Ivana De Maria is a producer, actress, activist, and tech entrepreneur. She is the founder of Storyplace, an empathy-driven digital platform where you can write and read stories from people all around the world.

Tying all of Ivana's varied passions is the same mission: to promote empathy through the most basic and powerful form of education, storytelling.

Listen in as Ivana breaks down the magic of stories in their power to learn more about not just other human beings, but ourselves as well. It was thanks to her strong belief in the ability of storytelling to unite people of disparate background and beliefs that she was inspired to create the Storyplace platform.

In the latter half of our conversation, Ivana reflects on her experience with psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, as well as her very first Ayahuasca ceremony, and how these sessions caused her to wake up to a truer version of herself for the first time in her life.

Asked what story she is currently writing now that she is in her third decade of life, Ivana tells Chase:

"I feel like I was just born again. I realized I had never, in 30 years, asked myself, 'What do I want?'"

Follow Ivana @ivanamaria

Follow Chase @chase_chewning

Key Highlights

• If you open yourself up to hearing the stories of everyone around you, you level up your own life. It all starts by slowing down and truly listening to the other person. Going further embrace empathy by consciously separating listening from agreeing.
• Ivana shares what inspired her to establish her unique platform built to bring people's stories together.
• Addressing the all-too-common reply of, "I don't have a story," Ivana explains that, instead of saying to someone, "Tell me your story," it's so much more powerful to say, "Tell me a story about…"
• Ivana talks about how her psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy experiences made her feel like she had "woken up from a 29-year-nap".

Episode resources:

• Get one year free vitamin D and 5 free travel packs of AG1 at https://www.AthleticGreens.com/everforward
• Learn faster, get smarter, and read faster at https://www.Shortform.com/chase
• Watch this on YouTube https://youtu.be/TeQsJYBYIMc
• Learn more about StoryPlace https://storyplace.com/en/about