Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 124. Jesse Israel, Founder of The Big Quiet

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124. Jesse Israel, Founder of The Big Quiet · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

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  Speaker 1: For us to give ourselves permission to cut back right
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  Speaker 1: now instead of lean into more, and to give ourselves
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  Speaker 1: that permission to rest and to find ways to rest.
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  Speaker 1: If we're able to be in nature, to be with family,
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  Speaker 1: if we can I know a lot of us can't
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  Speaker 1: right to have meaningful, heartfelt conversations ideally regularly, if we're
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: able to really amping up the self care is so
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  Speaker 1: important right now, especially right now.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Hay Hurdlers, Emily Abadi here bringing you episode one four
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: of Hurdle a Wellness, a focused podcast where I sit
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  Speaker 2: down with inspiring individuals to talk about everything from their
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: big wins to how they've gotten through some of life's
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: toughest moments. On the show, you can expect vulnerability, motivation,
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  Speaker 2: and candid discussions with everyone from athletes to aspiring entrepreneurs
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: and what it really takes to follow your passions. My
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: mission is simple to inspire you to be your best self,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a move with intention, and have some fun along the way.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Today I am bringing you my conversation with Jesse Israel.
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  Speaker 2: He is the founder of the Big Quiet, a mass
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  Speaker 2: meditation moment. Now, this turtle is what I'm really excited
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: about because from the moment I first met Jesse, I
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: first heard Jesse speak, I was enamored by him so
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: much so that I knew I needed to bring him
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: on the show, not just because his voice is obscenely calming,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: and you'll hear that in just a little bit, but
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  Speaker 2: because his passion for what he does gets me excited
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  Speaker 2: about life. First things first, let's establish what the Big
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  Speaker 2: Quiet is. The Big Quiet, up until this year, was
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  Speaker 2: basically a mass meditation concept that gathers thousands of people
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  Speaker 2: at a time for large scale moments of quiet, connection
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  Speaker 2: and special performances at some of the coolest, most iconic
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  Speaker 2: places in the world. Recently, as you can imagine, with
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: everything that has been going on with the pandemic, and
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: they have pivoted online to bring a lot of their
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  Speaker 2: teachings there, including an upcoming virtual Meditation free part course
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  Speaker 2: that teaches you how to have a legit and daily
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  Speaker 2: meditation practice.
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  Speaker 3: All link to that in the show notes.
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  Speaker 2: Anyway, I myself experienced The Big Quiet at the Guggenheim
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  Speaker 2: last year, and again I was just so blown away,
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  Speaker 2: not only by the concept and what I experienced in
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  Speaker 2: such an unbelievable vocation, but by Jesse's passion for what
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  Speaker 2: he is doing. Let's be real, Jesse did not always
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  Speaker 2: dream of launching a meditation concept. In fact, back in
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  Speaker 2: college at NYU, he actually launched a record label that
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  Speaker 2: signed multi platinum bands like MGMT in the grind that
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: came hand in hand with touring bands. He started to
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: experience a ton of anxiety, which sounds about right, and
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: knew that he needed to make a big change, and
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  Speaker 2: so a bunch of different experiences, which we'll chat about
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  Speaker 2: in today's episode, they brought him to meditation work and
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  Speaker 2: eventually creating that Big Quiet. Today we talk about how
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  Speaker 2: the Big Quiet started popping up at all of these
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: big venues including Madison Square Garden, how Jesse spent the
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  Speaker 2: beginning of the year on tour with Oprah and her
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty Vision Tour, and also.
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  Speaker 3: Of course what's next.
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  Speaker 2: Before we get into it today, a quick shout out
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• 5:08
  Speaker 2: so yet, don't forget to click on over to the
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: link and the show notes and the description to this episode,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: because in there you can subscribe to the weekly Hurdle newsletter.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Lots of good takeaways in there.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: If you like what you're listening to, which I know
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: that you will, make sure to tag me. Tag Jesse
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: over on social media at Jesse Israel and of course
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcasts at Emily a Body And if you
• 5:32
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• 5:34
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• 5:38
  Speaker 3: One last huge thank you to all of you.
• 5:40
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• 5:56
  Speaker 2: with that, let's get to hurdling.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: Today.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Jesse Israel. He is the founder
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  Speaker 2: of the Big Quiet, a mass meditation movement.
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  Speaker 3: How you doing, my friend.
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  Speaker 4: I'm doing very well.
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  Speaker 2: I feel as though I want to really dive into it.
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  Speaker 2: With you right off the bat, because my favorite thing
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  Speaker 2: when I went to your website is that now you
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: say that phrases like personal power and live your purpose
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: are a part of your vocabulary.
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  Speaker 3: So tell me what's your purpose.
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  Speaker 1: I would say that my purpose is to reconnect people
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  Speaker 1: to their power so that they can meaningfully contribute to
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  Speaker 1: the world around them. That's like my like buttoned up
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  Speaker 1: version of it. And when I say that, I feel excited.
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  Speaker 1: But I also feel that putting a purpose into a
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  Speaker 1: sentence or into a couple of sentences is really tough
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  Speaker 1: and oftentimes it frustrating, challenging practice because purpose is so
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  Speaker 1: much of a feeling and also very amorphous.
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  Speaker 3: What a word. I'm into that, okay.
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  Speaker 1: But ultimately, for me, what I feel drawn to in
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  Speaker 1: regards to my purpose is is has a lot to
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  Speaker 1: do with my own lived experience feeling blocked often definitely
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  Speaker 1: more in my past but still sometimes today, but feeling
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  Speaker 1: really blocked mainly from you know, stress, anxiety, lonness, loneliness.
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  Speaker 1: I felt a lot of that in New York City,
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  Speaker 1: feeling this this disconnection from myself and learning that when
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  Speaker 1: I was able to start to take better care of myself, meditation,
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  Speaker 1: obviously a huge part of that for me, But you know,
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  Speaker 1: self practice is, but also community practices, right, social practices,
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  Speaker 1: being in groups, feeling like I'm a part of something,
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  Speaker 1: being seen, being supported, being a support other people. That
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  Speaker 1: these two things of having individual practice, you know, self
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  Speaker 1: practice as well as social practice community practice really helped
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  Speaker 1: me feel like I could be me again and I
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  Speaker 1: was able to start to reconnect with that personal power.
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  Speaker 1: So I feel really called to through my own leadership
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  Speaker 1: of speaking and teaching, facilitating and hosting events to be
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  Speaker 1: able to help people have that same experience, to help
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  Speaker 1: people reconnect with their power so they can figure out
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  Speaker 1: how they can you know, meaningfully and in a fulfilling
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  Speaker 1: way give to the world around them.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you didn't just become a facilitator, someone that's guiding
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  Speaker 2: these conversations overnight and in fact knowing a little bit
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  Speaker 2: about your story before coming into this. It's been quite
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  Speaker 2: the journey. So why don't we take it back to
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  Speaker 2: those New York days? Why don't we talk about Jesse
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  Speaker 2: in college?
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  Speaker 1: So I went to NYU sophomore year. I was living
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  Speaker 1: in a dorm with it was eleven guys in one.
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  Speaker 1: It wasn't a one room, but it was one dorm
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  Speaker 1: large dorm apartment essentially, and so it was eleven guys.
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  Speaker 1: We had two bathrooms, and it was pretty terrifying in there.
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  Speaker 1: My mom came and visited once and had to leave
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  Speaker 1: because she was so disturbed by the dirt. So it
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  Speaker 1: was a unique setting. But out of that dorm room,
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  Speaker 1: my roommate and I started a record label. We had
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  Speaker 1: no idea what we were doing, but we started working
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  Speaker 1: with a band called MGMT, who are also college students
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  Speaker 1: at Wesleyan College, and we've we've formed a record label
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  Speaker 1: to put out their first album. And this is really
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  Speaker 1: exciting because I felt really disconnected in New York City.
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  Speaker 4: I grew up in Los Angeles.
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  Speaker 1: I went to a small high school, and then when
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  Speaker 1: I went to New York to go to NYU, I
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  Speaker 1: just felt like this little little tadpole in a big
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  Speaker 1: ocean and it was tough for me. I was used
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  Speaker 1: to community and you know, smaller groups. So starting this project,
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  Speaker 1: this music project with my roommate, started to give me
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  Speaker 1: a sense of something I could give myself to. We
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  Speaker 1: started to throw concerts, we started dj in and started
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  Speaker 1: to find a way to get involved creatively, which is
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  Speaker 1: really exciting.
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  Speaker 3: I'm curious.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, what what attracted you to n YU in the
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  Speaker 2: first place.
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  Speaker 1: I just wanted I wanted to push myself and step
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  Speaker 1: out of my comfort zone, you know, growing up very
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  Speaker 1: comfortably in Los Angeles. I wanted to go try a
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  Speaker 1: city like New York. And then I was also really
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  Speaker 1: drawn to the energy of the city. I was really
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  Speaker 1: into music and filmmaking and and digital design, so I
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  Speaker 1: just wanted to go dive into that and that's what
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  Speaker 1: led me to it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so you start DJing, you start working with your
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  Speaker 2: roommate and throwing all the parties.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, our label, MGMT started to grow, and our label
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  Speaker 1: started to grow with them. We were still selling CDs
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  Speaker 1: at the time. We were packaging them up out of
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  Speaker 1: our dorm room because this was in when was this
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  Speaker 1: two thousand and five.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, it's crazy, I.
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  Speaker 3: Thought, you have some great mixtapes.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, big time, big time, some great CDs. Love a
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  Speaker 4: burn CD.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, by the time we graduated, MGMT had really
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  Speaker 1: taken off. We had upstreamed them to a major label,
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  Speaker 1: and they became this sort of global sensation. So by
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  Speaker 1: the time I was twenty three, there was all this
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: exciting momentum around the band, around our label growing and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: you know, throwing more concerts and signing more bands. It
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: was very exciting. I was also and didn't know what
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: burnout was, but I was. I was pretty much on
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the brink of burnout. I was so stressed about work
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and like just kind of confused about what it meant
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: to be a young man and found that I was
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: experiencing pretty debilitating and anxiety and started getting panic attacks
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: when I was twenty three and didn't know what they were,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but just for anyone who's listening who's had a panic
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: attack before, it's a really uncomfortable experience, and the body's
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: overridden with stress and anxiety, and it can feel very
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: very doom doom ridden and really uncomfortable. And it was
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: confusing because I had this cool business that was growing
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: and we were doing really exciting work, but my internal
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: weather was very challenged, and I didn't feel like I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: could speak about it with other people. I didn't feel
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: like as a man it was a conversation to have.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: There was definitely less dialogue around I would say mental
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: health in media and sort of like the public eye
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  Speaker 1: back then at this point where we're about probably closer
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  Speaker 1: to about maybe ten years ago in my story. So
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  Speaker 1: I just started to find ways to move through it
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  Speaker 1: and deal with my anxiety and learned about meditation, and
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  Speaker 1: it was very helpful for me in a short period
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  Speaker 1: of time.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: When you were experiencing these panic attacks and a lot
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  Speaker 2: of this anxiety, where did you feel it in your body?
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  Speaker 1: I felt it in the same areas where I still
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: feel anxiety today, in my chest and in my left arm.
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  Speaker 1: I often feel it and under my skin. There's like
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: a sensation under the skin that I find to be
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  Speaker 1: noticeable when anxiety is creeping up. But the first place
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  Speaker 1: where I feel anxiety.
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  Speaker 4: Is in my chest.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm definitely the same.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was gonna say, where do you feel it?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, in my chest and like deep in my chest,
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  Speaker 2: and then sometimes in my traps, and then when it's
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: really bad, I'll just feel it in my stomach. And
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  Speaker 2: I've been able to recognize certain patterns within myself of
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: when I can kind of feel that it's getting to
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: be too much, And a lot of those patterns actually
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: have to do with eating to combat stress and the
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: feeling of oncoming anxiety.
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  Speaker 4: Interesting, So you eat as a way to try to
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  Speaker 4: push it.
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  Speaker 2: Away, kind of like I'll notice that before I'm about
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: to tackle something that feels a little everest ish, I'll
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: be sitting at my desk and my gut reaction is
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: to get up and walk to the fridge and grab
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: something to eat and then and dive in. And that's
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: just such a weird pattern because I won't be hungry.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: It's just me thinking, oh, if I do this thing,
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: then I'll be better able to cope with whatever is
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: about to come my way.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: Interesting, we all have our things.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you go through this time where you're starting
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: to feel really overwhelmed and you don't know what's going
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: on with your body or what's really happening here, and
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: what becomes the solution.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Well, I start to explore a few things. I mentioned
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: that meditation was one of my first entry points into
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: working through this stuff. Meditation was incredibly helpful. I also
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: started going to therapy and also started taking medication for
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you know, anti anxiety and anti depression. And between these
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: three things I learned a lot. I found personally that
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the meditation, I was really committed to it, that the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: meditation really helped that when I was able to start
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: to practice at regular, you know, consistently regularly that I
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: was able to start to take less amounts of the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: medication and start to wean off of it, and also
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: started to feel like I could go to therapy less
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and less and yeah, so that really felt like a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: valuable thread. But I will say that all three of
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: those tools were helpful for me, understanding that SSRI medications
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: are very controversial, especially in the wellness space, I found
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: that it was helpful for me at that period of
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: my life, and I'm grateful for the balance of those
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: three things, but meditation was the thing that really helped
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: me forward and then eventually community.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: That's really interesting.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I'm writing this article right now for GQ on breath work,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: and the expert said something to me that I thought
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: would be really effective for those specifically men I would
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: say that might be resistant to diving in to a
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: meditation practice, And he said to me that with meditation,
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: it's like you're trying to control the mind with the mind,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: but with breathwork, you're trying to control the mind starting
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: with the body. So it was as though breathwork was
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: like a gateway into meditation. Like with breathwork you have
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: a task immediately in that moment, because I think, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll get into this more, but I think
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: that for many meditation just feels like something they resist
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: right off the.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Bat, right.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is and this is a really common, I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: would say, misconception to what meditating means. There's this misconception
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: that meditating means that we somehow are able to control
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: our mind to not think, or force or focus our
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: brain in a way where it goes still, and this
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: is very tough to do and is something that is
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I would say that practicing meditation in that way is
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: something that is more aligned with a monastic lifestyle. Definitely,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: similar practices can be explored today in a modern lifestyle,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: but there are lots of different ways to practice meditation,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: and I remind people that you can have a meditation
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: practice and experience the great benefits of meditation without the
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: what's more typically understood to be as like a Zen
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Buddhist practice of I'm going to really focus on limiting
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the mind of thinking. This is really valuable form of practice,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: but it is only one of many. So I remind
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: people that there are other ways to practice where it's
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: not about controlling the mind, where it's not about trying
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to empty the mind of thoughts.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: That's really helpful tip. I appreciate that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: Sure.
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  Speaker 2: So you use these three tools and they in turn
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: help you get your anxiety under control. Where do things
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: fall into place with the record that let's see?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: So I started to find that with less blocks, right,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: with less of the stress and the anxiety that I
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: was experiencing, and I would still experience it, but it
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was lessening, and the ways that I was once reacting
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to things was shifting into going from a more stressful,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: reactive place to a more thoughtful response. I started to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: find that there were changes that were shifting how I
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: was able to show up in work and beyond, but
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: specifically with the label. I started to notice that I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: was able to start to enjoy my work more and
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I was able to make changes to give myself to
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: elements of my work that felt more fulfilling and more
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: exciting to me. So I didn't just go at like
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: learn meditation and say I'm out of here, I'm leaving
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: my job.
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: There were several years before I left my label where
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: I was.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: Able to just kind of just kind of find more
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: grooves within my work and the ways that I was
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: working with people, and I led a tech fund division
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: at our label, where we raise some money and started
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: investing in technology technology startups that could support musicians and
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the live music experience. It was a really fun, interesting journey.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: I kind of jumped into the tech space and learned
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: a whole new industry and it was great. We were
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: signing bands, we were developing tech startups, continued to throw concerts,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and I found that I was able to start to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: enjoy my work more, which was a giant relief.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: And then about six years.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Ago, I wound up leaving the label after I'd say
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: about a ten month period leading up to that point
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: where I knew that it wasn't clicking anymore. And then
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: it wasn't about changing my role within the organization like
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I had tried and enjoyed, but I'd reached this point
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: where I really felt like my growth period within the
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: company had reached its end and that it was time
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: for me to move into whatever was next. And this
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: was kind of an abstract thing because it was just
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: a feeling. It was just a gut read that I had.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I felt it intuitively that it was time to move on,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But it was really tough to make that decision because
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you know, if you looked if I looked at it, logically,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: we had this great company, it was growing, great business partners,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: you know, beautiful office space, signing cool bands, investing in technologies.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: So the rational reasons to stay were awesome. But then
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: there's just this one thing that's there was a feeling
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: that said it was time to move on. And luckily,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: because of my privilege in this world and some of
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the money I was able to save up, I had
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the ability to take that leap and to go explore
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: what was next.
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: So that's what I did. I wound up leaving the company.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: I can only imagine that that was even harder. As
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you mentioned about having great business partners. I mean, you
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: went into this with a friend of yours, and I'm
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: curious when you started to feel this way and you
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: were dealing with the anxiety. Were you open about that
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: with the people that you were working with.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: I don't.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I don't remember being very vocal about it with my
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: business partners specifically. I may have been a bit, but
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: it wasn't something that I really brought to the workplace
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: much at the time, which is funny because now my
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: work is all about that, But I do have really
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: awesome memories of when I was running the label, being
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: at music festivals and you know, being backstage with other
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: managers or people in the industry or even bands and
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: meditating together, you know, in the midst of all of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: this loud noise and sort of festival chaos, and really
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: appreciating having quiet space and a smaller sense of community
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: within the industry, and then finding that with those individuals,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I was able to talk about some of the things
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: that I was experiencing, and they were sharing with me
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: that they were experiencing similar stuff.
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: That's when I started to first get.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: A glimpse into the things that were so isolating to
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: me that really made me feel kind of alone in
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: my journey. A lot of those were my own mental
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: health challenges as someone working in the music industry. I
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: started to realize that other people in the industry and
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: successful people in the music industry were feeling the same stuff, executives, managers, musicians,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and it was so healing and validating to know that
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going through it alone. But it was rare
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: to have space to be able to quiet down and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: then to be able to open up and talk about this.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: So I first started getting tastes of this while I
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: was still in the industry.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Got it, And so you get to a point now
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: where you have left your job, and what's life like
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: after you walk away from that?
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It was really exciting at first. I felt elated to
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: have followed something that was that this kind of gut
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: pull right Following the gut can be really exciting in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: that way.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: And you know, there's about a six month period where
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: I had to.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Transition out of my company and we had investors, and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a way I had to hat
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: into that. So I left and I felt it felt
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: really exciting at first. Then I went and I traveled,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: you know, did that thing came back? A couple months later,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: landed in New York, was at my apartment in Brooklyn,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and I remember sitting on my couch and being like, whoa,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: this is my first time in a bunch of years,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: and my first time as an adult where I'm not
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: either in school or running a company or doing both.
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So I started my company while I was a sophomore
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: in college. So here I was with without anything to do,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and it was a very bizarre feeling because I put
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: myself in that situation, and I felt called to but
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I also felt like my identity got was getting was
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: I was grasping for something to identify with. I'd always
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: been able to identify with being this label guy, with
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: this you know, cool band, you signing these cool bands
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: and having this cool company, and it really much felt
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: like a lot of who I was, and it was
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: in many ways right. So much of my experiences and
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: who I was formed out of being in the industry.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: But I really identified with being this record label god.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And here I was not knowing what was next, and
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: I was about to turn thirty, and I started to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: go to that comparison place that I know so many
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: of us can go to, especially in the social media age,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: but was just watching had way more time to pay
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: attention to what my peers were doing and how their
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: careers were growing, and how their personal lives were unfolding.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And this thing that I had created space for me
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: to do, which was to leave my company and figure
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: out what was next, kind of became this torturous period
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: of getting stuck in comparison and feeling kind of purposeless
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and isolated, and I realized that there was an opportunity
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: for me to start to lean more into what I
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: felt like I needed in that moment, right was to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: have a sense of community and a space to actually
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: slow down, go inwards talk about this stuff with other
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: people that I.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: I was yearning for that for myself.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: So I started to look at how I could create
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: that for myself and others, and.
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: I wound up. It took me a while to do it.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: I was I was came up with all sorts of
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: reasons as to why I wasn't qualified to start hosting
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: group meditations, but an amazing teacher of mine named Emily
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Fletcher really encouraged me to do it. So I hosted
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: a group meditation twenty of my peers, mostly from the
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: music industry and like the fashion space and you know
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the places I was kind of partying in New York City.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: It's a group of people that I wasn't used to
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: coming together to meditate with. But about twenty of us
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: came together my buddy's apartment in Manhattan, and the idea
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: was for us to sit in quiet together. I wasn't
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: teaching meditation at that time in my life. I was
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: just practicing it. So the idea was, if you have
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a meditation practice come through, we'll close our eyes together
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: for twenty minutes, and then afterwards we'll just talk about
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: what's going on in our lives. So we hosted that
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: first what we would call medi club up over five
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: years ago at this point, and it was really uncomfortable.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: The whole way through.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I was hoping that it was going to get canceled
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: because I felt so unqualified to be doing something like that.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: But we wound up getting together, we meditated, and then
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: after we you know, once we opened our eyes, I
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: started to share a little bit about what I just
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: shared with you, some of the discomfort I was experiencing
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: in my own life, and then asked the group, you know,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: what's going on for all you? And it wasn't you know,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a therapist, I'm gonna tell you what to do.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't you know, I'm the meditation teacher and
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: here's your life advice. It was more just, hey, we're
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: a group of young people going through life. But's slow
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: down and then let's talk about what's happening. And other
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: people started to chime in and we just realized in
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: a short period of time that we're pretty much all
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: going through the same stuff in our own unique ways,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: but not talking about it. And it was it was
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: so validating to be in the space and also so
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: helpful to know that we were in it together. It
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: really I really felt this sense of belonging that I
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: hadn't felt in New York City or even as a person,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: as a young person. So it was it was a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: really cool moment and I got this sort of lightning
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: bolt that hit me. It said, this is this is
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: going to be a big part of what I meant
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: to do in this next chapter.
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: Of my life.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: I've been to Medi Club. Now I feel like I
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: need to like announce this to the earthlings. So I
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: have been to Medi Club. We met outside of Medi
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: Club originally, and when you told me that this is
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: this thing that you made and you started, and I
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: was so intrigued by it. And I think it's exactly
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: because of what you're describing, is that so rarely, especially
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: as adults, do I feel as though we have an
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: opportunity to open up in a space that feels truly safe.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: And so this experience and this gathering that you start
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: to find yourself investing your time in and cultivating, I
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: would say that that is one hundred percent part of
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: what makes it so valuable and so special outside of
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: just the meditation, And is that what you're hearing from
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the people that are coming to the early days of
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: med club.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's cool that you reflect on that, because what
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I noticed within the first few months of Mediclub happening
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: we're doing it every month, was that people were coming
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: because of meditation. Meditation was starting to become this popularized
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: thing where people were understanding that there was great benefit
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: around it and they were interested, so they were coming
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for the meditation. But I think the thing that was
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: really bringing people back and allowing the community to grow,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and it grew very fast, was that we were making
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: space for these conversations. We were making the space to
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: be human together, and that really became the glue of it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: And I also think that that's the really critical piece
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: to I'd say the glue of any community is how
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: is space being created for people to just show up
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: as themselves and contribute in some way to the group experience.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And in this way, it was happening through the conversations
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: we were having. Well, it was also happening through the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: silence that we would share in meditation there's an element
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: of contribution to that, but everyone sharing, or for those
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: that were comfortable sharing, it felt like we were a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: part of this experience together. And I've grown to, you know,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: as I've focused more on community building work over the years,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I've grown to really look at a community gathering versus
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: just an event. A community gathering, i believe, is when
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the participants, the community members are able to participate, are
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: able to contribute to the experience in some way, as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: opposed to maybe something like a concert or a more
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: traditional event where it's more one way, right, watching someone
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: talk or watching a panel or watching a band, and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you're sort of pulling from the experience and enjoying it
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: but not contributing to it. By the way, nothing wrong
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with that, but two very different experiences. So those conversations
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: were really valuable ways for people to feel like they
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: were contributing in someone to feel like they were of
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: use to the collective group.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: So when do you start to kind of think about
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: taking a medi club to the next level, Because at
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: this point you're still unemployed, is that right?
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, I was.
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I was still unemployed and I had maybe, like I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, six eight months or so of savings that
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I was able to live off of at the time,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: so I was able to just kind of give myself
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: to this, not for very long, but enough to be
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: able to do that, which is pretty cool and rare.
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I was.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: In this interesting situation where I was, you know, there
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: there were cool job opportunities that were starting to present
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: themselves or had been presenting themselves in the music industry,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: which I was incredibly grateful for, but just wasn't feeling
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: like that was my work anymore. And it was so
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: bizarre to be turning just you know, to be saying
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: no to opportunities in this other industry because I felt
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: called to something else. It was very hard to articulate.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I remember talking about it with my parents and then
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: being like, you know, we're getting a little concerned. You're
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: turning down job opportunities, You're running out of your savings.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: What are you doing?
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And I remember telling them, you know, I really want
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: to make sense of why I'm here and make sense
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: of my purpose and give myself to that. I actually
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: wound up leading to a really cool conversation that I
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: had with my parents about purpose, something we had never
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: talked about before as a family. But it was scary,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: but I had this compass that was it was sort
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: of just guiding me towards what felt right in my gut.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: And I really do attribute my meditation practice to me
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: being able to follow that and to have the courage
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: to go with it. And by the way, it wasn't
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: just like I was fearlessly, you know, blindly following this
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: path into you know, creating a meditation movement. I was
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: very much freaked out and uh get worried about what
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: was going to happen. Yeah, but leaned into it and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: gave myself the permission to just figure it out and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: go with it, and knew that I would be able
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: to to uh or thought I would be able to,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: you know, join another job or move back into the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: music industry if it came down to it financially, if
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I needed to. So I kept doing it, and then
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: about six months into Medi Club happening, we started the
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet there was it was an opportunity to create
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the experience that we were having at Medi Club with
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: a couple hundred people and to share it with thousands
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: of people at large. And the first big Quiet happened
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: about five years ago.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: Where was the first bag Quiet.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: It was at summer Stage Central Park, which is this
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: incredible venue right in the in the center of the
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: city at one of the greatest parks in the world.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: And I was on like an arts committee at Summer
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: Stage Central Park because of my time in the music industry,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: So I pitched the board on the medi club community
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: at the time as a few hundred people creating a
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: mass meditation together and inviting anyone in New York with
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: fib boroughs to come be a part of it and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: to make it a free event. And you know, summer
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Stage Central Park and the City Parks Foundation went forward.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: It was the first time they had officially backed something
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: like a mass meditation, so they gave us the venue
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and several I think maybe thirty or forty employee like
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: staffers to you know, make create this special moment. It
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: was and it was really exciting. So that came to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: life and sharing that experience at a larger scale felt
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: really good. We had some awesome bands performed when people
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: open their eyes from the meditation, there was DJs and
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: great food. It was kind of like a blend of
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: what I loved about the music industry, but with the
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: things that I felt were missing from it happening at
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: this legendary venue, and and.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: You were leading this meditation.
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And by that point, by that point I was starting
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: to lead the meditations. I was working with a teacher
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: who was supporting me to do that. I wasn't teaching meditation,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: but I was guiding the group meditation, and that also
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: felt really scary but also really exciting. I was working
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: with and actually still work with, this person whose name
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: is Johnny Pollard. It's one of the first people to
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: do mass meditations. He was leading them in Australia where
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: he's based. So we had some experience around this thing
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: that not a lot of people have experienced. So it
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: was exciting because it was new, but it was also
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: scary because it was new, and.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: It felt really great to be able to do it.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: And we continued. So we continued to do the Big Quiet.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: We were starting to get invites to host big quiets
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: at different venues. At that time, it was all free
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: for the most part, or we were doing it was
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: donation based. But I realized within that first year that
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: there was there was a real need for what we
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: were doing, Like we were serving a need that was
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: helping people to come together in this way, and that
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: it wasn't going to be sustainable to continue to serve
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that need if I wasn't charging for this work, right
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and that if and if I was only relying on volunteers,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: which I was incredibly grateful to have. But there's just
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: you know, the difference between working with volunteers and having
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: a paid staff is great. You know, there's there's there's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: real accountability that starts to occur.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: So I made the.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Decision to phase the company into a for profit, to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: make it a company, and to phase it into a
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: for profit business, and to start charging for our events,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: and to find payment scales and ways to still include
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: people who couldn't afford the ticket price that would allow
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: us to operate and make it a business. And that
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: was also really scary and uncomfortable period, was how to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: go into naming and pricing this thing. But what we
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: saw was that once we named a price for our events,
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: medi Club and the Big Quiet, that it actually increased
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: the value that people, I think, took it more seriously,
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: and then it allowed me to bring a small paid
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: staff together to start to take it to the next level.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: I love what you said before, and I guess I'll
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: refer to it a little bit as imposter syndrome, just
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: that idea of being scared to be the person that
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: stands up, whether it's in the small group inside of
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: the first few medi clubs or of course on that
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: summer stage in front of a much larger group of people,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: and asking yourself like, why am the I the person
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: that's here to do these things? And I can totally
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: relate on so many different levels, but one that I
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: think is a funny example to bring to this is
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: once I started to lead my recent hurdle sessions and
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: market these events, some of them I have concepted that
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I haven't released yet. Definitely have to do a lot
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: with self work and building confidence and a lot of
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: personal development things. And on that note, I started to
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: ask myself like, why am I the person that gets
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: to talk to you about building confidence? And I started
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: looking into coaching and life coaching and who I should
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: be speaking with and et cetera, et cetera. And I
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: was talking to my father about this and my dad goes, well,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: why do you feel as though you have to do this?
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, I.
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: Just want to make sure that when people show up
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: or if they're going to pay their way to do
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: this with me, that they feel like they're getting their
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: money's worth. And he says, do you think that certification
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: is going to change that experience for them? And then
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: he said to me, did Oprah go to a life
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: coaching class? I said, I highly doubt that Oprah went
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: to a life coaching glass, but she still became Oprah.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: So I guess we're just going to keep running with this, right.
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: I love that.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you're pointing it out. I think
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it's really important, a really important message. This imposter syndrome
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: thing comes up so often. And I do think that
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: there's a balance between being qualified to help people with
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: real challenges in life and then and having you know,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: the proper training or certification to be able to do that.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: But I think most of the time, we as people
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: tend to feel the imposter syndrome and hold ourselves back
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: for things that we are absolutely meant to move into
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and don't need the qualifications or the certifications to do,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: like your example. And and I think this is this
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: is true across the board, not just in the wellness space.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I hear it all the time when friends get promoted
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: when people start to explore new work or feel like
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: they're following a calling or a sense of purpose that
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: is brand new to them. You know, if I stayed
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: in that realm of Jesse, you really shouldn't be organizing
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: these group meditations. Who are you to be doing that
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: or who are you to get on stage to guide,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: you know, a ten minute mindfulness exercise. If I listen
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: to those stories and stayed in a safer lane, I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing today. And
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I believe that my work is able to help lots
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: of people. And I've been able to follow a line
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: of integrity to make sure that I get the training
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: when I actually need it for the role. So if
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: I was trying to tell people, Hey, I'm going to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: teach meditation and give you life advice without any training,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think that would have been responsible or in an integrity.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: But to be able to facilitate an experience where we
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: can come together and close our eyes and to just
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: talk about what's going on in our lives, I believe
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: anybody can do that. Yeah, So this has been a
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: really important part of my journey, and I'm so glad
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: that you highlighted that.
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
• 40:08
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• 42:03
  Speaker 2: When you and I met, you were in the middle
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: and I'm skipping forward a little bit here, but a
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: multi city tour with The Big Quiet. So talk to
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: me about how The Big Quiet goes from summer stage
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: a few other things too.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Wow, we're really going to take this on the road.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So we started to get more and more invites
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: from really special and iconic locations in the city to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: gather people for The Big Quiet for these mass meditation moments,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and it was really cool to see that. Like when
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: our small team was and this incredible community of New
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Yorkers who were really supporting it, when we were aligned
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: with what we felt like people needed and we were
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: aligned with doing it in a way that felt real
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: to us. The stuff that would come to us, it
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: was so cool what was sort of being magnetized through this.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: And you know, we started to get these opportunities to
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: host The Big Quiet at the venues that I dreamed
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: of having our bands perform at, and now we were
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: gathering people to meditate and have music at these places.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: And we got a.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Cold email from Madison Square Garden, which was just so
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: crazy to me because that was always the dream. It's
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: like to have one of our bands play MSG, you know,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: the Great Arena, And we got a cold email from
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: MSG a couple of years into the Big Quiet's growth,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and they they asked us if we'd be interesting interested
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: in collaborating on an event where we would host a
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: mass meditation on the arena floor. And it's just unreal
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to be able to have these experiences and to bring
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: this value system to these incredibly iconic locations. So we
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: were able to start to you know, build momentum through
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: those partnerships. You know, my background being in the music
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: industry and touring and bands started to think more and
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: more about what it would look like to take The
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet on the road and to tour The Big
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Quiet like it was a band, and we decided to
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: give it a shot. In twenty eighteen when Emily Kessler,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: who's now my partner in The Big Quiet, came on
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: board to start managing the Big Quiet, and she has
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: an awesome background in the music industry and also a
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: big meditator, so we have a.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: Lot in common there.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: So em came on board and really helped us grow
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: The Big Quiet to something that could go beyond New
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: York City and could pull from some of those things
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that we both understood from the music industry. Twenty eighteen,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: we did a five city tour and we brought the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet to iconic locations in five cities. And then
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, in the fall last year, we took
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the Big quint on a ten city tour where we
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: were able to go to some great spots. We did
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: three Big Quiets at the Gougenheim, which I remember seeing
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: you at, and places like Hollywood Forever Cemetery, in the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Boston Public Library, in front of the Titanosaur, the largest
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: dinosaur ever at the Museum of Natural History, in Chicago
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: was able to just really gather people in different communities
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: in some really special places, sharing this thing that we've loved.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that tour last year was such a blast,
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: and we actually had a twenty city tour lined up
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: for this fall, which has been postponed.
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: Man, the first question follow up from that is once
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: you start to home in on this new path and
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: monetize the Big Quiet and everything seems to get rolling
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: in MSG calls and it's exciting, what happens to your anxiety?
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: Let's see.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I distinctly remember the couple of months leading up to
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: MSG this bizarre thing was happening because people were like, wow,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: we can't believe it. It's like two or three years
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: into the Big Quiet and you guys are doing MSG.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: How incredible, Which was incredible. But I also remember being.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: Feeling so low at this period in my life.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I was I was just I was going through some
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: personal challenges and was having a real spike in my
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: in my anxiety and mental health challenges. And it was
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: such a weird juxtaposition to be about to go do
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: a Big Quiet at MSG while feeling so shitty inside.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: And this was and this is what was so great
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: about Medi Club was it was a space to be
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: able to talk about that. So I remember having a
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: medi club because to be clear, Medi Club still happens,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: and at that point was happening every month while whereas
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the big quiet was happening I don't know, maybe quarterly
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And at the Medi Club right
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: before MSG, I remember getting up in front of the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: group and being able to say, this is such a
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: strange experience because I'm so excited and grateful to have
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: MSG ahead of us, but I'm also internally really going
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: through this tough time and it's it was it still
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: felt like I'm not supposed to be feeling that way.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm about to lead, uh, you know, host
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of mass meditation at MSG.
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: I supposed to be this wellness.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: Guy, this meditation figure that like brings love and light
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and enlightenment.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: To everything that he does. And there I was just
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: in a really dark period. It was, you know what
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: it was, I was.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I had been I was weaning off of I had
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: gone off of a medication, off of an SSRI medication,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: and was really having a tough time with the process
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of going off of it because I was not smart
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: with how I weaned off of it, and going off
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: of SSR medications can be really challenging. So I was
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: I was in this really low spot and I spoke
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: to the group about it. I was like, I'm about
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: to do this big thing at MSG and I and
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a person in the wellness industry. I also have
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: relationship experiences with SSRI medications anti anxiety medication. I'm also
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: experiencing a lot of anxiety in my life right now,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: and both of these things are great. Right to be
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: able to hold both of these experiences, in my opinion,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: is what it's about. So to be able to continue
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: to be on this Big Quiet path and to be
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: able to honestly communicate the excitement and also the challenges
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: that I was going through with my own shit as
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: I was being human and growing into who I am,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: was really important. It was important to be able to
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: celebrate those two things together. And over the past five
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: years of developing the Big Quiet, I've made great progress
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: with these challenges. I'd say mainly in regards to my
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: relationship with how I treat my anxiety and how I
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: treat depression. In some of these challenges, whereas in the past,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: I really felt like I wasn't supposed to be having them,
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: that I was a fake if I was feeling anxiety
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: and leading meditations with thousands of people.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: And what's shifted is when that stuff comes up, I
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: just allow it. I welcome it.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: I do my best to bring love to it when
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I feel my anxiety, and it's just changed my relationship
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: to it and I often am able to melt through
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: it as a result of taking on this this different
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: attitude to it, you know, this different relationship to it,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: and being able.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: To speak about that.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: While the Big Quiet has grown, I think has been
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: really important because such an important value to the work
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: that I do and that The Big Quiet does is.
• 49:15
  Speaker 4: Owning the fact that.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: And this is something that I'd like to see more
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: of in the wellness space, is that wellness and life
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: is not all lightness. It's not all you know, just
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: like bright white, happy at leisure salads. I love all
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: that stuff, But like anything in life, there is darkness.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: There is challenge, and it's the full spectrum of experience
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: that I love to celebrate through my work, regardless if
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: I'm on stage with Oprah or if I'm hosting a
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: meditation with twenty people. When the Mighty Club first started, right,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: This full spectrum of experience is what it's about, and
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I love celebrating and covering both of those things. So
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: to wrap it up, I'm grateful that I've had those
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: experiences while being on this path, although they've been uncomfort
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: and confronting for sure.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: And so you mentioned that last fall you did the
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Tensity tour and then right after that you jumped into
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Oprah's twenty twenty Vision tour.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: So talk to me about how that came about.
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So opra'stein came to one of the big quiet stops.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: It was the Chicago stop in our tour last year.
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Some of Oprastein from the WW team came and checked
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: it out and they liked it, and we hit it off,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and they suggested that I lead a meditation at one
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: of the tour stops on the Oprah tour, which was
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: insane because Oprah was a huge source of inspiration for
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: starting medi Club, probably i'd say the main source of inspiration.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I loved the way that she had modernized and popularized
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: vulnerable conversation and humanized it in a way that was
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: I thought so beautiful and authentic, and it really led
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: me to wanting to create medi Club and that conversation piece.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: So to get an invite to be able to lead
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: a meditation at one of her tour stops was really exciting.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: And I was meant to only do this.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: At the first stop of the tour, and we were
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: able to turn it into the segment where I did
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a ten minute talk about meditation and the importance of
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: rest and quiet, you know, in this age of noise,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and then a ten minute meditation with Jackie from the
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet Play Ensembles at the first stop of Oprah's tour,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: and we were meant to only do that, and it
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: was an incredible opportunity to be a part of this
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: great event. It was at Arena with fifteen thousand people
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: for Lauderdale, and it was incredibly nerve wracking, but also
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: felt so great to be up there. Oprah sat in
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: the audience and meditated during the mass meditation, and then
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: she came on stage and she did a Q and
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: A with me where we got to talk about some
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: of the things that you and I are talking about
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: here on this podcast, and it went really well. So
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: a couple of days after that launch event happened and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: her team called me and said that Oprah really enjoyed
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: it and that the team really enjoyed it, and they
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: wanted Jackie and I to come on the full tour
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: for the next ten weeks. And the next tour stop
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: was in I think like two or three days.
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: Who's the first person you tell when Oprah's team calls
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: you and tells you that they want you to come
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: on tour.
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I think the first person that I called was Emily,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: who's the Big Quiets manager and my partner in the
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet. And then I was actually at my parents'
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: place and I was supposed to have dinner. It was
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: like dinner was in like fifteen minutes and I couldn't eat.
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: I was just too excited.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, I can't even imagine.
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was pretty surreal.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: And so you get the call to go and you
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: literally just pack up because you know you'll be on
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: the road for just the foreseeable future, or do you
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: know that you're going to go to this tour stop
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: and then have time to regroup and then go on
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: the road.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Well, the way that it worked was we were mainly
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: doing weekends, so I would spend half the week in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the city that the event was going to be at
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: and then I was able to spend a couple of
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: days each week in La. I had moved to my
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: place in Venice the day I got the call to
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: go on tour, so it was just kind of strange
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: time to be moving into this new place while also
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: being on the road.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: And it just worked out.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: You know. My rule was like for those ten weeks
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: when I was in town, I just took it really easy,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: and then we would go on the weekends and have
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: this incredible experience. And then I mentioned three days after
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: the last tour stop was when was when the pandemic
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: was when the quarantine kicked in in La. So I
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: came off this tour, you know, very fired up for
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the next chapter, with a lot of really exciting things booked,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: like a twenty city big quiet tour and plenty of
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: other things. And then yeah, three days after I got
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: back and was like, all right, I'm gonna settle here
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: in La, the pandemic kicked in. I went to my
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: parents for the weekend and three months later was still
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: at my parents' place.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, that's insane.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I think a big source of anxiety for people, although
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: it hasn't been as much of an issue this year
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: with the pandemic as you're speaking about. But when you
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: are constantly traveling, constantly on the go, it can feel
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: really unsettling and a little disturbing at times, and you
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: can get wrapped up in what it is that you're
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: on the move to do. But then when you take
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: a step back and you finally stop, it can just
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: be a lot. So two questions. Firstly, what did you
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: do to help stay grounded when you were in this
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: constant go? And then after we talk about that, I'd
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: love for you to shed some light on coming down
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: from that experience for you.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, yeah, In regards to being able to manage
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the travel, I was also doing a lot of speaking
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: engagements while I was on the tour. So there was
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: one week where I was in five cities in a
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: in a seven day period and wow, and that's just
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: that's not something that the body knows how to handle.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: It just doesn't, you know. Just the concept of flight
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: is so new to the to the human, to the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: human body, where we're not used to moving through time
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: and space that quickly. We're also not used to being
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: in different time zones and in different parts of the
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: globe and such short periods of time that air travel provides.
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: So travel is a lot on the nervous system. This
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: is why it tends to feel stressful and also why
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: it's easy to get sick when we travel or after
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: we travel. So for me, and this is what we
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: do with the Big Quiet team and we when we tour,
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: we just go really hard on boundaries when we when
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: we travel when we're touring, and this is what I
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: did on the Opra tour as well. So for me,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: it was just giving myself a lot of permission to rest.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And it was it was like, you know, I didn't
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: want to uh So when I would go to a
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: new city, it wasn't enough for me. It wasn't an
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go explore that city and you know, go
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: out and party and see this and that and then
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: also show up for my segment of the arena. You know,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: for me, it was when I'm when I'm there in
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: that spot, I am just resting a lot of phone
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: off time, a lot of taking it easy, bathing. I'm
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: really particular about how I eat when I'm when I'm
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: on tour because I just find that food and diet
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: can really support.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: I know you talk a lot about this too, can.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Really can really support me feeling my best when I'm
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: on the road. It's tough to do and we're traveling,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: but that was really important. So yeah, So for me,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: it was really just boundaries around rest and giving myself
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: that permission to rest as much as I could so
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: I could really show up for the things that I
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: was on tour for. And even when I was back
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: home in LA for a couple of days every week,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: I wasn't out and doing much.
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: I was really just taking it easy.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: And this is actually something that Oprah and I both
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: talked about at every tour stop together on stage, which
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: was the permission for people to rest. And you know,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: we both are able to acknowledge that that is a
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: position of privilege. Not everyone is able to but for
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: those of us that are able to create the permission
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: to rest, this is the concept that we all deserve rest,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: especially with how hard we're going, regardless if we're on
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: tour or not. To see rest as an opportunity to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: recharge and as a source of power instead of rest
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: as a means of guilt or laziness or anti hustle.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: I think this is a really important message. So just
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: trying to embody that and live that on tour was
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: really important.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: And how did you I'm gonna break in here, how
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: did you go about setting these boundaries for yourself without
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: feeling guilty or like you were doing something wrong?
• 57:54
  Speaker 4: I was just so So there are two ways to
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: look at it.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: One one was the boundaries I was creating for my self,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: which I could feel like like fomo around or like
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: some missed opportunity around. And then there was the boundaries
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I was setting with other people. So with the boundaries
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: for myself, I just gave myself permission to really listen
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: to my body. You know, if I was if I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: had just been traveling that day and I'm in a
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: hotel in a new city and other people on the
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: team are going to go out and you know, go
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: out to a bar that night and have fun, Yeah,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: there's that temptation to want to go be with that
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: group and to see the city and who knowing I'll
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: be in that city again.
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: But ultimately I would check.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: In with my body and if if my body felt
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: like it needed rest, which it did for a lot
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: of this experience, then I was really clear about it.
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: Just taking the night off, and I would just tell
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: the people.
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I would tell the team that, you know, taking the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: night off, going to rest tonight, and just owning it
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and just being really clear about it. And this was
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: true with people as well. There were definitely people that
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I wanted to see, you know, in different cities, and
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: friends I had in different cities. But for me, trying
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: to be social and squeezing different appointments or meetings while
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: I was also on this tour, I know myself, I
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: know that that would wipe me up. So when people
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: would ask if I could get together in the city,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: I would just say, you know, on this trip, I'm
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: really making space to rest when I'm not doing the show,
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: but I'd love to get together when I'm next in
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: town and just really upfront people. Really, I find tend
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to respect clear boundaries, you know. I think the hard
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: thing with boundaries is to be able to say them
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: to people or to be able to own them ourselves.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: But ultimately, when I communicate a boundary to someone else
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: and I do it lovingly, may sting a little bit
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: for the other person, right, Like, we're so sensitive and
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: I want to hurt people's feelings. But when I'm doing
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: it because it's really what I know I need, and
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it from a place of love.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: People ultimately really respect it.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: I love that feedback.
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: I think it's really really helpful, and I think, for sure,
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: as I'm sure that you have also experienced, that setting
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: boundaries can can definitely be a difficult exercise and one
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: that takes practice, just like so many other things in
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: our lives, including meditation. So then on the come down note,
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: talk to me about what it was like to come
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: back from this crazy, crazy, crazy life experience and then
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: be thrust into just hanging out with mom and dad.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: It was, I would say the first few months of it,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: I was I was just in like service mode because
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I came off this Opra tour. Yes, there was a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: ton of awesome stuff lined up. The world changed really
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: fast in the matter of a week in regards to
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: the intensity of how it was about to affect my
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: life and a lot of people around me. So I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: shifted into Okay, I was about to go to Australia
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and go rest for a month, and instead there's a
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: real opportunity to figure out how digitally and virtually I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: could help people and share meditation and bring this tool
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: that I knew was about to be more important than ever.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: So I leaned into starting to figure out how I
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: can do my work virtually, which I never did. Everything
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: I did before was in person except for things like podcasts,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: and even those were oftentimes recorded in person. So this
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: is this is a very new platform for me. So
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: I decided that instead of resting, I was going to
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: step up to that need. And for the next two months,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I worked very hard. And it was cool because I
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: would spend the nights with my parents and then all
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: my other time if I wasn't sleeping, I was pretty
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: much just just working and adjusting our business.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 4: And it was I was starting to see the.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: Signs, like some of the symptoms of burnout, which I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: know from my own experience, you know, having experienced it
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: several times in my music industry career and in my
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: big quiet career, but I wasn't really treating them seriously
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: because it just everything felt so strange. It was like
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: such a new normal around all the zoom time and
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: not being able to see people, and how weird that
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: felt in my body to be endorsed so much. So
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I think it was easy to go these feelings of
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: and out are just attached to the weird world and
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: new dynamic that were in. So I kept pushing, and
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: then about two months ago, I just hit a huge
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: wall and I realized that I've been placing a ton
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of pressure on myself to figure out how I was
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: going to adjust a business that I dedicated the past
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: five years of my life building mainly in the physical space.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: figure out what the new thing was going to look
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: like and how to do it digitally, and seeing my
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: peers adjust to shifting their digital businesses, and had this
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: great pressure that I'd placed on myself to figure it out.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: And I know a lot of people had spoken to
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: me about feeling this sense of pandemic pressure, feeling like
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: it was the opportunity to create more and figure this
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: out and take advantage of the time off. But the
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: reality is, I know for me, I already needed the
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: rest going into it, and just the levels of i'd
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: say collect distress and intensity, plus the pressure I was
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: placing on myself around work, I was not doing any
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: service to myself and definitely wasn't able to be of
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: service to other people. So I got really fried and
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: started to find that like doing much around my work
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: was really fatiguing for me. Zoom calls, guided meditations, you know,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: virtual speaking engagements. I started to feel really tired by
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: it all. Even though I wanted to be helping people,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: I wasn't taking care of myself first. And I've learned
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: this lesson so many times I had to be taught
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: at again. So I've taken the past the past month
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: or so to just ease in. And the reality is,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: my business is different right now. I know it is
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: for a lot of people. I know a lot of
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: people don't have jobs right now, and for me it
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: was It's been about letting go of the pressure to
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: figure out the next thing. It's been about releasing what
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: I thought my life was going to look like after
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: the Oprah tour and having a very different reality, which
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: has been the case for so many people, and finding
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: a balance to rest and take care of myself because
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I'm able to right now while also doing some of
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: the work that I was doing before, so I can
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: still give myself to helping people and also make a
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: living while you know, while I'm in this unique time,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: and I've been able to create a three week break
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: that that I'm going on a week after next where
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm going to just turn off, just
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: just go offline for three weeks, which I'm really looking
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: forward to and to spend some time in nature and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: have that reset.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 4: And I've been taught that lesson again.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: It's the classic idea of you've got to put your
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: oxygen mask on first before you can help other people.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, for you.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: I'm curious just because I feel like burnout is such
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: a hot topic, especially I can really sympathize and relate
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 2: to this concept of feeling like you want to be
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: so productive, you want to do everything, you feel like
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: you should be taking advantage of this time for you,
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: what were those signs of burnout?
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: So the signs of burnout for me, which I tend
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: to see are similar symptoms for other people. And I
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: work a lot with executives and people at companies, and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: I see this is pretty common across the board. But
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: for me, it starts to look like and feel like
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: a loss of vitality and interest in the things that
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: I find myself interested and usually the things that feel
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: exciting to me. Usually there's sort of a loss of
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: energy and the liveness around it, and when it gets
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: more extreme, it can start to feel kind of like
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: a hopelessness. This is I think when we're really in burnout,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: is that sort of loss of vitality turns to a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: sense of hopelessness. So that's the first thing, is just
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: like noticing that change in relationship to things that once
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: excited me. Then there's the feeling of getting fatigued easily
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: by things that wouldn't fatigue me in the past. So
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you know, by eleven am have being had one or
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: two zoom calls and already feeling.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: Exhausted by it.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: Right, it's just starting to notice that my tolerance, my
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: adaptability to be able to face work and people and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: you know, the things that I give myself to that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: that adaptability energy is lower. Also noticing that by the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: end of the day I just feel so wiped out
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: and really feeling like I needed more rest than usual.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: These are some of the signs. And then for me
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: also there was you know, a heightened sense of anxiety,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: which I really do think has been felt.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: Collectively by a lot of people.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I think that when there is this much uncertainty and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: intensity in our country and in the world like we've
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: seen over the past several months, that that is something
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: that lots of people can feel. And I think that
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: that created an extra layer of weight on top of
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: the burnout that was starting to form, so feeling that that.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: Heightened sense of anxiety was real.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: What I've seen with the burnout is the best way
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: to move through it, or I'd say the best way
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: to really knock it out before it gets bad is
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: to is to prioritize rest, because if I allow myself
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: to fall into the burnout stage, the way to recover
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: from it once we've like fully fallen into burnout can
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: take a long time. It can take months sometimes to
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: recover from burnout if we don't catch ourselves and really
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: treat it before we re fully fall into it. So
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: I feel like I was starting to really feel those
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: symptoms and just taking my own advice because I've been
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: able to knowing that i needed to take a break
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: from all my work and I'm able to right now.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: Which is really great.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I'm luckly to be able to do so making that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: happen before it gets bad, and that's what I've needed
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: to do, and I'm seeing a lot of people experiencing
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: this fatigue because we are there's so many things we're
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: holding it once right now, it makes sense that this
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: is our reality. So for us to give ourselves permission
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: to cut back right now instead of lean into more,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: and to give ourselves that permission to rest and to
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: find ways to rest if we're able to be in nature,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to be with family, if we can I know a
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: lot of us can't right to have meaningful, heartfelt conversations
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: ideally regularly if we're able to, and giving ourselves way
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: more space to rest, take baths for those of us
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: that have baths. Really amping up the self care is
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: so important right now, especially right now.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: What does the pivot look like at this time for
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: the Big Quiet, Now that the twenty stop tour is
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: postponed for the time being.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: We've mainly been leaning into live virtual courses, which have
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: actually been very gratifying. When we weren't touring, we would
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: run a course where we would teach groups of people
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: how to meditate. At our events, we guide meditations and
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: it's experiential, you have an experience, you leave. But we
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: also have felt really called over the past couple of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: years to create space and community around people who really
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: want to learn how to meditate so they can do
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: it on their own, not just come to an event
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: to meditate, or not just use an app to meditate,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: although these things are great. Wanted to give people the
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: power to be able to practice on their own and
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to be able to do so for life. So we
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: have been running our virtual meditation course we called The
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: Big Quiet one on one and we've been doing it virtually,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: so we do it in groups through Zoom and it's
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: been a very different experience, but it's been really effective.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: We've really been enjoying it. We did a partnership with
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: Audible Originals and we created a bunch of different guided
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: meditations with some really incredible musical guests, people who work
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: with The Big Quiet, and we've been releasing those throughout
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: the pandemic, their meditations and audio tracks to help people
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: sleep at night and to help people wake up while
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: we're in this challenging time.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 4: So that's been really cool.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: We've seen a handful of those hit the best the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: top ten Audible bestsellers list, which has been really exciting.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot of virtual speed and virtual
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: mass meditations through The Big Quiet or just me individually,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: a lot for corporations and for different events that are
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: happening virtually, connecting thousands of people through different places to
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: have this similar type of experience that we have at
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: our events, but virtually, and we've been seeing that it's effective.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: It's different, but it can work to have people all
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: over the world tune and to have that moment. So
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: it's been a lot of change, and there's been a
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: lot of discomfort that we've leaned into, but we're making
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: sense of it. It's evolving and growing, and I actually
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: think that we're going to have elements of our business
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: that I think can help people in ways we wouldn't
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: have considered or explored if we weren't forced to look
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: at virtual So there has been that plus.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: Side to it.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I think the most powerful businesses and the most successful
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: businesses going forward are going to be those that do
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: just that, that don't take what they learned during this
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: period and once things go back to a version of
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: how they used to be, they're like, well, okay, that's
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: done now. But being able to take these virtual learnings
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: and include these offerings in ways to reach a broader
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: consumer base going forward, that's definitely it's going to be
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: interesting to see how businesses everywhere really ebb and.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: Flow with that for sure.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so too.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: When I go to your Instagram page, I see in
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: your every lovely Instagram bio founder of the Big Quiet.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: I scroll down, I see leading these mass meditations. It
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: looks like you got your shit together. When you look
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: in the mirror. What is it that you see looking
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: back at you?
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: A big time scorpio over here. The moodiness is real
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: for me. So ultimately, when I'm in a place of
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: remembering right, when I really feel connected and I look
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: at myself, I feel proud of the person that I've
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: become and I have been able to grow into a
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: point of I'd say, being able to celebrate the things
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: that have been really challenging for me and to finally
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: understand that the challenges in my life have been my
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: greatest teachers and that they're really important parts of what
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: make me who I am today. I feel when I
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: look at myself in the mirror, when I'm in that
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: good place, I'm able to see that and celebrate that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: and to know that it's my imperfections, it's my challenges
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: that make me who I am, and that is something
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: that I find if I'm able to bring love to,
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: then I'm able to bring love to all the things
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: that happened in my life, not just love myself when
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: things are going good. And this has really been really
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: important for me, So that's real. But you know, it's
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: also worth noting that based on the day, I'll look
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: at myself in the mirror and I will not feel
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: good about how my life's going, or and I feel
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: good about how my days looking. I'll just not feel
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: good in general. And for me, a big part of
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: my practice over these past few years has been about
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: allowing that to be okay, and to not resist and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: fight or try to you know, change or pass through
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the discomfort or the challenging days, but instead to welcome
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: them and embrace them, to love them.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: If I'm able to to.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: Understand that it's the darkness as well as the lightness
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: that makes me who I am.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 4: And I think right now this feels particularly important.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: You have an opportunity to put one last thing, to
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: put one last message into the universe on that Instagram page.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: What do you think that you would put there?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: I think that like the last message that I would
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: want to put out if I could choose the last
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: message it would be about. I think it's been what's
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: been most important for me. Really, the most important thing
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: for me in my process has been about and I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: know it sounds the way it sounds, but it's real.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: For me.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: It's about being able to love myself wherever I'm at
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: in that moment, and to be able to celebrate and
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: appreciate me for me with all the things that are happening,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: and to understand and know that I'm meant to be
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: in that place with those experiences at that time. There's
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: such a I think collective push to feel like when
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: we feel bad that we need to change it and
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: fix it or intellectually, you know, make sense of it
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: in some way, and that often leads to people feeling
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: like they're not enough, like they're behind.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: I think this is so commonly felt.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: So, you know, the message that's been most important to me,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: whichuld be the last measure that I put out, would
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: be for us to be able to love ourselves for
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: who we are in this moment.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: You have an opportunity right now to offer yourself one
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: piece of advice looking back on the Hurdle moment, which
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: was the anxieties of running a record label and constantly
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: working and being on the go and never stopping.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: What do you tell yourself?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: Tell myself what I've seen consistently throughout the past five
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: years of doing this work. I've seen that dicy is
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: to really hold on tight and grip and try to
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: control a lot of what I'm creating and where it's
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: going and whenever that's happening right when I'm When I'm
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: really in that sort of maintenance and like gripping place,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I find that the magic kind of gets lost in
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the work. Things start to slow down and become less enjoyable.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: And when I'm able to let go and understand that
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: while having an intention for my work is important, trying
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: to create a perfect plan and sort of force that
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: plan to place is not realistic and usually leads to
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: me feeling significantly unhappy. So to give myself permission to
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: let go, to just sort of surrender to how work
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: and life unfolds while staying connected to an intention would
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: be really helpful for me, because any time in my
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: life where I've been able to do that, especially in
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: my work, I find that I'm able to appreciate it
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: enjoy it more in those moments when I grip tightly
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and a lot of it comes from my perfectionism. It
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: becomes way less enjoyable. So for me, it would be
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: it would be to remind myself that I can let
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: go and to give myself that permission to surrender to
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: what's to whatever is happening, and to stay intention driven
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: while moving through that.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: I'm just so appreciative for your perspective and really just
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: your vulnerability. I think it's really beautiful to hear you
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: open up knowing how much your perspective and again that
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: vulnerability is really going.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: To help other people. So thank you, my friend. I
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: appreciate you so much.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: You are so welcome. Thank you so much for having
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 4: me on.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: It's great to be able to talk about this stuff,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: and it's great to be able to talk about this
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: at a time that's challenging for so many people, including
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: leaders in the wellness space. So thank you for making
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: the space and for sharing my story and for sharing
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: my story in this moment.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: dot us. Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 2: at Hurdle Podcast Jesse. How do they keep up with you?
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: How do they keep up with the Big Quiet? Give
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: me all the details.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: People can keep up with me on my Instagram at
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Jesse Israel or my website jesseseriel dot com. Same with
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: the Big Quiet at the Big Quiet and the Big
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Quiet dot Com.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 2: I am at Emily Abadie and at Hurdle Podcast Another
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: hurdle conquered.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time