Speaker 1: The majority of the way that you talk to yourself
Speaker 1: is the way your parents talk to you you. So if
Speaker 1: you don't first recognize that, you're gonna have a really
Speaker 1: hard time understanding how to get out of whatever you're in. Now,
Speaker 1: if you had great parents that were super patient and
Speaker 1: loving and kind and empathetic and didn't you know, jump
Speaker 1: at you, but held firm boundaries and you know all
Speaker 1: that stuff, there's chances chance are you have really good
Speaker 1: healthy self talk and good on you. Me not so much. Hey, everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast
Speaker 1: in the world. Thanks to each and every one of
Speaker 1: you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.
Speaker 1: Now I'm super grateful when we get to have a
Speaker 1: guest on twice. There's not been many many people that
Speaker 1: have done that. On Purpose where great at finding a
Speaker 1: diversity of guests, but there are some people that just
Speaker 1: blow your mind. You love them, I know that the
Speaker 1: community responds incredibly well to them, And on top of
Speaker 1: all of the I love opportunity to get to sit
Speaker 1: down with them and talk about what they're up to,
Speaker 1: what's been on their mind, what they've been studying, reflecting,
Speaker 1: thinking about now Today's guest is someone who came on
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago and blew our minds his
Speaker 1: name and someone that you all know is called Zachary Levi,
Speaker 1: one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood, with critically
Speaker 1: acclaimed roles in TV, film, and on Broadway. Zach's career
Speaker 1: catapulted as the lead and fan favorite Chuck in the
Speaker 1: hit NBC series and Zach demonstrated his range as a
Speaker 1: Tony Award nominee for Best Actor in a Musical and
Speaker 1: She Loves Me. His impressive vocals landed him a leading
Speaker 1: role in the Disney Academy Award nominated Best Original Song,
Speaker 1: and the list goes on and on. I recently saw
Speaker 1: him in American Underdog, which I absolutely loved. Shazam was
Speaker 1: the reason he was on last time. But right now,
Speaker 1: what Zack's done is that he has created and written
Speaker 1: his first ever book, and today we get to get
Speaker 1: to dive into it. We're gonna have it in the
Speaker 1: caption so you can order it right away. You're going
Speaker 1: to find it in the links. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: talk to my dear friend and awesome human being about
Speaker 1: his new book, Radical Love, Learning to Accept Yourself and others.
Speaker 1: Something we all need to do. Zach, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being on purpose. It's so great to be
Speaker 1: with you, so happy to be back, so happy to
Speaker 1: see your face, even if it's virtually like I said,
Speaker 1: I really I want to hug your neck and see
Speaker 1: in person, but this will do for now. Yeah, thank
Speaker 1: you man. No, I appreciate you, man, And I meant
Speaker 1: it like last time you came on, there was just
Speaker 1: this beautiful energy in the room. I remember you were
Speaker 1: like sweating buckets as well. Well, it was warm. The
Speaker 1: studio was pretty bad studio too. It was our old studio.
Speaker 1: We're in Studio three point zero now this is the
Speaker 1: new studio. That studio was not well ventilated. Zach was
Speaker 1: very passionate. I didn't know how to stop him, to
Speaker 1: offer him anything because he was so in tune and aligned.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I guess we just have to
Speaker 1: like sweat together anyway. For you to write a book,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could have written many things. You could
Speaker 1: have written in a full autobiography. You could have written
Speaker 1: about your experiences, which you do of course in the
Speaker 1: book in a deep way. But you chose to write
Speaker 1: a book that isn't your name that isn't you know
Speaker 1: how you view your career. It's about life and you
Speaker 1: called it radical love. Can you explain to me what
Speaker 1: radical love looks like is? Because I think love is
Speaker 1: one of the most underdefined, misunderstood words in the world already,
Speaker 1: and radical love is taking us in a different direction.
Speaker 1: Radical love? What does that mean? In some ways, it's
Speaker 1: not a great title because I think it's a little redundant.
Speaker 1: I think that love itself is radical when we are
Speaker 1: practicing actual, true, deep empathetic love, it is a radical concept.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think what most people would point to,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's like when I have warm feelings about
Speaker 1: someone or have warm feelings about myself, I love myself
Speaker 1: if I have warm feelings about myself or about other people.
Speaker 1: We've all been kind of programmed with these very romanticized
Speaker 1: ideas of love and marriage and relationships. I don't think
Speaker 1: that has anything really to do with the warm fuzzies.
Speaker 1: I think that it is a recognition of the divinity,
Speaker 1: the miracle that is another human being, regardless of who
Speaker 1: that human being is, to love, who loves you is
Speaker 1: that's that's patty cake, that's maybe that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: the child's play. To love is to love those who
Speaker 1: hate you, that you even have these feelings of disagreement
Speaker 1: or or anger with or whatever. To love your enemy,
Speaker 1: to pray for your persecutor. That is love. And that's
Speaker 1: the kind of love that's to me radical love. Again,
Speaker 1: I say radical because it's radical compared to what most
Speaker 1: other people's ideas of love is. But really it's just love.
Speaker 1: That's actually what love is. It's being able to look
Speaker 1: at whoever is across the aisle of a different political spectrum,
Speaker 1: a different sex, race, faith, country to country, people group
Speaker 1: to people group. We are so divided, I mean, are
Speaker 1: the United States is a really sad example of how
Speaker 1: much division. I mean, we just straight down the middle
Speaker 1: on almost every hot topic. We cannot look across the
Speaker 1: aisle and say I completely disagree with you. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think that what you're standing for can be very
Speaker 1: problematic in this world. And yet I still love you.
Speaker 1: I still think that the reason why you think the
Speaker 1: things that you think is not because you're evil. It's
Speaker 1: not because you're somehow this broken, bad person. It's because
Speaker 1: you are a product of your environment, in the same
Speaker 1: way that I am a product of my environment. In
Speaker 1: order to embrace and love myself, I have to first
Speaker 1: accept that I am a product of the parenting that
Speaker 1: I received. It's not my fault that I struggle with
Speaker 1: the things that I struggle with. In order to forgive ourselves,
Speaker 1: which we all need to do, we have to recognize
Speaker 1: that we're doing the best that we can with the
Speaker 1: tools that we have been afforded to us at that
Speaker 1: point in our lives, and that is the reality, that
Speaker 1: is the truth. So until we can come to that
Speaker 1: place as individuals, with ourselves, with other individuals, you know,
Speaker 1: just in our own lives, and then collectively as a
Speaker 1: people group, we're just going to keep fighting and fighting
Speaker 1: and going over this horrible, vicious cycle all the way
Speaker 1: to the bottom. If we want a better future, we
Speaker 1: need to be working on more than just saving the environment.
Speaker 1: Obviously we want we want the world to survive. But
Speaker 1: what good is a world to live in if we
Speaker 1: all hate each other in that future? That is not
Speaker 1: a future that any of us want to be living in.
Speaker 1: So that to me is kind of you know, what
Speaker 1: radical love I think stands for. It's to radically accept,
Speaker 1: radically forgive, and radically love whomever is across the aisle.
Speaker 1: And that is I understand, a very difficult concept for
Speaker 1: a lot of people to wrap their head around, because
Speaker 1: we look at someone doing a bad thing and our
Speaker 1: initial gut instinct is add evil, wrong, monster. We point
Speaker 1: the fingers and point the fingers and point the fingers. Now,
Speaker 1: are the actions that this person are doing? Are those
Speaker 1: sometimes monstrous, villainous evil? Absolutely, But there's still a five
Speaker 1: year old child in them that came into this world
Speaker 1: and had nothing but optimism, nothing but potential, nothing but openness,
Speaker 1: nothing but love. And then the way that the world
Speaker 1: ultimately mis misform misfigured them in their heart, in their mind,
Speaker 1: and their psyche. That is what we have to be
Speaker 1: paying more attention to and recognizing and then applying an
Speaker 1: empathy to this person. It is not excusing the evil act.
Speaker 1: It is instead trying to apply love to those who
Speaker 1: are doing the evil act, because only then can we
Speaker 1: redeem those people. I mean, and this is happening on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. People go to prisons all the time.
Speaker 1: There are groups of people that see murderers on death
Speaker 1: row and yet they can still see the human being
Speaker 1: in them. They say, listen, I what you did was
Speaker 1: wrong and you're on death row because of what you did.
Speaker 1: But I am not going to give up on you
Speaker 1: and the redemption of who you can be in your
Speaker 1: soul because I see that x y or Z. I
Speaker 1: saw that you were raised in this type of an environment.
Speaker 1: You were abused as a child, Your father beat you
Speaker 1: and put cigarettes out on you. You watched your father
Speaker 1: or mother or cousin kills someone else. You saw that
Speaker 1: as a sign of survival. You didn't have enough money
Speaker 1: to buy food for your family, so you started to steal.
Speaker 1: And then in order to steal, you needed to protect yourself,
Speaker 1: you thought, And so you carried a gun. And then
Speaker 1: somebody tried to stop you from stealing, and you went
Speaker 1: and shot them. And now you're a murderer. At now
Speaker 1: none of that excuses the murder, but all of it
Speaker 1: explains why that murder ended up happening, and if we
Speaker 1: can do that. And this is where I think Christ
Speaker 1: was really trying to get to the heart of it.
Speaker 1: He's like, hey, there is none righteous, not one. There's
Speaker 1: not one person on this planet that can actually stand
Speaker 1: above everyone else and cast the stones. He who is
Speaker 1: without sin cast the first stone. Everyone's like dropping this,
Speaker 1: that's not me, that's not you, as not anybody you know.
Speaker 1: And yes, we could probably sit here and hash up like, well,
Speaker 1: what's a more egregious sin? But they're all sin at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, they're all things that we're
Speaker 1: all falling short of treating each other as the divine
Speaker 1: miracle that we are. And people ask me, what about
Speaker 1: people who don't believe in a spiritual plane or god
Speaker 1: or whatever, you know, how do you explain to them
Speaker 1: that they're a miracle? Very easily, we are a mathematical
Speaker 1: improbability this planet, that it even exists, That we are
Speaker 1: a perfect distance away from the Sun so that we
Speaker 1: don't freeze and we don't boil, That we have a
Speaker 1: moon that is the perfect distance away from us, that
Speaker 1: allows all of our literally the systems like gravity to
Speaker 1: even you know, the tides to go in and out,
Speaker 1: and that we have been as human beings, we've been
Speaker 1: searching the universe ever since we had the capability. We
Speaker 1: have been searching the universe trying to find life anywhere else,
Speaker 1: and we can't find it, and we haven't found it now,
Speaker 1: even if there is other life universe, we're still a
Speaker 1: miracle that this place exists. It's still a mathematical miracle.
Speaker 1: So even if you don't believe in God, even if
Speaker 1: you have no spiritual proclivity or you know whatever, you
Speaker 1: can still count yourself as a miracle. And if we
Speaker 1: can do that, if we can start seeing each other
Speaker 1: as miracles, if we can see that every blade of grass,
Speaker 1: every squirrel, every dog, every tree, every everything, anything that
Speaker 1: possesses actual life, we can create everything else. We can
Speaker 1: make more computers, we can make more phones, we can
Speaker 1: make more whatever we need to make. And yes, we
Speaker 1: can also create more life. We do that on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. But each one of those lives is unique.
Speaker 1: Every single one of us comes with a uniqueness that,
Speaker 1: you know, making another Audie doesn't necessarily come with a uniqueness.
Speaker 1: You know, we are a miracle. That is what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to drive to people, and well one of the
Speaker 1: things I'm trying to drive to people in the book,
Speaker 1: because I really think that if we can wrap our
Speaker 1: heads around that, if we can change our perspective and
Speaker 1: we can start seeing each other even the evil, you know,
Speaker 1: even the bad, even the monsters, even all these people,
Speaker 1: and say, okay, yes they are doing bad, but they
Speaker 1: started they were initially they had all of the promise,
Speaker 1: and let's have a little empathy with that, Let's have
Speaker 1: a little grace, let's have a little bit more patience,
Speaker 1: Let's hold them accountable. And I think that's one of
Speaker 1: the big disconnects that people have that we're they're afraid
Speaker 1: that if we start to give people even a little
Speaker 1: bit of grace, well now we're condoning their behavior. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can. You can love and not like that. That's
Speaker 1: another thing I try to get to in the book.
Speaker 1: Loving is not just this warm feeling. It's not just
Speaker 1: like times one hundred like is to like. To love
Speaker 1: is to just accept the divinity, accept the miracle that
Speaker 1: is across from you. Anyway, there's a rant for you
Speaker 1: that is there is so much to unpack. The first
Speaker 1: thing was this difference in responsibility and fault and when
Speaker 1: it comes to accepting ourselves. I think the reason why
Speaker 1: we struggle to accept ourselves is because we think that
Speaker 1: means I have to think it's my fault. And when
Speaker 1: it becomes my fault, now I become depressed by that idea.
Speaker 1: It's disempowering, it brings me down. Whereas A Zack said,
Speaker 1: when you actually go, well, it's not my fault, but
Speaker 1: it is my responsibility. That's empowering. It gives you a
Speaker 1: sense of choice and direction and designed. Like you said,
Speaker 1: our choices today are impacted by the decisions that were
Speaker 1: made for us when we couldn't make choices or when
Speaker 1: we didn't have the choice, and so that's the part
Speaker 1: that's not our fault. But now as we get wiser
Speaker 1: and older and more mature and more experienced, we now
Speaker 1: can take that responsibility. So I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really clear concept. The second thing that I wanted to
Speaker 1: unpack from what you said, which is really special, was
Speaker 1: the difference between excluding and explaining. So you were talking
Speaker 1: about how someone's actions don't exclude them for what's coming
Speaker 1: for them, but really we need to seek the explanation.
Speaker 1: We need to understand how they got there. It's the context,
Speaker 1: the complexity, it's it's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: really appreciate It's why. It's the why, it's the why.
Speaker 1: It's it's one of the reasons why I appreciated the
Speaker 1: movie The Joker, because to me, looking at a very
Speaker 1: fictional character, of course, but you start to recognize that
Speaker 1: even this villain that we have hated or disliked for
Speaker 1: so many years. Has a backstory, and often we tell
Speaker 1: our heroes backstories and origin stories, but we don't tell
Speaker 1: the villains backstories or origin stories. Running a business is
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Speaker 1: a software company that has developed a cloud based business
Speaker 1: management platform used by more than thirty one thousand fast
Speaker 1: growing organizations across the globe. The platform consists of a
Speaker 1: suite of applications that help companies run their business, understand
Speaker 1: the performance of their businesses, and drive major efficiency gains
Speaker 1: and cost savings. With visibility and control of your financials, inventory, hr,
Speaker 1: e commerce, and more, NetSuite is everything you need to grow,
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Speaker 1: there's a lot to be gained from that because yes,
Speaker 1: nothing is excluded. Everyone should be held accountable, people should
Speaker 1: not be allowed to get away with things. But we
Speaker 1: might be able to reduce this happening in the future
Speaker 1: if we were to learn how these people are made.
Speaker 1: And talking about your Audie example, it actually does align
Speaker 1: because if you and I got an Audie on the
Speaker 1: same day and it was the same model, but you
Speaker 1: treated yours badly and I treated mine well, in ten
Speaker 1: years time, you get to see the exact same difference,
Speaker 1: and that uniqueness is going to be made by how
Speaker 1: it's treated. So I just wanted to unpack that for
Speaker 1: everyone because I think you shared such a breadth of
Speaker 1: insight there, and I just wanted to pick it a
Speaker 1: few of those things. So I love that you brought
Speaker 1: up The Joker because that movie. I was so grateful
Speaker 1: that it was made because it, to me, was one
Speaker 1: of the most important movies I had ever seen that
Speaker 1: dealt with mental health. I was like, how it took
Speaker 1: a DC. You know, I love that it's DC too,
Speaker 1: because that's my family. But you know, it took DC
Speaker 1: this movie about this villain to really highlight the incredibly
Speaker 1: powerful effects of trauma, like real, horrible trauma and what
Speaker 1: that does to a human being. There's that saying every
Speaker 1: villain is the hero of their own story, right or
Speaker 1: everyone is the hero of their own story, including villains.
Speaker 1: And one of the coolest things about being an actor
Speaker 1: is that it's very much based on empathy. You know.
Speaker 1: The whole idea is that you are looking at something
Speaker 1: that is outside of you, a character, a person, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to understand them so that you can bring
Speaker 1: them to life in an honest way. Now, if you're
Speaker 1: playing a quote unquote bad guy, well, guess what. Bad
Speaker 1: guys don't think they're bad guys. Bad guys think that
Speaker 1: they're doing the right thing, whatever that is. Now, it
Speaker 1: might be super twisted, it might come from all the
Speaker 1: wrong places, but their logic has brought them to their
Speaker 1: because of whatever traumas they've experienced prior to that. There
Speaker 1: are not a lot of people doing ad in the
Speaker 1: world that are sitting around twisting their proverbial mustache and
Speaker 1: being like, Oh, I can't wait to do these bad things. No,
Speaker 1: it's very hard for us to wrap our head around,
Speaker 1: but that is the truth. In order to understand why
Speaker 1: people are doing what they're doing, which is what we,
Speaker 1: like you're saying, we have to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it. It does not excuse, It explains. Excusing explaining
Speaker 1: and to explain builds empathy. It helps us to understand
Speaker 1: why people do what they do, and therefore helps us
Speaker 1: to hopefully condition them away from doing those things if
Speaker 1: we can find them early enough. Instead of, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say you meet somebody and you know that they're
Speaker 1: about to or thinking about doing this horrible thing. Now,
Speaker 1: the knee jerk reaction is, oh my god, they're a monster.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. No, No, as opposed to oh
Speaker 1: you are hurting inside. Let's sit down. Let me be
Speaker 1: a conduit of love in your life so that you
Speaker 1: don't feel the necessity to go do these You know
Speaker 1: what if people saw that and said, oh, man, you
Speaker 1: know what, I think this guy might be very close
Speaker 1: to going and doing something really bad. And why, oh,
Speaker 1: because well, look how we's treated at school, Look how
Speaker 1: we's treated at home. Look hows treated online. They're constantly online,
Speaker 1: and they're finding themselves rejected even by strangers on the internet.
Speaker 1: They go on Instagram and they're constantly comparing themselves to
Speaker 1: the beautiful, perfect lives of everyone there. Comparison is not
Speaker 1: just the thief of joy. Comparison is literally destroying people's
Speaker 1: mental health. We have got to be able to get
Speaker 1: in there, hopefully early before the bad things happen, but
Speaker 1: then afterwards also we have got to be willing to
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to be angry, to be frustrated, to be sad,
Speaker 1: to be all of the things, but then still not
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to be the dehumanizer. The more we dehumanize
Speaker 1: all those that are struggling and doing bad things in
Speaker 1: the world, the more we dehumanize ourselves. We are all
Speaker 1: cut from the same miraculous cloth. Some of us are
Speaker 1: just in conditioning that makes them very troubled and doing
Speaker 1: very rible things. But again, there are people to go
Speaker 1: to prisons now that are going and seeing the human
Speaker 1: being even in the murderer, and saying, I refuse to
Speaker 1: believe that you are a monster. Instead, I will hold
Speaker 1: you accountable. We will all hold you accountable because that
Speaker 1: was not what you should have done. But I will
Speaker 1: still try to do my best to see the human
Speaker 1: in you. Because before you leave this earth, you should
Speaker 1: feel that you should know that. And I think that
Speaker 1: if we do that, we infuse that kind of love,
Speaker 1: there'll be less and less and less and less and
Speaker 1: less of this that we ever need to deal with,
Speaker 1: because people will ultimately be more healed and more whole.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think that if we can get
Speaker 1: to everyone there, if we get heal every head, every
Speaker 1: every heart in every mind in this world, all of
Speaker 1: our other problems go away. These are the source of
Speaker 1: all of the rest of the issues, of all the murder,
Speaker 1: of all the rape, of theft, of all the wars,
Speaker 1: of all of the greed, the amount of greed that
Speaker 1: is killing this world right now. All of the CEOs
Speaker 1: and leaders of industry that all value profit over people,
Speaker 1: that all value money over what that money is ultimately
Speaker 1: doing to this world, to the planet, to the animals
Speaker 1: and the life in it, and we all just kind
Speaker 1: of rationalize it. We all say, yeah, but you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody needs to make money, so I guess
Speaker 1: I don't know, no, those people. The reason why we
Speaker 1: all do this is because we are all still afraid
Speaker 1: that if we don't have enough, we are not enough.
Speaker 1: And that is one of the greatest lies and the
Speaker 1: CEO is to get to the tops of these companies. Though,
Speaker 1: if we can get to them instead of what so
Speaker 1: many people want to do, which is dehumanize and vilify
Speaker 1: them and say you're the one percent and you don't care.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe all that is somewhat true on some level,
Speaker 1: but guess what, They're still also a child of God.
Speaker 1: They are also still a divine, miraculous life. And I
Speaker 1: guarantee that if we want to actually help them to
Speaker 1: change their ways, pointing fingers and yelling at them is
Speaker 1: not the way to do it. If we want to
Speaker 1: actually change their hearts, We've we've got to lead with
Speaker 1: We've got to go to the Jeff bezos Is of
Speaker 1: the world. And this is hard because I really have
Speaker 1: big problems with people like, you know, like it's like, dude,
Speaker 1: you have all the money in the world, Why where's
Speaker 1: all the altruism? Why can't we give back? Like you
Speaker 1: can't take it with you? You know, one of one
Speaker 1: of my favorite quotes, you don't see a U haul
Speaker 1: in the back of a hearse your grave? Is it?
Speaker 1: That's all? You know? Now, some of these people I
Speaker 1: think they think well about I'll be remembered as one
Speaker 1: of the richest people in the world. No, you won't,
Speaker 1: not one hundred years from now, not two hundred years,
Speaker 1: not a thousand years from now. There are emperors that
Speaker 1: were ruling over massive empires, that that commanded millions and
Speaker 1: millions of lives, that could literally kill a person in
Speaker 1: front of God and everyone and do it scot free.
Speaker 1: Nothing would happen to them at all. Do you know
Speaker 1: all of their names, because I don't. I don't know
Speaker 1: all of these people. Nobody does. They're all forgotten. They're
Speaker 1: all forgotten in the annals of history. Very few of
Speaker 1: them ever get written down. And if they are written down,
Speaker 1: it's a little footnote. It's like, oh, yeah, and that
Speaker 1: person existed, but nothing of really any value. They're not
Speaker 1: looked at is like, oh, these were the great people
Speaker 1: of the world. They're not if they're even remembered at all.
Speaker 1: So if we can get to the ultra the ultra
Speaker 1: wealthy of the world, these leaders of industry and say hey, hey, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with going and taking care of yourself,
Speaker 1: you and yours and making money. Fine, go do it,
Speaker 1: but don't do it at the expense of other people's lives.
Speaker 1: Don't do it at the expense of your entire workforce.
Speaker 1: Don't do it at the expense of the environment. Don't
Speaker 1: do it at the expense of this miracle of a
Speaker 1: world that we have. But we can't do that to hate.
Speaker 1: We can't hate our way to a better future. We
Speaker 1: can only love our way there. That is the bottom line.
Speaker 1: And so and it takes this radical love. We struggle
Speaker 1: as human beings to allow two things to exist at
Speaker 1: one time. So the idea, as you said, is you
Speaker 1: can love someone but not like what they do. That's
Speaker 1: allowing two opposite, separate ideas to exist at the same time.
Speaker 1: Or the idea that I disagree with this person, but
Speaker 1: I have to connect with them and communicate with them
Speaker 1: in a way that will help them shift. And I
Speaker 1: may have to be more patient. It may take longer,
Speaker 1: but guess what, if it takes me longer, it will
Speaker 1: probably last longer as well. If you shout at someone,
Speaker 1: they may change their behavior right now, but they will
Speaker 1: go back to doing what they were doing a few
Speaker 1: moments later, just like you do with a child. Like
Speaker 1: if you shout at a child and it may stop
Speaker 1: playing the video game or whatever. It is because it's scared,
Speaker 1: but then a few moments later, it still wants to
Speaker 1: play the video game. Whereas if a child is engaged
Speaker 1: with and connected with and communicated within educated in what
Speaker 1: may be a better use of its time, it just
Speaker 1: starts to transform. And that requires love, and it requires empathy,
Speaker 1: and it requires patience. And I think because we've never
Speaker 1: received that ourselves, we find it so hard to go
Speaker 1: out there and give it to others. I mean, in
Speaker 1: the first section of your book, the first chapter, you
Speaker 1: call it stop running when we bring this back, because
Speaker 1: we've talked a lot about like the most big extreme
Speaker 1: global macro issues of how this idea cascades across the world.
Speaker 1: But when we look at it, as you said, it
Speaker 1: a start like it starts from us. And so what
Speaker 1: do you think, Za, what are we running from? And
Speaker 1: what are we running towards? Or are we just running nowhere?
Speaker 1: You know? In my case, and I think this is
Speaker 1: the case probably for a lot of people, but in
Speaker 1: my case, it was running from the pain and I
Speaker 1: didn't even know it. I mean, that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's part of the tricky thing about this, you know,
Speaker 1: like you can give somebody advice that absolutely applies to
Speaker 1: their life. But if they don't recognize that they're doing
Speaker 1: that thing, they think, no, I'm good. I mean, for
Speaker 1: so long in my life I had been given certain
Speaker 1: pieces of advice like maybe do this or maybe do that,
Speaker 1: but in my mind I was I was cool. I
Speaker 1: was like, I get that for somebody else, but for me,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm okay. I didn't realize until I had this
Speaker 1: massive breakdown that I had been running away from so
Speaker 1: much of what I had been trying to survive. And
Speaker 1: I do think that's pretty applicable to most people. You know,
Speaker 1: as a child, your ego is essential. It is your
Speaker 1: survival suit. It it is your life raft. It is
Speaker 1: the thing that protects you from all of the trauma
Speaker 1: that you experience. I mean, it's a thing that you
Speaker 1: know particularly like, not particularly, but using again an extreme example,
Speaker 1: there are people that are able to disassociate from themselves
Speaker 1: when they are sexually abused as children, because how else
Speaker 1: is a child supposed to process that. So many of
Speaker 1: these cases, the ego steps in. The ego is there
Speaker 1: to protect the psyche, and it says you're not here
Speaker 1: right now, You're good, You're not here right now you're
Speaker 1: somewhere else. This isn't really you. And then that child
Speaker 1: learns how to now disassociate. Well, that was great for then,
Speaker 1: but that becomes a massive problem later on in life
Speaker 1: if you don't ultimately heal from that, if you don't
Speaker 1: learn that that's what you're doing and heal from that.
Speaker 1: So the ego ultimately is this incredible gift, but that
Speaker 1: becomes an incredible hindrance. It becomes an incredible weight on us.
Speaker 1: You know, in the in the book, I talk about
Speaker 1: it's almost like this exoskeleton or this you know, this
Speaker 1: suit of armor. It's this incredible thing. You're walking around
Speaker 1: and people are swinging clubs and things at you, and
Speaker 1: it's the armor is taking all the hits, but the
Speaker 1: armor is getting dented and chinked and cut up, and
Speaker 1: you know, so you end up walking around by the
Speaker 1: time you're thirty five years old, if you're still depending
Speaker 1: on this suit of armor, you don't realize how malformed
Speaker 1: you are. You think you're walking smooth and straight, but
Speaker 1: you're really with a limp and you're doing this all
Speaker 1: because you're stuck in this contorted armor and that armor
Speaker 1: is only supposed to service up to that point, and
Speaker 1: then you know, we can argue or are you a
Speaker 1: debate about you know, some people, you know, they like
Speaker 1: to use wording like, you know, death to the ego
Speaker 1: or kill the ego, and other people are like, no,
Speaker 1: befriend the ego or whatever that is, however you want
Speaker 1: to word it. I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's something that we all need to realize as a
Speaker 1: beautiful necessity in our lives as we are children particularly,
Speaker 1: and then eventually it does not serve us in a
Speaker 1: positive way that it once did, and ultimately being grateful
Speaker 1: for it, but allowing it to not be the armor
Speaker 1: that we need anymore, because we are doing the work
Speaker 1: on healing ourselves and enlightening ourselves so that when things
Speaker 1: do come at us, we're able to evade. We're able
Speaker 1: to you know, judo them by us. We're not just
Speaker 1: hitting they're not hitting us anymore because we're we're now
Speaker 1: more mature in our thought process and in our feelings.
Speaker 1: I was constantly running because I was constantly trying to
Speaker 1: survive as a child. I didn't realize just how traumatic
Speaker 1: it was to me. You know, like, if you're growing
Speaker 1: up in chaos, you just kind of assume that's normal,
Speaker 1: that the standard is what it is. If you don't
Speaker 1: grow up in chaos, you assume that's normal. Now, I thought,
Speaker 1: when I would go to normal you know, friends, homes
Speaker 1: and things, I just assumed, well, people are putting on
Speaker 1: errs or they're putting on appearances. But when I'm not here,
Speaker 1: it gets crazy, Like it gets crazy at my house,
Speaker 1: not realizing that I was really in a massive, massive
Speaker 1: survival mode, I mean, my sympathetic nervous system, even to
Speaker 1: this day. I mean, it's something that I have to
Speaker 1: work on very constantly because we want to be in
Speaker 1: our parasympathetic We want to be in a relaxed rest
Speaker 1: and digest in a mode most of the time. We
Speaker 1: don't want to be in this again, incredible gift that
Speaker 1: our bodies were given, which is the sympathetic, which is
Speaker 1: to survive, which is to run away from the sabertooth tiger,
Speaker 1: which is to not be killed by a trampling elephant,
Speaker 1: or or you know, go running, going and running after
Speaker 1: an antelope to go hunt it and bring it back
Speaker 1: to your camp. These are all things that we are
Speaker 1: our bodies evolutionarily have these beautiful, amazing gifts, but they're
Speaker 1: constantly activated now, almost more than ever, because survival is
Speaker 1: no longer running away from the beast, or chasing the
Speaker 1: thing to hunt, or getting out of you know, the elements.
Speaker 1: We all have a roof, not all of us, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the world, more than ever before in humanistry,
Speaker 1: have some kind of a roof over their head, some
Speaker 1: kind of clothes on their backs, some kind of food
Speaker 1: in their stomach. And survival has now become money because
Speaker 1: money can pay for all of those things, and so
Speaker 1: our pursuit, all of our collective pursuit for more of
Speaker 1: this is keeping us all engaged in this survival mode.
Speaker 1: And I was running from all of that, trying to
Speaker 1: survive and then running two. Where do I find my worth?
Speaker 1: Where do I find my identity? Where do I find
Speaker 1: these other things that ultimately give me this purpose and
Speaker 1: this worth? And how do I survive now in this
Speaker 1: other world? So that's where I ran from, and that's
Speaker 1: where I ran too, And ultimately all of that is
Speaker 1: really unhealthy because you need to be able to sit
Speaker 1: with yourself and recognize that nothing gives you worth or
Speaker 1: value outside of the fact that you are, that you
Speaker 1: are here the fact that you are alive means that
Speaker 1: you are a miracle. If that alone, if we could
Speaker 1: get people to the point of recognizing that holy crap,
Speaker 1: that should be enough, hopefully to be able to say,
Speaker 1: I love myself. I can't believe what a lucky thing
Speaker 1: that I got. I'm here, I'm in this existence that
Speaker 1: will hopefully help us to stop running from things and
Speaker 1: sit and be present. I think the challenge I see
Speaker 1: that people have, as you address in this book, and
Speaker 1: that's why I really appreciate what you've done with this book.
Speaker 1: Like Zach talks about like how to get help, how
Speaker 1: to be open, how to share your story right like,
Speaker 1: the book is a systematic approach in the journey that
Speaker 1: we're talking about in this very macro way today, because
Speaker 1: the book lays out the steps that you have to
Speaker 1: take to If anyone's listening to us right now and
Speaker 1: going like that's what I want to do, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to figure out, the book actually walks you
Speaker 1: through that journey, and Zach, I want to ask you
Speaker 1: this question because I feel like that journey, as you
Speaker 1: said at the beginning, to radical love, often feel so
Speaker 1: far away because we haven't been trained that way. We
Speaker 1: have an experience that we didn't see, that we didn't
Speaker 1: have access to that growing up. What's the first step?
Speaker 1: If radical love is the step, what's the first step
Speaker 1: in that journey that people could take today, tomorrow, this
Speaker 1: year in their life that makes them feel like they're
Speaker 1: on that journey. Because what we both also know is
Speaker 1: that if you try and imitate radical love, or if
Speaker 1: you try and pretend to practice radical love, that can
Speaker 1: actually be detrimental to yourself and others because it's just
Speaker 1: it's not real, right, So I want to hear about
Speaker 1: that from you. Inauthentic anything is the opposite of the thing.
Speaker 1: So if we're trying to put on love, if it's
Speaker 1: not authentic, it's not love, particularly love. There's a lot
Speaker 1: there are actually some other things that you could do
Speaker 1: a proxy version of that. You can. Maybe you're not
Speaker 1: totally screwing things up, but if you are, if you
Speaker 1: think you're providing love, if you're loving, you think you're
Speaker 1: loving yourself. I mean, like like my own journey, I
Speaker 1: thought I was loving myself, but that was inauthentic love
Speaker 1: because I was still berating myself unbeknounced to me, I
Speaker 1: was still all my self talk was the same self talk,
Speaker 1: though it was the same talk that I got from
Speaker 1: my parents. My parents, the majority of the way that
Speaker 1: you talk to yourself is the way your parents talk
Speaker 1: to you. So if you don't first recognize that, you're
Speaker 1: gonna have a really hard time understanding how to get
Speaker 1: out of whatever you're in. Now, if you had great
Speaker 1: parents that were super patient and loving and kind and
Speaker 1: empathetic and didn't you know, jump at you, but held
Speaker 1: firm boundaries and you know all that stuff, there's chances,
Speaker 1: chids are you have really good healthy self talk and
Speaker 1: good on you. Me not so much. I had. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that and then I figured it out
Speaker 1: and I still work on it. But it's a thing
Speaker 1: that you know. Now that I'm aware of the traps
Speaker 1: that I fall into. Now I'm able to go, oh, Zach,
Speaker 1: you're doing it again. You're doing that thing, and you
Speaker 1: know this is how you end up winding yourself back down. So,
Speaker 1: but going back to your question, what is the first step,
Speaker 1: The first step has got to be recognizing that you
Speaker 1: have a problem, right like that is that's the age old,
Speaker 1: that's the adage. You know, the first step in fixing
Speaker 1: a problem is recognizing that you have a problem. Now,
Speaker 1: that can be very difficult for people. You can't force
Speaker 1: people to do that. That's got to be something that
Speaker 1: comes because they recognize the necessity. Now, in my case,
Speaker 1: I had a complete mental breakdown, and so I knew
Speaker 1: I don't know what else to do. Clearly I have
Speaker 1: a problem if I don't want to live anymore. So
Speaker 1: I have got to go try and figure that out. Now,
Speaker 1: that was step one, Step two. Now, by the way,
Speaker 1: not everybody has to come to that dire of a conclusion.
Speaker 1: Hopefully nobody does. Hopefully we're able to recognize these things
Speaker 1: far earlier in life. Beyond that, the step is, you
Speaker 1: gotta talk. You got to talk about it. You got
Speaker 1: to start with one of your closest friends or closest friends,
Speaker 1: start with your family if they're the closest to you.
Speaker 1: Get some of it out. Say I am struggling, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm struggling with. I'm embarrassed whatever. Guess what,
Speaker 1: there's no reason to be embarrassed. There's no reason to
Speaker 1: be scared because everybody, everyone, without fail, There is not
Speaker 1: one person on this earth that hasn't dealt with even
Speaker 1: the best parents and people still deal with some form
Speaker 1: of stress, anxiety, depression, you name it. There is something
Speaker 1: there so everyone can relate to this. Ultimately, we're all afraid.
Speaker 1: It's getting better, which is great, it's getting less stigmatized
Speaker 1: as the more we do things like this and talk
Speaker 1: about it. But everyone still has these reservations and fears
Speaker 1: because nobody wants to feel like they're broken. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: to feel like everybody else is good. But I'm somehow
Speaker 1: struggling and I don't know how, and we all feel
Speaker 1: like we're uniquely broken. We feel like, well, clearly, no
Speaker 1: one has felt the way that I feel. No one
Speaker 1: has gone through this exact thing, And I am here
Speaker 1: to say that is also a lie because the world
Speaker 1: is really, really old, and there have been billions and
Speaker 1: billions of people who have lived on this earth, and
Speaker 1: even if they lived in a completely different time, guess
Speaker 1: what they have still struggled with the exact same problems,
Speaker 1: slightly different details, exact same problems. So talking about it,
Speaker 1: getting it out, you have got to acknowled knowledge that
Speaker 1: there's a problem. Talk about that, but immediately as soon
Speaker 1: as you can go to a professional, don't don't have
Speaker 1: your friends and family. Don't allow them to be this
Speaker 1: kind of end all of where you get your advice
Speaker 1: and your wisdom, because as try as they might, they
Speaker 1: all have biased They all have agenda, even bias, an
Speaker 1: agenda that they're unaware of, not even bias agenda like well,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take advantage of This's like, hey, I have
Speaker 1: a certain idea of who I think you ought to be,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to give you advice when it comes
Speaker 1: to directing you in that way. Whereas a disinterested, unbiased,
Speaker 1: unagenda third party. I mean, I guess the only bias
Speaker 1: or agenda they would have a professional therapist is that
Speaker 1: they get paid to do it, So I suppose you
Speaker 1: could say that. But outside of that, I mean, and
Speaker 1: they should because it's a service, it's a job, and
Speaker 1: by the way, it's one of the most valuable, so
Speaker 1: it's so worth the money. Although I do think all
Speaker 1: of that needs to be worked out too that really
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that we can keep pushing toward getting mental
Speaker 1: health services and information and education to people on much
Speaker 1: more reduced rates, if not entirely free. I wish that
Speaker 1: there were clinics that people could just walk into right
Speaker 1: off the street and be like, hey, I'm struggling. I
Speaker 1: need to talk to somebody. I need somebody this kind
Speaker 1: of like help click this back into reality. What a
Speaker 1: beautiful world that will be. But until that day very
Speaker 1: worth whatever, you know, the money I believe of an
Speaker 1: investment in yourself. So that's the first step. I really
Speaker 1: truly believe you got to You gotta acknowledge it, you
Speaker 1: got to talk about it. And then within that, now
Speaker 1: you have someone who is guiding you to the various
Speaker 1: other steps. Because the other steps, though some of them
Speaker 1: are kind of universal, some of them are not. Not
Speaker 1: Not every person needs to do X, and not every
Speaker 1: person needs to do why, And even the people that
Speaker 1: need to do both don't necessarily have to do them
Speaker 1: or should do them in that order. You know, it
Speaker 1: all depends on what your particular personal journey has been
Speaker 1: in your life with your traumas, how they came about,
Speaker 1: how they're manifesting in your life now, how you happen
Speaker 1: to be struggling or not struggling with them, or don't
Speaker 1: think you're struggling with them. You know, all of that
Speaker 1: can really you know, with a license professional, somebody really
Speaker 1: understands these things. It was studied this stuff. They can
Speaker 1: guide you through the rest. But so that that's what
Speaker 1: I would tell anybody out there, do yourself the service
Speaker 1: in the favor and go lug yourself first and foremost
Speaker 1: by investing in a therapist and being able to talk
Speaker 1: about and just get out what it is you need
Speaker 1: to talk about. I love that, Zach. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone can hear your passion, your drive, the amount
Speaker 1: of like. And it was the same last time, like
Speaker 1: even last time. I remember there was this one clip
Speaker 1: we had and you just went empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy,
Speaker 1: and he said empathy like thirty times. And even today
Speaker 1: I've heard you say radical love, you know, And it's
Speaker 1: the message you're asking us to do is hard but necessary.
Speaker 1: It's challenging but real. It's pushing us because that's the
Speaker 1: only way we get to our truer selves. And you
Speaker 1: can see that in you that it's a it's a plea,
Speaker 1: like you're almost plea pleading with us to say please
Speaker 1: do this. You know. It's not even it's not a direction,
Speaker 1: it's not preaching, it's not pushing, it's pleading. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you to you for
Speaker 1: your energy, for the time to put this book together,
Speaker 1: for just just your ability to speak the truth so emphatically,
Speaker 1: and you know, with so much, with so much not confidence,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually an understatement, but but with depth, right,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a real depth behind these thoughts. And
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, man, I really do, because it's it's
Speaker 1: so much harder to talk about the things that you're
Speaker 1: choosing to talk about than than the software version of
Speaker 1: a lot of these ideas. So I appreciate you. I'm
Speaker 1: grateful for you. I'm recommending to everyone, please, please please
Speaker 1: go and grab a copy of the book Radical Love,
Speaker 1: Learning to Accept Yourself and others. Like I said today, hey,
Speaker 1: Zach's taking us on a journey of really understanding the
Speaker 1: concepts and ideas as these big principles. But the book
Speaker 1: really goes into his journey, his story, the experiences he
Speaker 1: went to be on the brink of that position of
Speaker 1: breaking down and falling apart, and then guides you through
Speaker 1: this step to step journey, whether it's overcoming your ego,
Speaker 1: whether it's loving yourself. So please do go and grab
Speaker 1: a copy of Radical Love, Zach. I'm grateful I can't
Speaker 1: wait to catch up with you, hang out with you.
Speaker 1: I miss you, and I'm wishing you all the best
Speaker 1: for the book tour. I hope he goes exceptionally well
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited to reconnect man. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, bless you, love and appreciate you
Speaker 1: so much. And I hope that I get to see
Speaker 1: you and your wonderful wife in La or wherever we
Speaker 1: get to connect somewhere in the world. Absolutely, thank you, man.
Speaker 1: Have a wonderful evening. Thank you for doing this at
Speaker 1: your time. I'm sure it's pretty late there too, so nah,
Speaker 1: I'm good. Totally worth it. Great seeing you. Thank you,
Speaker 1: litt