Attorney, Junior (Elbert) Smith, generously shares his journey to, and at, the Hoffman Process. In doing so, he gives us a view into how patterns and trauma affect how we see ourselves and how we journey through the world.

Content Warning:

Junior shares his life story beginning with his parents’ journey to a better life taking them from Mississippi to Compton, California. With great fondness, he shares his memories of those early years growing up in Compton. These times were filled with connectedness, community, and joy. In the ’70s, though, things changed in his hometown. There was more discord and violence in his community and he began to take in that trauma. He responded by going more into his schoolwork and joining the ROTC, eventually, years later, graduating from law school.

Through the process of sharing his stories, Junior weaves his way to coming to Hoffman. He then takes us to the heart of his time at the Hoffman Process when, in a profound moment, “Spirit was able to enter into him.”  After doing deep, hard work to release the patterns and trauma, he found joy and radiant light. And, as he says, he felt love, real love, for the first time. Junior articulates this profoundly intimate moment of opening to his Spiritual Self in such a way that you can feel the depth of his transformation. 

We hope you enjoy this beautiful conversation with Junior and Drew.

Elbert Smith, better known as Junior, was born and raised in Hub City, Compton, California.  Junior cultivated grit, resilience, and the dream of a better life while growing up in Compton. His lifelong spiritual journey inward led him to the Hoffman Process, where he was able to heal his intergenerational trauma and reclaim his life and joy. 

Junior is a licensed attorney and serves as a senior advisor for a technology company in Southern California. He enjoys caring for his three cats (POTUS 44, Kenya, and Pelusa), reading poetry, learning to play the electric guitar, and his newfound appreciation for nature. 

Follow Junior on Instagram.

The South, Mississippi, in the 1950’s

Compton, California, aka Hub City:

Colorism:

White Supremacy

A Near-Life Experience:

JROTC – Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps

Tony Robbins

Funnel Cake

Vania, Coach, and Jeremiah, Therapist

The murder of George Floyd

Ron Settles

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Janelle Martin, Marriage & Family Therapist, MA, LMFT, | EMDR

Philando Castile

Modern Elder Academy (MEA)

Esalen Institute

Center for Mindful Self-Compassion

Jazz

2-Day Hoffman Essentials

Faculty (mentioned by Junior):

Liza Ingrasci, Hoffman Institute CEO

The Cycle of Transformation:

Process Graduate Groups

Hoffman Process Small Group:

Cathartic Release Work (Bashing)

Daily Instagram Check-ins:

Bob Hoffman, Founder of the Hoffman Process

Hoffman Teacher Training Program

Technology and finance executive, Carsten Sorensen, had a powerful transformation during his Process in 2014. Over the next five years, Carsten worked diligently to transform his core negative patterns. Using his Process tools and doing the deep work, Carsten was able to profoundly shift his life.

The Hoffman Process was recommended to Carsten by his therapist, Rick Hanson. Rick said this was a way to take that last step of moving down from the head to the heart. Carsten shares that he had achieved everything in his life through “pure intellect and raw power.” He would just power through it and get it done.” But in mid-life, he knew this way was no longer working for him. And so, he signed up to attend.

A few years after his Process, as a CEO, Carsten began to invite employees to attend the Process to experience their own transformation. He knew for certain that the Hoffman Process is a great leadership development tool.

Listen in to hear this powerful, articulate, promising conversation about what it takes to be a great leader and how you go about doing so. Some of the areas that Carsten and Liz discuss are how to create safety at work, how to invite employees to attend the Process without pressuring them, his own journey to become more authentic and vulnerable, what he says are the two most necessary qualities and capabilities as a leader, and how you can’t separate work life and home life if you want to be a great leader and happily successful.

Carsten is interested in having a conversation with other leaders on how best to use the Hoffman Process as a leadership development tool in the corporate setting. If you’d like to converse with  Carsten about this, please reach out to him at [email protected].

Carsten Sorensen is a technology and finance executive with a broad background in a variety of industries and extensive European work experience. A former software engineer, he has over 25 years of experience combining Technology, Mergers, Acquisitions, and Finance, as well as a deep operating background in the organizations he works with. Carsten has worked as a senior executive in fast-growing companies, both private and public, and is comfortable balancing the conflicting needs of high-growth and long-term strategy within the organizations he runs. He is a keen steward of a company’s culture and understands its importance for long-term financial and strategic results.

Carsten spent a decade as a partner in private equity, where he was a member of the team overseeing portfolio companies. While working in the private equity field, his responsibilities included turnarounds and technology strategy development. Carsten holds a B.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in Business and Finance and lives with his family in San Francisco.

Discover more about Carsten on LinkedIn.

University of California at Berkeley

“The last foot and a half are always the hardest.” Rick Hanson, Therapist

Lisa Wenger, Hoffman Teacher and Coach, Founder of the Istituto Hoffman Italia, Milan, in 1990.

IDEO, a global design company

Hoffman Leadership Path at Harvard

Simon Sinek

Brené Brown, Professor and Writer

Entrepreneur and Mediator, Sisi Maw Takaki, completed the Hoffman Process in February 2019. As a child of parents who immigrated to the US for a better life, Sisi shares with Sharon how the sacrifice her parents made for her affected her and the patterns it created in her. As Sisi shares, we can both adopt and rebel against our parents’ patterns. For Sisi,  rebellion was how she reacted to her parents’ expectations of her and her future.

What really stands out from this conversation, though, is how deep a transformation Sisi made in how she relates to others and to what now brings her happiness. What used to be a more transactional way of relating transformed into relationships that are based upon mutual dignity and equality. When meeting new people, Sisi now consciously listens and wonders what larger force has brought them together. When she meets people, she now wonders, “How can we help each other?”

In the spirit of Love’s Everyday Radius, the name of our podcast, Sisi became a mediator as a way to bring this new relational way of being into her work and her life. She no longer defines success in the same way. Rather than trying to find happiness through material things and financial success, she now finds it through serving others and relating to fellow human beings through her heart. Sisi speaks so beautifully of her experience of work through this new way of human-to-human relationship.

Sisi Maw Takaki is an Entrepreneur with a few businesses. She is a Residential Real Estate Broker in Hawaii, a Real Estate Investor in Hawaii and on the Mainland, and a Mediator and Founder of Mindful Mediation Matters (M3).

Everyone has a story and here’s Sisi’s in her words:

“Sisi was born in Myanmar and immigrated to the East Coast in the late 70s and grew up in a household with two parents who were both Physicians. They worked long hours and Sisi was an only child so she stayed at after-school care or was a latchkey kid when she got older. Their family moved from Staten Island, Virginia, to Washington DC, Maryland, and back to NYC where she lived in all the Boroughs except the Bronx. Sisi finally found stability at the United Nations International School in Manhattan. She only applied to one school for college, the State University of NY in Binghamton. She went there after her parents realized Harvard might be a reach for her. Sisi moved to Hawaii one year after she graduated college and met her “wasband” to whom she was married for 17 years.

In February 2019, she decided to go to Hoffman because she felt completely empty even though professionally and materially things were better than ever. It was the emptiest existence she had felt and from the outside things were amazing. Her journey to and through Hoffman was really when she felt she started connecting to who she truly is. Sisi wonders how she survived those years of unconsciousness for so long.”

You can follow Sisi on Instagram at Mindful Mediation Matters.

Hoffman’s definition of a Surrogate Parent:

These responsibilities may have been in addition to or in place of the care provided by your birth parent(s). Examples of surrogates can include stepparent, grandparent, relative, nanny, boarding school, significantly older sibling, full-time daycare, live-in partner of parent, etc.

•   Read this Hoffman grad’s story about how the Church was a surrogate parent in her life.

Pre-Process Homework Packet:

Gratitude Journal:

The Quadrinity Check-In

The Feelings/Sensations Sheet:

Mediation:

Amy Thompson is a beloved Hoffman Teacher and Coach. In today’s episode, she shares her story of recovery, losing her father, the grief she experienced from his loss, and her experience going through cancer treatment while training to become a Hoffman Process teacher. And, really, Amy shares so much more.

Listen in as Amy shares about learning she was accepted into the Hoffman teacher training program at the same time she received her cancer diagnosis. She knew she needed to care for both her body and her spirit. With an assured Yes to both, Amy embarked on a powerful journey of healing all of her Quadrinity through chemotherapy infusions and the work of the Process.

Amy and Drew talk about the need to be responsible for our lives. One beautiful thing Amy got from the Process was realizing that her patterns were the source of feeling over-responsible for everyone else. By transforming these patterns into a more positive way of being through her work at the Process, she reclaimed her power. With this power, found she could step more fully into what she calls intense self-responsibility for how she shows up in every moment. Amy says, “Hoffman, for me, was not the end of my journey but definitely a huge milestone in my own recovery, in my own kind of recognition for who I am and this whole being able to be a good human.”

Hoffman is a part of Amy’s family. Many in her family have done the Process. Amy’s mother-in-law, Nita Gage, is also a Hoffman Process teacher.

Listen in as Amy shares so much more of her life and her Hoffman journey. We hope you enjoy this conversation.

Amy Thompson is a gifted and intuitive mentor and coach with over 20 years of experience as a counselor, retreat facilitator, and teacher. She has a passion for guiding people through transformational change with both groups and individuals from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. She holds a BA in Literature from Dominican University.

An artist, Amy is also a sacred ceremony designer and public speaker. She brings with her a lifetime of training, teachings, and knowledge from an eclectic background of work in the field of human holistic mental health. She empowers those who work with her with mindful self-compassion and radical acceptance.

Amy shares, “I’ve spent my career in service to others, working with adults and children in multiple arenas, including groups, workshops, coaching, and retreats for personal transformation. There is nothing else in the world as satisfying as watching a student/client create the change in their life that they long for and then thrive in it!”

Follow Amy on Instagram.

Buddhist term:

Recovery:

Marin AIDS Project (PDF)

Stinson Beach

Hoffman Institute Teacher Training

Graduate Groups:

Chemotherapy

Nita Gage – Hoffman teacher and Coach

Burning Man

Expression and The Cycle of Transformation:

Hoffman Tools:

As a young boy, award-winning artist Darieus Legg came to love the ocean. He grew up on a sailboat, eventually sailing to his new home on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. At the age of nine, Darieus saw his first surfer magazine and the images of surfers reminded him of the dolphins that had followed along his family’s boat. He felt inspired to become a surfer.

As time passed, Darieus realized he wasn’t cut out for competitive surfing and began to focus on making art. Eventually, he realized that whatever he was going to be doing needed to be less of “a means to an end” and more of “doing it for its own sake.” With this realization, what began to drive his work were both the pure love of creating and the opportunity to learn more about both making art and himself.

Always a sensitive child, Darieus could feel things that seemed really unusual. He tried to toughen up and hide these feelings as he got older but when he was fifteen and his parents divorced, the experience felt ‘life-shattering.’ Later into adulthood, Darieus realized these painful feelings he’d stuffed away were causing him great suffering. Both his work and relationships were suffering, too. It was at this time that Darieus heard about the Hoffman Process from two different sources. What he heard resonated with his experience enough that he enrolled. Darieus had already done many different modalities of deeply spiritual work but they’d mostly been rooted in a solitary practice. For Darieus, being in a community during his Process was deeply healing.

We hope you enjoy this animated, soulful conversation with Darieus and Liz.

Darieus Legg is an award-winning artist in five different disciplines of filmmaking. He creates live-action documentaries that use his hand-drawn 2D animations. His animated characters Uncle Wally and Aunty Mai play a vital role in educating the audience. As the featured artist in the 2023 Hawaiʻi International Film Festival, Darieus created the poster, key art, and trailer that plays before every film. His recent short film, Stoker Machine, serves as a proof of concept for asking people what makes them Stoked, and sharing the response through film and animation.

Darieus creates aspirational content that explores human ingenuity, creativity, and resilience. He’s directed and executively produced Telly and AAF Gold award-winning content. His work has covered feature film, live-action documentary, commercial, professional learning, and animation. Darieus is the featured artist at this year’s Hawaiʻi International Film Festival. This festival runs from Oct 12-22 on O‘ahu – through Nov 5 on neighboring islands, 

Half Persian and half Irish, Darieus Legg grew up on a sailboat and on the big island of Hawaiʻi. Under the tutelage of Shane Dorian, Darieus excelled in surfing and competed professionally until he transitioned from surfing full-time to filmmaking in his early twenties. Next, he spent a decade in Hollywood learning from the best storytellers in the world. Still an avid surfer, he loves learning about and being in the ocean. He also loves reading and the magic of the movies.

Find out more about Darieus through his website and follow him on Instagram.

Stoker Machine, Darieus’ film.

Professional Surfing:

Big Island Hawai’i – Island of Hawaiʻi

The Billabong House on the North Shore – tour with Shane Dorian

Dolphins:

United States Merchant Marine

Vietnam War

Persians of Iran

Minimalism (the ’80s)

John Grisham, Author

Illustration/Animation

New Age

Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts

Firewalking on coals

TM – Transcendental Meditation

Ashtanga Yoga

Vipassana Meditation

Dzogchen

Tim Ferris podcast with Blake Mycoskie of TOMS shoes

Neil Strauss

Certified executive coach and leadership consultant Kristen Esquivias sits down with Sharon for this intimate conversation about deep personal change, difficult times, and inner growth.

Personal work offered through the Hoffman Institute invites students to step into real change in their lives.  Wholeheartedly accepting this invitation, Kristen dove into the transformation awaiting her. She has done both the Hoffman Essentials course (2020) and the Hoffman Process (2021).

Patterns of perfectionism can be very painful. Kristen describes the heaviness, suffering, and isolation that come from her experience of her perfectionist patterns. They can make life painful and lonely. She shares with us a moment during her Process when she realized that all of her patterns were completely absent. In those moments, she experienced freedom and a profound sense of possibility. Now embodied, Kristen carries this experience forward in her work with clients.

Kristen shares how her work in both Hoffman Essentials and the Hoffman Process has helped her navigate the big changes she’s been through over the past three years. These changes have included her parents moving away, her divorce, the pandemic, her kids doing school at home through Covid, and setting out on a new career path as an entrepreneur. She also shares a somatic ritual she uses to bring herself back to the present moment, to give herself comfort and touch, and to give her a sense of belonging and rootedness.

We hope you enjoy this insightful episode with Kristen and Sharon.

Kristen Esquivias is a certified executive coach and leadership consultant. She has nearly 15 years of experience in Strategy and Analytics roles in Corporate Retail in the SF Bay Area. She now works with individuals, teams, and organizations on personal growth, leadership development, and team dynamics. Kristen draws upon a variety of modalities to support her clients in leading and living a more fully expressed version of their authentic selves. She guides them as they upgrade their inner operating system in support of their growth and expansion. Kristen has an uncanny ability to create a compassionate, safe space for her clients. She brings levity to the depths and fullness of the human experience. She holds deep reverence for the sacred inner work her clients courageously navigate on their journey toward achieving their goals, vision, and greater impact in their world.

A mom of two, Kristin is also a certified yoga teacher, a self-proclaimed personal growth junkie, a beach lover, and a sunset chaser. She values connection, authenticity, and growth. Kristen holds a Master’s and an Undergraduate degree in Statistics. She also has a minor in Psychology. She is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the ICF. She’s received certifications from the Coactive Training Institute and the Institute for Coaching Mastery. Kristen is also trained in the Enneagram and Leadership Circle 360 assessment.

Find out more about Kristen and her work, here. Follow Kristen on Instagram.

2-Day Hoffman Essentials (H. E.)

Inner Child Work

Working with a Hoffman Coach

Positive Legacy:

Awareness Hell:

Our guest today, Ezy Finkel, did the Hoffman Process in March of 2023. Ezy shares with us his intimate story of recovery from addiction with honesty, humility, and light.

Ezy grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community and shares his difficulties living within this community. Eventually, he was asked to leave. Then, years later, he was asked to come back to be a source of healing there.

Ezy’s story touches on many points of the human experience and reflects a journey of recovering his true nature, his Spiritual Self. His family had a strong pattern of perfectionism. During his Process, he discovered that he also rebelled against this pattern, needing to be different. One day at the Process, Ezy discovered a stand of trees on the land. One tree was still bare while the others were evergreen. He realized that he was like that bare tree, that he was uniquely himself. Ezy sees now that he has seasons and that change is ongoing in a human life.

One thing Ezy wanted to gain from the Process was rediscovering his playful, fun-loving nature. After his Process when his daughters noticed that he now is like a little kid, he realized that he had gained exactly that. As Ezy shares this story with us, you can hear the love and joy in his voice.

Sharing about his life in recovery, Ezy says that his life now with his wife and children is a whole different life and is “chaos-free.” What really stands out is Ezy’s love and humility as he shares about working with others in recovery.

This episode mentions substance abuse. Please use your discretion.

A creative, friendly, and passionate person, Ezy Finkel is deeply committed to his family, making a positive impact in the world, and conducting business with honesty and integrity. He is a managing member of Gem Consulting Group, a firm specializing in investing in behavioral health real estate and operations.

Ezy grew up in Lakewood, NJ, and now lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife and children. He cherishes his family life in which they love to play and engage in various sports activities. Dedicated to making a tangible difference in the lives of those in need, Ezy spends a significant amount of time volunteering at local organizations and utilizing his professional skills to drive positive change.

The Quadrinity Check-In

Chip Conley, a co-founder of Modern Elder Academy (MEA), joins us today in conversation with Drew. Chip is not a graduate of the Hoffman Process, but the work of MEA and the work of the Process both beautifully support growth and change within. ** (See below for the next community conversation with MEA and Hoffman.)

Content warning: This episode mentions suicide. Please use your discretion. If you or someone you know is suicidal, please reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255), or message the Crisis Text Line at 741741.

Listen in as Chip shares his life journey of learning on many levels. In mid-life, Chip’s world was rocked when he lost friends to suicide. He had his own suicidal thoughts. Realizing that the human changes we go through in mid-life are not supported by our culture, he began to consider what humans really need to navigate the twists and turns of life. Out of this, Modern Elder Academy was born.

In his exploration of mid-life, elderhood, and growing wisdom, Chip has come to see that the ultimate spirituality is one that “actually helps you to show up with the most humanity in this lifetime.” Our humanity can be deepened and ripened through life if we engage in an exploration of and conversation in an understanding of our own spiritual nature. As Chip wisely says, wisdom isn’t taught, it’s shared.

**While the vast majority of our guests are Process graduates, we occasionally host experts in other modalities of healing that align with the work of the Process.

Chip, along with Liza and Raz Ingrasci of the Hoffman Institute, hosted another live event – a community conversation with MEA and the Hoffman Institute. These conversations offer insights and powerful approaches for deepening our spirituality and humanity.

Please watch the replay here. 

Chip Conley is on a midlife mission. After disrupting the hospitality industry twice, first as the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the U.S., and then as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy, leading a worldwide revolution in travel, Conley co-founded MEA (Modern Elder Academy) in January 2018 in Baja California, Mexico.

Inspired by his experience of intergenerational mentoring as a ‘modern elder’ at Airbnb, where his guidance was instrumental to the company’s extraordinary transformation from a fast-growing start-up to the world’s most valuable hospitality brand, MEA is the world’s first ‘midlife wisdom school’ and has a campus opening on a 2,600-acre regenerative horse ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico in early 2024.

Dedicated to reframing the concept of aging, MEA supports students to navigate midlife with a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. A New York Times bestselling author, Conley’s 7th book “Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age” is about rebranding midlife to help people understand the upside of this often-misunderstood life stage and he was asked to give a 2023 TED talk on the “midlife chrysalis.”

Discover more about Chip here. Follow Chip on Instagram and LinkedIn; and follow MEA on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Three founders of Airbnb

Blake Mycoskie, MEA Faculty

Lynne Twist, MEA Faculty

Liza Ingrasci, CEO Hoffman Institute Foundation

Esalen Institute

Omega Institute

Blue Spirit, Costa Rica

Kripalu Yoga Center

Appreciative Inquiry

Quote:

Long Beach Polytechnic High School

Stanford University

AIDS Epidemic

Arthur Brooks: From Strength to Strength

Burning Man

Brian Chesky

ROI: Return on Investment —> Ripples of Impact

Prostate Cancer 

The Hero Archetype

Oprah interviews David Brooks

Dacher Keltner, Berkeley & MEA Faculty

Dacher Keltner’s Awe Walk (on YouTube with The OnBeing Project)

BJ Fogg, Stanford & MEA Faculty

Mantra

Wisdom Well, Chip’s Daily Blog

Esther Perel, Psychotherapist and Best-selling Author

Matthieu Ricard, French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist Monk

Dan Buettner, Author, National Geographic Fellow, Founder of Blue Zones

Michael Franti, Musician & MEA Faculty

Pico Iyer, Writer & MEA faculty

Aaron Taylor, Football Player & MEA faculty

Essence (Your Essential Nature)

Imposter Syndrome

Growth Mindset

The Enneagram

US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, on the Epidemic of Loneliness

Robert Putnam, American Political Scientist

Emotional Insurance, Chip Conley

Dr. Richard (Dick) Schwartz, founder of the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, kicks off our new season 7. While Dick is not a graduate of the Hoffman Process, we asked him to be on the podcast because his life’s work of IFS aligns beautifully with the work of the Process.**

IFS was born in the 1980s when Dick began to work with clients in his therapy practice. Dick shares his story of how he came to see and work with the family system we each have within us. His discoveries about the inner landscape of human beings have helped thousands of people heal. You will hear Dick talk about parts and burdens. Parts are sub-personalities that, combined with the Self, make up who we are. Burdens consist of “extreme beliefs and emotions accumulated during intense experiences,” particularly in childhood. When parts are ready to release these burdens, hence the term unburdening, “they transform into their naturally valuable states.” This is akin to what happens in the Cycle of Transformation during the Hoffman Process.

While developing IFS, Dick realized that at the heart of each person is the Self. He discovered that the Self is not a part like he was used to working with. The Self is the core Self of a human being. Eventually, the Self appears as the IFS work deepens. This is when healing truly begins to take place.

Dick and Drew reference the Self, parts, the eight ‘C’s, exiles, protectors, and firefighters. Find out more about these terms in the As mentioned in this episode section below.

**While the vast majority of our guests are Process graduates, we occasionally host experts in other modalities of healing that align with the work of the Process.

Richard (Dick) Schwartz began his career as a family therapist and an academic at the University of Illinois at Chicago. While there, he discovered that family therapy alone did not achieve full symptom relief, and in asking patients why, he learned that they were plagued by what they called “parts.” His patients became his teachers as they described how their parts formed networks of inner relationships that resembled the families he had been working with. Dick also found that as they focused on and, thereby, separated from their parts, they would shift into a state characterized by qualities like curiosity, calm, confidence, and compassion. He called that inner essence the Self and was amazed to find it even in severely diagnosed and traumatized patients.

From these explorations, the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model was born in the early 1980s. IFS is now evidence-based and has become a widely used form of psychotherapy, particularly with trauma. It provides a non-pathologizing, optimistic, and empowering perspective and a practical and effective set of techniques for working with individuals, couples, families, and more recently, corporations and classrooms.

Currently on the faculty of Harvard Medical School, Dick has published five books, including No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model. Dick lives with his wife Jeanne near Chicago, close to his three daughters and his growing number of grandchildren.

Follow IFS on Social Media: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn.

Family Therapy

Systems Thinking

Attachment Theory

IFS Terminology

Shamanism

Bob Hoffman, Founder of the Hoffman Process

Kristin Neff

Brené Brown

Psychedelics

Parentified Child or Parentification

Myth of the Mono-Mind

Fractal Systems

Alters in Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)

In our season 6 finale, we host producer, songwriter, musician, author, and keeper of the American blues music flame, Shawn Amos.

Shawn came to the Hoffman Process feeling like he was living his life while “… at the whim of all of these unseen forces and past traumas, and unconscious reactions to my parents…” A couple of days into the Process, Shawn realized he had to stop being cynical of the work if he was going to get the most out of his week there. He went all in, which opened him to the profound possibilities available for lasting change.

Through the work of the Process, Shawn says he was able to “get control over” himself. He realized that the Process offered him an owner’s manual to himself, to his unique way of being. He shares that the tools and transformation he found at his Process have stayed with him over these 15 years since. In his words, the transformation from healing the pain of his past “was profound.” He now operates from a more grounded, conscious aware presence.

Shawn also shares his inner conflict around race and identity. For many years, Shawn played the Saxophone. Then, he started playing the blues harp and singing blues music. It was then he felt a profound reconnection with his Blackness and his lineage, both backward and forward. At around 22:00, Shawn plays a bit of the blues harp for us. Listen in for a taste of the music he creates as Rev. Shawn Amos.

Content Warning: This episode mentions child sexual abuse and might not be suitable for all listeners.

For Shawn Amos, it’s about the story. He’s made a name as both a teller of tales and an astute shaper of others’ stories.

He comes by the storytelling chops naturally. The only child of William Morris agent-turned-cookie entrepreneur, Wally “Famous” Amos, and singer Shirley “Shirl-ee May” Ellis, young Shawn spent hours in shadowy nightclubs, on the funky streets of 70s Hollywood, and in his own broken home, listening intently to people’s stories. He helped make his father’s cookie hustle real. In young adulthood, he jumped from screenwriting for A & M Films to the stage, crafting acclaimed Americana music that wrestled with race and identity. On the other side of the microphone, Shawn oversaw soul icon Solomon Burke’s last three albums, and produced seminal CD collections Q: The Musical Biography of Quincy Jones, and Grammy-nominated box set Rhapsodies in Black: Music and Words from the Harlem Renaissance, among others.

Since 2014, as the Reverend Shawn Amos, with harmonica in hand, Shawn has brought blues to audiences from LA to Amsterdam, delivering unbridled joy – both live and through recordings. Blue Sky, the 2020 release by his band, The Reverend Shawn Amos & the Brotherhood, hit Number 6 on the Billboard Blues Album Chart and scored four out of five stars from American Songwriter magazine.

For his 2022 debut novel, Cookies & Milk, Shawn delves into his past to concoct a wildly entertaining story about the strength of family and the power of forgiveness – plus just the right amount of semisweet chocolate – to mend hearts. Shawn’s doppelganger, Ellis, embarks on hilarious and sometimes harrowing misadventures as he helps his dad open the world’s first chocolate chip cookie store in the multi-hued 70s landscape of music, ambition, and often-challenging elders. The book was awarded the NAACP Image Award in 2023.

William Morris Agency

Simon & Garfunkel

The Animals

Rona Elliot and Roger Brossy, Shawn’s dear friends.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Buddhism

Taoism

The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel van der Kolk

Hillsong Church

Documentary: The Secrets of Hillsong

In America, the Richter-tuned Harmonica is called the Blues Harp.

Bob Dylan

Paul Simon

Joan Armatrading