Latest / INSPIRE STORY / In Order To Change Your Life_ YOU NEED TO LEARN THIS FIRST

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In Order To Change Your Life_ YOU NEED TO LEARN THIS FIRST · INSPIRE STORY

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Speaker 1: The majority of the way that you talk to yourself
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is the way your parents talk to So if you
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don't first recognize that, you're gonna have a really hard
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time understanding how to get out of whatever you're in. Now,
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if you had great parents that were super patient and
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loving and kind and empathetic and didn't you know, jump
0:17
at you, but held firm boundaries and you know all
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that stuff, there's chances chances are you have a really
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good healthy self talk and good on you.
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Speaker 2: Me not so much.
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Speaker 3: Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one
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health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every
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one of you that come back every week to listen,
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learn and grow. Now I'm super grateful when we get
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to have a guest on twice. There's not been many
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many people that have done that. On Purpose were great
0:51
at finding a diversity against but there are some people
0:53
that just blow your mind. You love them, I know
0:56
that the community responds incredibly well to them. And on
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top of all of that, I love opportunity to get
1:02
to sit down with them and talk about what they're
1:04
up to, what's been on their mind, what they've been studying,
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reflecting thinking about. Now, today's guest is someone who came
1:11
on a couple of years ago and blew our minds
1:13
his name and someone that you all know is called
1:15
Zachary Levi, one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood,
1:19
with critically acclaimed roles in TV, film, and on Broadway.
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Zach's career catapulted as the lead and fan favorite Chuck
1:28
in the hit NBC series and Zach demonstrated his range
1:31
as a Tony Award nominee for Best Actor in a
1:35
Musical and She Loves Me. His impressive vocals landed him
1:38
a leading role in the Disney Academy Award nominated Best
1:41
Original Song, and the list goes on and on. I
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recently saw him in American Underdog, which I absolutely loved.
1:49
Shazam was the reason he was on last time. But
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right now, what Zach's done is that he has created
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and written his first ever book, and today we're going
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to get to dive into it. We're gonna have it
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in the caption so you can order it right away.
2:04
You're gonna find it in the links. I'm so excited
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to talk to my dear friend and awesome human being
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about his new book, Radical Love, Learning to Accept Yourself
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and others, something we all need to do. Zach, thank
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you so much for being an on purpose. It's so
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great to be with you.
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Speaker 1: So happy to be back, so happy to see your face,
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even if it's virtually like I said, I really I
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want to hug your neck and see in person, but
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this will do for now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you man.
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Speaker 3: No, I appreciate you, man, And I meant it like
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last time you came on, there was just this beautiful
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energy in the room. I remember you were like sweating
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buckets as well.
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Speaker 2: Well, it was warm. The studio was pretty bad.
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Speaker 3: Studio was too. It was our old studio. We're in
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Studio three point zero now this is the new studio.
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That studio was not well ventilated. Zach was very passionate.
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I didn't know how to stop him, to offer him
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anything because he was so in tune, and and I
3:00
was like, I guess we just have to.
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Speaker 2: Like sweat together. Anyway.
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Speaker 3: For you to write a book, I mean, you could
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have written many things. You could have written in a
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full autobiography. You could have written about your experiences, which
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you do of course in the book in a deep way.
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But you chose to write a book that isn't your
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name that isn't you know how you view your career.
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It's about life and you called it radical love. Can
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you explain to me what radical love looks like is?
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Because I think love is one of the most underdefined,
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misunderstood words in the world already, and radical love is
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taking us in a different direction.
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Speaker 2: Radical love? What does that mean?
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Speaker 1: In some ways, it's not a great title because I
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think it's a little redundant. I think that love itself
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is radical when we are practicing actual, true, deep empathetic love.
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Speaker 2: It is a radical concept.
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Speaker 1: In fact, I think what most people would point to, Yeah,
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it's like when I have warm feelings about someone, or
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have warm feelings about myself, I love myself if I
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have warm feelings about myself or about other people. We've
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all been kind of programmed with these very romanticized ideas
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of love and marriage and relationships. I don't think that
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has anything really to do with the warm fuzzies. I
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think that it is a recognition of the divinity, the
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miracle that is another human being, regardless of who that
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human being is, to love, who loves you is that's
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that's patty cake, that's maybe that's the you know, child's play.
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To love is to love those who hate you, that
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you even have these feelings of disagreement or anger with
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or whatever.
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Speaker 2: To love your enemy, to pray for your persecutor. That
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is love.
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Speaker 1: And that's the kind of love that's to me radical love. Again,
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I say radical because it's radical compared to what most
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other people's ideas of love is.
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Speaker 2: But really it's just love. That's act. Actually what love is.
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Speaker 1: It's being able to look at whoever is across the
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aisle of a different political spectrum, a different sex, race, faith,
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country to country, people group to people group. We are
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so divided. I mean, the United States is a really
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sad example of how much division. I mean, we just
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straight down the middle on almost every hot topic. We
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cannot look across the aisle and say I completely disagree
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with you. In fact, I think that what you're standing
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for can be very problematic in this world. And yet
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I still love you. I still think that the reason
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why you think the things that you think is not
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because you're evil. It's not because you're somehow this broken,
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bad person. It's because you are a product of your environment,
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in the same way that I am a product of
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my environment. In order to embrace and love myself. I
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have to first accept that I am a product of
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the parenting that I received. It's not my fault that
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I struggle with the things that I struggle with. In
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order to forgive ourselves, which we all need to do,
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we have to recognize that we're doing the best that
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we can with the tools that have been afforded to
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us at that point in our.
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Speaker 2: Lives, and that is the reality, that is the truth.
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Speaker 1: So until we can come to that place as individuals,
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with ourselves, with other individuals, you know, just in our
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own lives, and then collectively as a people group, we're
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just going to keep fighting and fighting and going over
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this horrible, vicious cycle all the way to the bottom.
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If we want a better future, we need to be
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working on more than just saving the environment. Obviously we
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want the world to survive, But what good is a
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world to live in if we all hate each other
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in that future? That is not a future that any
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of us want to be living in. So that to
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me is kind of you know what radical love I
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think stands for. It's rat to radically accept, radically forgive,
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and radically love whomever is across the aisle, and that
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is I understand, a very difficult concept for a lot
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of people to wrap their head around, because we look
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at someone doing a bad thing and our initial gut
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instinct is bad, evil, wrong, monster.
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Speaker 2: We point the fingers and point the fingers and point
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the fingers. Now, are the.
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Speaker 1: Actions that this person are doing? Are those sometimes monstrous,
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villainous evil? Absolutely, But there's still a five year old
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child in them that came into this world and had
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nothing but optimism, nothing but potential, nothing but openness, nothing
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but love.
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Speaker 2: And then the way that the world.
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Speaker 1: Ultimately miss misformed misfigured them in their heart, in their mind,
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in their psyche. That is what we have to be
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paying more attention to and recognizing and then applying an
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empathy to this person. It is not excusing the evil act.
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It is instead trying to apply love to those who
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are doing the evil act, because only then can we
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redeem those people.
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Speaker 2: I mean, and this is happening on a regular basis.
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Speaker 1: People go to prisons all the time. There are groups
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of people that see murderers on death row and yet
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they can still see the human being in them. They say, listen,
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I what you did was wrong, and you're on death row.
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Because of what you did. But I am not going
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to give up on you and the redemption of who
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you can be in your soul because I see that
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x y or Z. I saw that you were raised
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in this type of an environment. You were abused as
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a child, Your father beat you and put cigarettes out
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on you. You watched your father or mother or cousin kill
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someone else. You saw that as a sign of survival.
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You didn't have enough money to buy food for your family,
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so you started to steal. And then in order to steal,
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you needed to protect yourself, you thought, And so you
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carried a gun. And then somebody tried to stop you
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from stealing, and you went and shot them. And now
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you're a murder right now. None of that excuses the murder,
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but all of it explains why that murder ended up happening,
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and if we can do that. And this is where
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I think Christ was really trying to get to the
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heart of it. He's like, hey, there is none righteous,
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not one. There's not one person on this planet that
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can actually stand above everyone else and cast the stones.
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Speaker 2: He is who is without sin, cast the first stone.
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Speaker 1: Everyone's like dropping this the well, that's not me, that's
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not you, as not anybody you know. And yes, we
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could probably sit here and hash up like, well, what's
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a more egregious sin? But they're all sin at the
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end of the day, they're all things that we're all
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falling short of treating each other as the divine miracle
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that we are. And people ask me, what about people
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who don't believe in a spiritual plane or god or whatever,
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you know, how do you explain to them that they're
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a miracle? Very easily, we are a mathematical improbability this planet,
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that it even exists, That we are a perfect distance
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away from the Sun so that we don't freeze and
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we don't boil, That we have a moon that is
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the perfect distance away from us, that allows all of
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our literally the systems like gravity to even you know,
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the tides to go in and out, and that we
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have been as human beings, we've been searching the universe
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ever since we had the capability. We have been searching
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the universe trying to find life anywhere else, and we
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can't find it, and we haven't found it now, even
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if there is other life in the U, we're still
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a miracle that this place exists. It's still a mathematical miracle.
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So even if you don't believe in God, even if
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you have no spiritual proclivity or you know whatever, you
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can still count yourself as a miracle. And if we
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can do that, and we can start seeing each other
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as miracles, and we can see that every blade of grass,
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every squirrel, every dog, every tree, every everything, anything that
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possesses actual life, we can create everything else. We can
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make more computers, we can make more phones, we can
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make more whatever we need to make. And yes, we
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can also create more life. We do that on a
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regular basis. But each one of those lives is unique.
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Every single one of us comes with a uniqueness that
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you know, making another audi doesn't necessarily come with a uniqueness.
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You know, we are a miracle. That is what I'm
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trying to drive to people, and well one of the
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things I'm trying to drive to people in the book,
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because I really think that if we can wrap our
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heads around that, if we can change our perspective and
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we can start seeing each other even the evil, you know,
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even the bad, even the monsters, even all these people,
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and say, okay, yes they are doing bad, but they
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started they were initially, they had all of the promise,
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and let's have a little empathy with that, Let's have
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a little grace, Let's have a little bit more patience,
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Let's hold them accountable. And I think that's one of
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the big disconnects.
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Speaker 2: That people have.
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Speaker 1: They're afraid that if we start to give people even
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a little bit of grace, well now we're condoning their behavior. No, no, no,
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you can. You can love and not like. That's another
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thing I try to get to in the book. Loving
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is not just this warm feeling. It's not just like
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times one hundred like is to like. To love is
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to just accept the divinity, accept the miracle that is
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across from you.
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Speaker 2: Anyway, there's a rant for you.
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Speaker 3: That there is so much to unpack. The first thing
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was this difference in responsibility and faulte. And when it
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comes to accepting ourselves, I think the reason why we
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struggle to accept ourselves is because we think that means
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I have to think it's my fault. And when it
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becomes my fault, now I become depressed by that idea.
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It's disempowering, it brings me down. Whereas a z exaid,
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when you actually go, well, it's not my fault. But
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it is my responsibility that's empowering. It gives you a
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sense of choice and direction and design. Like you said,
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our choices today are impacted by the decisions that were
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made for us when we couldn't make choices or when
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we didn't have the choice, and so that's the part
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that's not our fault. But now as we get wiser
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and older and more mature and more experienced, we now
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can take that responsibility. So I thought that was a
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really clear concept. The second thing that I wanted to
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unpack from what you said, which is really special, was
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the difference between excluding and explaining. So you were talking
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about how someone's actions don't exclude them for what's coming
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for them, but really we need to seek the explanation.
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We need to understand how they got there. It's the context,
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the complexity. It's one of the reasons why I really
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appreciate it's the why. It's the why, it's the why.
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It's one of the reasons why I appreciated the movie
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The Joker because to me, looking at a very fictional character,
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of course, but you start to recognize that even this
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villain that we have hated or disliked for so many
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years has a backstory, and often we tell our heroes
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backstories and origin stories, but we don't tell the villain's
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backstories or origin stories. And there's a lot to be
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gained from that, because yes, nothing is excluded. Everyone should
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be held accountable, people should not be allowed to get
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away with things. But we might be able to reduce
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this happening in the future if we were to learn
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how these people are made. And talking about your Audi example,
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it actually does aligne because if you and I got
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an Audi on the same day and it was the
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same model, but you treated yours badly and I treated
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mine well, in ten years time, you get to see
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the exact same difference, and that uniqueness is going to
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be made by how it's treated. So I just wanted
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to unpack that for everyone because I think you shared
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such a breadth of insight there, and I just wanted
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to pick it a few of those things.
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Speaker 1: So I love that you brought up The Joker because
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that movie I was so grateful that it was made
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because it, to me, was one of the most important
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movies I had ever seen that dealt with mental health.
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Speaker 2: I was like, how it took.
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Speaker 1: A DC And you know, I love that it's DC too,
14:50
because that's my family. But you know, it took DC
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making this movie about this villain to really highlight the
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incredibly power powerful effects of trauma, like real, horrible trauma
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and what that does to a human being. There's that
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saying every villain is the hero of their own story, right,
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or everyone is the hero of their own story.
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Speaker 2: Including villains. And one of the coolest things about being
15:15
an actor is that it's very much based on empathy.
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You know.
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Speaker 1: The whole idea is that you are looking at something
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that is outside of you, a character, a person, and
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you're trying to understand them so that you can bring
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them to life in an honest way. Now, if you're
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playing a quote unquote bad guy, well guess what. Bad
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guys don't think they're bad guys. Bad guys think that
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they're doing the right thing, whatever that is. Now, it
15:40
might be super twisted, it might it might come from
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all the wrong places, but their logic has brought them
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to there because of whatever traumas they've experienced prior to that.
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Speaker 2: There are not a lot of.
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Speaker 1: People doing bad in the world that are sitting around
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twisting their proverbial mustache and being like.
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Speaker 2: Ooh, I can't wait to do these bad things.
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Speaker 1: No, it's very hard for us to wrap our head around,
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but that is the truth. In order to understand why
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people are doing what they're doing, which is what we,
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like you're saying, we have to get to the bottom
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of it.
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Speaker 2: It does not excuse, It explains.
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Speaker 1: Excusing explaining, and to explain builds empathy. It helps us
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to understand why people do what they do, and therefore
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helps us to hopefully condition them away from doing those
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things if we can find them early enough. Instead of,
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you know, let's say you meet somebody and you know
16:29
that they're about to or thinking about doing this horrible thing. Now,
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the knee jerk reaction is, oh my god, they're a monster.
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Speaker 2: I can't believe it.
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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, as opposed to oh you are hurting inside.
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Speaker 2: Let's sit down.
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Speaker 1: Let me be a conduit of love in your life
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so that you don't feel the.
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Speaker 2: Necessity to go do these You know what if people.
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Speaker 1: Saw that and said, oh, man, you know what, I
16:49
think this guy might be very close to going and
16:51
doing something really bad. And why oh, because well, look
16:54
how he's treated at school, Look how he's treated at home,
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Look how he's treated online. They're constantly online and they're
16:59
finding themselves rejected even by strangers on the internet. They
17:02
go on Instagram and they're constantly comparing themselves to the beautiful,
17:06
perfect lives of everyone there. Comparison is not just the
17:09
thief of joy. Comparison is literally destroying people's mental health.
17:14
We have got to be able to get in there,
17:17
hopefully early before the bad things happen, but then afterwards
17:21
also we have got to be willing to allow ourselves
17:27
to be angry, to be frustrated, to be sad, to
17:30
be all of the things, but then still not allow
17:32
ourselves to be the dehumanizer. The more we dehumanize all
17:37
those that are struggling and doing bad things in the world,
17:40
the more we dehumanize ourselves. We are all cut from
17:44
the same miraculous cloth. Some of us are just in
17:48
conditioning that makes them very troubled and doing very horrible things.
17:53
But again, there are people that go to prisons now,
17:56
that are going and seeing the human being even in
17:58
the murderer, and saying, I refuse to believe that you
18:01
are a monster. Instead, I will hold you accountable. We
18:05
will all hold you accountable. Because that was not what
18:07
you should have done, but I will still try to
18:09
do my best to see the human in you, because
18:11
before you leave this earth, you should feel that, you
18:14
should know that. And I think that if we do that,
18:17
we infuse that kind of love, there'll be less and
18:20
less and less and less and less of this that
18:22
we ever need to deal with, because people will ultimately
18:25
be more healed and more whole. And that's why I
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think that if we can get to everyone there, if
18:30
we can heal every head, every heart, and every mind
18:34
in this world, all of our other problems go away.
18:37
These are the source of all of the rest of
18:39
the issues, of all the murder, of all the rape, of.
18:41
Speaker 2: All the theft.
18:42
Speaker 1: Of all the wars, of all of the greed, the
18:45
amount of greed that is killing this.
18:47
Speaker 2: World right now.
18:47
Speaker 1: All of the CEOs and leaders of industry that all
18:51
value profit over people, that all value money over what
18:55
that money is ultimately doing to this world, to the planet,
18:57
to the animals and the life in it, and we
19:01
all just kind of rationalize it.
19:03
Speaker 2: We all say, yeah, but you know, I mean, everybody
19:05
needs to make money, so I guess I don't know. No,
19:08
those people.
19:09
Speaker 1: The reason why we all do This is because we
19:11
are all still afraid that if we don't have enough,
19:14
we are not enough. And that is one of the
19:17
greatest lies and the CEOs to get to the tops
19:19
of these companies. Though, if we can get to them
19:21
instead of what so many people want to do, which
19:25
is dehumanize and vilify them and say you're the one
19:29
percent and you don't care.
19:31
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe all that is somewhat true on.
19:34
Speaker 1: Some level, but guess what, They're still also a child
19:36
of God. They are also still a.
19:38
Speaker 2: Divine, miraculous life.
19:40
Speaker 1: And I guarantee that if we want to actually help
19:43
them to change their ways, pointing fingers and yelling.
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Speaker 2: At them is not the way to do it. If
19:49
we want to.
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Speaker 1: Actually change their hearts, we've got to lead with love.
19:53
We've got to go to the Jeff Bezoses of the world.
19:55
And this is hard because I really have big problems
19:58
with people like, you know, like it's like, dude, you
20:00
have all the money in the world, where's all the ultruism?
20:03
Speaker 2: Why can't we give back? Like you can't take it
20:05
with you?
20:05
Speaker 3: You know.
20:05
Speaker 1: One of one of my favorite quotes, you don't see
20:07
a U haul in the back of a hearse your grave,
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is it?
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Speaker 2: That's all you know?
20:11
Speaker 1: Now, some of these people, I think they think, well,
20:15
I'll be remembered as one of the richest people in
20:17
the world. No, you won't, not one hundred years from now,
20:20
not two hundred years now, not a thousand years from now.
20:22
There are emperors that were ruling over massive empires, that
20:27
commanded millions and millions of lives, that could literally kill
20:31
a person in front of God and everyone and do
20:33
it scott free. Nothing would happen to them at all.
20:35
Do you know all of their names? Because I don't.
20:38
I don't know all of these people. Nobody does. They're
20:40
all forgotten. They're all forgotten in the annals of history.
20:43
Very few of them ever get written down. And if
20:45
they are written down, it's a little footnote. It's like, oh, yeah,
20:47
I'm that person existed, but nothing of really any value.
20:50
They're not looked at as like, oh, these are the
20:52
great people of the world. They're not, if they're even
20:54
remembered at all. So if we can get to the old,
20:58
you know, the ultra wealthy of the world, these leaders
21:00
of industry, and say hey, hey, hey, listen, there's nothing
21:03
wrong with going and taking care of yourself you and yours.
21:06
Speaker 2: And making money.
21:06
Speaker 1: Fine, go do it, but don't do it at the
21:08
expense of other people's lives. Don't do it at the
21:11
expense of your entire workforce. Don't do it in the
21:13
expense of the environment. Don't do it at the expense
21:16
of this miracle of a world that we have. But
21:19
we can't do that to hate. We can't hate our
21:21
way to a better future. We can only love our
21:23
way there. That is the bottom line. And so and
21:26
it takes this radical love.
21:28
Speaker 3: We struggle as human beings to allow two things to
21:34
exist at one time. So the idea, as you said,
21:38
is you can love someone but not like what they do.
21:41
That's allowing two opposite, separate ideas to exist at the
21:46
same time. Or the idea that I disagree with this person,
21:51
but I have to connect with them and communicate with
21:55
them in a way that will help them shift, and
21:59
I may have to be more paid. It may take longer,
22:02
but guess what, if it takes me longer, it will
22:05
probably last longer as well. If you shout at someone,
22:09
they may change their behavior right now, but they'll go
22:12
back to doing what they were doing a few moments later,
22:15
just like you do with a child, Like if you
22:17
shout at a child and it may stop playing the
22:20
video game or whatever it is because it's scared, but
22:22
then a few moments later, it still wants to play
22:24
the video game. Whereas if a child is engaged with
22:26
and connected with, and communicated with and educated in what
22:30
may be a better use of its time, it just
22:32
starts to transform. And that requires love, and it requires empathy,
22:35
and it requires patience. And I think because we've never
22:38
received that ourselves, we find it so hard to go
22:42
out there and give it to others. I mean, in
22:44
the first section of your book, the first chapter, you
22:46
call it stop running when we bring this back, because
22:51
we've talked a lot about like the most big extreme
22:55
global macro issues of how this idea cascades across the world.
23:04
But when we look at it, as you said, it's
23:05
starts like it starts from us. And so what do
23:08
you think that what are we running from? And what
23:12
are we running towards? Or are we just running nowhere?
23:16
Speaker 2: You know?
23:16
Speaker 1: In my case, and I think this is the case
23:18
probably for a lot of people, but in my case,
23:20
it was running from the pain and I didn't even
23:23
know it. I mean, that's you know, That's that's part
23:25
of the tricky thing about this. You know, like you
23:28
can give somebody advice that absolutely applies to their life,
23:32
but if they don't recognize that they're doing that thing,
23:34
they think, no, I'm good. I mean, for so long
23:37
in my life I had been given certain pieces of
23:39
advice like maybe do this or maybe do that, but
23:41
in my mind I was I was cool. I was like,
23:44
I get that for somebody else, but for me, I'm
23:46
I'm okay. I didn't realize until I had this massive
23:50
breakdown that I had been running away from so much
23:56
of what I had been trying to survive. And I
23:59
do think that's pretty applicable to most people. You know,
24:01
as a child, your ego is essential. It is your
24:06
survival suit, it is your life raft. It is the
24:11
thing that protects you from all of the trauma that
24:13
you experience. I mean, it's a thing that you know,
24:15
particularly like, not particularly, but using again an extreme example,
24:19
there are people that are able to disassociate from themselves
24:22
when they are sexually abused as children, because how else
24:26
is a child supposed to process that. So many of
24:28
these cases, the ego steps in the ego is there
24:31
to protect the psyche, and it says, you're not here
24:34
right now. You're good, you're not here right now, You're
24:36
somewhere else. This isn't really you.
24:38
Speaker 2: And then that child learns how to now disassociate.
24:41
Speaker 1: Well, that was great for then, but that becomes a
24:44
massive problem later on in life if you don't ultimately
24:47
heal from that, if you don't learn that that's what
24:49
you're doing and heal from that.
24:50
Speaker 2: So the ego ultimately is.
24:53
Speaker 1: This incredible gift, but that becomes an incredible hindrance. It
24:58
becomes an incredible weight on us. You know, in the
25:02
book I talk about it's almost like this exoskeleton or
25:04
this you know, suit of armor.
25:06
Speaker 2: It's this incredible thing.
25:08
Speaker 1: You're walking around and people are swinging clubs and things
25:10
like you, and it's the armor's taking all the hits.
25:13
Speaker 2: But the armor is.
25:13
Speaker 1: Getting dented and chinked and cut up, and you know,
25:17
so you end up walking around by the time you're
25:20
thirty five years old, if you're still depending on this
25:23
suit of armor, you don't realize how malformed you are.
25:27
You think you're walking smooth and straight, but you're really
25:29
with a limp and you're doing this all because you're
25:31
stuck in this contorted armor and that armor is only
25:35
supposed to service up to that point. And then you know,
25:39
we can argue or argue a debate about you know,
25:42
some people, you know, they like to use wording like,
25:45
you know, death to the ego or kill the ego,
25:47
and other people are like, no, befriend the ego or
25:49
whatever that is, however you want to word it. I think,
25:51
at the end of the day, is something that we
25:53
all need to realize as a beautiful necessity in our
25:57
lives as we are childrenicularly, and then eventually it does
26:02
not serve us in the positive way that it once did,
26:06
and ultimately being grateful for it, but allowing it to
26:10
not be the armor that we need anymore because we
26:13
are doing the work on healing ourselves and enlightening ourselves
26:16
so that when things do come at us, we're able
26:19
to evade.
26:20
Speaker 2: We're able to you know, judo them by us.
26:22
Speaker 1: We're not just they're not hitting us anymore because we're
26:26
now more mature in our thought process and in our feelings.
26:29
I was constantly running because I was constantly trying to
26:33
survive as a child, I didn't realize just how traumatic
26:36
it was to me.
26:37
Speaker 2: You know, like if you're.
26:38
Speaker 1: Growing up in chaos, you just kind of assume that's normal,
26:41
that the standard is what it is.
26:43
Speaker 2: If you don't grow up in chaos, you assume that's normal.
26:46
Speaker 1: Now, I thought, when I would go to normal you know, friends,
26:49
homes and things, I just assumed, well, people are putting
26:52
on airs or they're putting on appearances.
26:54
Speaker 2: But when I'm not here, it gets crazy, Like it
26:56
gets crazy.
26:57
Speaker 1: At my house, not realizing that I was really in
27:00
a massive, massive survival mode. I mean, my sympathetic nervous system.
27:04
Even to this day. I mean, it's something that I
27:05
have to work on very constantly because we want to
27:08
be in our parasympathetic We want to be in a
27:11
relaxed rest and digest in.
27:13
Speaker 2: A mode most of the time.
27:14
Speaker 1: We don't want to be in this again, incredible gift
27:17
that our bodies were given, which is the sympathetic, which
27:21
is to survive, which is to run away from the
27:24
saber tooth tiger, which is to not be killed by
27:27
a trampling elephant, or you know, go running and going
27:31
and running after an antelope to go hunt it and
27:33
bring it back to your camp.
27:34
Speaker 2: These are all things that we are.
27:36
Speaker 1: Our bodies evolutionarily have these beautiful, amazing gifts, but they're
27:40
constantly activated now, almost more than ever, because survival is
27:44
no longer running away from the beast, or chasing the
27:47
thing to hunt, or getting out of you know, the elements.
27:51
Speaker 2: We all have a roof, not all of us, but
27:53
a lot of the world, more.
27:55
Speaker 1: Than ever before in human history, have some kind of
27:57
a roof over their head, some kind of close on
27:59
their backs, some kind of food in their stomach. And
28:01
survival has now become money because money can pay for
28:05
all of those things, and so our pursuit, all of
28:07
our collective pursuit for more of this is keeping.
28:10
Speaker 2: Us all engaged in this survival mode.
28:14
Speaker 1: And I was running from all of that, trying to
28:17
survive and then running too.
28:20
Speaker 2: Where do I find my worth? Where do I find
28:22
my identity?
28:22
Speaker 1: Where do I find these other things that ultimately give
28:25
me this purpose and this worth? And how do I
28:28
survive now in this other world? So that's where I
28:30
ran from, and that's where I ran too, And ultimately
28:33
all of that is really unhealthy because you need to
28:35
be able to sit with yourself and recognize that nothing
28:39
gives you worth or value outside of the fact that
28:42
you are. That you are here, the fact that you
28:45
are alive means that you are a miracle. If that alone,
28:50
if we could get people to the point of recognizing that,
28:53
holy crap, that should be enough, hopefully to be able
28:56
to say, I love myself. I can't believe what a
28:59
luck thing that I got. I'm here, I'm in this existence.
29:04
Speaker 2: That will hopefully help us to stop running from things
29:07
and sit and be present.
29:10
Speaker 3: I think the challenge I see that people have as
29:12
you address in this book, and that's why I really
29:15
appreciate what you've done with this book. Like Zach talks
29:18
about like how to get help, how to be open,
29:21
how to share your story right like, the book is
29:24
a systematic approach in the journey that we're talking about
29:28
in this very macro way today, because the book lays
29:32
out the steps that you have to take. So if
29:33
anyone's listening to us right now and going like, that's
29:35
what I want to do, that's what I want to
29:36
figure out, the book actually walks you through that journey.
29:40
And Zach, I want to ask you this question because
29:43
I feel like that journey, as you said at the
29:46
beginning to Radical Love often feels so far away because
29:53
we haven't been trained that way. We have an experience
29:56
that we didn't see that we didn't have access to
29:59
that growing up. Uh, what's the first step? If radical
30:03
love is the step, what's the first step in that
30:08
journey that people could take today, tomorrow, this year in
30:11
their life that makes them feel like they're on that journey.
30:16
Because what we both also know is that if you
30:18
try and imitate radical love, or if you try and
30:21
pretend to practice radical love, that can actually be detrimental
30:26
to yourself and others because it's just it's not real, right,
30:29
So I want to hear about that from you.
30:32
Speaker 1: Inauthentic anything is the opposite of the thing. So if
30:35
we're trying to put on love, if it's not authentic,
30:39
it's not love, particularly love. There's a lot there are
30:43
actually some other things that you could do a proxy
30:45
version of that.
30:46
Speaker 2: You can.
30:47
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not totally screwing things up, but if you are,
30:50
if you think you're providing love, if you're loving, you
30:53
think you're you're loving yourself.
30:55
Speaker 2: I mean, like my own journey, I thought I was
30:57
loving myself, but that.
30:58
Speaker 1: Was inauthentic love because I was still berating myself. Unbeknownst
31:03
to me, I was still all my self talk was
31:06
the same self talk though it was the same talk
31:08
that I got from my parents. My parents, the majority
31:10
of the way that you talk to yourself is the
31:12
way your parents talk to you. So if you don't
31:15
first recognize that, you're gonna have a really hard time
31:17
understanding how to get out of whatever you're in. Now,
31:20
if you had great parents that were super patient and
31:23
loving and kind and empathetic and didn't you know, jump
31:27
at you, but held firm boundaries and you know all
31:30
that stuff, there's chances chances are you have really good
31:32
healthy self talk and good on you.
31:34
Speaker 2: Me not so much I had. I didn't.
31:37
Speaker 1: I didn't know that and then I figured it out
31:39
and I still work on it. But it's a thing
31:42
that you know now that I'm aware of the traps
31:44
that I fall into. Now I'm able to go, oh, Zach,
31:46
you're doing it again. You're doing that thing, and you
31:48
know this is how you will end up winding yourself
31:51
back down.
31:51
Speaker 2: So but going back to your question.
31:53
Speaker 1: What is the first step, The first step has got
31:56
to be recognizing that you have a problem, right like
32:00
that is that's the age old, that's the adage.
32:03
Speaker 2: You know.
32:03
Speaker 1: The first step in fixing the problem is recognizing that
32:05
you have a problem. Now, that can be very difficult
32:08
for people. You can't force people to do that. That's
32:09
got to be something that comes because they recognize the necessity. Now,
32:13
in my case, I had a complete mental breakdown, and
32:16
so I knew I don't know what else to do.
32:18
Clearly I have a problem if I don't want to
32:20
live anymore, So I have got to go try and
32:23
figure that out. Now, that was step one, step two. Now,
32:26
by the way, not everybody has to come to that
32:29
dire of a conclusion.
32:30
Speaker 2: Hopefully nobody does.
32:31
Speaker 1: Hopefully we're able to recognize these things far earlier in life.
32:35
Speaker 2: Beyond that, the step is you.
32:36
Speaker 1: Got to talk. You got to talk about it. You
32:38
got to start with one of your closest friends or
32:42
closest friends, start with your family if they're the closest
32:45
to you. Get some of it out, say I am struggling,
32:48
I don't know what I'm struggling with. I'm embarrassed whatever.
32:52
Guess what, there's no reason to be embarrassed. There's no
32:54
reason to be scared because everybody, everyone without fail there
32:58
is not one person on this earth that and dealt with.
33:00
Even the best parents, and people still deal with some
33:03
form of stress, anxiety, depression, you name it, there is
33:07
something there, so everyone can relate to this.
33:10
Speaker 2: Ultimately, we're all afraid.
33:11
Speaker 1: It's getting better, which is great, it's getting less stigmatized
33:14
as the more we do things like this and talk
33:16
about it. But everyone still has these reservations and fears
33:18
because nobody wants to feel like they're broken.
33:20
Speaker 2: Nobody wants to feel like everybody else is good.
33:22
Speaker 1: But I'm somehow struggling and I don't know how, and
33:24
we all feel like we're uniquely broken. We feel like, well, clearly,
33:27
no one has felt the way that I feel. No
33:29
one has gone through this exact thing, And I am
33:32
here to say that is also a lie because the
33:35
world is really, really old, and there have been billions
33:38
and billions of people who have lived on this earth,
33:40
and even if they lived in a completely different time,
33:42
guess what, they have still struggled with the exact same problems,
33:47
slightly different details, exact same problems. So talking about it,
33:51
getting it out, you have got to acknowledge that there's
33:53
a problem.
33:54
Speaker 2: Talk about that, but immediately as soon as you.
33:56
Speaker 1: Can go to a professional, don't have your friends and family.
34:01
Speaker 2: Don't allow them to be this kind of end.
34:04
Speaker 1: All of where you get your advice and your wisdom,
34:07
because as try as they might, they all have bias.
34:10
They all have agenda, even bias, an agenda that they're
34:12
unaware of, not even biased agenda, like well, I'm going
34:15
to take advantage of this, like, hey, I have a
34:16
certain idea of who I think you ought to be,
34:19
so I'm going to give you advice when it comes
34:21
to directing you in that way, whereas a disinterested, unbiased,
34:25
unagended third party. I mean, I guess the only bias
34:28
or agenda they would have a professional therapist is that
34:31
they get paid to do it, So I suppose you
34:33
could say that. But outside of that, I mean, and
34:36
they should because it's a service, it's a job, and
34:38
by the way, it's one of the most valuable, so
34:41
it's so worth the money. Although I do think all
34:43
of that needs to be worked out too. That really
34:45
I'm hoping that we can keep pushing toward getting mental
34:48
health services and information and education to people on much
34:53
more reduced rates, if not entirely free. I wish that
34:55
there were clinics that people could just walk into right
34:58
off the street and be like, hey, struggling, I need
35:01
to talk to somebody.
35:01
Speaker 2: I need somebody just kind of.
35:02
Speaker 1: Like help click this back into reality. What a beautiful
35:06
world that will be. But until that day very worth whatever,
35:10
you know, the money, I believe an investment in yourself.
35:15
So that's the first step. I really truly believe you
35:17
got it. You gotta acknowledge it, you got to talk
35:19
about it. And then within that, now you have someone
35:21
who is guiding you to the various other steps. Because
35:26
the other steps, though some of them are kind of universal,
35:30
some of them are not.
35:31
Speaker 2: Not every not every.
35:33
Speaker 1: Person needs to do X, and not every person needs
35:37
to do why, And even the people that need to
35:39
do both don't necessarily have to do them or should
35:42
do them in that order. You know, it all depends
35:44
on what your particular personal journey has been in your
35:48
life with your traumas, how they came about, how they're
35:51
manifesting in your life right now, how you happen to
35:54
be struggling or not struggling with them or don't think
35:56
you're struggling with them. You know, all of that can really,
35:59
you know, with a licensed professional. Somebody really understands these things.
36:03
It was studied this stuff. They can guide you through
36:06
the rest. But so that's what I would tell anybody
36:08
out there, do your self the service and the favor.
36:12
Go love yourself first and foremost by investing in a
36:15
therapist and being able to talk about and just get
36:17
out what it is you need to talk about.
36:19
Speaker 3: I love that, Zach. I mean, I'm sure everyone can
36:22
hear your passion, your drive, the amount of like and
36:26
it was the same lost them leg even last time.
36:28
I remember there was this one clip we had and
36:30
you just went empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, empathy, and
36:34
he said empathy like thirty times. And even today I've
36:37
heard you say radical love, you know, and it's the
36:40
message you're asking us to do is hard but necessary.
36:47
It's challenging but real. It's pushing us because that's the
36:54
only way we get to our truest selves. And you
36:56
can see that in you that it's a it's a plea,
37:00
like you're almost pleading, pleading with us to say, please
37:02
do this. You know. It's not even it's not a direction,
37:05
it's not preaching, it's not pushing, it's pleading uh. And
37:10
I just want to say thank you to you for
37:12
your energy, for the time to put this book together,
37:14
for just just your ability to speak the truth so emphatically,
37:19
and you know, with so much, with so much not
37:23
confidence that's that's actually an understatement, but but with depth, right,
37:27
there's a there's a real depth behind these thoughts. And
37:29
I I appreciate you, man, I really do, because it's
37:31
it's so much harder to talk about the things that
37:34
you're choosing to talk about, uh, than than the software
37:37
version of a lot of these ideas. So I appreciate you.
37:40
I'm grateful for you. I'm recommending to everyone, please, please
37:44
please go and grab a copy of the book, A
37:46
Radical Love, Learning to Accept Yourself and others. Like I
37:52
said today, Zach's taking us on a journey of really
37:55
understanding the concepts and ideas as these big prints. But
38:00
the book really goes into his journey, his story, the
38:04
experiences he went to be on the brink of that
38:07
position of breaking down and falling apart, and then guides
38:12
you through this step to step journey, whether it's overcoming
38:14
your ego, whether it's loving yourself. So please do go
38:18
and grab a copy of Radical love, Zach.
38:20
Speaker 2: I'm grateful.
38:21
Speaker 3: I can't wait to catch up with you, hang out
38:22
with you. I miss you, and I'm wishing you all
38:26
the best for the book tour. I hope it goes
38:27
exceptionally well and I'm really excited to reconnect man.
38:31
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you, bless you,
38:35
love and appreciate you so much. And I hope that
38:38
I get to see you and your wonderful wife in
38:41
La or wherever we get to connect somewhere in the world.
38:43
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you, man. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you
38:45
for doing this at your time. I'm sure it's pretty
38:47
late there too.
38:48
Speaker 2: So nah, I'm good, totally worth it, great seeing you.
38:51
Speaker 3: Thank you. If you want even more videos just like
38:54
this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the
38:56
boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know
39:00
that you can now get my book Think Like a
39:03
Monk from thinklak a monkbook dot com. Check below in
39:06
the description to make sure you order it today.