Greg Berard. On Living a Full Life

Part Oprah, part Joanna Gaines, and part Anthony Bourdain, Dr. Therese hails from Santa Monica, CA, and is a Filipina-American Licensed Clinical Psychologist, self-care and personal development expert, and professional life-enjoyer. Dr. Therese founded the LA Digital Nomads and is the CEO & Founder of Exploring Therapy, a wellness community that helps people build a life they don’t need a vacation from. Berkeley educated, she is a mover and a shaker with a passion for sharing about mental health, entrepreneurship, building community, and traveling full time as a digital nomad. Her mission is to inspire people to create more healthy, free, and connected lives.

https://www.exploringtherapy.com/

We will always want more, but we can always, at any time we choose, decide to curb our desire, and take a moment or two in the pure bliss that beauty is always around us if we only choose to realize it. 

This is the lesson. This is the challenge. 

I’m working on a new theory of sorts. A dumbed-down, simplified, lay-person theory on happiness and fulfillment, and as I work through this mentally, I want to begin putting some of these thoughts down in writing.

My thinking can be summed up by saying I think there are three main modes of living (mentally-speaking).

My question is,  why are we so damn distracted all the time? Why can I be one person in one scenario and a different person in another depending on the process or place I am currently thinking? How do I create a bit more balance, a bit more presence? 

Bridget is the Founder and CEO of Sampson Coaching & Consulting where she offers leadership training and coaching programs for Fortune 500 companies. As a TEDx Speaker and an Emeritus Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Northridge, Bridget has shared her expertise on public speaking, interpersonal communication, organizational communication, and intercultural communication for over 25 years.  Bridget is a professional coach certified by the International Coaching Federation and The Life Coach School, as well as a recipient of the Don Dorsey Excellence in Mentoring Award. And if that wasn’t enough, she also just launched her own podcast (which I really enjoy) called The Right Questions.

Jackie currently serves as an Administrative Aide for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She formerly worked as a Campaign Manager, Communications Director, and Congressional Campaign Field Organizer. A proud LBGTQIA+ advocate, Jackie serves as Vice President of Events and Fundraising for The Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club in San Francisco. Jackie is also the recipient of the Certificate of Honor for Transgender Leadership, presented by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.  Jackie received her Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Philosophy from The University of San Francisco where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that in her spare time, Jackie is an amazing writer and you can follow her writing at https://jackiethornhill.medium.com/.

Impressive bio’s aside, this conversation was really inspiring. More than anything it is about family. It’s about being your authentic self, even when that might be as contrarian as humanly possible. It’s about mistakes, forgiveness, understanding, compassion, empathy, and love.

Bridget’s and Jackie’s journey together during Jackie’s transition has had its ups and downs, but the love for each other, the understanding, and acceptance is a beautiful example of how we can and should show up for each other. It’s an example of what real acceptance looks like and it is also a shining example of what true transition means. And I mean transition for both of them. Jackie’s transition may be the more prominent one here, but make no mistake about it, Bridget’s transformation during this journey has been profound.

Their shared experience was so powerful and transforming that they decided to launch a new school to help families and the community. You can visit transgenderschool.org for more information. The website is full of resources, courses, and community, and it’s just getting started.

My guest today is one of my oldest friends, J Ross. His real name is Justin, and that is probably how most people know him, but I only know him as J. 

This interview happened in a very serendipitous way. We were just having our normal quarterly catchup call and I told him about the podcast, and we got super deep and philosophical and we both came to the conclusion that J needed to be on the podcast.

Besides being one of my closest friends, J is one of the most unique individuals I know, but more importantly, his story is so poignant and his transformation into a passionate career as an army doctor and living a life of meaning, purpose, joy, and fulfillment is exactly the type of story that I look to share and learn from during these interviews. 

This is a super short, unedited podcast for the holidays. Wishing you all a healthy and happy New Year! 

This podcast is about one of my favorite little mindful meditations that I do whenever the occasion arises. I call it, the “enough-ness” meditation. It’s a super easy meditation, but it’s difficult because it works best when you catch yourself in the mindset of “not-enough-ness.”

I had an interesting philosophical discussion today about this podcast and the work I’m doing here. Essentially, the question was, is consciousness actually a good thing? What he meant was, does being fully “awake” and conscious lead to a happier and more fulfilling life, or is ignorance and unconscious behavior and thinking an actually better way of living in Western society? It was an interesting question and one that I had to really consider.

Mark is best known for co-creating, writing, producing, and starring in Crackle’s groundbreaking, Streamy award-winning series, The Bannen Way.

Mark, a twenty-five-year film and TV veteran, is a multi-hyphenate who learned the business from the ground up and has had the good fortune of collaborating with many top directors, including Steven Soderbergh, David O. Russell, Sam Raimi, and Robert Rodriguez.

Mark’s onscreen credits include Criminal Minds, American Horror Story: Hotel, Ocean’s Eleven, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, and Dexter, and the list goes on.

Mark is not only an award-winning actor, but he’s a writer, director, producer, editor, photographer, and consultant.

About Thirteen years ago, Mark was frustrated with his career. He was working hard in acting class weekly, had the right headshot, a decent reel, a reliable agent, and yet couldn’t get an audition to save his life. He hadn’t quite figured out how the business worked. Mark had a transformative moment when he decided to stop waiting for someone to discover him and he became the CEO of his own life and began to create his own destiny. It was a two-year process that culminated in the creation of The Bannen Way, which was the first million-dollar web series that became an industry standard for web series/feature films.

Mark is a husband, father, and a creative force. He lives life by his own rules, but he is thoughtful, curious and one of the most profoundly productive people I have ever met. He isn’t just productive for productive sake - he has literally designed his life, thought deeply about what he wants, how he wants to create, and show up. He is the absolute definition of definitive action.

Mark is someone that works hard but takes the time to appreciate what he has. His life mantra is about taking risks, practicing patience and gratitude, and being what he calls “Perfectly Imperfect.”

This was another fun podcast and we discuss a wide range of topics from Mark’s sobriety at a very young age, to his breaking into the business as a grip, and his willingness to take risks and work outside of his comfort zone to help create the life he dreamed of.

We had a lot of technical glitches in this episode as the internet literally dropped the call about every 10-15 minutes and I am embarrassed to say that I did not have a backup plan for that. You can bet that I will in the future. Mark is such a professional that we were mostly able to continue on without losing a beat and that says so much about Mark that despite the glitches, really didn’t lose any momentum during this conversation.

We mention a couple of times my being a guest on his wife’s podcast, but that didn’t end up happening. The podcast is called “Secret Life Podcast,” by Brianne Davis-Gantt, who is also a creative powerhouse herself and I highly recommend checking it out. Brianne had so much success with the launch of her podcast that they have literally been overwhelmed with guests and have hundreds of recordings in the first few months of launching. You can listen to Brianne’s podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and I do hope you enjoy - Mark is of course helping in the creative process of that podcast as well.

You can find out more about Mark on his website markgantt.com and check out the Bannen Way on Crackle.com

Without further delay, please enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Mark Gantt.

For those of you that live near an ocean, you may have heard about rip currents. Rip currents are dangerous because if you get pulled into one, they can suck you hundreds of yards out into the ocean. The absolute worst thing you can do in a rip current is to try to swim to shore (i.e. against the current). The current is too strong and will pull you out to sea and you will be so exhausted from trying to swim against it, there is a high likelihood of drowning. The way that you get out of a rip, is to swim parallel to the beach until you swim out of the rip current itself.

When we feel ourselves being pulled outside of our control, our first instinct is to resist, to swim against the current as hard and as fast as we can so that we don’t get sucked out to sea. Being mindful and aware of your situation, you can calm your fear, and you can make a deliberate decision to swim gently parallel to the shore and survive. You may end up hundreds of yards from where you started, but that's ok, you can always walk back. You may not be able to get back if you get pulled out to sea.

There is a wonderful metaphor here for life. Sometimes life takes you in different directions. Sometimes you end up somewhere that you didn’t plan on being. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions. Sometimes you may find yourself involved in new distractions. Sometimes you’re not the person that you want to be. Sometimes you have to take care of things you would rather not deal with. Sometimes, you get caught in a current, a rip, a wave.

It’s November 2020, and it’s a pretty bizarre time to be alive. And I for one, am grateful.

Obviously, we are in the midst of some serious problems. I’m not trying to downplay the struggles that many of us are facing. 

But despite all of the craziness, I still say that we are living in an amazing time and I for one choose to be extremely grateful