Speaker 1: M Hey guys, and welcome back to this week's episode
Speaker 1: of a Let's Be a Podcast. This week I got
Speaker 1: to chat with the incredibly talented director, author, actor, filmmaker
Speaker 1: Justin Baldoni. Now you may know him from Jane the Virgin,
Speaker 1: or you may know him from his book Man Enough
Speaker 1: or the Man Enough podcast which he hosts, which really
Speaker 1: breaks down the stigma of toxic male masculinity. And then
Speaker 1: this episode we talk a lot about that. We talk
Speaker 1: about the fakeness of social media, being enough as just
Speaker 1: who you are, and I go into more of my
Speaker 1: mental health struggles and my journey. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode. Ye. So I just want to start
Speaker 1: out by saying this, and I don't say this lately.
Speaker 1: Your podcast makes me want to become a better human
Speaker 1: um and I know that through creating a podcast, just
Speaker 1: when I've done in the past three years. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of work, and it's a lot of effort that
Speaker 1: people we don't see, and especially when you're doing it
Speaker 1: on a platform you don't know who's listening, and it
Speaker 1: can sometimes feel like, at least I felt like you're
Speaker 1: putting in all this work and not sure if it's
Speaker 1: even being acknowledged. But I want you to know that
Speaker 1: I think that this podcast man Enough his truly changing
Speaker 1: a lot. It's making me want to reflect on how
Speaker 1: I can grow as a person. And I think you
Speaker 1: are doing the mission you set out to do. Wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, ja, that's so kind of you. Thank you
Speaker 1: that really that really means a lot. I appreciate that
Speaker 1: very much. And you know, the topic of being man
Speaker 1: enough and male masculinity is so interesting. We had Kevin
Speaker 1: Love on for the season two finale and he talked
Speaker 1: about having a panic attack on the basketball court. And
Speaker 1: yet these are things that are so common. I've struggled
Speaker 1: with anxiety my entire life in O c D. There's
Speaker 1: such a stigma with it and mental health. And I've
Speaker 1: said this before, but it's just like you're supposed to
Speaker 1: work out your body, you're supposed to work out your mind.
Speaker 1: And that's one of the great things about talking things out.
Speaker 1: Yet there's such a stigma with it. Where do you
Speaker 1: think this stigma is rooted in? And by having these conversations,
Speaker 1: how do you think we can break it? Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, you're an awesome podcast host. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: thank you mean it's really hard to ask questions and like,
Speaker 1: first of all, yeah, you're just you're just doing you're
Speaker 1: doing it, all right. You're better than I am, far
Speaker 1: better than I am. Absolutely not all right. So thank
Speaker 1: you for talking about your anxiety. I think that it's
Speaker 1: wonderful that young people are talking about that. It took
Speaker 1: me thirty something years to even realize that I had anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I'm thirty seven now and i still feel like
Speaker 1: i'm twenty one. But I'm thirty seven though, and I'm
Speaker 1: just really getting to the root of it for me.
Speaker 1: So it's really important to talk about what is the
Speaker 1: root of how this started. I mean a combination of
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Self preservation is one of them.
Speaker 1: I think that we live in a we live in
Speaker 1: a culture where we've all been socialized, especially men, to
Speaker 1: believe that any sort of perceived weakness means that we
Speaker 1: are not men, that we are not strong. Like it's
Speaker 1: like this strange idea, But what do you does that
Speaker 1: even mean? It doesn't mean anything. It's all it's all,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't think I'm allowed to swear on this,
Speaker 1: but it's all crapy. Justin you've got young listeners it's no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, no, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be good.
Speaker 1: You know what. See I broke it, Oh Sammy Jay
Speaker 1: with swear with the F bomb. Um. Look, it's it's
Speaker 1: just this whole idea of we think that we have
Speaker 1: to be a certain way to be considered strong, and
Speaker 1: yet the entire definition of strength and bravery, I think,
Speaker 1: is backwards. It's all rooted in external things like this
Speaker 1: idea that if I'm physically strong, that I'm strong. If
Speaker 1: I am physically brave, meaning if I go and take
Speaker 1: physical risks, if I risk my life to help somebody else,
Speaker 1: then I'm brave. Right, But we completely forget what I
Speaker 1: believe the true definition of strength and bravery is, which
Speaker 1: is internal. For sure. Absolutely, it's not about taking physical risks,
Speaker 1: about taking emotional risks. It's not about physical strength. It's
Speaker 1: about emotional strength. You can't have. You can look, you
Speaker 1: can be the strongest man in the entire world, but
Speaker 1: if you have a panic attack and you don't know
Speaker 1: what it is, you are as weak as you could
Speaker 1: ever be because you don't have the emotional vocabulary to
Speaker 1: first of all, understand what's happening to you, and second
Speaker 1: of all, you don't have the emotional strength in the
Speaker 1: bravery to ask for help. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: These things debilitate us. It's kind of like being super
Speaker 1: strong and stubbing your pinky toe. That's the worst, by
Speaker 1: the way, it's the worst, right you can be. Like
Speaker 1: you see like these uh, these strong young men, like
Speaker 1: they can lift cars, they stubb their pinky toe and
Speaker 1: they're down down for the count. Well, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's so like you could as strong as you want,
Speaker 1: but if you're not dealing with your your actual mental health,
Speaker 1: your emotional health, your well being, your spiritual health, then
Speaker 1: you're just a shell. You're just a suit of armor.
Speaker 1: That's so true. And I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've been in therapy since I was like seven, Um,
Speaker 1: I grew up with learning disabilities my entire life, and
Speaker 1: I thought I was incapable of learning. I learned that
Speaker 1: wasn't true. Been there. But there are so many people
Speaker 1: that think that they are incapable of learning, that they
Speaker 1: are stupid, and which in turn, specifically like a d
Speaker 1: h D for example, looks very different on guys than
Speaker 1: it does girls. And I think guys in the classroom
Speaker 1: they're being pointed as disruptive and if they feel sad
Speaker 1: or discourage, what society has taught us is to channel
Speaker 1: anger instead of to actually feel that. Um, there's uh
Speaker 1: Anthony Ramos, one of my favorite musicians. He has a
Speaker 1: quote in a song about kind of toxic male masculinity
Speaker 1: and he says, why am I pushing away with silence
Speaker 1: has to say? And I feel like sometimes we need
Speaker 1: to embrace that, embrace the feelings we are having and
Speaker 1: let ourselves feel that. What is the journey been like
Speaker 1: for you to go through that? While you've acted, you've directed,
Speaker 1: What is the process of doing that while managing your
Speaker 1: career and being a happy person? Wow? The great question.
Speaker 1: Let's separate the happy person thing because the idea like
Speaker 1: happiness starts with contentment, right, It starts with it starts
Speaker 1: with appreciating what you have. It starts with gratitude. And
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of times over the last decade
Speaker 1: where I haven't been happy and I have no idea why.
Speaker 1: I'm just looking around like I have everything? What's wrong?
Speaker 1: And nobody talks about that? Oh, absolutely right, because we're
Speaker 1: sold this idea of the American dream, right, this capitalistic patriot,
Speaker 1: patriarchal society that we live in, that if you just
Speaker 1: acquire an off then you'll be good, right, because so
Speaker 1: many people don't have. If you can figure out how
Speaker 1: to acquire, if you can reach the top of the pyramid,
Speaker 1: or even midway up, then you're good. Yeah, it's not.
Speaker 1: That's not the case, because it starts with contentment, it
Speaker 1: starts with happiness. It starts with the inside. It's not
Speaker 1: the x the outside, it's not the external. And were
Speaker 1: sold this idea that happiness comes from the external, from
Speaker 1: the outside. Look at social media, look at everything that
Speaker 1: we're seeing. It's all coming from external forces. But it
Speaker 1: will only ever stick if it comes from inside, from
Speaker 1: doing the work and looking at the person in the
Speaker 1: mirror and figuring out if you actually like what you see,
Speaker 1: if you like the person staring back at you. If
Speaker 1: you don't, no matter what you do, it's a house
Speaker 1: of cards. You don't have a foundation. So for me,
Speaker 1: what it looked like is this, As I started doing
Speaker 1: this work, as I started truly healing, I was doing
Speaker 1: it very much publicly. I'm doing and I'm not even
Speaker 1: going to use the past tense. I am doing it
Speaker 1: very publicly you would love promo. I am trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out in real time, and I did that
Speaker 1: on purpose. One is, nobody ever did that for me.
Speaker 1: I never saw anybody hell in real time. I never
Speaker 1: saw anybody that I looked up to talk about their
Speaker 1: broken parts. And that's a massive problem because if you
Speaker 1: don't see it, you can't be it. And if you
Speaker 1: don't see it, then that means that you feel like
Speaker 1: you're the only one. So growing up for me as
Speaker 1: a man, I didn't know that I had anxiety until
Speaker 1: I was in my thirties. I had no idea that
Speaker 1: I had ever really been depressed until I was in
Speaker 1: my thirties and I started really looking at Wow, I
Speaker 1: feel really sleepy today. I feel really tired, but I
Speaker 1: got sleep I don't really want to go out of bed.
Speaker 1: I feel tightness in my chest? What is that? Normally
Speaker 1: I would just want I would just go through it.
Speaker 1: As I'm a man, I'm gonna do. That's what we do.
Speaker 1: We pushed through everything. Conqueror, right, That's what we're taught
Speaker 1: growing up. We have to be no pay, no gain,
Speaker 1: just push push push push. Yeah, like, man up, what
Speaker 1: does that even mean? That's it? Man up? Be man enough.
Speaker 1: That was my entire life as an athlete. Right, You
Speaker 1: get muscles by pushing, pushing, pushing, and then we do
Speaker 1: the same thing with everything else in life. Look at sports.
Speaker 1: You watch these guys they break their freaking legs and
Speaker 1: they think they have to keep playing. What does that do?
Speaker 1: And they can't walk when they're older, they're in wheelchairs.
Speaker 1: You look at these boxers that beat the crap out
Speaker 1: of themselves. Then they can't even put sentences together when
Speaker 1: they're in their fifties and sixties. Like football players, it's
Speaker 1: all backwards. What for for for the win? What does
Speaker 1: that actually mean? So here I am in my thirties,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh wow, my heart's my heart's really beating
Speaker 1: fast today, but I'm not really doing anything. Huh. I
Speaker 1: gotta tickets, I gotta take deep reast. There's something off,
Speaker 1: all right, It's okay, I'm fine. And then you stuck
Speaker 1: it up and you bury it down, and you don't
Speaker 1: allow your body to feel what it is screaming at
Speaker 1: you that it needs to feel, which is repressed emotion,
Speaker 1: which are repressed feelings, anger, madness, We're more shame, get
Speaker 1: whatever it is. It's all we bury it down to
Speaker 1: the point where like a like molten lava and eventually
Speaker 1: is going to rise to the service and explode like
Speaker 1: a volcano. But eventually, no matter what, we're gonna have
Speaker 1: to deal with it. I'm now in my thirties being like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, I gotta I gotta deal with it. Why well,
Speaker 1: I have lives that depend on me. I have a partner,
Speaker 1: I have this amazing wife who's doing the exact same
Speaker 1: work that I am. And we're looking at each other
Speaker 1: and we're saying, we cannot pass this on to our children.
Speaker 1: We cannot have our children grow up in homes like
Speaker 1: we grew up. And now, granted we grew up okay
Speaker 1: my wife. My wife's family had alcoholism and her dad
Speaker 1: passed away when she was eighteen. I grew up in
Speaker 1: a in a wonderful house. The problem is that we
Speaker 1: never talked about the broken pieces. We just swept them
Speaker 1: under the rug. My dad was the master at that exactly.
Speaker 1: You realize that like this all comes up when you
Speaker 1: don't deal with it, and even though what even and
Speaker 1: when we deal with it, it comes up even more.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I think it's important for
Speaker 1: people to know you start healing, like it all starts
Speaker 1: to come up and you have to address it, and
Speaker 1: that's and that's also scary. And then you address it
Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, well, what's at the core of
Speaker 1: that panic attack, what's at the core of my shortness
Speaker 1: of breath, what's at the core of my depression, what's
Speaker 1: at the core of the thing that's keeping me out
Speaker 1: of bed? And then you've got to go into it. Oh. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with it in real time. I'm struggling. It's awesome,
Speaker 1: and I want to talk about it as much as
Speaker 1: I can because these are the things that don't make
Speaker 1: us just man enough, and they make us human enough,
Speaker 1: all of us. That the things that allow all of
Speaker 1: us to connect because we are all struggling, we all
Speaker 1: have trauma, and trauma looks different for everybody. It really does.
Speaker 1: And I think something that I've learned, I mean, everyone's
Speaker 1: journey is so different. But I just went through my
Speaker 1: first midterms at college. I justved across the country and
Speaker 1: I was really overwhelmed balancing school, the social life and
Speaker 1: the podcast. I was terns are hard. I was doing
Speaker 1: that thing where I was pushing it down. I was
Speaker 1: just getting through the days and then I just took
Speaker 1: a day. I took There's one moment and I just
Speaker 1: cracked and I just sucking let it out and it
Speaker 1: was one of those cries where like I could physically
Speaker 1: feel it leaving my body. Oh those are good, which
Speaker 1: was so good. But like I've grown up doing UM,
Speaker 1: cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavior therapy. Yeah, and I've been
Speaker 1: doing exposure therapy, where it's essentially like if you're afraid
Speaker 1: of a spider, you start in a room with a spider,
Speaker 1: and you lead up to actually holding it. Um, which
Speaker 1: is one of the most afraid of spiders. No, but
Speaker 1: there's just just an example. I was. I had separation anxiety,
Speaker 1: really bad separation anxiety with your parents. Yes it was
Speaker 1: no older brother. Um. And then like growing up with
Speaker 1: learning disabilities to like the thought of a girl with
Speaker 1: processing issues probably wouldn't have a podcast. So everything that
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do is to prove to myself that
Speaker 1: I can do all of the things that I thought
Speaker 1: I could never do. It's awesome, it's really and I'm
Speaker 1: so happy you're doing it. The crazy thing is soon
Speaker 1: you're going to recognize what, oh ship all my success
Speaker 1: is actually a trauma response. Oh absolutely absolutely. The podcast
Speaker 1: was created as a distraction because of my anxiety. All
Speaker 1: of this is like, wait, so I'm this is all
Speaker 1: a responsive from trauma. Doesn't mean it's bad or good, right,
Speaker 1: It's taking a shitty situation and creating something good out
Speaker 1: of it. You look at that and you're like wow.
Speaker 1: So in some ways I have to have a lot
Speaker 1: of gratitude for that. Oh absolutely, things I look back on,
Speaker 1: Like I've talked about this, I hate my anxiety, but
Speaker 1: I'm also very grateful for it because it makes me
Speaker 1: who I am and I think something that's I'm currently
Speaker 1: struggling with that. I'm sure you can give me advice
Speaker 1: on is you have you're balancing a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: you have your production company, you have your podcasts, you
Speaker 1: have a family. How have you dealt with balancing all
Speaker 1: of that? Terribly? I've dealt with it. I doubt This
Speaker 1: is where understanding that your drive comes coming from trauma
Speaker 1: is really important, because when it comes from a place
Speaker 1: of pain and it's disguised as drive, then you never
Speaker 1: have an end. So what I tell people, because I'm
Speaker 1: on this same journey, is that there's like no matter
Speaker 1: how much success I get, it's not going to change anything.
Speaker 1: It's not going to heal me. Until you're content with yourself.
Speaker 1: I have to I have to heal. And then the
Speaker 1: success on top of that, it can be additory if
Speaker 1: you will. It's like I can. I can be grateful
Speaker 1: for it. But the second that my perceived success in
Speaker 1: America and social media and whatever business that I'm in
Speaker 1: becomes my identity is the second that I just fall
Speaker 1: into like that bottomless pit of despair because it's not
Speaker 1: real because eventually that's going to go away, and what
Speaker 1: happens when that goes away, I'm just again, I'm prolonging
Speaker 1: a panic attack of prolonging depression. You that's why you
Speaker 1: see so many people just fighting to stay in front
Speaker 1: of the limelight, like just doing everything they can for fame,
Speaker 1: because they're so deadly afraid of losing it, because losing
Speaker 1: it is death to them, because you don't have an
Speaker 1: identity without it, and if that's your identity, exactly expect
Speaker 1: and also because it's you're you're trying to heal your
Speaker 1: trauma with these external things when in reality, you can
Speaker 1: have all of this stuff. You can do your podcast,
Speaker 1: you can do all you could. I could do mine,
Speaker 1: You could write your book, so long as you know
Speaker 1: that it doesn't define me, and if it goes away,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Justin we have to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, I want to continue talking
Speaker 1: about what defines us and the stigma as to why
Speaker 1: so many guys don't like to open up and be
Speaker 1: vulnerable and much more. We'll be right back and we're back,
Speaker 1: So then what does define you? Though? Is the question?
Speaker 1: Because that's something that I'm going through, Like if, for example,
Speaker 1: the podcast has been my identity, who am I a
Speaker 1: girl with a podcast? If I used I just work
Speaker 1: for Radio Disney, I was a Radio Disney girl who
Speaker 1: like it goes to the question of they think we're
Speaker 1: all struggling with, like who are you besides the materialistic things?
Speaker 1: I always I always think about, well, what would happen
Speaker 1: if a meteor hit Earth and suddenly we lost all
Speaker 1: of our technology? Be nice in a way, wouldn't it be?
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us would be like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I can breathe again. Can you imagine how
Speaker 1: many people would just be able to like take a
Speaker 1: full breath for the first time in their life. Wow,
Speaker 1: if it all went away, You think about that, all
Speaker 1: of us, we are all enough already, but the world
Speaker 1: is telling us we're not so. So long as we're
Speaker 1: looking to the world and others for cues, were never
Speaker 1: going to feel like we're enough. My wife and I
Speaker 1: talked about this a lot. What is enough? Content meant?
Speaker 1: What is enough? I have my perfect idea of what
Speaker 1: my career is. When will I be satisfied? When will
Speaker 1: I be happy? In my book, I talk about the
Speaker 1: y ladder. If you go into the y ladder, if
Speaker 1: you ask yourself why more than once, If you ask
Speaker 1: yourself that question, what will make me happy? You'll probably
Speaker 1: recognize that you won't find the answer because the answer
Speaker 1: doesn't exist out there, it exists here inside. So balance
Speaker 1: really comes down to prioritization. It's not balance, it's prioritizing.
Speaker 1: It's man, I'm feeling low today. You know what, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna do anything. I'm gonna take care of myself.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna push myself into a podcast.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm going to cancel though I had,
Speaker 1: You know what I had? Justin Biebern, as awesome as
Speaker 1: he is, I gotta take care of myself. I would
Speaker 1: never cancel and Justin Bieber, though I would choose him
Speaker 1: over my mental health. That's between you and your mental health.
Speaker 1: And if you give my point, it's like we just
Speaker 1: if if all of us would would be able to
Speaker 1: breathe deeply and have so much less anxiety of all
Speaker 1: of the technology in the world went away, what is
Speaker 1: that telling us? It's telling us that all of it
Speaker 1: is bullshit. It does good, of course it does good.
Speaker 1: You're helping people, Sammy, like I'm helping people, were all helping,
Speaker 1: But we have to also ask ourselves like that does
Speaker 1: that define us? Does us helping people define us? Or
Speaker 1: are we trying to heal something in ourselves by helping others?
Speaker 1: And there's a big difference too that I think is
Speaker 1: needs a distinction. Something that I'm like I said, I'm
Speaker 1: a freshman at college and something that I'm realizing, the
Speaker 1: toxic masculinity alone within just guys in college is so
Speaker 1: prevalent that I'm witnessing on a day to day that's
Speaker 1: kind of shocking, um and you should do, honestly a
Speaker 1: podcast episode on it. Because something that I'm realizing is
Speaker 1: with the frat culture. Yeah, it's terrible. My like my
Speaker 1: guy friends, like they're just starting to open up, but
Speaker 1: it's oh, I can't do that. Something that I've realized
Speaker 1: with that is just guys are afraid to show their
Speaker 1: emotions even to their girlfriends. And I'm and my friends
Speaker 1: are trying to be like no, Like crying is a
Speaker 1: good thing. It shows strength. It's hot when guys are
Speaker 1: freaking honest and open and not just focusing on getting
Speaker 1: this because it's cool, And I feel like that should
Speaker 1: be talked about more. The social pressures are so much
Speaker 1: more than I think anybody realizes. Yeah, boys and men
Speaker 1: just want to be liked and accepted by their boys
Speaker 1: and men. We think that we're doing it for women.
Speaker 1: We think we're doing it for girls, but in reality,
Speaker 1: like if we were to listen to the women and
Speaker 1: the girls in our lives, we wouldn't be doing half
Speaker 1: the ship that we're doing. And in college, it's just
Speaker 1: I want to fit in. You want to be a
Speaker 1: part of a club. You want to be a part
Speaker 1: of a team. You want to have your bros. You
Speaker 1: want to be a part of that. And fat culture
Speaker 1: is extremely toxic. It's terrible. Um, but honestly, so a
Speaker 1: sorority culture. Absolutely, it's all toxic. It's taking social media
Speaker 1: and you're just putting it in the real world and
Speaker 1: you're saying like, am I enough? Judge me, Please tell
Speaker 1: me If I'm enough, let me into your group. That
Speaker 1: is toxic and it breaks my heart. I just read
Speaker 1: an article like young women are developing ticks, like like
Speaker 1: little ticks, and they're thinking that it's because of TikTok we.
Speaker 1: This is the largest experiment in the history of the universe,
Speaker 1: what we're doing to young people in their brains right now.
Speaker 1: We've never had this much comparison or this much beauty
Speaker 1: standards and ship shoved in our faces. And us men,
Speaker 1: God like, it's already so hard for us to just
Speaker 1: except who we are is enough. We don't have the
Speaker 1: language of the vocabulary to go in to figure out
Speaker 1: what we're feeling, because we've never been asked what we're
Speaker 1: like feeling none, none of us have. The whole idea
Speaker 1: of masculinity is that we have to have people under
Speaker 1: us in order for us to feel powerful. That's the
Speaker 1: that's the fraternity structure that is so true. And I
Speaker 1: feel like it's one of those things where I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that you are talking about this, and there are
Speaker 1: so many other issues. I know in your book you
Speaker 1: were so open about, like body image, because that's with guys.
Speaker 1: I wish that was discussed more, because I feel like,
Speaker 1: in turn, if we all discuss it and we would
Speaker 1: all feel less alone. You know, No, it's not just girls,
Speaker 1: it's not just this. Um. You've talked about your struggle
Speaker 1: with body dysmorphia, and especially you're a lot of your
Speaker 1: characters were these shirtless jack dudes. And how did that
Speaker 1: affect the way you looked at your own body, because
Speaker 1: people probably from TV were like, man, I wish like
Speaker 1: I wish I looked like you. Yeah, I read about it.
Speaker 1: I talked about how it was hard to be on
Speaker 1: TV while I was suffering from a problem that I
Speaker 1: was also helping to perpetuate. Ah um and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they would write my abs into a scene. And here
Speaker 1: I was like newly married with a kid on the way,
Speaker 1: not able to work out every day, like struggling and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how do I how do I
Speaker 1: keep my body so that I can you know, keep
Speaker 1: my job and so you can support your family, And
Speaker 1: and it was really, really, really tricky because when I
Speaker 1: would try to talk to people about how I was
Speaker 1: suffering and my insecurities, they would look at me like,
Speaker 1: oh please, I wish I looked like you. So it's
Speaker 1: shamed me in many ways into silence where I wasn't
Speaker 1: able to talk about my insecurities. Yeah, and it's and look,
Speaker 1: I understand I have a lot of privilege here, right,
Speaker 1: I have able bodied privilege, I have genetic privilege. I'm
Speaker 1: a man, I you know, But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I'm a human. You know. We are all afraid. All
Speaker 1: of us have insecurities, but we just project this confidence.
Speaker 1: And what happens when we just project confidence is it
Speaker 1: makes everybody else feel like there's something wrong with them
Speaker 1: if they don't have that same confidence, or like that's
Speaker 1: the gold standard, or like we have to get to
Speaker 1: that when in reality, like what if we were all
Speaker 1: just okay being who we are. Some of us would
Speaker 1: have more confidence in some areas than others, some would
Speaker 1: have some would be more insecure, but we wouldn't shame anybody.
Speaker 1: There wouldn't be there'd be a spectrum of enoughness, if
Speaker 1: you will. There wouldn't be a definition because we would
Speaker 1: have undefined it. All of us would be allowed to
Speaker 1: be who we are, and there would be space for it.
Speaker 1: If we could teach our young boys specifically to have empathy,
Speaker 1: to have compassion for each other, then there would be
Speaker 1: no shame, because why would you ever want to bully
Speaker 1: somebody who's already suffering. Why would you ever want to
Speaker 1: pick on a kid who's struggling in class, or who's
Speaker 1: dyslexic and who doesn't know the answer who or who's overweight.
Speaker 1: Obviously they're dealing with something at home, so you would
Speaker 1: have empathy for that person. That's where we gotta get to.
Speaker 1: We gotta see each other as human beings. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you said that, because that's something that's come out
Speaker 1: of this podcast that was not planned. But I've realized
Speaker 1: through the many conversations we've had, is how the media
Speaker 1: takes the human out of the person. Right. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course. For example, we had Cash on the podcast
Speaker 1: season one. I was so excited, but I did not
Speaker 1: know what to expect because the way the media portray
Speaker 1: these people, you forget that they're just a human being
Speaker 1: like you. And when I sat down with her, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I really want this to be a mission for people
Speaker 1: to realize that we shouldn't be putting people on the
Speaker 1: pedestal because it gives them unexpected um standards and it
Speaker 1: gives us that as well, and we shouldn't have that.
Speaker 1: Pedestals are broken. I mean, that's why the whole idea
Speaker 1: of pedestal I mean, it's forget about cancel culture. The
Speaker 1: pedestal culture. That's what we do. Can we talk about
Speaker 1: that more? That should be a thing. Pedestal culture. Well,
Speaker 1: that's what it is. That's what social media it is
Speaker 1: because it's like pedestal culture. Suddenly you have millions of followers,
Speaker 1: so you're different than somebody else, Like what what does
Speaker 1: that actually mean? Followers mean absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing, but
Speaker 1: people make it their entire lives. So we we love
Speaker 1: putting people up on pedest soles, but you know what
Speaker 1: we love more bringing them down. Why the Internet tears
Speaker 1: you up to bring you down, because we all are
Speaker 1: hurting when I when I look out in the world,
Speaker 1: when I did I deleted Twitter for my from my
Speaker 1: phone recently, and I'll probably slowly start to leaving all
Speaker 1: of the apps um and asking friends and people to
Speaker 1: post for me because it's just not I don't feel good,
Speaker 1: Like I don't like the feeling of being stuck on
Speaker 1: a scroll or looking at all everybody else's lives and
Speaker 1: what they're you know, it just it doesn't make me
Speaker 1: feel good. And the more we start to honor those
Speaker 1: parts of ourselves where we say, like, that doesn't make
Speaker 1: me feel good, so I'm gonna stop doing it, the
Speaker 1: healthier we're going to become. Again. If the world if
Speaker 1: the meteor hit and the satellites all went out and
Speaker 1: there was no social media, no podcasts, know any of
Speaker 1: this stuff, you would just all be people. And how
Speaker 1: would we create hierarchies. I'm sure we would because we
Speaker 1: did it before, But it also be about like compassion
Speaker 1: and empathy and who I want to be around, and
Speaker 1: who I want to spend my time with, and who
Speaker 1: makes me feel good and who's of service, who's exuding
Speaker 1: love and all the qualities that I want to be with.
Speaker 1: It would had nothing to do with how somebody looks
Speaker 1: or there. There would be no followers. Okay, we have
Speaker 1: to take one more quick break, but when we come back,
Speaker 1: let's talk about how to stay true to ourselves, especially
Speaker 1: with the fakeness of social media. Your spiritual journey and
Speaker 1: the balance of working on yourself while helping others. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, and we're back, and it just goes
Speaker 1: to show like it's so important to just stay true
Speaker 1: to yourself because, especially in a world with social media,
Speaker 1: when we're throwing a fake reality, there's only one you,
Speaker 1: and you were only created you for a reason exactly.
Speaker 1: And when people talk about, oh, I want to change
Speaker 1: this about me, he change out be like, but they
Speaker 1: didn't make you a copy and paste version of another
Speaker 1: person for a reason. We should have just all embrace that.
Speaker 1: And that's really hard. Um. And I know something that
Speaker 1: you talk a lot about being in higher name nature,
Speaker 1: which is our souls, and I'm I would say, I'm
Speaker 1: more so starting a spiritual journey, just asking more questions
Speaker 1: and exploring covering topics I've never really thought of. Um,
Speaker 1: can you explain that what do you believe? I believe?
Speaker 1: I believe, I don't know what I believe? Great, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that gives you hope? Is there any
Speaker 1: foundational belief that you have in your life that that
Speaker 1: makes you feel better about existing in this world? Honestly,
Speaker 1: my grandma, because she has this just this ability to
Speaker 1: always take the high road and be the bigger person
Speaker 1: in situations where what does that look like? Situations where
Speaker 1: she could easily and I would easily want to just
Speaker 1: call something out or just go for what you want
Speaker 1: to do in the moment, But she has this ability
Speaker 1: to rise above it. And that's how I want to
Speaker 1: be as a person and now I want to grow.
Speaker 1: So that's why do you think? Why do you think
Speaker 1: she can do that? Because she's an angel. I love her.
Speaker 1: She's a walking angel, literally, But I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think it's the way she was raised, and I think
Speaker 1: just I think if we all gave each other a
Speaker 1: chance and listened, I think that would make a big difference,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of talking but not a lot
Speaker 1: of listening. Yeah. As a quote in the by Writings
Speaker 1: which is My Faith, that says it is impossible to
Speaker 1: talk and listen at the same time, m H, which
Speaker 1: I love. Okay. I think this world can be a
Speaker 1: very very scary and dark place if you don't have
Speaker 1: a belief system, and so I encourage everybody to look
Speaker 1: for a belief system of some sort. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: we've been doing that forever in the time we were
Speaker 1: created or showed up on this planet, or you know,
Speaker 1: as we transitioned from monkeys to humans, whatever you believe,
Speaker 1: We've always been searching for a meaning, a bigger why
Speaker 1: as to why we're here. I look at life this
Speaker 1: We are here for a very short time, and regardless
Speaker 1: of what you believe, we have to spend our time
Speaker 1: in service, both to ourselves, which we forget, but also
Speaker 1: to others, because that is the thing that if you
Speaker 1: that's the only thing you can accumulate at the end
Speaker 1: of your life. That means anything. We think about the
Speaker 1: life that we want, like, well, let's think about our
Speaker 1: death for a second. I encourage people to think about
Speaker 1: their mortality. If you meditate on your mortality, it will
Speaker 1: influence the way that you live. And my belief is
Speaker 1: that the only thing that we can take with us
Speaker 1: is the good that we do, is the service, is
Speaker 1: the you know, that's the kindness that we are. If
Speaker 1: you will, that's the stuff that will matter in the end.
Speaker 1: And that's so beautiful. And you've done so many documentaries,
Speaker 1: uh and like for example, clouds On, you've worked with
Speaker 1: people going through terminal illnesses. Has that clouds was inspired
Speaker 1: by Zach Zack the documentary. Has that mindset helped you
Speaker 1: in your filmmaking for sure? I mean it influenced to
Speaker 1: how the projects that I've taken on. I mean I
Speaker 1: spent seven years making documentaries about folks dying, as you said,
Speaker 1: and then my last two movies were inspired by real
Speaker 1: people that we're friends of mine who passed away. But
Speaker 1: I think for me, the thing that it did the
Speaker 1: most is one is it give me some PTSD Because
Speaker 1: I had to deal with a lot of people that
Speaker 1: I love dying and I would willingly show up and
Speaker 1: become very close to them, knowing that we're going to die,
Speaker 1: and it's very hard. It's an emotional toll. For sure.
Speaker 1: I took a big toll, um And on the other
Speaker 1: end of it, I recognized just how important everything else is.
Speaker 1: All the things that we don't make important that aren't
Speaker 1: rewarded in our culture right now because they don't have
Speaker 1: some tangible meaning. How important moments of stillness and nothing,
Speaker 1: or how how important moments where there's no phone or
Speaker 1: no social media posts are. How important is to just
Speaker 1: be with family, how important not working actually is. Um.
Speaker 1: It influenced everything in my life, But I wanted to
Speaker 1: make movies that help people realize that, like, there's so
Speaker 1: much more to life than what what we think right now.
Speaker 1: And then we have one life, we have to actually
Speaker 1: live it. I love that live it. We're coming out
Speaker 1: of a pandemic. We truly, that's what I'm realizing. I
Speaker 1: can't just let my anxiety when I really have to
Speaker 1: go out and live my life. Are you working on
Speaker 1: any other documentaries or any other projects? Well, right now,
Speaker 1: my I mean, my studio is making a bunch of movies.
Speaker 1: So we're, um, we're currently shooting two movies. One movie
Speaker 1: started today. Um, we're shooting moving in Texas called The Senior,
Speaker 1: which is a really cool football movie about a fifty
Speaker 1: nine year old guy who was kicked off his football
Speaker 1: team senior year and he decided to go back and
Speaker 1: try out again and he makes the team. And it's
Speaker 1: about never giving up on your dreams. It's about healing
Speaker 1: and all kinds of stuff. And then we're making a
Speaker 1: movie in uh, Upstate New York right now called Empire Waste,
Speaker 1: which is a movie about body positivity, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1: It takes place in a high school and um, we
Speaker 1: address fat phobia and all kinds of things. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's this really inspiring story that I'm so proud that
Speaker 1: we can that we can help tell. In fact, I
Speaker 1: cast one of the roles off TikTok. The director Claire
Speaker 1: there's a brilliant writer director, Sheia. She wanted to cast
Speaker 1: and put out a casting call on TikTok and so
Speaker 1: I posted about it and we found one of our
Speaker 1: leads who had never really acted before, and she's gonna
Speaker 1: be a huge star. We had two thousand submissions. That's amazing. See,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing with social media. That is one
Speaker 1: of the good things with social media. Um. You know
Speaker 1: that the part of communitee Again, it's like everything is
Speaker 1: good and bad. It's what we do with it. And
Speaker 1: then I'm getting ready to make my next movie, which
Speaker 1: I'll probably make it uh March April next year, which
Speaker 1: is a sci fi love story that I'll be directing.
Speaker 1: You're doing so much and I just want to thank
Speaker 1: you for coming on my podcast because you were truly
Speaker 1: I think doing something doble work with just telling your
Speaker 1: story and telling other people's stories, which is what I
Speaker 1: want to do, and you're doing it, and you're doing it.
Speaker 1: Just remember no matter how successful. You are. You were
Speaker 1: enough before and you'll be enough after. Thank you, thanks
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the podcast. All right, bye,
Speaker 1: bye bye. Thank you guys so much for listening to
Speaker 1: this week's episode of the Let's Be Real Podcast. Please
Speaker 1: know that you are enough and you're so great, just
Speaker 1: as you are justin. Thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on my podcast. I am truly inspired by this conversation.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't already followed Justin on Instagram, follow
Speaker 1: the Man Enough podcast, read his book, and if you want,
Speaker 1: follow me on Instagram at it Sammy J. That's I
Speaker 1: T S S A M M, Y J A y E.
Speaker 1: And subscribe to the Let's Be Real Podcast if you
Speaker 1: haven't already. New episodes are out every Thursday. Trust me,
Speaker 1: the season's only getting started. All right, guys, I'll see
Speaker 1: you next week. Bye to the cant of the Land
Speaker 1: of Candor.