Create a New Tomorrow

Hi i am here with Nelson L. Tressler, He is the Founder and CEO of IGOTSMARTER, a goal-achievement program and app created to help people succeed in every aspect of life. Despite his unbelievable difficult beginnings, Nelson rose to become a top commercial real estate agent and investor, completing well over $1 billion in transactions

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY NELSON FOR MORE INFO

https://igotsmarter.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

Nelson tessler 0:00  

didn't listen to those voices. My life was not where I wanted it to be. And I thought if I could do this if I could accomplish this goal, that I really could change the direction of my life and eventually, you know, the life that I was going to give my future family. flashforward, you know, 12 years later, for different colleges for years in the Air Force. I finally became that first person in my family to graduate from college.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Hi, I am here with Carolyn Colleen. she is a PhD candidate, speaker, author, coach, was born and raised in the Midwestern United States. She describes herself as a FIERCE mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY CAROLYN COLLEEN FOR MORE INFO

https://www.carolyncolleen.com/​

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:07  

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich and I have with me Carolyn Colleen. Carolyn is a fierce mother of three children, author, international speaker, entrepreneur and business strategist, focused on helping others achieve their goals. She's the founder of the fierce network, an online program that helps women create life strategies that enable them to have the life they dream of, without sacrificing family, career or lifestyle. She's also the author of fierce transform your life in the face of adversity. Five minutes at a time. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming.

Carolyn Colleen 0:47  

I already Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Ari Gronich 0:50  

Cool. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself how you became who you are, and and what kinds of things are you really passionate about?

Carolyn Colleen 1:02  

Well, I'm excited to share, you know, a little bit of my journey and a bit about, you know, what I'm excited about right now and high that where I am. So I am, as you shared in my bio, I'm a proud mother of three. There's a lot of different things that I'm I'm proud of in my life and in my business. But things weren't always sunshiny. In my very short lifetime, I've experienced far, I've experienced a lot of adversity. So when you start a very young, young age, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, which guided the way that I saw the world, and it guided a lot of my perspective, and it also guided the way that I defined love, self love and self worth. Awesome.

Ari Gronich 1:50  

So what do you think the fine line between victim and Victor is? What do you think that that transition when you stepped over the line from victim to Victor, and what kinds of things might other people be able to do to do the same thing,

Carolyn Colleen 2:10  

you know, it's a self, it's an inside work. So from victim, victim, the victim mentality, because that that underlies fear that underlies the thought which I truly had, that I was put here to be abused and used. And that's a victim mentality. And with that mentality, that's all I knew, at the time, which also bred for more bad things to happen. And so breaking out of that victim mentality, realizing that I had the courage to to move forward and out of that, actually was a transitional point.

Ari Gronich 2:54  

That's awesome. Sounds good. So, you know, taking that to another level, because this shows a really a lot about systems. So what do you think the systems are that lead you into having, you know, that kind of early life, and which are the things that you think will would be good ways or solutions to even having those kinds of things happen on a regular basis as they do?

Carolyn Colleen 3:25  

So within the conditioning, I would say, of a life like that, you have to be able to pause, you need to be able to reflect and you need to be able to process that, and really leave it as, okay, it happened. It's real, doesn't mean it was right or wrong, but how what are you going to build moving forward. So what I did is, after I left my relationship, I was standing there in line at the Salvation Army. Looking around realizing that this is not the life that I want, it is not the list the light that I had, wanted to have or designed, but I built a way in which to break free into, basically reverse engineer. So when looking at taking a deep breath, focusing on one goal, and then taking action five minutes at a time, I found that the emotions that come up, you can use them as fuel to push you in a positive direction, and be able to build those systems that you speak of, and do it five minutes at a time. So when you're struggling, go ahead.

Ari Gronich 4:39  

I'm talking more societal Lee. So there's a societal pandemic of child abuse of, you know, abandoned men of all these kinds of things. So I'm talking more on on a societal level. What do you think is is possible society wise, what are some social solutions that we could start implementing possibly for taking care of this at that macro level versus just the micro level?

Carolyn Colleen 5:10  

Oh, yes, of course. So, I agree with you, there's definitely a systematic issue. So there's a lot of hype or a lot of talk about adverse childhood experiences. Are you familiar?

Ari Gronich 5:23  

Yep, absolutely.

Carolyn Colleen 5:24  

So on a scale of one to 10, adverse childhood experiences. And so the higher your score, the more likely you are to develop cancer, heart disease, and not 20 years off of your life. There's definitely a bigger movement around resilience and how you can build resilience in order to combat that. But not only that, as a society, and as communities, we can educate, and how do you how do you break down systematic oppression, through education and access, and I don't mean, walking into a college, I'm talking about educating yourself, not just education, and creating structural communities. And in order to do that we as a people need to be able to create and implement, how do you look into the future? What is that vision? What are your finances in which to support that vision?

Ari Gronich 6:20  

for an individual being resilient, you know, you can say be resilient to somebody, they don't necessarily know what that means, how to do it, what the steps might be, on a societal level, you know, there's a theory that the repression of a society leads to the aggression of the people, which basically means that the more you repress something, the more it acts out in bad ways. And, for instance, in our society, you know, you don't see nude bodies, in TV commercials. And on the television, the body is kind of shamed. And then it's made to be, you know, sex is made to be some kind of nasty, bad thing. But in the countries where they're more open with their bodies, where that's not happening, they have less sexual assaults, less abuse that way. Same thing with drugs, you know, the societies that have legalized drugs more versus repressing it more, it doesn't have as negative impact on the people or on this the communities in society. So I'm talking on that macro level, if, if we're going to shift the cycle of abuse in general, what are some of the things that you would suggest we need to do as a society and then as individuals specifically?

Carolyn Colleen 7:52  

Well, it sounds like that overall theme is really, it sounds to me like that what you resist persists. And so how do you again, this goes back to education and what's accepted, like you're just sharing how within our country compared to other countries in the short of the of the body, and how other countries might see it as beautiful. And then our country might see it, or culture might see it as shameful. And so, education and a culture, how do we lean in to change something like that? Well, it takes quite a bit quite a bit, in order to be able to change our mindset. But I think it starts with, for example, like standing up, like, when you're looking at abuse, or you're looking at, you know, familial generations of abuse, there's, you might have, you know, 98% of people aren't doing that. And then you have 2% that are so, but they're the ones that seem to just make passes. And so how does the 98% help influence the culture and that standby, it'd be very similar to what you're saying about leaning in and really appreciating the body and, and cultures that think that is beautiful, and that you do share, you know, and expose more of your body parts compared to some cultures that don't. And and why is it taboo? So I think it has to do again, with the education and the cultural acceptance, but having people stand up more, it seems like in our, in our culture, there's a lot of people are less, they speak less about, about things, compared to speaking more.

Ari Gronich 9:46  

It's interesting, I'm preparing a TEDx talk, and it's on the basis of a quote that I like to say often which is silence is a bully. His best friend. And we allow bullies, so to speak of all kinds, to take us out of doing or being something that is for our own benefit our own self good. And that's our good as an individual and are good as people. So we see something like, you know, in my field, agriculture, I, you know, poison the ground poison, the food, poison, poison, poison everything. And then nobody's really standing up and talking, and allowing it to happen. And so that the thing that that I agree with you on is that silence is a bully's best friend. And we need to start standing up speaking up, whether it's in your families, as individuals, to other members of not your family, or even in your family, you know, break that taboo of, we don't tell these secrets, so to speak. And until you tell the secrets, the cycle will continue. So

Carolyn Colleen 11:11  

I agree. And as I, on a more macro level, it's those secrets are considered to be agenda. Because we don't talk about it enough. So until it's talked about more, it's, you know, as we talk about it more, it's less of an agenda and more of a truth. So

Ari Gronich 11:32  

yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, for for the reference, just to kind of pass through is, we need to have more town hall meetings we need involved in the civics of their community and in government, we need people who can make a difference, to step up and make a difference businesses, etc. But we need to start having these conversations. Now, here's the caveat to me, we need to have the conversations in a civil way. And preferably with like an old, an old world debate kind of, you know, tone versus a new world debate kind of atone meaning we actually talk similarly we Mac mark, March facts versus facts versus, you know, hyperboles, and sound bites, these kinds of things, right. Yeah,

Carolyn Colleen 12:26  

I agree. And perhaps, perhaps, you know, as we're creating this, we can throw in a class of emotional intelligence as a requirement to sit on the board.

Ari Gronich 12:36  

Whoo, tell me more about that. Let's see how that how that would play out?

Carolyn Colleen 12:40  

Well, you know, with emotional intelligence, and really separating the emotion of the word said, to the actual understanding, and like bringing in, okay, you have an opinion, I have an opinion, like you said that respect, but then also not acting on the emotion that might be triggered when that when that discussion comes up. Because what happens in a lot of times, is that if we're triggered by emotion, we say things that we don't truly, authentically mean. It doesn't technically help us. But it might make us feel, you know, like, we have a little edge in the moment, or, you know, depending on how we speak to ourselves and our own self talk, what comes out, and it may not help us in the moment. So with emotional intelligence training, we can have that requirement on the board, we might have better discussions, and we might actually get to, you know, a better solution to create something better. Because a lot of times when people are acting an emotion, they feel threatened or their ego gets in the way, we're not actually getting to a solution, just simply blowing a lot of air.

Ari Gronich 13:52  

That's awesome. So learning to listen as part of that emotional intelligence that you're talking about, and learning to listen, not for what you're going to say next, not for how you're going to respond. But learning to listen to understand what the point of view of the other is. So if you can imagine being in a room where two people are having a conversation, one is talking first, no interruptions, and they're just explaining their point of view on any given subject. And then you have the other person, repeat back what it is that they said. And then start the I agree with this. I disagree with that. And this is why and Here, let me help you understand my point of view. And now we have this civil discussion that actually gets to a deep place of understanding versus this polarization of society. Right, exactly. great tips if you could turn it into like three to four actionable steps. that somebody can immediately do versus just the concepts which are eight. What would they be?

Carolyn Colleen 15:08  

One? Sit down with your WHY? And how do you do that? You think about? When is the last time you felt fulfilled? Where were you? Who were you around? What brought you joy? And it could have been a long time ago. Or it could have been last week. Think about what that is, where were you? What were you doing? And how did it feel? When I did this specific exercise, I thought back and I remember when I was little, and I wanted to be Whitney Houston. I love Whitney Houston. I didn't necessarily want to be a rock star. I just wanted to be able to give people that feeling that I felt want to listen to her music. Well, that opens up the door for a lot of things then. So getting under the why Remember, the last time you felt fulfilled? What did it feel like? Who was around you? What were you doing? That will bring you back to your WHY? Second thing? identifying what you like, what that could be? What could that translate into? Like I said before, looking at the different adding up the different things that you've done in your life, perhaps I just had the person say, well, I've done um, I worked in a an apple orchard. And I loved being outside and I loved having the sun on my on my face. I did not like the amount of income that I made, but I loved being outside. Okay, cool. Well, you know how to pick apples, you know how to be an orchard? You know, you like to be outside? What if you push that a little further? What if you created a business of having employees and you were the person that led the people were picking the apples, you can still be outside, you know, the logistics, you know, the land, you know where to go, you know how to find these people, right? So maybe it's understanding what you love to do, and then thinking slightly bigger? What if you love to do something like picking apples or you enjoy being outside? But what if you're the one who owned it? How do you build relationships in which to find people that need Apple pickers, or that need people to be outside and they know how to pick the most apples the fastest, with the most, the most? Most outcome? So just leveling that thought process up slightly. And then the other thing is removing the barrier Everyone is afraid of? Well, you know, my uncle told me that I need to get two years of college in or I need to get a certificate for that I needed it. Yeah, you might need to gain some education on some things, but it doesn't mean you have to go 200,000 in debt in order to get there. You just need to see, okay, well, you know, I don't know a whole lot about I know how to Apple pic. But I don't know a whole lot about building relationships. Well, you know what, you better get in there and read a book or two, how to win and Influence People First one off the top of my mind. But thinking about not necessarily spending all that money, but thinking how to get razor sharp and understanding what's the first thing that I would need to learn in order to think a little bit bigger and putting into yourself development.

Ari Gronich 18:15  

Awesome. Thank you so much. How can people get ahold of you if they'd like to, to work with you or get more information about your book?

Carolyn Colleen 18:24  

Yeah. Carolyn colleen.com. So, CAROLYN COLLEEN. 

Ari Gronich 18:32  

That'sawesome. Thank you so much for being here, Carolyn. I really appreciate it. I hope that the audience got a whole lot out of the show. And, you know, we're here to create a new tomorrow today. So let's activate your vision for a better world. Remember to like, subscribe, comment and rate and review and all of those things that make us be able to have great conversations with you. Talk to you later, and we'll see on the next episode of a new tomorrow. Thank you.

Hi, I am here with Carolyn Colleen. she is a PhD candidate, speaker, author, coach, was born and raised in the Midwestern United States. She describes herself as a FIERCE mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY CAROLYN COLLEEN FOR MORE INFO

https://www.carolyncolleen.com/​

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:00  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies decide not get results, they did not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are joining me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari, Gronich and this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari gronich And I have with me, Carolyn Colleen. Carolyn is a fierce mother of three children, author, international speaker, entrepreneur and business strategist, focused on helping others achieve their goals. She's the founder of the fierce network, an online program that helps women create life strategies that enable them to have the life they dream of, without sacrificing family, career or lifestyle. She's also the author of fierce to transform your life in the face of adversity. Five minutes at a time. Welcome to the show. Thank you for coming.

Carolyn Colleen 1:45  

I already Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Ari Gronich 1:48  

Cool. So tell the audience a little bit about yourself how you became who you are, and and what kinds of things are you really passionate about?

Carolyn Colleen 2:00  

Well, I'm excited to share, you know, a little bit of my journey and a bit about, you know, what I'm excited about right now. And Hi, that's where I am. So I am as you shared in my bio, I'm a proud mother of three. There's a lot of different things that I'm I'm proud of in my life and in my business. But things weren't always sunshiny. In my very short lifetime, I've experienced so far, I've experienced a lot of adversity. So when you start a very young, young age, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, which guided the way that I saw the world, and it guided a lot of my perspective, and it also guided the way that I defined love, self love, and self worth giving, giving growing up in a household with quite a bit of mental health, untreated mental health disorders. And having the ebbs and the flows and the ups and the downs. with, you know, perhaps many of the people in your audience, when you talk about therapy, there's untreated mental health in the abs, the flow, some days are great, and some days are really, really bad. And so the choices that I made giving that foundation put me into a an abusive marriage, and I was in an abusive marriage that I, I escaped after my daughter was born. And I ended up in low income housing, and I crawled my way out of love, I crawl my way out of the circle of poverty, and then crawling my way out of the circle of abuse. And amongst that time, I learned quite a few things in learning 20 years of therapy, which I advocate for, and then also I found a life coach or coach that helped me really, not only with therapy, realizing what was wrong with me and why I made the decisions I made, but then in coaching, identifying what was right with me, and elevating from there. Then on my journey, I found people in my life that believed in me and kind of said, Hey, you know, we figured this out, we can kind of help break free from some of these circles and glass ceilings we've experienced. And I took my career to an even higher level. And having that support. Having those mentors helped me get to where I am now, which is like you shared author, speaker, business owner, serial entrepreneur. And my mission in life is really to reflect on the adversity that I've experienced in my short lifetime, and how to make an advantage because all the things that did happen, they happened, but how can I you know, help myself and help others really slip The script and create a new tomorrow.

Ari Gronich 5:03  

Awesome. So what do you think the fine line between victim and Victor is? What do you think that that transition when you stepped over the line from victim to Victor, and what kinds of things might other people be able to do to do the same thing.

Carolyn Colleen 5:23  

You know, it's a self, it's an inside work. So from victim, victim, the victim mentality, because that that underlies fear that underlies the thought which I truly had, that I was put here to be abused and used. And that's a victim mentality. And with that mentality, that's all I knew at the time, which also bred for more bad things to happen. And so, breaking out of that victim mentality, realizing that I had the courage to to move forward and out of that, actually was a transitional point. So I remember it specifically. It was 4am in the morning, my daughter was colicky, and colic means babies screaming for non stop, and there's no cure. And the doctors say good luck. So she was screaming for two months straight, she was two months old. So sleep deprived, not only from having a newborn baby, but then also being in a relationship that was very abusive. So I, at four in the morning, I, I was at the end of my rope, and I prayed. And I said, whoever's out there, send me a sign of some kind, anything, because I don't know what to do. And I'm about to break. In at four in the morning, as the sun was coming out of the sky, my daughter stopped crying. And she looked me directly in the eyes, as if she was looking into my soul saying to me, I'm your sign. And in that pivotal moment, I realized that I didn't have the love for myself in which to leave my relationship, and create a new life and a new tomorrow. But I did have love for my daughter. So I borrowed the love I had for my daughter and which to create that enough courage to push out of that victim mentality, and inch toward Victor. And I did that. And I moved forward. And I started to actually learn how to love myself also.

Ari Gronich 7:33  

exoticism sounds good. So, you know, taking that to another level, because this shows a really a lot about systems. So what do you think the systems are that lead you into having, you know, that kind of early life, and which are the things that you think will would be good ways or solutions to even having those kinds of things happen on a regular basis as they do?

Carolyn Colleen 8:04  

So within the conditioning, I would say, of a life like that, you have to be able to pause, you need to be able to reflect and you meet need to be able to process that, and really leave it as, okay, it happened, it's real, doesn't mean it was right or wrong, but how, what are you going to build moving forward. So what I did is, after I left my relationship, I was standing there in line at the Salvation Army, looking around realizing that this is not the life that I want, it is not the list the light that I had, wanted to have or designed, but I built a way in which to break free into, basically reverse engineer. So when looking at taking a deep breath, focusing on one goal, and then taking action five minutes at a time, I found that the emotions that come up, you can use them as fuel to push you in a positive direction, and be able to build those systems that you speak up and do it five minutes at a time. So when you're struggling, go ahead.

Ari Gronich 9:18  

I'm talking more societal Lee. So there's a societal pandemic of childhood abuse of, you know, abandonment of all these kinds of things. So I'm talking more on on a societal level. What do you think is is possible society wise, what are some solutions that we could start implementing possibly for taking care of this at that macro level versus just the micro level?

Carolyn Colleen 9:49  

Oh, yes, of course. So I agree with you. There's definitely a systematic issue. So there's a lot of hype or a lot of talk about Everest. experiences? Are you familiar?

Ari Gronich 10:02  

Yep, absolutely.

Carolyn Colleen 10:03  

So on a scale of one to 10, adverse childhood experiences. And so the higher your score, the more likely you are to develop cancer, heart disease, and not 20 years off of your life. There's definitely a bigger movement around resilience and how you can build resilience in order to combat that. But not only that, as a society, and as communities, we can educate. And how do you how do you break down systematic oppression, through education and access, and I don't mean, walking into a college, I'm talking about educating yourself, not just education, and creating structural communities. And in order to do that, we as a people need to be able to create and implement, how do you look into the future? What is that vision? What are your finances in which to support that vision? Is it vertical income? Is it horizontal income? Is it passive income? What does that look like? Who are the people that are influencing your dream? What is that you're the average of the five people closest to you, either an income and mindset in health. And then also in your wellness, what's your mindset, your mind, body, and spirit. And that's, that is what is called a core four, which is actually a, an impact to creating structural community, because in order for us to elevate as a nation as a world, and elevate out of hardship, we need to be able to provide education and access to people who don't have it, they don't realize it's there. And so that is my thought process on systematic change. And by doing that, and being able to collect that data, understanding, what are your adverse, what are your Ace scores? What are how do you shift that impact? How you educate people on actually remembering how to dream? Or even learning how to dream? Have A Dream? And then how do you support it? What do you what is the finances, the finances that you need and wish to support it? And then also, what's the market for it? And so it doesn't necessarily mean you have to take 15 years of college in which to have and build a career, but also, you know, how are you thinking differently in which to get to where you want to go? And that's a bit of, you know, honoring, alright, like, you know, you might be able to people that may have struggled with addiction, per se, or different different struggles? How do you take that advantage that you learned, that adversity that you, you experienced and turn it into an advantage? I had a conversation with somebody last week, who used to be addicted to drugs, and alcohol. And the way that they hustled after that addiction, they flip the switch and hustle after their business, but being very resourceful. Because when you look at someone who is being resourceful they can they're able to come up with come up with ideas in which to survive. How do you do that in your business? Right.

Ari Gronich 13:12  

So for an individual being resilient, you know, you can say be resilient to somebody, they don't necessarily know what that means, how to do it, what the steps might be, on a societal level, you know, there, there's a theory that the repression of a society leads to the aggression of the people, which basically means that the more you repress something, the more it acts out in bad ways. And, for instance, in our society, you know, you don't see nude bodies, in TV commercials. And on the television, the body is kind of shamed. And then it's made to be, you know, sex is made to be some kind of nasty, bad thing. But in the countries where they're more open with their bodies, where that's not happening, they have less sexual assaults, less abuse that way. Same thing with drugs, you know, the societies that have legalized drugs more versus repressing it more, it doesn't have as negative impact on the people or on this the communities and society. So I'm talking on that macro level. If, if we're going to shift the cycle of abuse in general, what are some of the things that you would suggest we need to do as a society and then as individuals specifically?

Carolyn Colleen 14:46  

Well, it sounds like that overall theme is really it sounds to me like that what you resist persists. And so how do you again, this goes back to education and what's accepted. You're just sharing How within our country compared to other countries in the short of the body, and how other countries might see it as beautiful. And then our country might see it, their culture might see it as shameful. And so, education and the culture, how do we lean in to change something like that? Well, it takes quite a bit quite a bit in order to be able to change our mindset. But I think it starts with, for example, like standing up, like, when you're looking at abuse, or you're looking at, you know, familial generations of abuse, there's, you might have, you know, 98% of people aren't doing that. And then you have 2% that are, so, but they're the ones that seem to just make passes. And so how does the 98% help influence the culture and that standby, be very similar to what you're saying about leaning in and really appreciating the body? And, and cultures that think that is beautiful, and that you do share, you know, and expose more of your body parts compared to some cultures that don't? And, and why is it taboo. So I think it has to do again, with the education and the cultural acceptance, but having people stand up more, it seems like in our, in our culture, there's a lot of people are less, they speak less about, about things, compared to speaking more.

Ari Gronich 16:40  

It's interesting, I'm preparing a TEDx talk. And it's on the basis of quote that I like to say often, which is, silence is a bully's best friend. And we allow bullies, so to speak of all kinds, to take us out of doing or being something that is for our own benefit our own self good. And that's our good as an individual and our good as people. So we see something like, you know, in my field, agriculture, I, you know, poison the ground, poison, the food, poison, poison, poison, everything. And then nobody's really standing up and talking, and allowing it to happen. And so the thing that, that I agree with you on is that silence is a bully's best friend. And we need to start standing up speaking up, whether it's in your families, as individuals, to other members of not your family, or even in your family, you know, break that taboo of, we don't tell these secrets, so to speak. And until you tell the secrets, the cycle will continue. So

Carolyn Colleen 18:05  

I agree and as a, on a more macro level, it's those secrets are considered to be agenda. Because we don't talk about it enough. So until it's talked about more, it's, you know, as we talk about it more, it's less of an agenda and more of a truth. So

Ari Gronich 18:26  

yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, for for the reference just to kind of pass through is, we need to have more town hall meetings we need involved in the civics of their community and in government, we need people who can make a difference, to step up and make a difference businesses etc. But we need to start having these conversations. Now, here's the caveat to me, we need to have the conversations in a civil way. And preferably with like an old an old world debate kind of, you know, tone versus a new world debate kind of atone meaning we actually talk similarly we Mac mark, March facts versus facts versus, you know, hyperboles and sound bites, these kinds of things, right.

Carolyn Colleen 19:20  

Yeah, I agree. And perhaps, perhaps, you know, as we're creating this, we can throw in a class of emotional intelligence as a requirement to sit on the board. Whoo,

Ari Gronich 19:31  

tell me more about that. Let's see how that how that would play out.

Carolyn Colleen 19:35  

Well, you know, with emotional intelligence and really separating the emotion of the word said to the actual understanding and like bringing in Okay, you have an opinion, I have an opinion, like you said that respect, but then also not acting on the emotion that might be triggered when that when that discussion comes up, because what happens in a lot of times is that it If we're triggered by emotion, we say things that we don't truly, authentically mean, and doesn't technically help us. But it might make us feel, you know, like, we have a little edge in the moment, or, you know, depending on how we speak to ourselves and our own self talk, what comes out, and it may not help us in the moment. So with emotional intelligence training, we can have that requirement on the board, we might have better discussions, and we might actually get to, you know, a better solution to create something better, because I think a lot of times when people are acting an emotion that they feel threatened or their ego gets in the way, we're not actually getting to a solution, just simply blowing a lot of air.

Ari Gronich 20:46  

That's awesome. So learning to listen is part of that emotional intelligence that you're talking about, and learning to listen, not for what you're going to say next, not for how you're going to respond. But learning to listen to understand what the point of view of the other is. So if you can imagine being in a room where two people are having a conversation, one is talking first, no interruptions, and they're just explaining their point of view on any given subject. And then you have the other person, repeat back what it is that they said. And then start the I agree with this. I disagree with that. And this is why and Here, let me help you understand my point of view. And now we have this civil discussion that actually gets to a deep place of understanding versus this polarization of society. Right,

Unknown Speaker 21:47  

exactly.

Carolyn Colleen 21:49  

And going even a step further and appreciating what brings us together as humans. Because if you can come together from a place of appreciating, you know, even even this past year, this isn't our first rodeo, we've I mean, as humans, you know, we've seen adversities. But how do we appreciate ourselves as as, as humans, we all are after a very similar things to be loved to be accepted to be understood. If we can come and add that to the discussion of you know, what? That that triggers me, that makes me You know, you're trying to up my practice here, and that upsets me, okay, and be able to voice it and say, authentic, authentically, so that you can get to a solution? Like, yeah, you're trying to up my taxes, but I'm trying to do this. First, we need to do this for your school, and you have kids, let's talk about this, you know, or maybe you don't, and, and, and just really having generative conversation.

Ari Gronich 22:48  

Yeah, absolutely. So what what else, you know, you you've reorganized? nonprofits, you've gone from corporate to entrepreneur lifestyle, that pivot that you, you know, that you've made throughout your life? How did you decide what and how to pivot into and then obviously, the courage because a lot of people really have struggle with change in general. And it takes them a long time to decide to get out of a situation or a company or a thing that they've committed to. So how did you decide to, to make those pivots and changes? And what was the struggle along with the reward or the the happy ending?

Carolyn Colleen 23:46  

Yeah, you've mentioned, you know about the systems and I take it to a personal system level of reflection. One was getting around people that challenged the way I thought, because if you're the smartest person in the room, you need a new room. And so that's I moved myself into different rooms to try and think differently and challenged the way I thought, but then again, then from my systematic approach, writing down all the different things within my lifetime in my career that I really love to do that I'm like, Hey, I'm kind of good at that. So I put a whiteboard moment, as I'm sure you can appreciate his, you know, putting up all these ideas up on my whiteboard of know what what am I good at? And what do I like to do and what did I learn on this journey of, you know, being whole 42 years old? What can I learn? And, and what I saw as I started looking at it is one I laid out my career and the different things that I learned throughout the different jobs that I had as I grew and then within that, I laid out the different things that I learned as I grew professionally and personally, because you can grow and you can crush it professionally. Sure. But you could also leave behind your personal development. And so I wanted to put that in there and see like, what do I love to do? What's my Why? And people struggle with that, why they struggle with? Well, what's my purpose? Why am I even here, and getting underneath the why it was so very important. I realized, as I reflected back on my life, that I wanted to be able to provide impact, because the people who just simply smiled at me, when I was dealing with depression, or people that took a moment, to give me that space in honor me as a person, like that feeling, is what I was after, in order to give to other people. So as I looked at that, I realized that I'm growing up in a household where and being able to break free out of abuse and break free out of poverty. Wow, you could put that into a career because you know how to build systems, you know how to connect the dots, that some people can't even see the dots, I mean, I know how to make something out of nothing, which is, you know, when you have nothing, you learn how to do that. And you can actually, that's, that's what you call a strategist. And so figuring out careers and jobs and different things that you can bring to the table, from what you've experienced in your life. So when I decided that I was going to take that leap from corporate America, it was a vision. And the vision was that I wanted to be able to travel with my kids. That's it. And I didn't need to know how I was going to get there. I just needed to know the why. Because what if one of my good friend says is once the Why has heart The how gets legs? So I had to sit with the why. And really, it didn't have to be you know, I'm going to be the next presidential candidate is I just wanted to hang out with my kids. So how do I how do I do that? And then I line up the finances, figure out how to make up make a leap. But make a safe leap? Because I have kids to raise and figure out the market for it and what what, what, how can I support myself? What do I need what I need to do in order to do that?

Ari Gronich 27:24  

Awesome. This is some some great tips, if you could turn it into like three to four actionable steps that somebody can immediately do versus just the concepts which are eight. What would they be?

Carolyn Colleen 27:40  

One, sit down with your why. And how do you do that? You think about when is the last time you felt fulfilled? Where were you? Who were you around? What brought you joy? And it could have been a long time ago? Or it could have been last week? Think about what that is? Where were you? What were you doing? And how did it feel? When I did this specific exercise, I thought back and I remembered when I was little, and I wanted to be Whitney Houston. I love Whitney Houston. I didn't necessarily want to be a rock star. I just wanted to be able to give people that feeling that I felt when I listen to her music. Well, that opens up the door for a lot of things then. So getting under the why Remember, the last time you felt fulfilled? What did it feel like? Who was around you? What were you doing? That will bring you back to your WHY? Second thing? identity identifying what you like what that could be? What could that translate into? Like I said before, looking at the different adding up the different things that you've done in your life, perhaps I just had the person say, well, I've done um, I worked in a an apple orchard. And I loved being outside and I loved having the sun on my on my face. I did not like the amount of income that I made, but I loved being outside. Okay, cool. Well, you know how to pick apples, you know how to be an orchard? You know, you like to be outside? What if you push that a little further? What if you created a business of having employees and you were the person that led the people were picking the apples, you can still be outside? You know the logistics, you know the lamp, you know where to go, you know how to find these people, right? So maybe it's understanding what you love to do, and then thinking slightly bigger. What if you love to do something like picking apples or you enjoy being outside? But what if you're the one who owned it? How do you build relationships in which to find people that need Apple pickers, or that need people to be outside and they know how to pick the most apples the fastest, with the most, the most, most outcome? So just leveling that thought process up slightly. And then the other thing is removing barrier Everyone is afraid of, well, you know, my uncle told me that I need to get two years of college in or date I need to get a certificate for that I needed it. Yeah, you might need to gain some education on some things, but it doesn't mean you have to go 200,000 in debt in order to get there. You just need to see, okay, well, you know, I don't know a whole lot about I know how to Apple pic. But I don't know a whole lot about building relationships. Well, you know what, you better get in there and read a book or two, how to win and Influence People First one off the top of my mind. But thinking about not necessarily spending all that money, but thinking how to get razor sharp and understanding what's the first thing that I would need to learn in order to think a little bit bigger and putting into yourself development?

Ari Gronich 30:47  

Awesome. Thank you so much. How can people get ahold of you if they'd like to, to work with you or get more information about your book?

Carolyn Colleen 30:56  

Yeah. Carolyn colleen.com. So, C A R O L Y N C O L L E E N.COM 

Ari Gronich 31:04  

That's awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Carolyn. I really appreciate it. I hope that the audience got a whole lot out of the show. And, you know, we're here to create a new tomorrow today. So let's activate your vision for a better world. Remember to Like, Subscribe, comment, and rate and review and all of those things that make us be able to have great conversations with you. Talk to you later. And we'll see on the next episode of a new tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world. Go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Hi, I am here with Carolyn Colleen. she is a PhD candidate, speaker, author, coach, was born and raised in the Midwestern United States. She describes herself as a FIERCE mother, daughter, sister, and friend.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY CAROLYN COLLEEN FOR MORE INFO

https://www.carolyncolleen.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Carolyn Colleen 0:01  

My mission in life is really to reflect on the adversity that I've experienced in my short lifetime and how to make it an advantage because all the things that did happen, they happened, but how can I you know, help myself and help others really just flip the script and create a new tomorrow.

Hi, I am here with Greg Lawrence, He is a Psychedelic Integration and Transformational Coach, Energy Worker, and active member of the Southern California psychedelic community.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY GREG TO LEARN MORE:

https://psychedelicintegrationspecial...

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:07  

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich and I have with me, Greg Lawrence and Greg is a psychedelic integration and transformational coach. He's talks about clinical research, micro dosing, the importance of preparation and integration. What would you, Greg, you know, like to share about how you got into this field? And what about it is makes it so passionate for you?

Greg Lawrence 0:38  

Wow. Well, I mean, I got into it through experience about six years ago. Well, I should back up and say that I used psychedelics in my late teens through my late 20s. And unfortunately, in my late 20s, I also got mixed up with hard drugs, my life spiraled out of control pretty quickly. So I managed to scrape myself off of the bottom of the barrel and quit drugs, cold turkey, I realized at that time, I had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma I hadn't dealt with, and I basically been hiding for a long time. So I started working with a psychotherapist, personal coach. And somewhere in there, I was smoking cigarettes and trying to quit. And my coach said, I think so assignment helps with that. So I got some magic mushrooms and took them and had some epiphanies about what was going on in my life and the causes of the misery I was experiencing. And I thought, okay, now that I know where that came from, everything is going to change. And in about four or five weeks or so everything was just the same as it was. That happened a couple more times, then I stumbled across the concept of integration, and started going to integration groups, integration circles. And that's where we take the lesson from the experience, we try to integrate it into our lives by making some sort of shift or change in our lives. And I became fascinated with this. So I started studying it, I began leading the integration circles, I started working with people one on one, I eventually got certified as a psychedelic integration coach, and I've been a full time coach for almost three years now.

Ari Gronich 2:08  

That's awesome. So, you know, tell me what's the difference between the recreational use of psilocybin or other psychedelics and the, the therapy side of utilizing these medicines for taking care of emotional trauma and releasing, and so on, because, like you, I was a child doing certain things, and and I find that as an adult, those experiences are much richer and greater and create more of a permanent change for me. So talk to us a little bit about the difference between the recreational side and the therapeutic side.

Greg Lawrence 3:01  

Well, I first want to say that I, you know, there are a large part of the psychedelic community that uses the word recreational sort of a pejorative, like that's not the way you're supposed to do it. I don't believe that there shouldn't be any shoulds, around psychedelic. And I realized I used the word should to say that. But once you are safe and responsible, which means that you are not bringing harm to yourself or another person, I think if you want to experience a museum, a movie, some movie, or some food and other person's body, nature, whatever you want through the lens of a psychedelic, I think that that's fantastic. People should be free to explore their consciousness in the world in the way that they want.

Ari Gronich 3:40  

Got it. So one of the things that I utilize in my practice has been psychedelic therapy with bodywork and deep emotional release, breath work. And I've, I've always found that the issues are in the tissues. And when you combine those two things, you can really, really get permanent clearing of the issues that are in the tissues, because you're breathing it out, the body's being moved through it, the places where the traumas are, are being literally touched. So there's like a spotlight on those places. And then the medicine does its work of allowing those things and those traumas to release. Have you ever experienced that or heard of that kind

Greg Lawrence 4:39  

of work? Yeah, I do energy work myself. I practice personally trauma release exercises. So I realized there is both a psychological and a somatic component to the issues that people are facing, and that trauma is held in the body. So in the work that I do with people in preparing them or helping them to work with these medicines, because what I do is I work with people before and after, as an integration coach, I help prepare them for any experience. And I help them integrate the experience the middle part they do on their own or with someone else. So in my preparation, sometimes I try to determine which mode which would be better for a particular person. Because there is a way from disconnecting from the story in your head, and just experiencing what's happening in your body as issues come up. There is a way of diving deeper into the story in your head to see what kind of resolution you can get. And there's a combination of the two or you can be experiencing something in your body won't, you know, you can experience the past in your body while you're in the present in your head. So all those can be very helpful. But yeah, there's a significant somatic component. I think, too, especially trauma.

Ari Gronich 5:47  

Absolutely. I've, I think Burning Man was my first experience with psilocybin in a therapeutic healing, you know, manner. And I think I was about 2627 at the time. And we had somebody who couldn't hear out of her ear, since she was like five years old. And about a two and a half, three hour session. We were done, she could hear out of her ear. It was really fascinating. And that's what interested me originally in psilocybin and psychedelics as therapeutic healing tools. What about micro dosing? And I know this is becoming especially within like the Silicon Valley crowd, it's becoming a pretty regular thing to do micro dosing of these, these things, what are the effects? What are the side effects, if any? What is it that you're experiencing with a micro dose of a psychedelic?

Greg Lawrence 6:56  

Well, I just first want to say that micro dosing has exploded outside of Silicon Valley. So I take monitor and take part in a lot of online groups, and a lot of Facebook groups and online forums that are specifically about micro dosing. And there are people coming to these groups every day, dealing with issues like anxiety, depression, OCD, traumatic brain injury, you know, childhood trauma, and these are people who aren't even considering using psychedelics in the classic sense, they just want to take advantage of the effects of micro dosing. And I also want to say that there is scant scientific evidence that micro dosing actually has an effect just because there's been almost no research done on it. It's still in process. But you know, for all we know, a lot of these things are the placebo or placebo effect if they are fantastic. Yay, placebo, I say

Ari Gronich 7:46  

this kind of a medicine, weight reliance, like if somebody is heavier or lighter, or does that not matter much.

Greg Lawrence 7:56  

psychedelics have very little to do with body mass, weight, height, etc. They're sort of like psychotropic drugs like antidepressants, there's a standard dosage, but you know, three grams of mushrooms can really send a 300 pound person into the sky and do nothing for 100 pound person depends on the person's receptors, their own tolerance, etc.

Ari Gronich 8:19  

Okay, so what is the chemistry that happens in your brain when you are micro dosing and when you're macro dosing,

Greg Lawrence 8:26  

micro dosing, we don't have as much evidence about exactly what happens when you take the medicine. But for a standard dose of say, serotonergic psychedelics, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline. They are serotonin agonists. So they will latch on to your serotonin receptors. serotonin is known as the feel good neurotransmitter, it's the feel good chemical. These substances don't release more serotonin into your system, they just kind of mimic serotonin. Once they grab onto that receptor and start mimicking serotonin, what happens on the other side is not exactly clear. physiologically. There are a lot of technical things that happen. What basically happens, though, is that difficult things start to try to come to the surface for you sort of the opposite of the action of an antidepressant antidepressant takes those difficult feelings and tries to just push them down here, so you don't have to deal with them. psychedelics do the opposite. They try to bring them to the surface so that you'll experience them process them.

Ari Gronich 9:26  

So it sounds like it's basically turning the light into the dark. You know, like you put a flashlight in where you've been dark and so all of a sudden, you can see what is going on and spotlight it correct.

Greg Lawrence 9:41  

Yeah, psychedelics are what are called nonspecific amplifiers of consciousness. So what will often happen is something that is bothering you that you've been suppressing something you didn't realize what's important to you something that is a problem for you that you've been ignoring will come to the surface. I'll give you a Perfect example of this young man who who called me he had had a difficult journey on mushrooms. And the following happened to him. He grew up in a small town in the Midwest at the same friends all of his life, went through grade school all the way through high school with them. good looking guy, very athletic, very popular, always had girlfriends ton of friends. He said he never had to try too hard to do anything. The major he wanted to take in college was different than that of his friends. So he ended up going out of state where he knew nobody. Suddenly the guy is 19. And he has no friends and no prospects and doesn't know what do you realize is I've never had to make friends from scratch. It just always has been there. And he's kind of lonely and a little bit desperate. Luckily, he finds these three guys were just great. he clicks with them immediately. They like to joke around with him. They include him as part of their gang. And he's hanging out with these guys for a couple of weeks. And they say, Hey, we're going to go to the forest and do mushrooms this weekend, would you like to go? He says, Yeah, I'd like that. He's been hearing about this, he wants to try it. They go to the forest, they find a spot, they take the mushrooms. And about 45 minutes later, while they're all talking, this guy realizes these are terrible people. They're not joking around with me, they're insulting me and where I'm from. They're racist, or misogynist. They're just not the kind of people I want to be with at all. So he spent about three hours being around these people who made him feel very unsafe, that was the bad experience he had. But that just shows you what happens in our everyday consciousness. There are things that bother us every day that we just sort of put to the side, we take these substances, and that says, hey, this thing is bothering you, you really need to look at it. Because everything looks fine on the surface. But there's a feeling that something's just not right, that might be might manifest as anxiety, depression, just a feeling of unease. Being stuck having to deal with procrastination, maybe I'm not getting along in my relationships with people. These all cause issues, but they're things that we're suppressing and putting in the background. psychedelics will bring those things into light for us, as you say.

Unknown Speaker 12:04  

Awesome. So

Ari Gronich 12:08  

societal effects. So what do you think that the benefit to society itself, is when people begin to experiment more and heal their traumas, more from using psychedelics?

Greg Lawrence 12:30  

Well, I think it's very much like when people start down a path of personal or spiritual development. So there are two theories, I think you could say about when people start down that path. One is that I have 57 problems. And next week, I have 52. And a few weeks, I have 48. And then I have 37. And pretty soon I have 28 problems. And nothing outside of me has changed. All this changes my perception of what is a problem, when I'm making a problem out of it. The other theory is that I still have those 57 problems, it's just not a problem that I have them anymore. But I would say the societal effect is that I stopped perceiving that I have so many problems, ROM das said, the only thing that I can do for you is work on myself, the only thing that you can do for me is work on yourself. So when I have less problems, and you have less problems, there are two things that happen. The first thing is that there are less problems in the world. Now you and I each have you have 28, and I have 35. But there's not 114 anymore, so there are less problems in the world. The other thing that happens is now I know what kinds of things I might want to address, because if I have 57 problems, and I go out trying to solve all of those, I'm trying to solve Phantom problems in there somewhere. I'm trying to solve something that just seems like a problem to me. The more I can cut that down, the more I can focus on what might be real problems outside of myself, what things what kind of things I might want to see change, what kind of things I might want to contribute to what kind of world I want to see. That's the societal. The major one.

Ari Gronich 14:03  

Very cool, very cool. So at the end of my interviews, I always ask the same question. And that's three to four tips, tricks, actionable steps that somebody can take immediately to create a new tomorrow today for themselves and activate their vision for a better world.

Greg Lawrence 14:24  

There are two that I would give. One is to be more mindful whenever possible. So think about what you are doing as much as possible and don't be on autopilot. Move the trash can put your keys in a different place, park your car somewhere else. take a different route. When you go to the store, do anything you can to wake yourself up, brush your teeth with your non dominant hand, change your habits, stop doing things the same way. You've always done them because it has you on autopilot and you are responding to your environment in a particular way rather than thinking about what you're doing. The second is to cultivate an under Standing of the fact that it's okay to feel your feelings that there is no such thing as a wrong thought or emotion. There is no such thing as a wrong thought or emotion. You don't have to act on them. But the fact that you're angry, the fact that you feel hatred towards someone, the fact that you are ashamed of something, all of those things are perfectly welcome. And they will resolve themselves. Trying not to resolve them, is what keeps them in us and keeps us tied up. So learning to be mindful, feeling our feelings, untangle both of those things together a good mindfulness meditation practice would be very helpful.

Ari Gronich 15:39  

That's awesome. Yeah, sometimes I'll play ping pong left handed just to shift my my energy, especially when i get i do i do that with tennis also, just when i when i get stuck in that rut, you know, of playing and I'm, all of a sudden, I'm in this perpetual motion of of not doing what I know to do, I'll switch just to reset myself. So I love that. I also like, you know, writing with both hands at the same time, or shaking hands to write with the opposite hand, works the other side of your brain. And those are all very good things. And I never thought of really trying to do that while while in a psychedelic journey. But that might be an interesting experiment, as well as is switching hands while in the journey because that would trigger that other side of the brain that's maybe been non active or less active or deactivated. So it'd be an interesting experiment as well switch sides and see how well you write with the opposite side. You know, while in that in that space, because maybe cut girl for you.

Greg Lawrence 17:00  

I never thought of that. I definitely write better women psychedelics, for some reason. My writing is more legible. Is it? Is it? Yeah,

Ari Gronich 17:09  

I have doctor writing so. So you can I can hardly read my own writing. When I get into doctor mode, and I'm filling out, you know, forms and things like that. But it's, it's just an interesting thought that that you popped in my head was, okay, so what if we switched hands? while experiencing that? Are we going to switch because we're switching sides of brains? When we switch hands? Do we switch thoughts? Do we switch experiences? Do we switch to the things that we're not that are not in that automatic experience of life? You know,

Unknown Speaker 17:46  

I like that,

Ari Gronich 17:47  

how many people here in the audience have have experienced driving somewhere, and all of a sudden, you're on your way to work, but you were going somewhere else. But just the automatic response of I go this way, and I go to work, and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, wait, that's not where I was going? I

Greg Lawrence 18:06  

gotta go, sir. Yeah, or driving for two hours and realize you don't remember it? one bit of driving?

Ari Gronich 18:14  

Yeah, I always I, I've had that experience. I had that experience. Actually, once. When I did a vision quest, I was up on the mountain for four days, no food, no water, sweat lodges on both sides of the sweat. So I was completely dehydrated and completely into that spirit world. And when I was driving back, I was up in the mountains of Ohio, going back into LA. And if you can imagine the mountains of Ohio a very rural kind of environment, and then you get on the freeway going to LA and it's a very different experience. And it felt to me like I was not driving at all It felt like I was in the middle of a video game. And everything was coming towards me instead of me going forward. It was really fascinating. And then I was like, how did I? I'm like, I'm almost home. How did I get here? interesting experience. But yeah, I like it. Well, thank you, you know, so much for being on Greg. Is there anything? If anybody wants to get a hold of you? How did they get ahold of you? They want to experience or or just learn more about this, this adventure of plant medicines.

Greg Lawrence 19:31  

And you can find me at psychedelicintegrationspecialists.com and on Facebook, I'm psychedelic integration specialists. And you can always reach me at Greg@psychedelicintegrationspecialists calm. It's a lot of typing, but it works. Awesome.

Ari Gronich 19:45  

Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you coming on. And, you know, this is a controversial subject. And it's not something that I actually took lightly when I decided to invite Greg on I wanted to give you a perspective of what's possible in the world when we stopped closing our minds and start opening them up to those to those possibilities, and very cautiously and very safely and with a lot of education and research. And I just I wanted I was, I was just very sure that I wanted to have Greg on here because I wanted this perspective to to make it to the audience. So thank you so much for being here. Gray. I appreciate you. Remember, we're creating a new tomorrow today, take some actionable steps. Hopefully you have gotten a lot out of this episode. My name is Ari Gronich. I'm your host remember to LIKE subscribe, review rate comments, we want to start conversations about these things. And you know, just expand on the knowledge and expand on the shift. So let's create a new tomorrow today. And I'm your host Ari Gronich, thank you so much for being here. And we'll see you next time.

Hi, I am here with Greg Lawrence, He is a Psychedelic Integration and Transformational Coach, Energy Worker, and active member of the Southern California psychedelic community.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY GREG TO LEARN MORE:

https://psychedelicintegrationspecial...

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:00  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome back to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich and I have with me, Greg Lawrence, and Greg is a psychedelic integration and transformational coach. He's talks about clinical research, micro dosing, the importance of preparation and integration. What would you, Greg, you know, like to share about how you got into this field, and what about it is makes it so passionate for you?

Greg Lawrence 1:36  

Wow. Well, I mean, I got into it through experience about six years ago. Well, I should back up and say that I use psychedelics in my late teens through my late 20s. And unfortunately, in my late 20s, I also got mixed up with hard drugs, my life spiraled out of control pretty quickly. So I managed to scrape myself off of the bottom of the barrel and quit drugs, cold turkey, everything except cannabis cannabis, which I've used for many years after that, when I moved away from where I was, I stopped using everything but cannabis, and I live basically a suburban lifestyle for about 25 years. And about six years ago, my life got turned upside down through personal tragedy. I realized at that time, I had a lot of unresolved childhood trauma I hadn't dealt with, and I basically been hiding for a long time. So I started working with a psychotherapist, personal coach, and somewhere in there where I was smoking cigarettes and trying to quit, and my coach said, I think soul assignment helps with that. So I got some magic mushrooms and took them and had some epiphanies about what was going on in my life and the causes of the misery I was experiencing. And I thought, okay, now that I know where that came from, everything is going to change. And in about four or five weeks or so everything was just the same as it was. That happened a couple more times, then I stumbled across the concept of integration, and started going to integration groups, integration circles. And that's where we take the lesson from the experience, we try to integrate it into our lives by making some sort of shift or change in our lives. And I became fascinated with this. So I started studying it, I began leading the integration circles, I started working with people one on one, I eventually got certified as a psychedelic integration coach. And I've been a full time coach for almost three years now. But it was because it was something that was very helpful to me, you know, I was able to take the experiences that I had, and make some changes and shifts in my life, don't get me to where I am now, which is about 180 degrees from where I was six years ago, is a very angry, impatient person who wasn't very good in relationships, all that's changed for me. So it's a personal passion. And, you know, it is my passion to help pass this on to other people. I think this can be life changing.

Ari Gronich 3:48  

That's awesome. So, you know, tell me, what's the difference between the recreational use of psilocybin or other psychedelics and the, the therapy side of utilizing these medicines for taking care of emotional trauma and releasing, and so on, because, like you, I was a child doing certain things and and I find that as an adult, those experiences are much richer and greater and create more of a permanent change for me. So talk to us a little bit about the difference between the recreational side and the therapeutic side.

Greg Lawrence 4:40  

Well, I first want to say that I you know, there are a large part of the psychedelic community that uses the word recreational sort of a pejorative, like that's not the way you're supposed to do it. I don't believe that there should be any shoulds around psychedelic and I realized I use the word should to say that but Once you are safe and responsible, which means that you are not bringing harm to yourself or another person, I think if you want to experience a museum, a movie, some movie, or some food and other person's body nature, whatever you want through the lens of a psychedelic, I think that that's fantastic. People should be free to explore their consciousness in the world in a way that they want. But there is sometimes a thin line between recreational use and intentional use, I'll call it and maybe a little bit thicker line between intentional use and therapeutic use. So unintentional use, we spend a lot of time setting intentions, we try to pay attention to what's going on during the experience, and we try to integrate it afterwards. And therapeutic use, it might go a little bit deeper, we might actually use eyeshades and headphones with carefully curated music, we make sure that the person is prepared ahead of time for the experience, and especially prepared for any possibly disturbing images or memories, or anything that might scare or upset them. Because that's a very important part of the process for them to understand that that is part of the process. And it's something to be experienced, not something to run from. And I would say in therapeutic use when you talk about things like the clinical studies that are going on with places like maps, and in places like NYU, Johns Hopkins, and so forth. There is a significant therapeutic component on each side of each experience. So you will have therapy beforehand, to prepare you sort of explore what's going on with you and see what your issues are a lot of therapy after the experience to help integrate that experience.

Ari Gronich 6:35  

What about therapy during the experience, that's

Greg Lawrence 6:38  

known as psycholytic therapy. And that's not something that's done very much. There are a few places in Europe that do this with MDMA. It's not something that's done much with psychedelics like LSD or psilocybin. They don't really lend themselves to therapy. And really, there is a theory that there's an inner healer within, you know, within you, that knows the issues better than anyone else could try to guess. So sometimes I started with MDMA, but in the vast majority of experiences, people have an internal experience, and then they do the therapy before afterwards. And before.

Ari Gronich 7:11  

Got it. So one of the things that I utilize in my practice has been psychedelic therapy with bodywork and deep emotional release breathwork. And I've, I've always found that the issues are in the tissues. And when you combine those two things, you can really, really get permanent clearing of the issues that are in the tissues, because you're breathing it out, the body's being moved through it, the places where the traumas are, are being literally touched. So there's like a spotlight on those places. And then the medicine does its work of allowing those things and those traumas to release. Have you ever experienced that or heard of that kind

Greg Lawrence 8:10  

of work? Yeah, I do energy work myself, I practice personally trauma release exercises. So I realize there is both a psychological and a somatic component to the issues that people are facing. And that trauma is held in the body. So in the work that I do with people in preparing them or helping them to work with these medicines, because what I do is I work with people before and after, as an integration coach, I help prepare them for any experience. And I help them integrate the experience the middle part they do on their own or with someone else. So in my preparation, sometimes I try to determine which mode which would be better for a particular person. Because there is a way from disconnecting from the story in your head, and just experiencing what's happening in your body as issues come up. There is a way of diving deeper into the story in your head to see what kind of resolution you can get. And there's a combination of the two where you can be experiencing something and your body will you know, you can experience the past in your body while you're in the present in your head. So all those can be very helpful. But yeah, there's a significant somatic component. I think, too, especially trauma.

Ari Gronich 9:18  

Absolutely. I've I think Burning Man was my first experience with psilocybin in a therapeutic healing, you know, manner. And I think I was about 2627 at the time. And we had somebody who couldn't hear out of her ear since she was like five years old, and about a two and a half, three hour session. We were done. She could hear out of her ear. It was really fascinating. And that's what interested me originally in psilocybin and psychedelics as therapeutic healing tools. What about micro dosing? And I know this is becoming especially within like the Silicon Valley crowd, it's becoming a pretty regular thing to do micro dosing of these, these things, what are the effects? What are the side effects? if any? What is it that you're experiencing with a micro dose of a psychedelic?

Greg Lawrence 10:27  

Well, I just first want to say that micro dosing has exploded outside of Silicon Valley. So I take monitor and take part in a lot of online groups, and a lot of Facebook groups and online forums that are specifically about micro dosing. And there are people coming to these groups every day, dealing with issues like anxiety, depression, OCD, traumatic brain injury, you know, childhood trauma. And these are people who aren't even considering using psychedelics in the classic sense, they just want to take advantage of the effects of micro dosing. And I also want to say that there is scant scientific evidence that micro dosing actually has an effect just because there's been almost no research done on it. It's still in process. But you know, for all we know, a lot of these things are the placebo or placebo effect, if they are fantastic. Yay, placebo, I say. But micro dosing is the consumption of sub perceptual amounts of generally, LSD or psilocybin, people microdose all kinds of substances, but we're generally talking about LSD or psilocybin, when someone says micro dosing, the effects are generally not felt. And that's kind of the idea. You know, psychedelics are sort of a cathartic experience, they do what therapy does, they bring the unconscious to the conscious, so difficult emotional and psychological material surfaces very gradually in therapy, and eventually, we feel kind of crappy, we process these things, and we feel our feelings, we get it out of us. psychedelics want to do this very quickly. Micro dosing does this very gradually in the background, so there's not too much for some people. It's very comparable to taking a nootropic or a smart drug, where you just feel kind of sharp, on together, it's very easy to forget that you've microdose when you're doing classic micro dosing, you might just feel good, I'm just having a great day. And then oh, yeah, I did a micro dose this morning, you might just feel good, better or not as bad. Some people see pretty immediate relief from things like anxiety and depression, symptoms of OCD. And some people you know, conditions like bipolar, usually contraindications for using psychedelics, but people with bipolar disorder, or micro dosing and getting some benefit from it. I want to say that people with those disorders should use caution when they're micro dosing, you should always do always do plenty of research and find out what the risks are. But so far, as far as drugs go, physiologically, psilocybin is one of the safest substances you can take. You know, I've seen a chart when they show the relative safety of different drugs based on things like emergency room visits, 911 calls, psilocybin is at the bottom, it's underneath aspirin and tobacco, it's one of the safest things physiologically that you can take. So taking in minute quantities. So far hasn't been shown to have any ill effects physiologically. Now, micro dosing can do things like bring emotions close to the surface. Some of these things are dose dependent. So some cautions I give people is that if you do a little bit extra, if you go somewhere between a micro dose and a regular dose, you could get stuck in a sort of an uncomfortable space where things are starting to come up. But you never get to that place where they start processing. So you can just be sort of jittery, anxious, nervous, sweaty, just uncomfortable in general, emotions can be close to the surface. So in these forums, I regularly see people saying things like, you know, expected micro dosing to be sort of calming to me, but I find that I'm very irritable, I'm crying for no reason, I'm angry at my children having trouble controlling myself. I'm sweating a lot. I'm not comfortable, I'm not sleeping, I'm too tired. Many of the times I see these things are dose dependent, people are just taking too much. So it's generally advisable to take about one 10th of a normal dose that is, in general, somewhere around 10 micrograms of LSD, although people do less or more, and it's somewhere around 100 or 200 milligrams of psilocybin, although people do less or more, it's got a lot to do with tolerance, your specific conditions, your environment, etc. There's no standard microdose just like there's no standard dose of psychedelics,

Ari Gronich 14:35  

right, is it is this kind of a medicine weight reliance, like if somebody is heavier or lighter, or does that not matter much

Greg Lawrence 14:47  

psychedelics have very little to do with body mass, weight, height, etc. They're sort of like psychotropic drugs like antidepressants. There's a standard dosage but you know, three grams of mushrooms can really send a 300 pound person into the sky and do nothing for 100 pound person depends on the person's receptors, their own tolerance, etc.

Ari Gronich 15:09  

Okay, so what is the chemistry that happens in your brain when you are micro dosing and when you're macro dosing,

Greg Lawrence 15:17  

micro dosing, we don't have as much evidence about exactly what happens when you take the medicine. But for a standard dose of say serotonergic, psychedelics, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline. They are serotonin agonists. So they will latch on to your serotonin receptors. serotonin is known as the feel good neurotransmitter, it's the feel good chemical. These substances don't release more serotonin into your system, they just kind of mimic serotonin. Once they grab onto that receptor and start mimicking serotonin, what happens on the other side is not exactly clear, physiologically. There are a lot of technical things that happen. What basically happens though, is that difficult things start to try to come to the surface for you sort of the opposite of the action of an antidepressant antidepressant takes those difficult feelings and tries to just push them down here, so you don't have to deal with them. psychedelics do the opposite. We try to bring them to the surface so that you'll experience them process them.

Ari Gronich 16:17  

So it sounds like it's basically turning the light into the dark, you know, like you put a flashlight in where you've been dark. And so all of a sudden, you can see what is going on and spotlight it

Greg Lawrence 16:30  

correct. Yeah, psychedelics are what are called nonspecific amplifiers of consciousness. So what will often happen is something that is bothering you that you've been suppressing something you didn't realize was important to you. Something that is a problem for you that you've been ignoring, will come to the surface. I'll give you a perfect example of this. young man who who called me he had had a difficult journey on mushrooms. And the following happened to him. He grew up in a small town in the Midwest at the same friends all of his life, went through grade school all the way through high school with them. good looking guy, very athletic, very popular, always had girlfriends ton of friends. He said he never had to try too hard to do anything. The major he wanted to take in college was different than that of his friends. So he ended up going out of state where he knew nobody. Suddenly the guy is 19. And he has no friends and no prospects and doesn't know what to do. He realizes I've never had to make friends from scratch. It just always has been there. And he's kind of lonely and a little bit desperate. Luckily, he finds these three guys were just great. he clicks with them immediately. They like to joke around with him. They include him as part of their gang. And he's hanging out with these guys for a couple of weeks. And they say, Hey, we're going to go to the forest and do mushrooms this weekend, would you like to go? He says, Yeah, I'd like that. He's been hearing about this, he wants to try it. They go to the forest, they find a spot, they take the mushrooms. And about 45 minutes later, while they're all talking, this guy realized this, these are terrible people. They're not joking around with me, they're insulting me and where I'm from. They're racist or misogynist. They're just not the kind of people I want to be with at all. So he spent about three hours being around these people who made him feel very unsafe. That was the bad experience he had. But that just shows you what happens in our everyday consciousness. There are things that bother us every day that we just sort of put to the side, we take these substances, and it says, Hey, this thing is bothering you, you really need to look at it. Because everything looks fine on the surface. But there's a feeling in us that something's just not right, that might be might manifest as anxiety, depression, just a feeling of unease. Being stuck having to deal with procrastination, maybe I'm not getting along in my relationships with people. These all cause issues, but they're things that we're suppressing and putting in the background. psychedelics will bring those things into light for us, as you say.

Unknown Speaker 18:55  

Awesome. So

Ari Gronich 18:57  

let's, uh, you know, you're talking about college. So I have kids in college. They obviously have had experiences the kids that I know, with, with psychedelics, with other kinds of things. But as an as a college student, who's experimenting with their minds, what are the precautions other than, like, you kind of brought it up with making sure that the space and the people you're with are safe for you, but what are the other kinds of precautions that you would give to kids that are attempting to experiment with these things and may or may not really know the power of them?

Greg Lawrence 19:46  

Yeah, firstly, I would say that although I am what I would consider to be a psychedelic advocate psychedelics are not for everyone. So I would advise anyone to do their research and find out if they have any psychological, medical or physical contrary indication. Because they don't work for everyone. if they have any significant psychological issues, they might want to also look up a therapist in case anything difficult comes up so they can work that out with them afterwards, you definitely want to pay attention to a separate setting. So set is my psychological set, how I'm feeling, how things are going for me what kind of problems Am I might have right now. And setting is my physical studying, including the people around me. Now I said psychedelics are amplifiers. If you are going to do psychedelics, if you're going to be around someone that you don't like, just be aware of the fact that that's going to be amplified for you. And that might make things make things very difficult, should always be comfortable with the people you're going to do psychedelics with, if you're going to do them with other people, I would say that you should do them with at least a sitter, if you have not experienced these substances before, in case you need assistance in some way.

Ari Gronich 20:55  

Kind of like my driver.

Greg Lawrence 20:57  

I'm sorry, what

Ari Gronich 20:58  

kind of like a designated driver.

Greg Lawrence 21:00  

Yeah, should be someone who has experience with psychedelics, preferably, so that they understand what you're going through, who knows what to do and what not to do. Because once having a difficult time, sometimes it should be talked through it and not down or out of it. Sometimes people have to process something. So telling someone that a difficult memory wasn't that bad is not what you should be doing. When something's going on, someone's going through that experience, holding their hand, getting them some water, keeping them safe, all allowable things, but don't try to characterize their experience. But you just want someone who's going to be there in case you need help in some way. And I would also say that intention setting is very important. You know, you don't go in trying to control the experience. But do do think you do think at a very high level. What is it? I'm trying to get from this experience? Where am I going? What am I wanting? Okay, so

Ari Gronich 21:49  

what you're saying, what I'm hearing, is that you want to be really cognizant of what it is that you're doing. And make sure you've researched enough. Make sure that you have somebody here somebody in your space that's safe, and somebody that's in your space that is already done what you're about to do so that you have a guide,

Unknown Speaker 22:24  

basically,

Greg Lawrence 22:24  

correct. Yeah, rather than a guide, I would say someone just to be there to make sure that you're safe.

Ari Gronich 22:30  

Okay. So Iosco is a little bit different you have to have kind of a guide, right? Have you had any experience with Iowa SCA and and what's your take on kind of the differences between the two

Greg Lawrence 22:46  

you know, psychedelics end up taking you to sort of the same place in a different way, you know, it's getting to the same location or different vehicle, I have lost could can have a very heavy body load. Meaning I feel it in my body that often causes people to purge in one way or another that made through faith through vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, crying, what have you, but I watched it can be a very difficult experience to have a very difficult substance to work with. But also all the psychedelics can is generally done like you said, in a group setting, under the supervision of a shaman or a facilitator. shaman tends to be an indigenous person who has a lineage she's learned from facilitator, someone who's learned how to work with the medicine. And they generally there's generally live music played in the form of Ikaros. Those are songs that were written by Alaska for I Alaska that have a lot of power can help guide the music through your body or help get you through difficult situations. So I mean, my cautions would be the same as they would with any other psychedelic, make sure it's for you. And there are some physiological considerations with Iosco too. There are certain foods you shouldn't be eating and certain medications you can't be taking before you do Iosco that should all be given to you by a facilitator or shaman before you ever sit with the medicine.

Ari Gronich 24:09  

Right? me what I guess what I was trying to get two was the chemical difference. I know Iosco is being used quite a lot in some places to get people clean off of heroin and opioids. And so I was just trying to draw out some of the chemical differences between what happens in your brain for when you know, with these different substances, because each one they take you to fairly similar places. However, the chemical storm that happens in your brain might be a little bit shifted.

Greg Lawrence 24:48  

You know, I uh, wasco is a combination of DMT, a DMT, containing plant dimethyltryptamine and an MA o inhibitor because there's an enzyme in your called mono amine oxidize, and that will kill certain things to keep it from getting into your body, including DMT. So when you take an MA o inhibitor, it allows the DMT to be metabolized by your body. So chemically, it's probably a little bit different, but how it works psychologically, what it does, once you get in you is different for every person. You know, we all have defenses built up against words. So if I don't think that I am deserving of love, literally everyone around me until they tell me that I am, but it just doesn't get through. So psychedelics will do some very novel and unusual things with us, they might play games or simulations, they might make us feel a certain way provoke emotions in us, they might show us stories or metaphors, or myths of some kind. They may show us our own lives from a detached perspective, but they'll do a lot of things to get messages through to us that we wouldn't get otherwise. So what happens when you take a psychedelic of any kind is different for every person every time they take it?

Unknown Speaker 26:02  

Absolutely. So

Ari Gronich 26:04  

let's go through some of the different psychedelics and what what you might want to take each one for, like, I know this big trend and combo are frog medicine. You know, you have pod masculine, you know, LSD, MDMA, to CB, the Alexander Shogun medicines. So what is it that each one like if you were to have a menu item, you know, you go into a restaurant and you have menu, and it you know, has all the different kinds and then it would have a description on the, you know, the thing that you might want to take this one for versus this one versus that one.

Greg Lawrence 26:50  

I don't like assigning a purpose, except that I will say that there is you mentioned, heroin and opioid addiction. So there's a substance called Ibogaine. This is the active ingredient and a root bark from West Africa called Iboga. It's an extremely powerful psychedelic, it may leave someone basically immobilized for 24 to 36 hours. It's very hard on the heart and the liver, people actually have to have an EKG and a liver panel done before they undergo this treatment. But Ibogaine has been shown to be very effective in addressing opioid and heroin addiction, because it goes into resets the receptors and it sort of takes you through a journey that lets you see what happened to get you where you are. And it usually almost eliminates or completely eliminates any desire to the substance once you come out. So that is a very powerful substance that is used for psycho spiritual purposes and in addition to be using for addiction, but it's a very powerful and sometimes dangerous substance, there have been hundreds of deaths from people who should not have been taking that substance due to something like a cardiac condition or medication they were taking or some sort of drug that they were on that they shouldn't have been at the time. There is a substance called Five m e o DMT. That is a substance that is a short acting, you know, 15 to 45 minutes, but in a sufficient dose it it produces an instantaneous ego death. So, the thing that makes me think that I am Greg and not a part of the universe sort of disappears for a while not become one with everything. There is also a danger sometimes of doing too much of that substance, people can become ungrounded unbalanced and, you know, a lot of integration and a lot of care afterwards, you know, having your world sort of taken apart in front of you and then put back together can be difficult to times. I would say the facilitation is key in that you should always work with the skilled experienced facilitator when working with that substance.

Ari Gronich 28:51  

There is in in DMT

Greg Lawrence 28:53  

that is another short acting rapid onset psychedelic that you think through vaporizing through smoking basically, and works instantaneously for anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes, and is highly visual and psychedelic. People have reported things like talking to entities or entering into other universes living other lifetimes to very powerful substance. Then I would sort of stack in the classic psychedelics. Oh, excuse me, I should mention MDMA. MDMA is sort of methamphetamine. But it's an pathogen. It's a heart opener. It's what's being used in the in the studies for clinical treatment resistant PTSD for veterans by maps, the multidisciplinary Association for psychological for scientific studies, excuse me, psychedelic studies. Sometimes when people have severe p. e, it's hard for them to even talk about what happened to them without being thrown back into the event. Under the influence of MDMA, MDMA, people are actually able to view their trauma with their fight or flight response. Once down, it slows down the amygdala, lets you see your trauma back then. And you hear and understand that that was then and this is now in your safe now. And helps people rapidly get to the point where they can start working with therapists on the issue once they've spoken about it.

Ari Gronich 30:14  

So let's say someone that I would, sorry, let's say somebody was, somebody had been sexually abused, right? When they were a child. And now they're, they're experiencing relationship issues and things and, you know, they, they feel like they've gotten over that experience that doesn't necessarily trigger them, they can talk about it, and so on and so forth. But then, they still are having relationship issues, is that something that might be of support for somebody who's experiencing that kind of a trauma over and over and over again, in their minds?

Greg Lawrence 30:58  

Well, I do want to point out that all of these studies, for instance, with maps, these are called MDMA, it's called MDMA assisted psychotherapy. So it's never a therapy assisted psychedelics and psychedelic assisted therapy, the therapy is a very important component, someone with the kind of issues that you're describing might benefit from working with a coach or a psychotherapist, but certainly a substance like MDMA, or a substance like a classic psychedelic of LSD or psilocybin, something like that could be useful to someone if they're prepared to use it in an intentional way. And sometimes they don't even have to be prepared to use an intention away, sometimes things come to you and those experiences, but it's very important. Once again, to integrate those experiences afterwards, I can be shown the exact moment when my trauma was born, that doesn't necessarily do anything for me to resolve that trauma that doesn't fix the patterns that are resulting from that.

Unknown Speaker 31:54  

So what does

Greg Lawrence 31:56  

psychotherapy does, you know, I work with a combination of I'm not a therapist, I'm a coach, but I work with cognitive behavioral therapy, neuro linguistic programming, and a number of personal and spiritual development disciplines to help people break patterns to make changes in their lives to basically have choices. You know, when something happens to us, we tend to dig a very deep neural pathway that says, This is what I'm going to do when this happens to me, I'm going this way, it just becomes automatic after a while, it's like putting on a seatbelt in the car, you don't think about it anymore. It's just what happens. What we have to do is use the same mechanism that Doug that grew to dig another group, so at least you have some choice sometimes, so that you are more mindful and aware of what you are doing. So that you have another choice besides the automatic choice that used to happen all the time.

Ari Gronich 32:43  

All right, so do we know if those neural pathways actually atrophy or if they, the trauma, neural pathway atrophies if you create the other, the other?

Greg Lawrence 32:56  

You know, one of the things that happens in the aftermath of a psychedelic experience is called neuroplasticity, that is the ability to easily form new neural pathways, new habits, patterns, new ways of thinking, being and doing. So if you can take advantage of those and you start using those new neural pathways, yes, after a while the other ones sort of fade and well, sort of atrophy. They're not guaranteed to go away. But that is something that happens in that process.

Ari Gronich 33:22  

Gotcha. So do you think that it's, I know, you're an advocate. But let's say there's a lot of trauma obviously, going on in the world right now. And, you know, my personal belief is that if more people were to experiment with these kinds of ways of doing therapy, we'd have a lot less problems and a lot more understanding and love and care for, you know, our communities, because we'll have a much broader perspective. So I know it's starting to get a little more mainstream to legalize in some of the liberal states. But you know, what, what is? What is the reason why we would want psychedelics to remain illegal? Because there's got to be at least one reason. And then what are the reasons that making them legal, are going to be beneficial? And then the last part of that is, should the legality be therapeutic only or should it be a combination of recreational and medical?

Greg Lawrence 34:42  

Well, there is an answer to one of your questions in your question, and that is, what is the problem with them becoming legal? The problem that some people have with them becoming legal is that they are sometimes and so let's take the map studies. If the map the map studies are in phase three, now clinical excuse Using MDMA assisted therapy to treat treatment resistant PTSD. Now, if those studies go well, in phase three, this could be a prescribed herbal treatment in 2021, or 2022. When that happens, that means that MDMA will be available by prescription in a very lengthy protocol, that's probably going to cost somewhere between 15 and $20,000 per round of treatment. Okay, so now we have MDMA, sort of in the public domain, but still not available to me. I'm a very strong believer in cognitive liberty. There is no truth to the assertion that psychedelics have no medical value, that they are highly prone to abuse and all the other reasons that were given to make them schedule one. They were made schedule one for various reasons, but not for the reasons that were stated by the government. I personally believe one of the very big reasons they were taken out of the public domain is because people were walking off the battlefield in Vietnam. In a country that is built on consumerism, a country that is built on capitalism has to have an operating army, and can't have people on mass saying, I am not going to a foreign country to kill people for you. That's one reason they were taken out of the public domain. So I believe in cognitive liberty, I believe that these substances that do not harm me should be available, available to me, with all the usual precautions, and so forth. I mean, the things that I can go and buy right now from a store, I can buy alcohol, as much as I would like to drink myself into a stupor and kill myself with it. It's almost impossible to do that with psychedelics, but those are not available to me. So, this is one problem that people have with legalization as legalization sometimes leads to medicalization, I can get these to a doctor, I can get them through an authority, I can get them through an intermediary. Mushrooms grow in the ground, no one should be able to come between me and a substance that grows on the ground. That helps me to explore my own consciousness. That's my belief. Okay, next part of that question. Next part was, what is the problem with legalization you asked? Right, but

Ari Gronich 37:10  

the medical versus recreational? So I'm asking I get your belief. But I'm asking what are the reasons to go against that belief that you have what what is what is the excuse? What is the reason for keeping that substance away? Is

Greg Lawrence 37:31  

there a do want me to take the counter position?

Ari Gronich 37:33  

Is there Yes, I do. Is there a danger of having a psychological break? This is some of the fears that people are having. So yes, I want you to take a contra position to your own position.

Greg Lawrence 37:45  

The counter position is that psychologically, that psychedelics should be used with caution, they are not for everyone, everyone is not going to be prepared to use them. And things like bad trips usually come from people who shouldn't be taking psychedelics, who has some sort of contrary indication, we're not properly prepared for that experience. They can unbalance people, they can throw them into a state of unease, and they can bring up latent mental illness people. Someone with dormant psychosis can have that activated by a psychedelic experience. So yes, there should be caution education and a big wrapper of harm reduction around these substances.

Ari Gronich 38:23  

So basically, what I'm hearing is that any of the reasons why you would not want to do something, are for the reason of safety. And most of that safety can be alleviated with education.

Greg Lawrence 38:45  

I believe that, but I also believe that there's nothing that's forever. So I hear memes, like, you know, all politicians need to take LSD or cops need to do a walk or something like that. That's not how it works. These things are amplifiers of consciousness and of ego. So there are plenty of racist and nationalist who takes psychedelics and it strengthens their worldview. It doesn't automatically fix everything for us. Someone has to want to heal, they have have got to have a desire to change. If you want them to change the use of these substances, they don't automatically change people for the better. There are plenty of people who have their ego strengthened through the use of psychedelics. So they're definitely not a panacea. They're not for everyone. They should not be used universally. Some people just aren't going to like the experience. Some people don't wish to be introspective. Some people like themselves the way they are and they don't want to change or feel that they need to. So these are for people who believe that they might work for them. Okay,

Ari Gronich 39:44  

so the next question becomes what age should somebody start the process of experimenting? Because I know a lot of kids 16 should do you know 14 1516 in high school, They experiment, yet their brains are not fully developed yet. Is there damage that can be done for the young, developed brain? Or is that just a thing that we can ignore as long as they have the education of what it's for?

Greg Lawrence 40:17  

Well, I don't think it's a thing we can ignore him. We're a society that already puts age limits on certain substances and certain activities. So I don't think we can just take something that is a as potentially powerful as a psychedelic and take the brakes off of it. I think you're correct, that brains are not fully formed until someone's in their early 20s. Now I'm going against my own experience. I was doing psychedelics when I was 1617 years old, I believe I benefited from that. But since I've already done that, I don't have to prove anymore. No, actually, I would say that there's no definitive proof that there is harm to a person from doing psychedelics of a certain age. But there's no proof that there's not, we don't know what we don't know. So if I were to personally have to make the rules, I would say I would exercise caution in that area. Exactly where I draw that line, it's hard to say,

Ari Gronich 41:07  

okay, so do you think that your early childhood use of the psychedelics was a gateway to the harder drugs that you started to take afterwards? No, I

Greg Lawrence 41:17  

think that my trauma was a gateway to the harder drugs I started taking afterwards. And was probably one of the more sensible things that I did, you know, the drugs that I did later on helped me escape from reality. psychedelics helped to illuminate my reality. And for all I know, maybe the fact that I was doing psychedelics, becoming more aware of my issues, and not working through them, sort of tipped me into an area where I wanted to use other drugs. I have no idea.

Ari Gronich 41:42  

So I said, I want to play this out, because I, you know, the contrary. And the reasons for are as important, each thing is as important, right. So one of the issues that people have with marijuana is they think that it's a gateway drug. I believe that trauma, as you said, is the gateway to all bad behavior in general, trauma equals bad behavior, trauma, this trauma, that trauma and needs really, are the things that lead to the bad behavior, bad, bad results. So that's where the question comes in, is, I want to, I want both sides of the subject to be illuminated, so that if people decide I don't want this show to be a deciding factor for them, to either try or not try, right, I want them to have as much information as possible. But let me ask you this question. Because, you know, we're going through this amazing year. And I believe that, well, there's there's a lot of suicides that are happening, a lot of domestic violence that's happening, a lot of alcohol abuse that's happening during this quarantining and isolating, and I believe that psychedelics would help people who are faced with this isolation and looking for a reason to illuminate their, their traumas, because a lot of people are sitting in their trauma, and not really able to express it outwards, because they're just sitting there isolated and alone. So yeah, that's, that's what I where I want to go with that question.

Greg Lawrence 43:40  

Well, I would say that there are two sides to that coin. Definitely. So let's say in this, do you have people who are lonely who may not be in an ideal relationship? Um, if I become aware of the fact that there's not an ideal relationship, if that surface, if that is that is spotlighted for me through the psychedelic experience. Now, where am I? I'm not happy in the relationship. I'm going to have to go and be isolated somewhere I've sort of stuck I have limited choices right now. Same thing for someone in an abusive relationship. What do I do now? Now I'm in this time now, and then this restricted time, and I sort of stuck in this relationship. And that's been illuminated for me. I think people have more trouble now getting support for issues that may come up. So yeah, psychedelics may help some people in these situations, they may not be especially helpful in this time when people were restricted, locked down, and sort of stuck in certain situations with limited choices, and limited assistance. I think that's key always with psychedelic experience. Having some having some assistance beforehand, and afterwards, I think is key. That's where everything gets worked out. You can have things shown to you, and you can understand that something's a problem. And you can understand where your trauma came from. All these things can be perfectly obvious to you. But that doesn't change the fact that you we're reacting to what's happening in front of you based on past events. You know, changing those patterns and undoing those triggers is key to that.

Ari Gronich 45:09  

You know, it's interesting when I was dealing with detoxifying, I have a brain tumor that I've had since I was about seven years old, at least symptom wise, probably since I was born. It's a pituitary tumor. And it triggers all kinds of hormone imbalances and chemical imbalances in my, in my body. And so I was going through a detoxification, I lost about 140 pounds during that detox, even though doctors told me that I would never lose weight. And I would, at home, basically, take a dose of mushrooms, and then put on hypnosis, videos and brain training videos and things that are uplifting. I'd listened to Jim Rohn. And, you know, Les Brown and Tony Robbins while I was in those situations, and, and then I would have whatever explosion in a mirror that I would have for two or three hours of crying and staring in the mirror. And then I'd go back to Okay, let me integrate that a little bit. You know, it was it was an interesting experiment. Because typically, I've, I've not done that as a loan. Alone, you know, medicine, I haven't done the medicine alone. I've been in a group with a therapy, or I've done the therapy on people, but I haven't been in that process of doing it alone. I'm not sure that I would recommend it, but because it is really powerful and, and difficult. And I probably would have preferred to have had a guide or a, you know, somebody there with me that that was making sure I was okay. But, you know, what, what's your take on doing psychedelics alone. Other than microdose

Greg Lawrence 47:21  

That's true. I think most of the time when I do psychedelics, I do them alone. You know, there are ceremonial settings where there are other people around, but you know, I often do them alone. I'm used to them, I know their effects. I know all the safety protocols, losing my headphone here. And I will often work with music, I'll listen to something inspirational or something educational, or listen to binary old beats, or solfeggio tones or something like that. So yeah, I do about the same thing. I'll work through my issue. Sometimes it's more fun, sometimes it's more work. But once you know how you're going to react, once you know that you're safe at a certain level, once you're aware of all the risks, and so forth, once you know how to prepare and how to integrate, then, you know, I think working alone is great. And I usually caution people, if you're going to do psychedelics with people, make sure you know who the people are in your comfort level with them. Otherwise, you're going to be projecting things outward, that is going to distract you the whole time, and can make it a very unpleasant experience.

Ari Gronich 48:23  

So what happens when something comes up, that's really, really hard to process and you're alone in in that,

Greg Lawrence 48:30  

for me personally, or for someone else,

Ari Gronich 48:33  

for anybody, if they're in that position of I'm doing this alone, and I'm listening to these things, and then something pops in or comes up that is just like really, really, really hard to handle that it would be nice to have somebody there to help you go through it. Is that where you where you would say, time to call me kind of thing.

Greg Lawrence 49:03  

Someone can do that. But I would certainly prepare someone beforehand by telling them that there is nothing that happens in the psychedelic experience that happens for any other reason than for your healing. So something difficult may come up. And if it feels like it's too much, that's just your brain telling you that it's too much. The only thing that's going to happen is there's going to be a feeling in your body and a story in your head. That's all that's going to happen. And if it's really, really bad, there's a good chance that you're pushing it away or resisting it. You know, fear of pain is often much worse than the pain would ever be. So what happens is we have a painful experience, most of the time in childhood or when we're small. And then our brainstem center protects us and says you need to stay away from them. That's very, very scary, you know, for for better or worse, our brains think would be a very bad idea for us to change. So they protect these traumas very strongly. And they put all Have guards around them. Sometimes those guards are scary feelings, like it feels like if I start getting angry, if I start getting sad, I'm just going to be carried away somewhere, it's too much. The best thing you can possibly do when it feels like you can't possibly surrender to something that happens in the psychedelic experience is to surrender to it, to let go and to fall into it, you probably didn't take too much, you probably won't be stuck where you are, you're not going to die, you're not going to start stop breathing, you're not going to go crazy. Those are all things your mind wants to tell, might want to tell you to keep you away from this scary thing. But that scary thing is what's haunting you from the inside. It's the reason that you're looking for an answer, it's a reason things don't seem quite right to you. Like there's something that needs to be fixed, why there's just something wrong with me, and I just don't fit in somehow. And I'm always going to be a little bit deficient somehow. Those are the things causing these feelings on us. So there is no such thing as a wrong thought, emotion, memory or image. They can't be wrong, they can't kill you, they can be experienced, one of the best things you can do is feel the feelings that come up. We don't like to be mad, and we don't like to be sad. We have reflexes built up to tell us not to feel these things at any cost. Sometimes, this is what's happening when something very disturbing comes up in the psychedelic experience.

Ari Gronich 51:27  

So are there any good techniques? So say somebody is alone and and in their? in their journey? And something comes up? Are there any techniques that they can do in order to calm that down? or express it more so that it can be integrated and released? Or is that just an after session kind of thing?

Greg Lawrence 51:57  

No, I think beforehand, one of the best things you can do is to build a strong mindfulness meditation practice, where you are observing what is happening in your body and in your head. While it's happening while not being attached to it. build up a strength practice like this. And pretty soon you can be watching the changes and shifts and emotions of all kinds that happen to you, without guarding against them, or thinking there's something wrong with them. This in the psychedelic experience can be valuable, because then you can observe a feeling of terror in your body and realize it's just a feeling in your body. That's human emotions, our emotions are stories tied to feelings in our bodies. So if I can get to a place of just experiencing what's going into my body, and realizing there's a story in my head that I don't have to climb into that thought it can be there and it can be okay. But I don't have to be that thought in the moment. That can be very helpful. Saving, save that I would say, breathe deeply, and relax and realize that you're going to be okay. This is happening for you. It's happening for a reason. And you're going to be okay, you're actually resolving something from the past. Breathe deeply and relax and remember that you're going to be okay. And this is going to be over soon. You know, it's like you're going through a tunnel, it may seem dark, but there's light just up the head. Just hang on, you'll be fine.

Ari Gronich 53:20  

Awesome. So, in, in conclusion, what are the things like the top five things that you want people to get about this medicine or these medicines and how they can be used

Greg Lawrence 53:40  

for your good psychedelics can help us enjoy the world. And they can help us realize that really, for the most part, nothing's wrong. What's wrong is the way that we're thinking about things in our head. I mean, that's a common occurrence that people have. It's one of the deepest experiences I ever had was realizing at a very deep level, that right now nothing's wrong. I might feel like I need to do something or something needs to change or something needs to be adjusted. But that's just something that I've got, I have the impression of that's something that happens to me. But right now, nothing's wrong. So they can help us with things like radical acceptance. With realizing that right now, no matter how I feel, the feeling is okay. The problem is when I say Oh, shit, I feel that way. having anxiety is not a big deal. But as soon as I say, Oh my god, how do I get rid of this anxiety? Now I have a problem. Because I'm not feeling the anxiety. I'm not processing my feelings. I'm compounding with these things. I'm creating a neurosis. I'm making levels here. So I try to accept the anxiety if I can't, maybe I think there's a problem. I think I think maybe I can accept the fact that there's a problem with the anxiety. If I can accept that. Maybe I can accept the fact that I can't accept that. It's a process people should be prepared when they start to work with psychedelics, and they shouldn't be prepared to work with them material that comes up afterwards. Now I tend to overconfident about these things, someone might listen to me and say, Oh my God, I've been able a psychological material come up, it's going to be difficult, going to be scared, and then have the most beautiful experience of their life. That's also an option. I'm just here to caution because I think people are under caution. And they hear things like there's no such thing as a bad trip. So I want them to understand that if this happens during your journey, it's not a mistake. It's one of the things that happens to feature on a bug. With micro dosing, I'd like people to know that a lot of the side effects are unpleasant effects that they feel are sometimes dose dependent. So maybe look at your dose, there's a lot of misinformation online about taking as much as you can, or you're supposed to work through your anxiety or do some sort of breathing or listen to binaural beats to calm down. But really, you don't have to feel that way. You don't have to feel the dose microdosing is in the background.

Ari Gronich 55:58  

societal effects. So what do you think that the benefit to society itself is when people begin to experiment more and heal their traumas more from using psychedelics?

Greg Lawrence 56:21  

Well, I think it's very much like when people start down a path of personal or spiritual development. So there are two theories, I think you could say about when people start down that path. One is that I have 57 problems. And next week, I have 52. And a few weeks, I have 48. And then I have 37. And pretty soon I have 28 problems. And nothing outside of me has changed. All this changes my perception of what is a problem when I'm making a problem. Now, the other theory is that I still have those 57 problems, it's just not a problem that I have them anymore. But I would say the societal effect is that I stopped perceiving that I have so many problems, Rahm das said, the only thing that I can do for you is work on myself, the only thing that you can do for me is work on yourself. So when I have less problems, and you have less problems, there are two things that happen. The first thing is that there are less problems in the world. Now you and I each have you have 28, and I have 35. But there's not 114 anymore, so there are less problems in the world. The other thing that happens is now I know what kind of things I might want to address, because if I have 57 problems, and I go out trying to solve all of those, I'm trying to solve Phantom problems in there somewhere. I'm trying to solve something that just seems like a problem to me. The more I can cut that down, the more I can focus on what might be real problems outside of myself, what things what kind of things I might want to see change, what kind of things I might want to contribute to what kind of world I want to see. That's the societal. The major one.

Ari Gronich 57:54  

Very cool, very cool. So at the end of my interviews, I always ask the same question. And that's three to four tips, tricks, actionable steps that somebody can take immediately to create a new tomorrow today for themselves and activate their vision for a better world.

Greg Lawrence 58:15  

There are two that I would give. One is to be more mindful whenever possible. So think about what you are doing as much as possible and don't be on autopilot. Move the trash can put your keys in a different place, park your car somewhere else take a different route, when you go to the store, do anything you can to wake yourself up, brush your teeth with your non dominant hand, change your habits stop doing things the same way you've always done them because it has you on autopilot, and you are responding to your environment in a particular way, rather than thinking about what you're doing. The second is to cultivate an understanding of the fact that it's okay to feel your feelings that there is no such thing as a wrong thought or emotion. There is no such thing as a wrong thought or emotion. You don't have to act on them. But the fact that you're angry, the fact that you feel hatred towards someone, the fact that you are ashamed of something, all of those things are perfectly welcome. And they will resolve themselves. Trying not to resolve them is what keeps them in us and keeps us tied up. So learning to be mindful, feeling our feelings. untangle both of those things together a good mindfulness meditation practice would be very helpful.

Ari Gronich 59:30  

That's awesome. Yeah, sometimes I'll play ping pong left handed just to shift my my energy especially when i get i do i do that with tennis also, just when i when i get stuck in that rut, you know of playing and I'm, all of a sudden I'm in this perpetual motion of not doing what I know to do. I'll switch just to reset myself. So

Unknown Speaker 59:55  

I love that.

Ari Gronich 59:56  

I also like you know, writing with both hands At the same time, or getting hands to write with the opposite hand, works the other side of your brain. And those are all very good things. And I never thought of really trying to do that while while in a psychedelic journey, but that might be an interesting experiment, as well as is switching hands while in the journey, because that would trigger that other side of the brain that's maybe been non active or less active or deactivated. So it'd be an interesting experiment as well switch sides and see how well you write with the opposite side. You know, while in that in that space, because maybe cut girl for you,

Greg Lawrence 1:00:51  

I'd never thought of that. I definitely write better women psychedelics for some reason. My writings more legible. Is it is it? Yeah,

Ari Gronich 1:00:59  

I have doctor writing so. So you can, I can hardly read my own writing. When I get into doctor mode, and I'm filling out, you know, forms and things like that. But that's it. It's just an interesting thought that that you popped in my head was okay, so what if we switched hands? while experiencing that? Are we going to sweat? Because we're switching sides of brains? When we switch hands? Do we switch thoughts? Do we switch experiences? Do we switch to the things that we're not that are not in that automatic experience of life? You know,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:37  

I like that,

Ari Gronich 1:01:37  

how many people here in the audience have have experienced driving somewhere, and all of a sudden, you're on your way to work, but you were going somewhere else. But just that automatic response of I go this way, and I go to work, and all of a sudden you're like, Oh, wait, that's not where I was going? I

Greg Lawrence 1:01:57  

gotta go, sir. Yeah, or driving for two hours and realize you don't remember it? one bit of driving?

Ari Gronich 1:02:04  

Yeah, I always I, I've had that experience. I had that experience. Actually, once. When I did a vision quest, I was up on the mountain for four days, no food, no water, sweat lodges on both sides of the sweat. So I was completely dehydrated, and completely into that spirit world. And when I was driving back, I was up in the mountains of Ohio, going back into LA. And if you can imagine the mountains of Ohio, very rural kind of environment, and then you get on the freeway going to LA and it's a very different experience. And it felt to me like I was not driving at all, it felt like I was in the middle of a video game. And everything was coming towards me instead of me going forward. It was really fascinating. And then I was like, how did I? I'm like, I'm almost home. How did I get here? interesting experience. But yeah, I like it. Well, thank you, you know, so much for being on Greg. Is there anything? If anybody wants to get a hold of you? How did they get ahold of you? They want to experience or, or just learn more about this, this adventure of plant medicines.

Greg Lawrence 1:03:22  

And you can find me at psychedelicintegrationspecialists.com And on Facebook. I'm psychedelic integration specialists. And you can always reach me at [email protected]. It's a lot of typing, but it works. Awesome. Thank

Ari Gronich 1:03:35  

you so much for being here. I really appreciate you coming on. And, you know, this is a controversial subject. And it's not something that I actually took lightly when I decided to invite Greg on, I wanted to give you a perspective of what's possible in the world, when we stopped closing our minds and start opening them up to those to those possibilities, and very cautiously and very safely and with a lot of education and research. And I just I wanted I was I was just very sure that I wanted to have Greg on here because I wanted this perspective to to make it to the audience. So thank you so much for being here, Greg. I appreciate you. Remember, we're creating a new tomorrow today, take some actionable steps. Hopefully you have gotten a lot out of this episode. My name is Ari Gronich. I'm your host remember to LIKE subscribe, review rate comments, we want to start conversations about these things. And you know, just expand on the knowledge and expand on the shift. So let's create a new tomorrow today. And I'm your host, Ari Gronich, thank you so much for being here. And we'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world, go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Hi, I am here with Greg Lawrence, He is a Psychedelic Integration and Transformational Coach, Energy Worker, and active member of the Southern California psychedelic community.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY GREG TO LEARN MORE:

https://psychedelicintegrationspecial...

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Greg Lawrence 0:00  

So I realized there is both a psychological and a somatic component to the issues that people are facing, and that trauma is held in the body. So in the work that I do with people in preparing them or helping them to work with these medicines because what I do is I work with people before and after. As an integration coach, I help prepare them for any experience when I help them integrate the experience the middle part they do on their own or with someone else. So, in my preparation, sometimes I try to determine which mode which would be better for a particular person

Hi, I am here with Mohamed Hammound, He is an engaging and experienced multilingual facilitator, speaker and trainer who has worked with the private, public and not-for-profit organizations.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY MOHAMED FOR MORE INFO.

https://www.mohamedhammoud.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:08  

Welcome to another episode of creative new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And today I have with me on Mohamed hammound. He is a loving husband, and father to three children. He's a heart centered leader, who's passionate about empowering leaders to unleash their potential by sharpening their emotional intelligence, fostering inclusion, and leading from the heart. Thank you for coming on the show, Muhamed. And why don't you tell us the audience a little bit about yourself and how you became this heart centered leader.

Mohamed Hammound 0:44  

Thank you for having me on the show today are a really a pleasure to be here. So how did I become a heart center leader? I don't necessarily believe that was intentional. Ever since I was young, maybe eight years old, I started becoming aware that what I wanted to do in life was to be in service of others. And that's not the language I used when I was eight, it was more of how can I make a difference? How can I do something that makes me happy makes others happy. And from a young age, I craved belonging I craved wanting to be amongst others and feel like I was one of them. Because I was an immigrant. I came from overseas lived in Canada, I had to change my name, I several times had to disinvest, myself of my Islamic identity, I became Western. And, you know, so becoming a person who I wasn't to please people who weren't like me, and starting to look like people who weren't like me. So I started to fit in, because, you know, you look at me, I don't look Mona Lisa, I don't look Muslim. And when I started using a mic, and then Miguel, and then Miguel, it was yours. It was I was, you know, into my adulthood, I was 25, before I came out of the closet and can use my Islamic name, and I could, you know, reclaim my semuc identities as Muhammad. Through that, throughout that journey from knowing that I wanted to make a difference, getting older and recognizing that we need a space where we can feel that we are part of the community where we live that we belong, that we're accepted. But what I started learning is if you don't accept yourself first, you can't expect other people to accept you. Nice.

Ari Gronich 2:21  

So I've told this story a few times. But when I lived in Los Angeles, my roommate was Palestinian Muslim. I am a Jewish, Buddhist, Catholic, you know, like religion study here. I've studied the Quran, I've studied Buddhism, I've studied Taoism, I've studied a lot of religions, Native American. But she and I, you know, as you can imagine, didn't necessarily agree on on a whole lot of stuff. But we agreed that we were brother and sister, and brother and sister sometimes grow up in completely different households, even if they're in the same house. So even my brother and I are very different people, we, we kind of made that same conclusion that, you know, we grew up in different worlds because of our perception. And our reality was was different, even though it was the same household. All of a sudden, the world opens up possibilities, in my opinion. So let's talk about that a little bit. Because I don't want to make this about too much about religion and culture that way, but it's definitely something that's present in our communities and in our countries. Right now. Very, very hardcore. So let's just talk a little bit about how how would you say you use emotional intelligence to bridge the gaps between diversity and culture.

Mohamed Hammound 3:51  

So that's what I spoke at. So I was two years ago, I was invited to speak at the weekend away TEDx in Traverse City, Michigan, my message was around reclaiming my identity. But it was more of extending that bridge, because we as human beings can become bridges. And my message was, you know, the people that have hijacked my name, for their political, you know, their political views that don't resonate with the rest of us. What they've done is they've hijacked my name, my religion, my beliefs, and they've used me as collateral. So the idea is that we don't have to your point, we don't have to be represented by that loud minority, however small they are. And I think the percentage is probably less than 1%, actually, But to your point, because they are so loud. And we tend to see more of the negative in society than we tend to look for the good as human beings, we tend, you know, even on ourselves, we tend to first focus on what brings us pain and anger before we look at what is bringing us happiness and fulfillment. So when we look in, in the community, we will look into society, we'll look at what's different, and when we see what's different. We don't necessarily see what's good about it. We don't See that we can be better and happier because of our differences and not in spite of them. But nobody told us you had to agree. So you and your Palestinian Muslim friends started from a place of commonality. And most of what, what the reason that we're here, I believe, is not defined that we all like chocolate ice cream, but to recognize that you'd like chocolate ice cream. And I'd like mint. I don't, it's the other way around. But the idea is that it'd be boring if we all agreed, and if we all believe in the same thing, and the beauty of is how we can recognize that diversity, diversity is a fact. But as inclusion is a choice, diversity is all around us in nature and human humanity and the way that we speak and the way that we love in the way that we love. And so we can't change that diversity, we have to recognize that a celebrated as opposed to penalize it, and we can, tentatively so with intention, choose to be inclusive, but even inclusion is not enough. What we have to do is to allow you and I sit at the same table, and when you break your bread, you hand it to me, you allow me to sit at the table with you and to be part of your communion. And it's a matter of allowing enough people as as the table so you know, it's making sure that there are empty chairs so that people can actually come and sit beside us. And you know, back, you know, in Palestine and Israel, people don't actually sit on a chair, traditionally, we sat around in a circle, and that circle is the circle of safety. And what we have to do to recognize, for us to grow and to recognize the differences make us stronger, is to allow the circle of safety, to widen, and for those that are on the outside, to come in, of their own volition, and to be part of the conversation to have their voices heard, to feel that they are seen, to feel that they are valued. And when we do that, when we when we allow ourselves to stand back and allow others, you know, or, you know, permit space for others to come in, we create that feeling of belonging. Absolutely. You know, you

Ari Gronich 7:00  

said something about circles. And I, I'm a circle theorist. And what that means is, there's not a single thing in nature, that doesn't have a circle shape. in martial arts, everything is about circle, you know, whether it's creating an energy bubble, or the movement being a circular movement for martial arts. Tribal living in a modern world is a book that I'm getting ready to, to write. And I'm going to do a series of these books. The first one is corporate, as a corporate one, it's trouble living in a modern world, the corporate culture revolution. And my theory is that if we take the sharp edges out of anything, and we turn them into circles, so let's, let's say in a corporation, you usually have cubicles, and that people are in and box offices, right. And it's a box building. Yeah, and if you took that and you turn it into a circle structure, then all of a sudden, and you could do concentric circles. So you know, small and then bigger and bigger and bigger, we end up creating project driven and productive teams, purpose driven teams, things like that, because all the people necessary for that project are in that circle. And they all have equal positioning. Right? So there's there's no place where that position the engineer isn't less than the accountant or more than than the managers manager then the you know, because they all have different unique talents. So why put one above or below another in a box type structure or a pyramid type structure? why not create it in a circular circular but I think that that goes back to what you were saying, you know, in Israel and Palestine and tribal living in general, we we would eat around a fire in a circle, talk around a fire in a circle, we would commune we would storytel we would, you know, do that. In the 50s and 60s and 70s. We would eat dinner with our family in a circle. And the circle has become sharp edged versus versus that nice soft circle with no sharp edges right? We don't do dinner with the family anymore. We we tend to be individually Even in our families, right, and that, to me is part of what has broken up the family which has broken up the community, which has broken up the society. And, you know, the purpose, I guess, of it has been, well, everybody's too busy to do anything together anymore, because you're working 40 to 80 hours a week, right? But just, if you can imagine a world that's circular, versus sharp edge, and how much print that might feel,

Mohamed Hammound 10:32  

and Isn't it amazing, the world is circular, we live and not maybe a perfect circle, but no Earth is a globe, the sun is a globe, the planets are circular. You know, everything that we know, to your point has some sort of structure where it's circular, the the the dimensions of how the blood travels within the body is circular. Everything has that circular. Now I, you know, I'll come later to to the idea of of spiral. But a spiral is another version. You know, when you talk about concentric circles, a spiral is a circle, that continues to grow, that continues to expand. And that is how I think we can take the image of a circle, not the square or rectangular head of the table leadership mentality that there is one leader at the top of the pyramid or the head of the table, but we are sitting around equally equitably around each other, across from each other. Looking at each other, we can hold hands with each other and most of the indigenous communities believe and the circle you mentioned, the campfire. So I think we are designed or created in a circular mentality to your point, we started dividing ourselves up into the compartments of the cubicle and the the boxes and the big buildings. And it's all about these sharp rectangular shapes that break away from what's natural and nurturing to us.

Ari Gronich 12:04  

Right. But I would love you did talk a little bit, and we can't do it tonight today. But I would love you to talk a little bit about the beauty of the Muslim religion because it eautiful rich, diverse culture, diverse religion, and it's nothing like what most people think, in the western police. So

Mohamed Hammound 12:28  

anyway, it's a it's changing, I think a lot of people are starting to see differently, because you and I are having these discussions because we are amplifying the the the silence voices that for the longest time have not had the opportunity to be heard. And that is why I think it's so important to to look at the alternatives to the media and the outlets out there. Because having you know, podcasts having opportunities where people can talk like this freely and share the different perspectives. That's where we're going to break with the silent majority and create a new minority of loud voices that speak a better truth.

Ari Gronich 13:05  

Absolutely. So let's give three tips or tricks that anybody listening can take with them and act upon today. So they could create their new tomorrow,

Unknown Speaker 13:16  

today.

Mohamed Hammound 13:18  

This isn't mine, this is probably gone. These are Michael Jackson. But be the change that you want to see in the world. I you know, don't reinvent, just be the change that you want to see in the world. Start with yourself. And in order to start with yourself, get to know yourself, you can't get to know others if you don't know yourself. And when you get to that place of constant knowing of you and the other, allow for those differences and recognize that we're stronger because of our differences not in spite of them.

Ari Gronich 13:47  

Awesome. Thank you How can people get ahold of you if they'd like to?

Mohamed Hammound 13:50  

So listen to this podcast listen to the unfiltered podcast I can share with you you know I have a training consulting business of desire the number two lead desire to lead I saw as the keynote speaking training people can get in touch with me through LinkedIn is probably the best place so Mohamed Hammound at LinkedIn developing unfiltered leaders there deserve there to engage in conversations and get to know the other. Awesome, thank you so much. I truly enjoyed our conversation.

Ari Gronich 14:21  

And thank you so much for coming on. And listen, a another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to like subscribe, rate review and comments so that we can start conversations like this with you and hopefully create a new tomorrow today. Thank you and see you next time.

Hi, I am here with Mohamed Hammound, He is an engaging and experienced multilingual facilitator, speaker and trainer who has worked with the private, public and not-for-profit organizations.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY MOHAMED FOR MORE INFO.

https://www.mohamedhammoud.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ari Gronich 0:00  

Has it occurred to you that the systems we live by are not designed to get results? We pay for procedures instead of outcomes, focusing on emergencies rather than preventing disease and living a healthy lifestyle. For over 25 years, I've taken care of Olympians Paralympians a list actors in fortune 1000 companies, if I do not get results, they do not get results. I realized that while powerful people who control the system want to keep the status quo, if I were to educate the masses, you would demand change. So I'm taking the gloves off and going after the systems as they are. Join me on my mission to create a new tomorrow as I chat with industry experts, elite athletes, thought leaders and government officials about how we activate our vision for a better world. We may agree and we may disagree, but I'm not backing down. I'm Ari Gronich. And this is create a new tomorrow podcast.

Welcome to another episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host, Ari Gronich. And today I have with me a Mohamed hammound. He is a loving husband, and father to three children. He's a heart centered leader who's passionate about empowering leaders to unleash their potential by sharpening their emotional intelligence, fostering inclusion, and leading from the heart. Thank you for coming on the show Muhammad and why don't you tell us the audience a little bit about yourself and how you became this heart centered leader.

Mohamed Hammound 1:41  

Thank you for having me on the show today are a really a pleasure to be here. So how did I become a heart center leader? I don't necessarily believe that was intentional. Ever since I was young, maybe eight years old, I started becoming aware that what I wanted to do in life was to be in service of others. And that's not the language I used when I was eight, it was more of how can I make a difference? How can I do something that makes me happy makes others happy. And from a young age, I crave belonging I craved wanting to be amongst others and feel like I was one of them. Because I was an immigrant I came from overseas, I lived in Canada, I had to change my name, I several times had to disinvest, myself of my Islamic identity, I became Western. And, you know, so becoming a person who I wasn't to please people who weren't like me, and starting to look like people who weren't like me. So I started to fit in. Because you know, you look at me, I don't look literally, I don't look Muslim. And when I started using the mic, and then Miguel, and then Miguel, it was years it was I was, you know, into my adulthood, I was 25, before I came out of the closet and can use my Islamic name, and I could, you know, reclaim my ceramic identities as Muhammad. Through that, throughout that journey from knowing that I wanted to make a difference getting older and recognizing that we need a space where we can feel that we are part of the community where we live, that we belong, that we're accepted. But what I started learning is if you don't accept yourself first, you can't expect other people to accept you. And so since I reclaim so to speak my identity instead of using my given name again, it's not like it shuts off and you know, life becomes easy, it actually becomes more of a struggle, because that was about the same time as the Gulf War and then 911. And then you know, right now, with everything around, you know, Muslims and what you have in the world around a misunderstanding of what Islam is. But you know, not to say there because, you know, I don't represent all Muslims. Certainly not. But that was part of my identity. And how do I put myself out there with a name like Mohammed, whether I'm on LinkedIn, whether I'm applying for a job, people just see the name and they cower back. And they're like, Oh, well, yeah, thank you. But no thanks. So as a matter of now that I was out there, using my full name, how do I engage with others? How do I continue to give back? How do I continue to feel accepted? How do I take off various masks that I've been hiding behind for all my life, and now becoming young, you know, at the time I was 25, becoming, you know, young adults who wanted to make a difference, get a job and have a family. Since then, 27 years later, you know, it's still a struggle, because it hasn't become any easier for people to accept you. But again, to the point that I made earlier, I've learned to accept myself, I've learned that with every struggle and every opportunity, have a conversation gets to know the other person, let them know you authentically create that bond where they know who you are, what difference you can make their life and then it becomes a connection between you and that individual. And I brought that philosophy to the work that I do, whether it's volunteer work, work in the community, whether it's, you know, work that I tried to do and I try to get into politics, or work that I do my leadership Development, diversity, equity inclusion. The lens that I lead with is we are here to serve people. And you can't serve people until you first command ownership of their hearts. What do I mean by that? When you have connected heart to heart with another human being, when they know that you are there to serve them, they will be open to listening to your message. And that's where you create love. That's where you create a friendship. That's where you create a fraternity, sisterhood brotherhood between the other person, and then they get to know you. And that's what human life is all about. It's about that authentic connection.

Ari Gronich 5:36  

Nice. So I've told this story a few times, but when I lived in Los Angeles, my roommate was Palestinian Muslim. I am a Jewish, Buddhist, Catholic, you know, like religion study here. I've studied the Quran, I've studied Buddhism, I've studied Taoism, I've studied a lot of religions, Native American. But she and I, you know, as you can imagine, didn't necessarily agree on on a whole lot of stuff. But we agreed that we were brother and sister, and brother and sister sometimes grow up in completely different households, even if they're in the same house. So even my brother and I are very different people, we, we kind of made that same conclusion that, you know, we grew up in different worlds because of our perception. And our reality was was different, even though it was the same household. And so with, with my roommate, her cousin happened to be an attorney in Palestine, that worked with the Hamas, PLO, the Palestinian government, and Israel, on their negotiations and on their peace talks, and all these things. And what I didn't realize at first, is that when she and I would have these conversations, these amazing conversations we'd always start out with, where are we the same? That was the first thing that we asked, we said, okay, we already know we have differences. Here. Is our beliefs the same? Where is it that we have the same goals, the same thoughts? And then, okay, so now that we know we have all of this, that's the same, maybe our way of going about it is different, maybe our way of thinking about it is different. But we can create some solutions. What I didn't know is that she would call her cousin in Palestine, after we were done having a conversation. And she basically tell the stories of of what we were talking about, and the solutions, and then he would go and, and do some peace talks and do some, you know, negotiations as an attorney, with with that kind of information. And it was fascinating to me, because most people would say to me, how are you living with this Palestinian Muslim woman? Because they don't realize that people are just people, and religion doesn't necessarily make you a terrorist, right? I think the percentages that I saw something like 10, or something percent, but percentages are really low in any extreme group. But they're loud, the extremists are loud. So those are the ones that get the message across. And then people are judging an entire culture based on or religion based on a small percentage of the population. And that happens everywhere across the board, whether your Let's call, it should be a little bit politically incorrect, whether you're a southern redneck, whether you're a Palestinian Muslim, or Muslim, in general, whether you're a Jew, whether you're Catholic, Christian, Protestant, you know, like, I mean, there isn't a culture on the planet that hasn't at one point been oppressed and repressed and, and ripped apart, so to speak. And so if we can get behind the fact that, what is it that we want? And what is what where are we the same? All of a sudden, the world opens up possibilities, in my opinion. So let's talk about that a little bit. Because I don't want to make this about too much about religion and culture that way, but it's definitely something that's present in our communities and in our countries. Right now. Very, very hardcore. So let's just talk a little bit about how how would you say you use emotional intelligence to bridge the gaps between diversity and culture.

Mohamed Hammound 9:48  

So that's what I spoke at. So I was two years ago, I was invited to speak at the weekend away TEDx in Traverse City Michigan. My Messages around the Claiming my identity. But it was more of extending that bridge because we as human beings can become bridges. And my message was, you know, people that have hijacked My name for their political, you know, their political views that don't resonate with the rest of us. What they've done is they've hijacked my name, my religion, my beliefs, and they've used me as collateral. So the idea is that we don't have to your point, we don't have to be represented by that loud minority, however small they are. And I think the percentage is probably less than 1%, actually, But to your point, because they are so loud. And we tend to see more of the negative in society than we tend to look for the good as human beings, we tend, you know, even on ourselves, we tend to first focus on what brings us pain and anger before we look at what is bringing us happiness and fulfillment. So when we look in, in the community, we will look into society, we'll look at what's different. And when we see what's different, we don't necessarily see what's good about it, we don't see that we can be better and happier because of our differences, and not in spite of them. But nobody told us you had to agree. So you and your Palestinian Muslim friends started from a place of commonality. And most of what what the reason that we're here, I believe, is not defined that we all like chocolate ice cream, but to recognize that you can like chocolate ice cream. And I'd like mint. I don't it's the other way around. But the idea is that it'd be boring if we all agreed, and if we all believe in the same thing. And the beauty of is how we can recognize that diversity, diversity is a fact. But as inclusion is a choice, diversity is all around us in nature and human humanity and the way that we speak and the way that we look in the way that we love. And so we can't change that diversity, we have to recognize it a celebrated as opposed to penalize it, and we can, tentatively so with intention, choose to be inclusive, but even inclusion is not enough. What we have to do is to allow you and I sit at the same table, and when you break your bread, you hand it to me, you allow me to sit at the table with you and to be part of your communion. And it's a matter of allowing enough people as as the table. So you know, it's making sure that there are empty chairs so that people could actually come and sit beside us. And you know, back, you know, in Palestine and Israel, people don't actually sit on a chair, or traditionally, we sat around in a circle. And that circle is the circle of safety. And what we have to do to recognize, for us to grow and to recognize the differences make us stronger, is to allow the circle of safety, to widen, and for those that are on the outside, to come in, of their own volition, and to be part of the conversation to have their voices heard, to feel that they are seen, to feel that they are valued. And when we do that, when we when we allow ourselves to stand back and allow others, you know, or, you know, permit space for others to come in, we create that feeling of belonging. So if diversity is being invited to the room, and inclusion as having the door open, for me, belonging is me sitting side by side and breaking bread with you and feeling that we are together in communion. And that's how we can build human bridges. So when I said that right now, instead of building walls, as we know, this is the rhetoric that we're using to divide us, and the vitriol that we're using to shame and to talk about the other, and not very positive way, we need to say we'll build bridges instead of walls. So that's the message that we need to hear today. It's not that we're going to agree, humankind, you know, we have not agreed on anything that has changed the world for the better. We have come to sit together at a table to recognize that you have the right to your belief, and I have the right to my belief, but in that right in that right that I own and that you own, we have the common understanding and respect, to accept each other and honor each other. And that I think if we come to a starting point, say from those commonalities from those places of honor, we can start to become better human beings. We can create the new tomorrow, we can be part of the tomorrow that we want to start living today.

Ari Gronich 14:17  

Absolutely. You know, you said something about circles and I I'm a circle theorist. And what that means is there's not a single thing in nature

Unknown Speaker 14:33  

that

Ari Gronich 14:33  

doesn't have a circle shape. in martial arts, everything is about circle. You know, whether it's creating an energy bubble or the movement being a circular movement for martial arts. Tribal living in a modern world is a book that I'm I'm getting ready to to write and I'm going to do Do a series of these books. The first one is corporate, as a corporate one, it's trouble living in a modern world, the corporate culture revolution. And my theory is that if we take the sharp edges out of anything, and we turn them into circles, so let's, let's say in a corporation, you usually have cubicles, and that people are in and box offices, right. And it's a box building. Yeah, and if you took that, and you turn it into a circle structure, then all of a sudden, and you could do concentric circles. So, you know, small, and then bigger and bigger and bigger, we end up creating project driven and productive teams, purpose driven teams, things like that, because all the people necessary for that project are in that circle. And they all have equal positioning. Right? So there's, there's no place where that position, the engineer isn't less than the accountant or more than, than the managers, manager, then the you know, because they all have different unique talents. So why put one above or below another in a box type structure, or a pyramid type structure? why not create it in in a circular circular. But I think that that goes back to what you were saying, you know, in Israel and Palestine and tribal living in general, we, we would eat around a fire in a circle, talk around a fire in a circle, we would commune we would storytel, we would, you know, do that, in the 50s and 60s and 70s, we would eat dinner with our family in a circle. And the circle has become sharp edged, versus, versus that nice, soft circle with no sharp edges, right? We don't do dinner with the family anymore, we tend to be individualized, even in our families, right. And that, to me is part of what has broken up the family which has broken up the community which has broken up the society and you know, the purpose, I guess, of it has been, well, everybody's too busy to do anything together anymore, because you're working 40 to 80 hours a week, right? But just if you can imagine a world that's circular, versus sharp edge, and how much print that might feel.

Mohamed Hammound 17:50  

And isn't it amazing, the world is circular we live and not maybe a perfect circle, but the earth is a globe, the sun is a globe, the planets are circular. You know, everything that we know, to your point has some sort of structure where it's circular, the the the dimensions of how the blood travels within the body is circular. Everything has that circular. Now I you know, I'll come later to the idea of a spiral. But a spiral is another version. You know, when you talk about concentric circles, a spiral is a circle that continues to grow, that continues to expand. And that is how I think we can take the image of a circle, not the square or rectangular head of the table leadership mentality that there is one leader at the top of the pyramid or the head of the table, but we are sitting around equally equitably around each other, across from each other. Looking at each other, we can hold hands with each other. And most of the indigenous communities believe in the circle, you mentioned the campfire. So I think we are designed or created in a circular mentality to your point, we start dividing ourselves up into the compartments of the cubicle and the the boxes and the big buildings. And it's all about these sharp rectangular shapes that break away from what's natural and nurturing to us. So the more we move away from the circle of safety, the less that we feel we belong or that weren't included. And I think it's important to recognize that the more you are less to your nature, the less you're able to nurture. So how do you nurture a relationship with another human being if you create a dimension or a dynamic of inequality because of where you sit or where you stand, but when you invite someone to commune with you, within that fear of knowing and being that person feels that they belong, right as opposed to You know, I have to take a seat at a table and the closest that I am to the head of the table, probably the more important that I am or in the pyramid, right servant leadership tries to turn that pyramid upside down. And you know, you talk to a lot of the CEOs, and they're like, No, you know, I got to see all because I work too hard you did. But you didn't do it alone. And if you continue to think that you, you know, you're up at the top of the pyramid, and you work alone, and these other people who are below you, I hate that language, by the way, you know, people who, you know, report to you, if they're not part of who you are, and part of your vision, if all of a sudden, they move away from beneath you, your position at the top crumbles down to the bottom. So we need to be able to invert that pyramid and to put the CEO and the leader at the bottom, and not in terms of importance. But in terms of structure in terms of foundation, in terms of vision, in terms of that leader now has the vision to be able to support an organization growing and spiraling up within growth so that the individual contributors who are now perhaps furthest away from the from the leader can actually benefit from that shared vision that spirals upwards as opposed to comes down, you know, top down leadership is so, so out, but it's still the one that is predominantly, you know, telling us how we should be living, it's very top down, do as I do, do, as I say not as I do kind of leadership, it's role playing and not role modeling.

Ari Gronich 21:38  

Yeah, I agree with with that as well. And you know, the thing about companies is, to person who's got an ego, a CEO, that has an ego, he's the person who created everything. To the CEO, who's non egoic. I have this skill set of vision, you have this skill set of implementation. I work hard at creating a vision, you work hard at making that vision sing, making that vision work and making that vision. Amazing, right? Whether it's one employee or 50,000 employees, you've got the vision, that's my job is to hold the vision as the CEO, not to be the ego of I am a CEO, but to be I am the vision holder, I'm the direction, I'm the GPS, you're the car, you're the driver, you're the steering wheel, you're the brakes, you're the implementers And that, I think puts them in an equal footing. Because it's not I worked so hard for this, it's we work hard to get where we're going, we're traveling down the road, and we need the team to get there. There's no man on this planet. No woman, no man that can ever say that they made a huge success of life by themselves. They may have created the concept, but then they had to get other people involved and other people on board to agree with that concept in order for them to make that that leap. Right. Steve Jobs, he had somebody Bill Gates, he had somebody I mean, and then they had to bring in more people that had other skills that different skills and better skills, you know? So yeah, that's the thing about leadership is interesting because we've gotten to this place where it used to be Captain goes down with the ship. The buck stops here, right? And now it's more like the buck stops were going down with nothing right? I'm gonna have all the money in my helicopter is gonna get off that ship before. Right? ploys can get off that ship. And it's a very different kind of way of thinking about things which makes people feel unsupported. unappreciated, uncared for an unloved so they're going to be unloyal unproductive on, you know, compromise with what they're doing. And now you've got a business that's running half at its capacity or less. half its productivity or less and the employee loyalty is gone. Government loyalties gone, civil liberties gone. We're not like worried about civics so much anymore and civic duty and you know those kinds of things. So it's an interesting way of looking at it, but tell us what you think would be a solution to that dilemma, the dilemma of top down leadership,

Mohamed Hammound 25:20  

to invert that pyramid, and to really come from the vantage point lead through the lens of being there to serve lead through the lens that you as the leader to your point, the leader got to be where they are. And you know, it's interesting we how we refer when we say the leader, and you said it, I've said it, he, because 98% of leadership positions are white, middle aged men, gray hair men, right. And so I think the reason you and I have these podcasts is we want to change that landscape, we want to make it more inclusive, we want to see different genders, leading, we want to have different voices. So that is in part of the solution. Right now, when we saw what's happening with the amplification of the civil liberties movement, and the Black Lives movement and the awareness that the status quo isn't working, we can't go around putting our knees on people's necks and killing them, right? And only reacting and making change, when things like that happen, we need to be proactive, we need to make sure that CEOs aren't stepping aside because they feel that there isn't representation and there isn't diversity, we need to build organizations and design culture. So they're more inclusive, so that in two years, 10 years, 20 years, we see more people that represent our populations that represented the differences and the commonalities that we have. So that person at the top doesn't have to know all the answers, that person who is leading doesn't have to be at the top, that person needs to lead by listening to others learning about their needs. And when we do that, not only do we engage, and we empower people within our organization, but even when you have top down leadership, and for some reason, because you lead by fear and authority, you have people in your organization, you know, being strung along with you, guess what, your client will likely find a different organization, because not a lot of people out there want to be sold a product, they want to be sold a vision, they want to be sold a lifestyle, I buy a particular, you know, electronic device, not because I feel like spending $2,000 on a phone, but I do because I believe in the the operating system or more. So the the infrastructure of what that phone will do for me. So it's it's the ecosystem, that it right. It's a lifestyle. And so it's a matter that if I can lead, but not by empowering my client, my customer may not have the love behind me, and I don't see them with me anymore. So at one point, we have to leave for the organization, we have to leave for the employee and we have to leave for the community, we have to have that holistic approach that we are here to serve the people that work with us, not for us. We are here to serve people as a team approach. And then we are here to serve the community. Yes, we are here for profits, but not at the expense of people. Yes, we are here to to build office towers and to buy and purchase and to have a certain lifestyle, but not at the expense of people going hungry. So we need to recapture that humanity that has helped us build our economy and recognizes to go hand in hand, the term essential worker only became important when we recognize that we couldn't live during this pandemic, without their essential services. The minute that we felt things were getting better in the summertime, at least here in Canada, we took away the the $2 an hour that we were giving essential workers on top of the regular wage because we're saying Hey, thank you for your hard work when you when we needed you. Guess what, now we're having the same sort of story that we were, you know, telling our marketing spiel was we need you we're in this together, because we're starting to feel the strength again, we need to behave in our optimal when things are good, and when things are not so good. So leaders need to lead to be of service to others, similar to the message that I gave you at the start when I was introducing myself, if I have a message that I'm going to share with you until I have been able to create a relationship with you and be of service to you. You're not going to be open to listen to me until you and your colleague respected that you didn't have to agree but to live together and you could do so in harmony by by respecting each other. You recognize it's okay to disagree. And that is the beauty of differences is we recognize that they don't have to, you know, separate us they can bring us together

Ari Gronich 29:57  

absolutely and You know, it's funny. We both said he but a friend of mine on on Facebook yesterday posed a question. And it was an interesting question it was, it was poised to men and feeling and the question was, do you men feel like you have to play small, because of the role that women are starting to take over more positions of authority and leadership and politics and yada, yada? And my response was, nobody needs to play small. Everybody can play big, there's a blue for every thing and every person. So they'll be attracted or repelled by that person based on their own whatever biases. And I then I then I asked just the funnier question, which is, did the apple need to play small to the banana? Or does the avocado just win at all? Because, you know, it's like, well, I can, I can only have this fruit, this apple, I can't have the apple and the banana. I can only have the avocado, right? And I'm going to have that for the rest of my life. Just avocados? How boring would that be?

Unknown Speaker 31:25  

chocolate ice cream?

Ari Gronich 31:27  

is like, why should Why should the apple play small to the because the banana is the number one bought fruit in the world. Right? An apple didn't play small to it. People still eat the apple who want the apple people eat the orange people eat the, you know, the avocado. So, you know that that philosophy that people have? And it goes to race also, race religion? Well, you know, if, if too many black people become in politics, right? Then we just we just are gonna you know what, we're just gonna we're gonna have to be small because we can't fit everybody you know? Like, okay, where is it that the best person for the job, no matter what race, religion, color, sex creed. The best person for the job gets the job. The best. Nobody needs to play small. Everybody can play really big and full out. Right?

Mohamed Hammound 32:37  

So already, I will say cuz I had somebody challenged me on this when I was saying, you know, we knew, right, we do want the best person for the job. And a black woman said to me, but we don't have the same opportunities to get to be good at the jobs that we do, we don't get the same opportunities to have the same education that white people do privilege. And privilege has many layers. So you and I even though we're not white, we look white. And therefore we're closer to the dominant culture in terms of our skin color, right. And so systemic criticism holds people back from being able to access the level of education and, and socio economic success that the dominant culture has offered or allowed, not offered, allowed permitted for the dominant culture to have. So when we look at the best person for the job, the reason we sometimes we gravitate towards giving it to a white Anglo Saxon, middle aged white men to be in a leadership role, it's because we have not empowered women enough to be in leadership positions. Because, you know, we haven't empowered enough black people to get the same sort of education in the same Ivy League schools as white people. So we have systemic racism and assault that changes we're the best person for the job will likely still look like you and me, but probably be that white, middle aged, right? So it's a matter of recognizing that our current system is broken and needs to change. We need to change it so that in a few generations or hopefully in a few years, representation is truly based on opportunity and giving equal opportunity and equitable opportunity to everybody in the community.

Ari Gronich 34:22  

So I'm gonna I'm gonna preface what I'm saying with I agree that there is systemic racism. The thing that I'm that I'm gonna disagree with is okay, is that there's a lack of opportunity.

Unknown Speaker 34:41  

Hmm.

Ari Gronich 34:42  

There's enough people that I've met in my life, been friends with enjoyed their company that are black, female, that are absolutely brilliant and millionaires and living amazing lives. And You know, one of the things like that, that. And this is a point of consideration, but Morgan Freeman asked these questions, right? Black man has has gotten a lot of success. And what he says is, we need to stop talking about race. Don't call me a black man, I'm not gonna call you a white man. Don't you know, I am Morgan. That's my name. That's who I am. And I think that part of the system is that we ask, race, color, religion, gender, on documents, that are, it's unimportant to have that information. It's not important to have it unless you want to segment a society and discern, okay, well, this person is of that so they get this benefit. And that person is of that so they get that, right. If we stop naming people and labeling people, red, blue, left, right. You know, redneck snowflake. I mean, if we stop the labels,

Unknown Speaker 36:16  

to me,

Ari Gronich 36:18  

we begin the process of creating systemic change. As soon as we start privileging people who have been unprivileged. Now we're creating an imbalance. And that imbalance is what scares the living bejesus out of out of white people.

Mohamed Hammound 36:38  

Right? When we're reactionary, like we were with the doors, Floyd murder, and all of a sudden CEOs were stepping down to make room for colored or black CEOs. You know, as you know, there's kind of parts from the black community step in, that's where I think we're being reactionary. And to your point, we're privileging those who have been underprivileged, we allow me here to say that the systemic racism that we have is in one generation to change, it's hundreds of years old. So for you mentioned bias, until we have a new baseline where you could see a name on a resume, like Muhammad, and not have the bias that you will. And you know, and I've done research, and I've done, I've been part of these attempts where I apply as Mike. And I'll get the recognition more quickly than I will by Mohammed. So you won't believe the amount of times that doors have been closed, virtual and physical, because people see my name. When we first came in, we're talking 17, we were totally had to change our names, because we couldn't I couldn't go to an all Catholic school with the name Muhammad or I have to be baptized, right. So systemic racism exists. And until we have a new baseline, where we're not building on the previous baseline, where we're, you know, for us to be able to say, we'll recognize that you have equal opportunity, we have to get to that baseline where equal opportunity exists. And I think when we look at the number of let's use black people, as an example, the number of black people who are well off and enjoying a better lifestyle than their white counterparts, it's a very small percentage compared to how many people we when we look at our cities, there are certain areas in the cities where they are just our postal codes are based on how much money we have, what color we are, what religion we are, we're segregated. And we know that when we look at cities like Chicago and New York, there's a Italian village, there's the the Jewish community, there's the Middle East, and to me is like, there's pockets. And those pockets don't we celebrate, I go to Little Italy to have a good authentic Italian pizza. But the idea is that people came to those areas and stayed there because they felt comfortable. And it was segregation that prevented them from going to other places. And that segregation, it's a form of discrimination that we continue to propagate, because we say this is the status quo. So I think we have to recognize that representation has to change, this new baseline has to be read correctly calibrated before we can get to the point where we say, you know what, the best person gets the job because right now the best person that has the opportunity to get there is not you and I it's the people that have always been fed with a silver spoon and things were easier for them because of hundreds of years of colonization and slavery.

Ari Gronich 39:40  

Right? Yeah, I get some of that. And, and I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Unknown Speaker 39:48  

Oh.

Ari Gronich 39:50  

So did we get segregated like the Jewish communities of New York and so forth, or whatever? Did we get segregated or Did we segregate ourselves because that's where we felt more comfortable, and, and so forth. So, you know, we came here for the diversity of the culture in America, but we then moved into communities with just our people, regardless of who's our people, whether it's, you know, Latin or Latin communities, Italian communities, you know, Armenian communities doesn't really matter. And then the next question that I have is how many Mohammed's are loud? About the love are loud about the heart centered are large, loud about what it is that you're loud about, right? versus however many Muhammad's that are loud about terrorism? Right Thing with any, any with any right, Miss? I'm putting this out there not not as a What I'm saying is the the evil is always louder. Right? And right, in my opinion, the way to change that is people like you get really loud, people who have good hearts get louder than the terrorists get louder than the people who are causing problems. The in the black community, get loud about the changes that you're making and the good that you're doing in your community versus the crime that's happening there. Right

Mohamed Hammound 41:32  

there. Right.

Ari Gronich 41:33  

There are ways to bring people in. And there are ways to scare the little bit living bejesus out. And I think that in general, the small pockets of of loudness are coming from the agitators more than the unifiers. And so the challenge that I would have is for the unifiers to get much louder than anybody else. The message that they would hear when they heard the name Muhammad is they would hear love inclusion, heart centered, empowering, versus death to whatever you know, like, and this may be insulting, I don't know, because I'm not trying to be in

Unknown Speaker 42:26  

No,

Ari Gronich 42:27  

I'm saying in a way that I feel like, I'm not victim shaming. And a lot of people might think that, but what I'm saying is I'm trying to empower somebody to not be the victim.

Mohamed Hammound 42:43  

Right? Right. So to your first point about did we choose to where we segregate or re choose to be segregation, it's never black and white, it's never one or the other. It is combination of both we gravitate towards areas where we feel we belong. And this is our community, we go to St. Churches, even within let's say, Jewish community, you have the different kinds of Jewish communities. And you'll have three different synagogues based on how conservative liberal orthodox they are saying within the Muslim community. So we we segregate ourselves, we choose that inclusion, which becomes exclusive at one point, but also I think there's an element of we are put into different and it depends on the country, you're in we I don't have to tell you in certain I mean, God forbid that anything should happen like this, again, the segregation that happened in Nazi Germany, for example, what the Jewish communities, right, that's where we don't want to go or segregation now

helped me, you know, allows us to look to be other as the enemy. And that leads into my second response to your second question, which is when we are louder about the things that make us different and make us different in fear, because it's ignorance can go two ways. If you go to fear and hatred, or if you go to acknowledgement and love, because we all start from a place of ignorance. We don't know, to your point. I don't know if I'm being insulting, you're not, you know, we, if you didn't say it, it'd be like the elephant in the room. Right? And it's the idea that we have to acknowledge We start by asking these questions and baselining you know, what we know and what we want to know. And when we allow the louder voices so it's not that there are more Mohammed's who are terrorists. What it is, is the media will only tell you about the Mohammed who are terrorists, they will not tell you about the Mohammed said or unifiers. The when there is a white wall what we know right now, and this isn't white bashing, by the way, but I think we have to call it out there. We know the homegrown terrorism is 97% of the amount of terrorism that there is in North America, at least in the United States, compared to the amount of non new rights is a terrorism that's not on our soil and it's most of that is not by the immigrant communities. So it's our media chooses to always talk about the hoodie who The black man, you don't hear a white Christian boy wants him to a store and blue off somebody's head with a pistol. But you will hear black male. Right now we're starting to get Caucasian, right? So we have to be equal represented representation. And when we're giving a message when we're praising and when we're being critical, we have to your point earlier, to where I think we can take what Morgan Freeman is saying, and that look at me as I am, I want to be seen as Muhammad and I want to be seen this Muslim as part of my identity, a black person was fought endlessly generations to celebrate being black. For me not to see their color, for me to be colorblind is supposed to be color bold, will be taken away the affirmation that they've worked centuries and centuries on, to be recognized as a person of color or black person. And I was, you know, one time I refer to a black woman, as a person of color said, I'm black, Mohammed, not a person of color, I'm black, I fought for the right to be black and to be recognized and seen as black. So we have to hear and see and value people for who they are. And when we do that, to what you said earlier, I think when we have that new baseline, where I see you for who you, you know, representative of all other Jews, you as Ari, who is a Buddhist, Jewish, got some Catholics in there. So you, I see you for you. And then I recognize who you may speak on behalf of by saying to me, as a Jew, I speak to this. In North America, as an American person, I speak to this, I don't speak on behalf of all Muslims. I'm shunned in some in some parts of my community, because I don't look like this isn't a religious beer, this is just three days gross, because I've been lazy. So you know, we have to recognize that one person doesn't represent the entire community or you know, if you want to use the word race, because I believe we belong to one human race. So until we have that new baseline, it's going to be hard to say that we can be equitable and treat everybody with equal opportunities. Until we have that new baseline, it's going to be hard to say that we can give the best do the job to the best person because that person who is the best for the job didn't have the same opportunities their parents didn't. So we have to create that new baseline, we have to do the image of the circle that we talked about earlier, allow for us to sit back and for others to come into that circle and to recognize the engineer and the and the CEO, and the individual computer contributors all has something of value to bring. And that comes with our self awareness. It comes with our level of deep conviction that we are emotionally intelligent beings. You know, it's not just intelligent photos, but it's emotional quota. And it's our intention to create that opportunity to speak and get to know someone and to become a human bridges and not human walls.

It's deep. Yeah,

Ari Gronich 48:11  

you know, it's really difficult to have a conversation like this. In general, in public these days. I can disagree with you, and I can agree with you and I can still honor, respect, love, feel affinity towards, you know, you. And that kind of level of commitment that I have to love thy neighbor, so to speak, is it's not based on a religion, it's based on a belief that there's nothing to hate in a human being other than the trauma that they've gone through. To make them do the things that they do. Everybody has traumas, and everybody has brilliance is. And there's so many people these days that are in this cancel culture that are well you don't believe in what I believe in. So I'm just going to delete you as my friend. I'm just gonna eliminate you from from my sphere so that I don't have to hear your opinion that I disagree with. And I think it's so damaging to a culture in general, that, especially one that the United States like Canada and the United States are two places where

Mohamed Hammound 49:54  

we

Ari Gronich 49:56  

welcome immigration. We Welcome. Diversity, diversity is what created our country, black men and women built most of this country Chinese built most of our railway system. people other than white people, right? Did tremendous work in the infrastructure of building this country and not always, in ways that were kind. Sometimes they were ways that had whips at their backs. And I think the beginning is acknowledging what the struggle has been. And then saying, Okay,

Unknown Speaker 50:50  

I get you.

Ari Gronich 50:52  

I feel what you felt. Now, what we do from that information, because if we stay there, in that spot of, you're just going to be a victim forever.

Mohamed Hammound 51:14  

Right? When you started this, you were talking about your relationship with your roommate, and the conversations that you were having help become part of the conversations of a peace treaty. Right? Or at least, to me a conversation about creating, right? And when we said equals, as equals a table where we see value and each other, that's a start. And knowing that we're not going to agree on everything, but in our disagreement is not a reason to build a wall. And our disagreement, can we continue building a bridge, and, you know, some bridges take longer than others to build. But they all start with the tension that I hear you, I see you, I value you. And I value in building a bridge to unite us as opposed to divide us. So I think if that's our intention, and everything needs to start with that intention, then we can only end up in a better place. Not in an in the best place or in a perfect place, but in a better place than where we have been.

Ari Gronich 52:25  

You know, it's funny. I was 18 maybe in in Oregon, in Salem, Oregon. And I was wearing a jacket that no this was actually I I have the jacket my brother This was my brother so my brother is wearing a jacket that has a pentacle on it it's a you know that that pagan star, the fun are inside of a circle, and then it had some Celtic ruin ruins the writing on it said pagan pride in in Gaelic, and he's wearing Doc Martens It was kind of funny, he you know, we were we were we were crazy, you know, kinds of people growing up, we like to study religions and do things like sword fighting in the middle of the forest for weeks on it, you know, time and listen to JRR Tolkien and read, you know, read JRR Tolkien. So we were interesting people. And I'm very creatives. And my brother was approached in a mall by a skinhead. And the skinheads saw the Doc Martens, and he saw the jacket and he thought, Oh, this is one of my people. And so he started having a conversation with my brother, my brother, obviously didn't tell him he was Jewish. And he just sat there for almost two hours listening to the vitriol that this person was spewing, not agreeing, not disagreeing, not not reacting at all. And, you know, some of the things, I think one of the things he said is like Jews have an aversion to water, so they smell, they smell now you could smell a Jew a mile away because they have an aversion to water or something like that was one of the things but he kept, you know, he would say all these things, not knowing that he's talking to the person he's talking about. Right? And I find it fascinating how much people think certain things about certain cultures where they've never actually experienced knowing that person or that culture right. So I I've been to Jordan and Lebanon, and Israel. And I kind of went into Palestine for like, about 20 minutes. Not enough to know a culture, right? I've traveled to France for a week, not enough to know the culture. But I have I could you beliefs about the French culture. I could spew beliefs about the Muslim culture I can you beliefs about those people. And none of them are accurate 100% mostly not even 10%. Right. Because what the belief is, has been fed to us by as you said, by the media, by comedians, by entertainment the world, you know, I listen to somebody say the Jew, the Jewish held media, you know, all the news, it's all the Jewish control in the deep state. Like, really, I'm Jewish, I've never heard of this deep state or the Jewish control of, you know, like, it doesn't make sense to me because it doesn't fit with my reality. And I'm wondering how much benefit the audience would get by going up to somebody that they previously have have a preconceived notion about and just starting a conversation with them and asking them questions. And not reacting and not responding, just asking questions. And I believe there was this black gentleman who did this with the KKK. And I think that that there's something like 80 or 90 kkk members that after years of this black gentlemen being around and them saying, hey, mate, well, you know, black people are this but this guy's okay. You've I'm sure heard that.

Mohamed Hammound 57:25  

I've heard a documentary Yeah.

Ari Gronich 57:27  

Was our Baba Baba. But you're okay. You're, you're alright. How did you get to be okay, instead? Well, wait a minute. The majority, like you like me like that black men who went to ask the question of, of this Grand Poobah in the in the KKK, right? How much ignorance allows people to continue being judgmental. And I'm going to put it one step further. How much religion allows people to be judgmental, even when they say, only God is there to judge you. It's a sin for you to be a judge and jury. That's God's job. But yet, the religious people in general that I've met, doesn't matter what religion are the ones that tend to judge the most

Mohamed Hammound 58:35  

holier than thou,

Ari Gronich 58:37  

I unpacked a few things there. Why don't you speak to that? That's a lot of comments. But

Mohamed Hammound 58:45  

again, I think it comes back to what you said earlier about bias. If we're not ready to recognize our own bias, right, we're not going to understand how we can lead to see things differently. And that different, doesn't have to be bad doesn't, you know, our goal, our end goal isn't to agree. our end goal is to honor that you and I have the right to exist, and to hold different convictions wherever they are political and religious. But can we still sit at the same table and break bread and recognize that you have every right to be seen heard and valued as I do. And it's not because your color or your privilege, or what you lack or have more often I do, it's that we all come as equal partners and contributors to this circle. And we're all we all have the right to feel that we belong and be feel safe. And when we feel that we belong and we feel safe and we try it, we start to trust each other. And when we trust each other, we build a foundation. And that's how you build the bridge on is that foundation of trust. We can get there whether we're talking about nations or nationhood. Whatever Talking about different political parties, whether we're talking about in a relationship to people who live with each other, you know, if you are not prepared to sit at the table and listen to the other person, and to lean in with curiosity that you're going to learn something, you know, I have something that I call the four DS and the four L's of emotional intelligence, right? And, but the four L is start with listening. So when we listen to others, what happens when you when you listen to someone,

Ari Gronich 1:00:32  

I learned,

Mohamed Hammound 1:00:33  

you learn, that's a second L. When you learn about somebody, inevitably, you start to exercise a level of compassion, empathy, and that means love. And when you do that, when you start to love someone, you listen, you learn, you start to love and appreciate them. You allow them to be you allow them to lead from the heart. So the four L's you know, how we get to know others, you know, emotional intelligence is a lot deeper than that. But I you know, the reason I brought the four DS in the four walls into it, and particularly the four other boats, awareness of others, why did I think the four DS in the four l basis came to my mind and I was able to put these the the formula together just to work it but I wanted to give people an idea of how can I simplify getting to know myself through a process of diagnosis, determining that I have the right diagnosis, developing a plan was the right milestones and the approach. And then I get things done, I do it. That's the four DS of self awareness. And the four D is the form of becoming more aware of others, is to start from a place where I'm willing to listen, when I listen, I inevitably learn when I learn, I end up loving. And when I love, I end up leading from the heart and allow others to lead. When we can bring that level of awareness to ourselves and to others, we inevitably create communities where we feel safe, or we trust each other. And where we belong. The idea is not the minimum, we think we have to agree on everything. It's like looking at the diversity that's all around us and saying you don't exist. And diversity exists whether or not you and I acknowledge it people are black people are our yellow people are our white people are what Caucasian, whatever you want to refer to our physical outwardly, right, and pink, and pink, right. And people you know, love differently, you know, people who are not ready to embrace that we have different ways to love and there's no better way than another, people that aren't ready to recognize that we have different ways of of attaining piety or, or believing in a greatest force. We are not here to convince each other of who's wrong, who's right, we are here to value the honor that we bring to the existence of the other. And and you know, that is where we can start. We can start by and you know, we when we talk about honor and acknowledgement, you know, this is why in most here, at least in Canada, before we start a ceremony, we acknowledge the land on which we are because we recognize that this land does not belong to you, or I, you know, this land is a land that has been taken from the indigenous communities who have lived here for 1000s of years. And you and I are our visitors on this land. We are all immigrants of some sort, right? Whether we're Jewish, Muslim, white, black, we are all here. And we have started to live on the land that were owned by the indigenous communities have been here for 1000s of years. So acknowledging that is a starting point for me to mend, and and to say to the indigenous communities, I am ready to acknowledge you. I cannot fix the past. I cannot undo the past. I can only talk to you about what's the right thing that you and I can do now. And what is the right approach for the future? How do I build a bridge for you? And that is the whole idea when we talk about making things right. You know, so it's acknowledging that we can't change the past, but we can certainly learn from it and move forward.

Ari Gronich 1:04:11  

I like that, because there's no way to do anything about the past. Its past. It has passed.

Unknown Speaker 1:04:20  

It is

Ari Gronich 1:04:22  

with regards to communities. That's awesome with regards to companies. Employers, can you see how this might benefit you having conversations with your employees?

Mohamed Hammound 1:04:39  

Absolutely. Absolutely. If you if you let people weigh in, they will buy in. When you tell people sitting around the table, we're talking about projects and you're not just talking about resources and the budget and the number of people that you will dedicate to that project. But you talk about hey Ari, what concerns do you have about this project? Hey, Muhammad, what contributions Do you have to this project, when you treat everyone as an equal contributor, you listen to their concerns when you let them weigh in, they will buy in. When people buy in and their heart is invested in what you're doing. They believe in your vision and your mission, they will work for you. Your heart is a free workforce, because those people become your ambassadors, they start talking about the importance of your organization, when you lead by fear, they talk behind your back, when you lead from the heart and with love, they will acknowledge you in your presence, they will sing your praises, they will talk about why they feel they belong with you. And that that is what's needed today. In terms of leadership in an organization, we don't need the old top down approach, we need the role modeling, not the role play.

Ari Gronich 1:05:46  

Right? That's been that's been probably one of the longest running debates in in history is lead by fear or lead by love. Right? The Kings? Are you a king that wants to be loved king that wants to be feared. You know that that was always and then when, when who wants your your, you know, people to be afraid of you or you want them to love you.

Mohamed Hammound 1:06:15  

Right? The same way, right? Do we want to parent with fear? Right? When I was a little kid, believe it or not, and just faith, you know, we were told to be we were told to be careful, God would strangle us we did something wrong. And we had this image of God, this isn't our religion. This is our culture, by the way, right? You know, we have this image of this omnipotent being that knew everything. It's like this magnificent Santa Claus. And if we were bad, he was going to take his his sleigh and wrap the rope around our neck and strangle us. And when we grew up, we're like saints, our parents. What do you mean, God's gonna strangle? So I don't know. That's what our parents told us. So our parents and their parents and their parents, parents will tell us the lies and the misconceptions and disbelief that they've learned. That's why nations can't get along. Because we've stopped listening to the nature of our of how we can nurture each other and honor each other and create a new narrative. We've always, you know, follow the old narrative. So we you know, whether it's parenting, whether it's in an organization, we need to say, How can we do things differently? Just because we've done it this way for the past doesn't mean it's the right way.

Ari Gronich 1:07:22  

Yeah, you know, what's funny, I'm just gonna make it a little lively. But I stopped. A long time ago, I stopped taking the green part off of the strawberry. And I stopped taking the green part off of the carrot. And I stopped taking the seeds out of the apple. And it was like, at first it was like, Well, what are you doing? I said, Well, I always wondered why people did this. And I asked my mom, and she said, because my mom did. And so I asked my grandmother, why do you cut the ends off the carrots and take the green? I mean, it's green stuff. It's good for you. Right? It's green greens are good. Why are you taking the green off the strawberry? Because my mom did. And it's like, Okay, well, let's see here. I think I'm going to I was a rebel growing up, I, you know, probably a rebel now, a little bit, but a lot less. But I stopped doing that, because I didn't want to do something that was done just because somebody else did it. It didn't make sense to me. Why I don't like throwing away food. So why would I throw away this piece of the food? And people look at me when I eat strawberries now. And they're like, what are you doing? I mean, I mean, the strawberry, like, Yeah, but you still got the green on there. And it's almost unfathomable to people, that I'm eating that strawberry with all of its nutrients and all of its form, versus, you know, or the carrot versus taken apart. So I just wanted to make it a little lively. But that's a way of, of illustrating what you were just saying, right?

Mohamed Hammound 1:09:12  

And you know, your point, and our parents and parents parents that comes back to what I was trying to use earlier. And maybe with a bit of humor, it can reinforce a point where that if we look at the opportunities that some communities have and others don't have, right, it's only when we dare to do things differently. I want to eat the banana ones with the Pilon. I want to eat the apple with appeal. My mom always kills apples and parents you know, mom did the skin will really help us digest and so forth. Right? So, you know, I, but I recognize she doesn't want to do it. The PLC says I have to peel back out because I can't chew it. So it's okay. I recognize that what might taste good for me or work for me, may not work for her. And that comes back to what we would say a lot. Is that? So once we recognize that, you know, what's the old adage that we agree to disagree? Yeah, right. But we agree to disagree and recognize that we are both equal in that approach, and one is not better than the other. And, you know, we don't even have to like each other, I say, the people that I work with, like, you know, you don't have to go out and have a coffee. But at least we have to be respectful to each other, we don't have to become best friends. But we have to respect each other. And again, in a workplace environment, you're not asking people to become best friends, you're not asking people to go out and golf together, or go to have a drink together, your ask them to recognize the contributions that they bring the concerns that they have, and that they bring value. And that inevitably, helps people feel like they belong with you, you know, you harness a workshop that's more engaged, more empowered. And that's how you allow people to leave by heart by leading by example,

Ari Gronich 1:10:55  

right? Oh, I mean, just just just thinking about people as human beings, right? inherently, a human has value of skill. Mind, they have, you know, doesn't matter what the, what the value is that they bring, they bring a value. And so appreciating that this person in front of me as a human, and and I asked people, when did you start being so afraid? So, people usually will say, my parents taught me or I had this experience from this one person, right? Somebody beat me up that was of this other race. And so therefore, all people I should be afraid of in this race. But I asked them, where did that start? Because, you know, we all seen pictures of babies, and, you know, kids, toddlers, black, white, Muslim, didn't matter. They just like, oh, a human being, that's, that's my size, I'm gonna go play with that person, right? They had to be taught the prejudices. And if you have to be taught prejudice, then you can be untaught prejudice, right way I know of to unteach something, or to teach something new, is to give them an education of who and what I am

Mohamed Hammound 1:12:21  

amazing, because when you think about children, again, children embrace each other. They, you know, that's maybe what I agree with you on that. I agree that a lot of things. So you know, earlier when we're talking about recognizing whether we have, you know, colored or not, and so forth, right? Children don't necessarily see that difference, and they're not as aware of it. You know, Sally is aware that Bob took her sandwich. And Joe's aware that Sally's wearing a pink dress, but they're not necessarily aware of the other inherent differences that you and I will pick up on as, as adults, though, they're very smart. And they'll pick up on other things as well, that maybe you and I will pick up on. But what they don't know inherently is to hate. They're taught that they're taught by the behaviors that they pick up on what they see and the modeling that they see from others. And what becomes okay. So, you know, we mentioned off off camera we mentioned about bullying, right? Most bullies were bullied themselves doesn't justify why they do what they do. But we learned that behavior from others. So yes, I completely agree with you that what we learn in that we learn to hate, we can learn to love, we can learn on hate, we can learn to become more aware of the other and to embrace them as opposed to push them away.

Ari Gronich 1:13:43  

Yeah, you know that we did have a conversation about the bullying. And I have this saying that a bully's best friend is the silence of others.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:55  

And

Ari Gronich 1:13:56  

that's where I keep we need to get loud. Bull, the majority what we call and we call it this like it's like it's somehow a good thing, the silent majority. Why such a good thing? Oh, you're the majority be loud about the good because the facts of the matter are is what we see in the news, what we see in the media, what we read about hear about look about what's in our faces, has nothing to do with the majority of reality, because the majority of reality is that you could go down the street and have a conversation with anybody. And most people are pretty kind, pretty nice, pretty gentle with others. It's what I consider to be the government's agenda. And this is the government and any place whether it's Israel Palestine government agenda, versus citizenry. Because when I was in Israel, the citizens got along Palestinian living next door to do doing amazing things. And they all got along.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:18  

So

Ari Gronich 1:15:20  

that was my explanation of the news is completely not talking about the truth. And so people need to stop watching the news, stop listening to the agenda and start building those bridges in their own minds.

Mohamed Hammound 1:15:42  

They need to listen to this podcast. Absolutely. No, they need to see where people like you and your Palestinian roommate, people like you and me, I have another Jewish friend here in the town where I live. And he and I were going to have a podcast together. He's Jewish, very senior practicing Jew, I'm a practicing Muslim. And we were going to call it a Jew in the Muslim podcast. And you know, we wanted to set that precedence where we said, Look, we recognize our history, we recognize our brotherhood, and we honor that. And we recognize our differences. And we're okay to talk about those. And we're going to feel uncomfortable, but you know, what, we're not going to hate or kill each other because of that, actually, when we talk about it, and recognize the importance that you and I bring to that discussion. That's where we start to see the value. And the, the reason that I need to listen to you, because before I can listen to you, I'm not going to be in a position where I can learn something new. Right? Well, I appreciate that you've given me this opportunity to learn to learn about you and, and to share with others, you know, because we can learn, we can learn continuously. It's not a process of getting there. It's a process of working to get to a better place together.

Ari Gronich 1:16:54  

Well, maybe maybe sometime, you know, I'll come on your show or something. And

Mohamed Hammound 1:16:59  

I would love that tell me

Ari Gronich 1:17:01  

about the religion and the culture. Because from what I've studied, I'm not so fond of some of the cultural things, obviously, like, I don't like women not being able to drive and all that kind of stuff, right. And that's a cultural thing, not

Mohamed Hammound 1:17:16  

necessarily a geographical cultural thing, if I may, right, you know, and you know what, I can't agree with you more, because anything that doesn't recognize our equality is something that doesn't talk to our humanity.

Ari Gronich 1:17:31  

Right. But I would love you to talk a little bit, and we can't do it tonight today. But I would love you to talk a little bit about the beauty of the Muslim religion, because it is beautiful, rich, diverse culture, diverse religion. And it's nothing like what most people think, in the western least. So anyway,

Mohamed Hammound 1:17:56  

it's changing. I think a lot of people are starting to see differently, because you and I are having these discussions because we are amplifying the the the silence voices that for the longest time have not had the opportunity to be heard. And that is why I think it's so important to to look at the alternatives to the media and the outlets out there. Because having, you know, podcasts having opportunities where people can talk like us freely and share the different perspectives. That's where we're going to break with the silent majority and create a new minority of loud voices that speak a better truth.

Ari Gronich 1:18:32  

Absolutely. So let's give three tips or tricks that anybody listening can take with them and act upon today so they could create their new tomorrow today.

Mohamed Hammound 1:18:45  

This isn't mine, this is probably gone. These are Michael Jackson. But be the change that you want to see in the world. I you know, don't reinvent just be the change that you want to see in the world. Start with yourself. And in order to start with yourself, get to know yourself you can't get to know others if you don't know yourself and when you get to that place of constant knowing of you and the other allow for those differences and recognize that we're stronger because of our differences not in spite of them. Awesome, thank

Ari Gronich 1:19:15  

you How can people get a hold of you if they'd like to?

Mohamed Hammound 1:19:18  

So listen to this podcast listen to the unfiltered podcast I can share with you you know I have a training consulting business desire the number two lead desire to lead I saw as the keynote speaking training people can get in touch with me through LinkedIn is probably the best place so Mohamed Hammound at LinkedIn developing unfiltered leaders there deserve there to engage in conversations and get to know the other. Awesome, thank you so much. I truly enjoyed our conversation.

Ari Gronich 1:19:49  

And thank you so much for coming on and a nother episode of create a new tomorrow. I'm your host Ari Gronich thank you so much for listening, remember to like so Subscribe rate review and comments so that we can start conversations like this with you, and hopefully create a new tomorrow today. Thank you and see you next time. Thank you for listening to this podcast. I appreciate all you do to create a new tomorrow for yourself and those around you. If you'd like to take this information further and are interested in joining a community of like minded people who are all passionate about activating their vision for a better world, go to the website, create a new tomorrow.com and find out how you can be part of making a bigger difference. I have a gift for you just for checking it out and look forward to seeing you take the leap and joining our private paid mastermind community. Until then, see you on the next episode.

Hi, I am here with Mohamed Hammound, He is an engaging and experienced multilingual facilitator, speaker and trainer who has worked with the private, public and not-for-profit organizations.

CHECK THIS AMAZING WEBSITE BY MOHAMED FOR MORE INFO.

https://www.mohamedhammoud.com/

JOIN NOW!! AND BE PART OF MASTERMIND PROGRAM

learn how to activate yourself for a better future!

https://createanewtomorrow.com/master...

CHECK THIS LINK FOR A FREE GIFT FOR YOU!

https://www.createanewtomorrow.com/gift

DO YOU WANT TO BE OUR NEXT SPECIAL GUEST?

Book an appointment now and let's create a new world together!

https://booking.builderall.com/calend...

CHECK THIS OTHER WEBSITE FOR MORE INFORMATION!

https://www.CreateAnewtomorrow.com

https://www.Achievehealthusa.com

Create a fundamental change in the global community from a strictly reactive system of medicine that focuses on symptom and emergency treatment to a proactive system based on whole-being health as well as illness and injury prevention. Personally teach and influence at least one million people.

We are a multifaceted Health and Wellness company that specializes in Corporate Wellness and Culture Consulting, Industry Speaking engagements and Continuing education for the industry.

We Help corporations by solving the most costly problems they have with Productivity and Health Care while creating a culture that thrives on accomplishment and community.

We help organizations think outside of the box and gain tools that allow them to be nimble and strong as tides and markets shift.

We Up level the skills and tools of other practitioners by providing them continuing education that actually leads to greater success and standing in the business community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Mohamed Hammound 0:00  

If we all agreed and if we all believe in the same thing, and the beauty of is how we can recognize that diversity, diversity is a fact. But as inclusion is a choice, diversity is all around us in nature and human humanity and the way that we speak and the way that we love in the way that we love. And so we can't change that diversity, we have to recognize that a celebrated as opposed to penalize it, and we can, tentatively so it's intention, choose to be inclusive, but even inclusion is not enough. What we have to do is to allow you and I sit at the same table and when you break your bread, you hand it to me, you allow me to sit at the table with you and to be part of your communion and it's a matter of allowing enough people as as the table so you know, it's making sure that there are empty chairs so that people can actually come and sit beside us.