation, don't think of a course you have to sit all you

Unknown: 00:11:05

have to do your legs and all that sort of stuff and, and sit

Unknown: 00:11:08

in a yoga position. Don't worry about any of that. The point is

Unknown: 00:11:12

mindfulness and meditation is stress reduction. Who is you

Unknown: 00:11:15

have plenty. So I don't care how you do it. The answer is you

Unknown: 00:11:20

don't have the time not to do it. 15 To 20 minutes a day, you

Unknown: 00:11:25

don't have the time not to do it. It's completely life

Unknown: 00:11:27

changing. So do whatever you want to do. Take your dog and go

Unknown: 00:11:31

for a walk in nature. Yeah, just enjoy the flowers enjoy your

Unknown: 00:11:36

dog. Look at a bird fly by the hiccups a butterfly. And how

Unknown: 00:11:42

joyous is that and look at the colors of the butterfly. And you

Unknown: 00:11:46

pick up a stone as a little orange Salamandre to their

Unknown: 00:11:49

knees, he scoots off to two foot for protection and you just the

Unknown: 00:11:54

beauty of nature and just the relaxation of walking, you can

Unknown: 00:11:58

do that. The in the middle of winter, you say oh my gosh, it's

Unknown: 00:12:03

snow. 12 inches. If you go out and shovel that snow, you are

Unknown: 00:12:09

getting centered you're getting into it's a form of meditation,

Unknown: 00:12:13

because you're just you're stopping your energy. And so

Unknown: 00:12:17

anything you do, play with your children, here's your little

Unknown: 00:12:23

grandchildren, your children roll around on the floor and

Unknown: 00:12:26

play with them. That is meditation. It's it's

Unknown: 00:12:30

mindfulness. And it's centering yourself, you visualize tension,

Unknown: 00:12:34

you're out of the body, and you're all hyper, hyper, hyper,

Unknown: 00:12:36

hyper hyper. And that's bad for you stress that all that. Let me

Unknown: 00:12:40

try this. All the doctors and scientists know that stress is

Unknown: 00:12:46

the cause of every major disease. Stress is the cause of

Unknown: 00:12:51

cancer. Stress is the cause of diabetes. Stress is the cause of

Unknown: 00:12:56

mental health disasters. So heart heart heart attacks. And I

Unknown: 00:13:03

understand that so to SAS, I don't have the time is not the

Unknown: 00:13:06

right answer. And I just having talked to 1000s of people all

Unknown: 00:13:11

around the world, I think it's worth just saying that people

Unknown: 00:13:15

say what is mindfulness? What should I do and I don't have

Unknown: 00:13:18

time for the answer is just a way of relaxing and then easy

Unknown: 00:13:24

breath a few. I appreciate this podcast and just beforehand, I

Unknown: 00:13:30

was very, very busy, very, very busy. And I just went into

Unknown: 00:13:34

another room sat on a chair. And breathe in. Breathe, enjoy

Unknown: 00:13:41

bringing in positive thinking, breathe out tension, breathe in

Unknown: 00:13:45

joy and positive things. I'm looking forward to Alan, and

Unknown: 00:13:49

then breathe out touch him. Do that for a minute or two minutes

Unknown: 00:13:53

just in and out in and out. It it's anybody can do that at any

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time. And then I tell people, if they're, if they're going to go

Unknown: 00:14:03

make a speech, if they have a presentation event, go into the

Unknown: 00:14:07

mesurer go to the ladies room and just sit down and just

Unknown: 00:14:12

breathe just for a few minutes, it completely changes your whole

Unknown: 00:14:21

makeup and turns you down and get you back centered. And so

Unknown: 00:14:26

I'd say return to your true nature of serenity. That's what

Unknown: 00:14:29

you're doing with your breath. The essence of it is your

Unknown: 00:14:31

breath. So just I just want to say that which is not answer to

Unknown: 00:14:36

your question, but I wanted to underline what you've done all

Unknown: 00:14:41

your life and when it's so important, and anybody listening

Unknown: 00:14:44

to this it's vital to get get this different perspective about

Unknown: 00:14:51

it. What I want to do now let's talk to Lisa about Lisa Miller

Unknown: 00:14:54

Now Lisa Miller. She is one of the top professors and signs A

Unknown: 00:15:00

test in the psychology department at Columbia

Unknown: 00:15:02

University Teachers College. And her book is the spiritual child

Unknown: 00:15:09

that offers a whole new world, the spiritual child. And her

Unknown: 00:15:13

point is, every baby is born with a spiritual gene. Now what

Unknown: 00:15:17

does that means? What that means is if you get into a mindfulness

Unknown: 00:15:22

state, the other part of true nature is spiritual energy. Now,

Unknown: 00:15:29

that allows me to open up when I was saying before, which was my

Unknown: 00:15:32

whole life, I followed my intuition. And I didn't know

Unknown: 00:15:35

what I was doing. That's just what I was doing. Now, once you

Unknown: 00:15:39

get into mindfulness and meditation, it does open up your

Unknown: 00:15:42

whole spiritual side. And what I realized was that my intuition,

Unknown: 00:15:50

and also when you get into the field of mindfulness and

Unknown: 00:15:52

meditation, the word intuition comes out everybody, serendipity

Unknown: 00:15:56

comes out as a word all the time, intuition all the time.

Unknown: 00:16:00

And what that means each of us with our intuition is connected

Unknown: 00:16:04

vibrationally to a higher power. And for whatever religion you're

Unknown: 00:16:08

talking about, that is God. And if you're spiritual, that is the

Unknown: 00:16:12

magic of a higher power, which governs all the universes in the

Unknown: 00:16:16

galaxies, and as a power well past, our understanding. And

Unknown: 00:16:20

it's a wonderful thing to understand how powerful we are.

Unknown: 00:16:25

So Lisa Miller, the spiritual child. The point is, it's, as a

Unknown: 00:16:33

psychologist and scientist, she's proven that everybody has

Unknown: 00:16:37

a gene, that capacity is in everyone. And that opens up a

Unknown: 00:16:41

whole new world of empowerment. Like, how great Am I I'm

Unknown: 00:16:45

connected to a higher power, I've connected to spiritual

Unknown: 00:16:48

energy. And then let's tie that into NASA, with a space program

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is completely changed the understanding of how the

Unknown: 00:16:58

universe works. Because the point there is, all of energy is

Unknown: 00:17:03

vibrations. And we're just part of the universe of the galaxies.

Unknown: 00:17:10

Everything is vibrations. And so our intuition is a vibration.

Unknown: 00:17:16

And I then I apologize, because I take a simple question. I have

Unknown: 00:17:21

long answers.

Alan Carroll: 00:17:23

I love it. I love it. Sam, you're you're a

Alan Carroll: 00:17:25

fountain of wisdom. So you go right ahead and, and sing the

Alan Carroll: 00:17:28

songs.

Unknown: 00:17:29

I walked down the street, and people I've never

Unknown: 00:17:32

met. And I ask them three questions. I say Excuse me, do

Unknown: 00:17:36

you have a few minutes? And, and also come at them. I say you

Unknown: 00:17:41

look very energetic and very professional. You look like you

Unknown: 00:17:44

have a big heart. You look like you're an extraordinary Mother,

Unknown: 00:17:48

you look like an extraordinary father, you look like your

Unknown: 00:17:51

amazing family person. So just to start off, because they've

Unknown: 00:17:56

never met me. And looking at them, I can always find

Unknown: 00:17:59

something to compliment them about. And then I say, Do you

Unknown: 00:18:03

have a little time just for me to ask you three questions. They

Unknown: 00:18:05

never say no. And I'm not frightening looking and whole

Unknown: 00:18:13

approach is not frightening. So I then say, when you think of

Unknown: 00:18:18

somebody, do they ever call you? Or when you think of somebody?

Unknown: 00:18:22

Do they round the bend? And there they are? And I would say

Unknown: 00:18:26

eight out of 10? Say yes, that's a high percentage. And then I

Unknown: 00:18:32

say now, do you think that shows potentially, that human beings

Unknown: 00:18:38

have more than five senses? Is there some vibrational

Unknown: 00:18:42

connection between human beings more than sight and hearing and

Unknown: 00:18:46

taste? That's a vibrational connection. And for the most

Unknown: 00:18:51

part, people have not thought about that. And then an example,

Unknown: 00:18:57

I went into my wife and I go down into a hole with beach in

Unknown: 00:19:01

Delaware for take two or three days off. And we we stayed at

Unknown: 00:19:05

this hotel, we had a parent, so we go back to the hotel. And

Unknown: 00:19:09

there's the parent, I go to the lady behind the desk and I ask

Unknown: 00:19:12

these three questions. And I say, Do you have a few minutes?

Unknown: 00:19:15

Yes, I do. Okay, now. B. Do you ever think of anybody that call

Unknown: 00:19:20

you? And she said, Well, I'll tell you what happens with me.

Unknown: 00:19:24

I'm very close with my sisters or with my family. And my sister

Unknown: 00:19:29

lives three miles away. And just last week, I was here and I had

Unknown: 00:19:36

a whole visual picture of my sister carrying her new baby and

Unknown: 00:19:41

she fell down stairs. I got a movie in my head. I ran out. I

Unknown: 00:19:45

call the ambulance I ran over and we brought her to the

Unknown: 00:19:48

hospital. That's a that's a pretty dramatic example. You've

Unknown: 00:19:53

interconnection of people. And the next question is When you

Unknown: 00:20:00

are your most creative, does time fly by, locks disappear and

Unknown: 00:20:06

Time flies by, and ideas pour into your head? Definitely 80 To

Unknown: 00:20:13

70 to 80%. Say yes to that. And then it happens all the time

Unknown: 00:20:19

when you are your most creative. You get into a zone.

Unknown: 00:20:24

Professional use the word flow in psychology, the word flow

Unknown: 00:20:27

comes in. And ideas pour down to you and it's your most creative,

Unknown: 00:20:32

almost everybody says yes. Then the next question is, do you

Unknown: 00:20:37

ever think that those ideas are vibrations from the universe and

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they're channeling into you? And you're absorbing information

Unknown: 00:20:46

from outside? Now a very few people say yes to that. But a

Unknown: 00:20:53

lot of important people do say yes to that. Paul McCartney has

Unknown: 00:20:57

always said that when he gets into this flow zone, all the

Unknown: 00:21:06

lyrics and music that he wrote, was channeled to him and he was

Unknown: 00:21:10

basically a secretary writing it down. Now, a lot of people don't

Unknown: 00:21:14

believe that. Even if he said it, no one believes it. The the

Unknown: 00:21:25

Harold Robbins is a major author. You're my friend. Father

Unknown: 00:21:33

was a big doctor and how Robbins was the patient of the of that

Unknown: 00:21:37

doctor? And my friend was going into movies. And he said, Could

Unknown: 00:21:40

I have lunch with Howard Robins? A Howard Robbins, if you go

Unknown: 00:21:44

online? How Robbins is one of the top 10 people in the whole

Unknown: 00:21:49

history of the world. He's sold more books in the top 10. In the

Unknown: 00:21:56

history of books out Robbins. Yep. So I had lunch with him and

Unknown: 00:22:01

said, Mr. Robbins, every year you turn out an amazing book,

Unknown: 00:22:06

different cultures, different language, different dresses,

Unknown: 00:22:08

different everything. And just amazing characters. How do you

Unknown: 00:22:13

do it? And how Robin said, it's very easy. This goes back to the

Unknown: 00:22:19

early 1980s. He said go back to my typewriter. That's that's a

Unknown: 00:22:23

data. That's a data type typewriter. And I write one

Unknown: 00:22:27

sentence and all the rest is channeled to me. So I'm a

Unknown: 00:22:30

secretary writing this down. So I just most artists, most

Unknown: 00:22:34

athletic now in sports, every major sport, if you're not

Unknown: 00:22:39

connected to the universe, you're not going to win the

Unknown: 00:22:41

championship. And every team is practicing mindfulness and

Unknown: 00:22:44

meditation. So I just throw that out, because it's, it's

Unknown: 00:22:48

connected to what Lisa Miller is talking about, which is

Unknown: 00:22:52

connected to the universe. So on the one hand, mindfulness and

Unknown: 00:22:56

meditation, you go inside, and you return to Serenity, or

Unknown: 00:23:00

return to calm. And when you do that, you're now connected to

Unknown: 00:23:05

vibrations at a higher level. And that gets you into flow and

Unknown: 00:23:11

connectivity and creativity. That's pretty interesting.

Alan Carroll: 00:23:15

Oh, you bet.

Unknown: 00:23:17

And then I'll tell you, Steven Kotler is one of the

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major experts. And he's a genius, and he has a whole

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operation to try to prove that being in flow. Work with all the

Unknown: 00:23:29

top neuroscientists, the top neuroscientists of the world,

Unknown: 00:23:35

but into numbers. If I'm using five senses, and if you make a

Unknown: 00:23:42

speech, or if I'm making a speech, I know if I talk too

Unknown: 00:23:46

fast, which I probably am now, or bring in too much

Unknown: 00:23:49

information, which I probably have now. The the audience can't

Unknown: 00:23:54

follow you. Because they're listening in five senses. What

Unknown: 00:23:58

if and when you're using your five senses, mostly the front

Unknown: 00:24:02

part of your brain and you can properly process information at

Unknown: 00:24:07

40 to 50 bits of information a second 40 to 50. So if you do

Unknown: 00:24:13

too fast, you're gonna lose your audience. Yep. Now you're in the

Unknown: 00:24:19

more middle part of your brain, you're in flow and you're

Unknown: 00:24:21

connected to the universe and his normal neurologic scientists

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know when you're in flow connect to the universe, you are

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processing information at the low end, 9 million bits of

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information a second, and on the high end 40 million bits of

Unknown: 00:24:37

information per second. And so when Lisa Miller, the top

Unknown: 00:24:43

scientists at Columbia says each child is born with a spiritual

Unknown: 00:24:50

in connected to the vibrations of the universe, which NASA

Unknown: 00:24:53

proves is all that you can go for 40 to 40 million And it's

Unknown: 00:25:00

brain size. Everybody has that capacity. So that's pretty

Unknown: 00:25:04

interesting. And then Lisa's point is, with your children, if

Unknown: 00:25:10

you understand they have that capacity, the different things

Unknown: 00:25:13

you can do to encourage it, and on just to talk to them about

Unknown: 00:25:18

their creativity talks about their intuition, talks about

Unknown: 00:25:21

following their instincts. And then the third question is once

Unknown: 00:25:28

you go from more than five senses, and then creativity now

Unknown: 00:25:32

the next question is, are you spiritual or religious? And now,

Unknown: 00:25:39

many people say they're religious, and many people say

Unknown: 00:25:41

they're spiritual. And then I say with that, do you have a

Unknown: 00:25:46

sense that there is a higher power? And so to add, people

Unknown: 00:25:52

say, yes, they believe there is higher power. And then I say, so

Unknown: 00:25:56

do get guidance from that higher power. If you're spiritual, you

Unknown: 00:25:59

get guidance from that guy, or if you're religious, you're

Unknown: 00:26:02

getting guidance through prayer. With God, and then it's most, at

Unknown: 00:26:11

least half say, yes. That, that goes back to what I'm saying

Unknown: 00:26:15

about all my life, I followed my intuition, I had no idea what

Unknown: 00:26:19

that was. You bet. Basically, my DNA or my karma in mindfulness

Unknown: 00:26:24

language, was a higher power and I was following it. And then

Unknown: 00:26:29

serendipity. With the, the way you introduced me about the

Unknown: 00:26:35

eight presidents to this, that sounds like a lot of stuff that

Unknown: 00:26:38

I have done a lot of stuff by very simple. And I view that

Unknown: 00:26:44

with huge humility, because it was just a privilege, that with

Unknown: 00:26:49

what I call, joyous persistence, I like people. And if you do

Unknown: 00:26:55

that, and you trust them, and you have ideas, you can do a lot

Unknown: 00:26:59

of things. And it really is following a higher power, which

Unknown: 00:27:04

is the leverage of what happened. And again, everybody

Unknown: 00:27:07

has that. So now the last part of your thing was gift now is

Unknown: 00:27:15

all about early childhood and the brain science of early

Unknown: 00:27:20

childhood. And in 2017, I was out in San Francisco. And so I

Unknown: 00:27:29

said, go see George Halverson and I'm curious one thing I

Unknown: 00:27:32

would tell anybody listen to this. Follow your curiosity. If

Unknown: 00:27:35

anybody suggest something, try it. If it's too dangerous, don't

Unknown: 00:27:39

do it. I'm a scaredy cat. If someone said jump out of an

Unknown: 00:27:42

airplane. I don't have enough guts for that. I wouldn't do

Unknown: 00:27:47

that. If I'm on top of that looked down, I get scared. You

Unknown: 00:27:51

bet. And the things if someone says why don't you drive 100

Unknown: 00:27:55

miles an hour and go around a fast curve? I'm not into that.

Unknown: 00:27:59

And so Edie right? But read my life is not my strength. But

Unknown: 00:28:13

curiosity, the opens up so many wonderful things, and people shy

Unknown: 00:28:17

away from it. But get over that. Right around the corner is

Unknown: 00:28:22

something amazing. Always be open to going around the next

Unknown: 00:28:24

corner. And so suppose they say George happens to go over there.

Unknown: 00:28:29

What do I find George Halverson is one of the top scientists and

Unknown: 00:28:33

mental health professionals in the world. And in the United

Unknown: 00:28:38

States, there's a health organization called Kaiser

Unknown: 00:28:41

Permanente, which is one of the largest. It's nonprofit, but

Unknown: 00:28:45

it's one of the largest organizations with three to

Unknown: 00:28:47

400,000 employees all about health care. And here's what the

Unknown: 00:28:51

top scientists told me. The baby is born, every baby is born. And

Unknown: 00:29:00

the brain, billions of synapses are connecting a million a

Unknown: 00:29:04

second. And by a third birthday by third 123, third birthday,

Unknown: 00:29:11

the the neurological passages of your brain are largely being

Unknown: 00:29:17

set, which defined 70 to 80% your capacity to succeed in

Unknown: 00:29:21

school. So the baby needs to be spoken to sung to or read to

Unknown: 00:29:27

some number of millions of words by the third birthday. Now

Unknown: 00:29:31

people hear that and they don't want to hear it. They hear that

Unknown: 00:29:38

it's too much, right? But fundamentally, the reality is

Unknown: 00:29:42

that the first three years of your life the neurological

Unknown: 00:29:49

passages are set. And then so to 80%. that defies your ability in

Unknown: 00:29:56

school. So now in the United States If you take the idea of

Unknown: 00:30:03

zero to three, and you go to underserved communities, whether

Unknown: 00:30:07

it be black or Hispanic or white, low income, poverty

Unknown: 00:30:12

schools, underserved communities, when the children

Unknown: 00:30:16

from underserved communities come to kindergarten in which

Unknown: 00:30:18

about age 670 to 80% of those children are not education

Unknown: 00:30:25

ready, and they're not reading ready. And then I say, Well,

Unknown: 00:30:30

look, kindergarten is the first year of school. Now, the whole

Unknown: 00:30:35

actual point is, the first year of school is when you're born.

Unknown: 00:30:40

And actually this starts at conception. Let's make a little

Unknown: 00:30:45

more confusing. As soon as the woman is pregnant, you should,

Unknown: 00:30:49

she should talk to her baby, the father should talk to the baby,

Unknown: 00:30:53

the relatives are talking about, I love you. And I'll talk to all

Unknown: 00:30:56

the time and saying to them and read to them right in the womb,

Unknown: 00:31:00

you bet. And if their vibrations, when that baby is

Unknown: 00:31:03

born, the baby was already ahead of me would not talk to him.

Unknown: 00:31:08

From conception to birth. Now the baby is born specters thing

Unknown: 00:31:14

to read two millions of words by the third birthday. Now. And the

Unknown: 00:31:21

word neurological passages are too complicated. So I look at it

Unknown: 00:31:25

this way. They are new and I build something. And we have a

Unknown: 00:31:32

we just build a new mindful, mindful you stature and Nepal or

Unknown: 00:31:41

something like that. And we want to put pour cement at the front

Unknown: 00:31:48

door, just a and then we're gonna put our initials in it to

Unknown: 00:31:52

commemorate the amazing thing that we did. And I say, Look,

Unknown: 00:31:57

I'm a little older than you, Alan, I'm tired. Let's go have a

Unknown: 00:32:00

drink. And I can sleep tomorrow morning, we're gonna come back,

Unknown: 00:32:04

we'll put our initials in this event. Now what happens with

Unknown: 00:32:06

that? You pour the cement the afternoon, and you come back the

Unknown: 00:32:11

next morning? How good are you putting initials into the

Unknown: 00:32:13

cement?

Alan Carroll: 00:32:14

Cement is hard, you can't do it. Can't do it.

Unknown: 00:32:17

So that fundamentally for the most part is the brain,

Unknown: 00:32:20

your neurological passages are set in the first three years and

Unknown: 00:32:24

then the brain goes and does something else. So I don't want

Unknown: 00:32:27

to say it's impossible to catch up. But it's that harder to

Unknown: 00:32:31

catch up. And that's the point. And so, once I heard that I

Unknown: 00:32:35

can't get out of my mind. And that now is the one thing that

Unknown: 00:32:39

we're doing at gift Connect is talking about the power of the

Unknown: 00:32:45

brain science of zero to three. And because it's completely

Unknown: 00:32:51

transformational. And now let's go back to the underserved

Unknown: 00:32:54

communities. If you don't start a deception, and if you don't

Unknown: 00:33:02

start zero to three, which is what education really starts,

Unknown: 00:33:08

education capacity starts. Now you say, Okay, you're in

Unknown: 00:33:12

kindergarten. And it starts by the third grade, you need to be

Unknown: 00:33:18

really good at education, writing and reading ready, in

Unknown: 00:33:21

underserved communities, children and start, so to 80% in

Unknown: 00:33:26

the United States, not there. Now they get to the third or

Unknown: 00:33:29

fourth grade as a third or fourth grade, if you're not a

Unknown: 00:33:33

good reader, and if you're not education ready by the third

Unknown: 00:33:36

grade, now you're in real trouble. Because the first few

Unknown: 00:33:38

years they've set the foundation, and then you're able

Unknown: 00:33:41

to learn. But the answer is the 70 80% never changes. So in the

Unknown: 00:33:46

third grade, obviously, as you go along, your capacity is

Unknown: 00:33:50

increasing. But the third graders set a percent said 8%

Unknown: 00:33:54

are not when they're supposed to be eighth grade seven 80% are

Unknown: 00:33:57

not where they're supposed to be. They graduate so to 80%, not

Unknown: 00:34:00

where they're supposed to be. So in the United States in our

Unknown: 00:34:03

schools, 1/3 of all the students are graduating with no skills

Unknown: 00:34:09

capable of having a 21st century job. That's appalling.

Alan Carroll: 00:34:17

Yep. That's appalling.

Unknown: 00:34:19

The United States by the way, among developing

Unknown: 00:34:21

countries, the United States and the 36. Top developing

Unknown: 00:34:24

countries, we are the 34th worst. That early childhood

Unknown: 00:34:29

development. Zero to Three, that's a disaster. Now let's

Unknown: 00:34:33

look at a global x we talked about globally. I've never done

Unknown: 00:34:36

a global project. But this is what mindfulness is global is

Unknown: 00:34:40

the first one but now with this, it'd be global. And if you look

Unknown: 00:34:44

at developing nations first developed countries they want to

Unknown: 00:34:47

close the gap. And we all want to but for the most part,

Unknown: 00:34:52

developing countries that spend less than 2% of their education

Unknown: 00:34:56

budget, zero to three And then they gotta catch up at school.

Unknown: 00:35:02

But if you miss three, you can't catch up for the most part,

Unknown: 00:35:05

foreign aid to developing countries less than 1% focuses

Unknown: 00:35:09

on zero to three. So this is really significant around the

Unknown: 00:35:15

world. And my team has said, Sam, you think of too many

Unknown: 00:35:18

things, and you get involved in too many things. And so to be

Unknown: 00:35:21

really successful, we're going to get focused on that one

Unknown: 00:35:23

thing. So I apologize. But that's a long sort of answer to

Unknown: 00:35:28

what you said. So I did flow from mindfulness to Lisa Miller,

Unknown: 00:35:36

with opening up your spiritual side to George Halverson, zero

Unknown: 00:35:40

to three.

Alan Carroll: 00:35:43

Wow. Absolutely, I find that the going back to

Alan Carroll: 00:35:51

mindfulness for me is like a pool of energy. Yep. And the

Alan Carroll: 00:35:57

quicker you can access that, the quicker you will develop the

Alan Carroll: 00:36:04

muscles that allow you to look at whatever issue that you're

Alan Carroll: 00:36:09

facing in the 21st century, which is a lot of issues,

Alan Carroll: 00:36:14

environmental issues, mental health issues, drug issues, and

Alan Carroll: 00:36:18

lots of issues, which cause agitation. And if you can't have

Alan Carroll: 00:36:22

a calm view, to deal with the agitation, then you're agitated,

Alan Carroll: 00:36:29

trying to deal with the agitation, which is not going to

Alan Carroll: 00:36:32

resolve the agitation. But if you have that mindfulness

Alan Carroll: 00:36:37

training at an early age, that allows you to wait a minute, let

Alan Carroll: 00:36:42

me take a breath. Let let me get this physical body relaxed

Alan Carroll: 00:36:48

before I stick my hands in the machinery and try to try to pull

Alan Carroll: 00:36:52

the levers. And I think that is absolutely the You said it

Alan Carroll: 00:36:59

yourself. The most significant challenge of your service of

Alan Carroll: 00:37:04

life is happening now. Because he's because you recognize that,

Alan Carroll: 00:37:09

that unless we get mental stability, we're going to be

Alan Carroll: 00:37:13

unstable, dealing with unstable things. It's it's got this, it's

Alan Carroll: 00:37:16

going to cause major, more major issues. And so I'm a I'm a

Alan Carroll: 00:37:23

believer, Sam, and what you're saying,

Unknown: 00:37:27

Are they you're more than a believer, you're one of

Unknown: 00:37:30

the major world leaders who have pioneered this and been at it

Unknown: 00:37:36

with such persistence and power for some number of decades. So

Unknown: 00:37:42

the again, I start off by congratulating, I just want to

Unknown: 00:37:47

congratulate you again, and really underline the privilege

Unknown: 00:37:50

of me to be here. Now then, once I, literally two weeks ago, a

Unknown: 00:37:56

bell went off that all these three things were late, the

Unknown: 00:38:00

mindfulness of meditation. And then here's Lisa Miller with a

Unknown: 00:38:04

spiritual child, and that his his new thing that we're doing,

Unknown: 00:38:07

which is the brain science of Birth to Three. And so I call an

Unknown: 00:38:13

expert, a fella called Jim Walsh, and he has a he's trained

Unknown: 00:38:17

in everything. And he's such a heart. His specialty is

Unknown: 00:38:21

mindfulness and meditation and Jon Kabat Zinn. But anytime you

Unknown: 00:38:25

have a question, you call Jim, watch, ask Jim, and you get an

Unknown: 00:38:30

amazing answer. And he's the one that led us through the whole

Unknown: 00:38:33

thing with with a mindfulness of meditation. So I call Jim, and

Unknown: 00:38:37

he never lets me down. So he said, Sam, of course, all the

Unknown: 00:38:42

three are connected. And then he used a fancy word, when he said,

Unknown: 00:38:47

it's all about default mode. Network isn't a technical thing,

Unknown: 00:38:51

Default Mode Network. And he explained it this way, the baby

Unknown: 00:38:56

is born, and the baby is pure. And the baby has no idea the

Unknown: 00:39:02

baby's born now. If bad things happen, the baby is looking for

Unknown: 00:39:06

safety. So if bad stuff happened, the brain does stuff.

Unknown: 00:39:10

Like watch out for that. Don't do that again. And if something

Unknown: 00:39:13

bad happens over here, watch that. And then from a different

Unknown: 00:39:19

angle, if if the baby is not loved and taken care of if the

Unknown: 00:39:24

baby is sort of abused, if it's not food, the the first four

Unknown: 00:39:29

years of your life, you start with a clean slate, and many

Unknown: 00:39:36

things happen, which are upsetting to the conscious mind

Unknown: 00:39:40

and programmed in the subconscious mind. And that

Unknown: 00:39:44

leads to lack of self esteem. I don't believe in myself. All of

Unknown: 00:39:50

that is in the first three to four years of life. So now,

Unknown: 00:39:54

mindfulness and meditation is the first three or four years of

Unknown: 00:39:58

life and you taught how to do that from the big getting, you

Unknown: 00:40:01

know how to stress the spiritual child that's a gene, it's like

Unknown: 00:40:07

your ability to see or ability to hear your ability to connect

Unknown: 00:40:10

to the universe is a genetic, physical connection. And if you

Unknown: 00:40:15

are encouraged that you have that power, you have the

Unknown: 00:40:18

opportunity to go from 40 to 50 bits of information per second,

Unknown: 00:40:21

up to 9 million to 40 million. Everybody has that. And, and

Unknown: 00:40:26

that's also happening the first few years. And then the brain

Unknown: 00:40:29

science of the neurological passages, which really lead to

Unknown: 00:40:32

literacy and abilities. School are the same thing. So the

Unknown: 00:40:36

answer is all of that fits into the idea of default mode

Unknown: 00:40:40

network. And that's pretty interesting. I know. Usually,

Unknown: 00:40:45

people operate, operate in silos. And I think for the most

Unknown: 00:40:49

part, very few people have ever put that together in that same

Unknown: 00:40:52

way.

Alan Carroll: 00:40:54

And that's creativity. And that's, that's

Alan Carroll: 00:40:56

one of the benefits of mindfulness. Mindfulness to me

Alan Carroll: 00:40:59

has flexibility to it, that allows you to comfortably move

Alan Carroll: 00:41:04

around the circle to see the different points of view that

Alan Carroll: 00:41:07

people are sharing versus my ego just wants one point of view,

Alan Carroll: 00:41:10

it's my point of view. So I spend my life defending and

Alan Carroll: 00:41:13

attacking my people who, who are opposed to my point of view,

Alan Carroll: 00:41:18

versus flexibility. listening, listening allows you to circle

Alan Carroll: 00:41:22

all over and have that flow that that you talked about. I love

Alan Carroll: 00:41:27

it. Well, Sam, where we are, we are getting close to the end of

Alan Carroll: 00:41:31

our first podcast, I sense we have, we have a realm of

Alan Carroll: 00:41:36

information to bring forth you're, you're like a fountain

Alan Carroll: 00:41:40

of knowledge. And I really appreciate you sharing all the

Alan Carroll: 00:41:45

golden nuggets of your journey and the things that you've

Alan Carroll: 00:41:48

discovered and the people that you've talked to what a what a

Alan Carroll: 00:41:51

gift you are, to, to, to to the world, and but especially to the

Alan Carroll: 00:41:56

audience of the mind for your podcast. And to conclude, I want

Alan Carroll: 00:42:00

to thank you for being on the podcast. And we're going to have

Alan Carroll: 00:42:04

show notes that are going to have your biography, it's good

Alan Carroll: 00:42:07

to have your contact information so that people can reach out to

Alan Carroll: 00:42:12

you and connect with you and find out all the things that

Alan Carroll: 00:42:15

you're doing in the world. And I just want to I just want to

Alan Carroll: 00:42:18

thank you for for what you do. The that Curiosity has led you

Alan Carroll: 00:42:24

on a path that inspires millions and millions of people. So it's

Alan Carroll: 00:42:28

been an honor, and a privilege to be able to have time to talk

Alan Carroll: 00:42:32

to you and have you share your wisdom. So thank you very, very

Alan Carroll: 00:42:35

much, Sam. And in conclusion, what would you like to say to

Alan Carroll: 00:42:38

the audience

Unknown: 00:42:39

there I want to say to the audience is Alan Thank you

Unknown: 00:42:45

know, I guess what I want to say to the audience is I've talked

Unknown: 00:42:51

about is the capacity of empowerment that each human

Unknown: 00:42:55

being has. And if you think you if you think you can, you can't,

Unknown: 00:42:59

if you think big, you can do it. If you get started, there's

Unknown: 00:43:03

nothing you can't do and trust yourself. Your power is amazing.

Unknown: 00:43:10

Trust yourself and it changes your life. You have amazing

Unknown: 00:43:14

capacity, coming from a divinity that Allah Thank you.

Alan Carroll: 00:43:20

Thank you, Sam. You bye for now.