Latest / Mindful You / Nurturing Minds: Cultivating Mindfulness From Early Childhood

Transcript

Nurturing Minds: Cultivating Mindfulness From Early Childhood · Mindful You

0:00
Alan Carroll: Welcome to the mindful U podcast. Today's guest
0:05
is Sam beard. Sam is a social entrepreneur has been involved
0:12
in public service his entire career. He worked with
0:17
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Robert Kennedy. And the war on
0:23
poverty, worked with eight presidents of the United States,
0:29
and developed over 10 million jobs for the young,
0:35
underemployed. He recently founded the nonprofit
0:41
organization called gift gi f t, which stands for the global
0:46
investment foundation for tomorrow. Which is designed to
0:51
harness the full impact of mindfulness and meditation in
1:01
order to solve the urgent challenges and problems that we
1:07
as humans face today, in this world of ups and downs and
1:12
agitation and chaos, he is the founder of the Jefferson Awards,
1:19
which is like the Nobel Prize for service. And I'm also want
1:27
you to know that in the show notes, there is a three minute
1:32
video, which goes over Sam's entire life, of service and
1:39
contribution. So please watch that beautiful video in the show
1:44
notes, and is with a great enthusiasm and excitement to
1:48
introduce you to Sam beard. Sam, welcome to the mindful you
1:57
podcast. And I want to thank you very much for you taking the
2:00
time to share with our audience, your your journey, and the parts
2:08
of the journey, which about 10 years ago, you said really you
2:13
went through a a stressful time situation in life that really
2:20
ignited a flame in you that was a spark. But it was a flame of
2:25
mindfulness. And so I'm excited to have you share a little bit
2:29
about that, that journey into mindfulness, and how you've
2:34
taken your resources available to you, and how you're bringing
2:38
mindfulness out into the world specially with that with the
2:43
GIFT program. That sounds like a very exciting thing. And I
2:46
really would like our audience to hear it. So the first
2:49
question would be, how did you get involved with mindfulness?
2:52
And
2:53
Sam Beard: I will answer that. But I just want to start off
2:56
Alan by saying, the privilege of being here with you, with many,
3:02
many years, decades of commitment to reducing stress
3:08
and take mindfulness around the world, you are a treasure of the
3:13
globe. And I absolutely want to start by just saying that and
3:18
underlining. So it's an honor for me to be here. And thank
3:22
you. Now it is true that the My whole life has been service. And
3:30
I'll explain it more later. But basically, I've my whole life, I
3:34
followed my intuition, or my DNA or my whatever you want to call
3:41
it, which was always service. From day one, as a young kid, my
3:48
whole DNA was serve others. And so I did that. Follow my
3:55
intuition, and it led to many things. And then in 2014, I was
3:59
now 75 years old. And it was a personal crisis of great
4:05
tension, lawsuits and mud stuff. I'm a creative, let's build
4:09
something guide. And I built up a nonprofit which had $30
4:13
million. And we, as the introduction says, I had created
4:18
and then run a program for eight presidents of the United States.
4:20
And I've just very simple. And then the press, I put in charge
4:27
of the foundation to do economic development because I was doing
4:30
other stuff now. I went to a board meeting and the answer was
4:33
I was fired. So at age 75, that I didn't have a pension, and I
4:39
was unemployed. So I supposed to start my economics over at zero.
4:43
And that was not a great day. No, not at all. So tremendous
4:48
tension and I don't like pills and stuff. And I went to the
4:51
doctor and he gave me depression pills and I took two of them and
4:54
threw them away. I've been familiar with mindfulness and
4:59
brought had Weiss I'd ever heard of him. But he 20 to 30 years
5:05
ago, I sort of got into it. And I knew it was powerful. And I
5:11
tried to do it, let's say in my early 30s. And the funny part is
5:16
the exercise to reduce stress and go to sleep, as you lie down
5:21
and close your eyes and visualize and boom, you go to
5:23
sleep, the exercise to reach your higher peak is to close
5:27
your eyes and visualize stuff. And then you get connected to
5:32
mindfulness, and be really alert, and at the highest level.
5:36
And all I did was go to sick, so it wasn't quite what was
5:41
supposed to happen. But anyway, the Then, with this crisis, I
5:45
got back into it, and I got the Brian Weiss tapes, and I
5:48
listened to them every night. And with beautiful music and a
5:51
different voice that I never went to sleep, and I totally
5:54
went inside myself. And it, I could totally manage the
6:00
pressure and the tension and the tremendous stress. And that
6:04
opened the field to me. And once I did that, and understood the
6:10
power of going inside, and the heart of this, the thing I
6:17
learned was, return to your true nature of serenity, return to
6:23
your true nature of spiritual energy, return to your true
6:29
nature of service to others. And that was what it was all about.
6:35
And it was, it was like a whole new awakening of joy. And then I
6:41
am rambunctious. So I said, let's I live in Delaware. So
6:45
let's make it a product of Delaware. And let's take it all
6:48
around the world. And in 19 in 2014 2015 gift really started 20
6:58
started in 2015. And then 2016, it was our very first beginning
7:02
in Delaware. And this is interesting because I didn't
7:06
know for the most part, no one would talk about mindfulness and
7:10
meditation in Delaware. It was like woowoo. And watch out. And
7:17
so that didn't bother me because I always been a pioneer. So I
7:22
researched I start meeting people. And then I'd find out
7:26
these extraordinary people. They said, I've been meditating for
7:30
30 years, but 30 years ago, I told someone I was doing it. And
7:33
they thought it was crazy. So I haven't told anybody since then.
7:37
And so we had an original meeting, or we had 25 People
7:42
come in the morning and try to find people in the afternoon 50
7:44
people. And out of that we started and it really was
7:51
groundbreaking because I was going to take it statewide and
7:56
Delaware. And I found that really key leaders had been
8:00
doing this for some number of years and would wouldn't tell
8:02
anybody. So it was really the coming out party of meditation
8:05
in Delaware. And we ended up training 25,000 people in
8:09
schools, veterans mental health, and then we also were taking
8:18
around the world. So that's how it all got started.
8:20
Alan Carroll: Who imagined that that seed that was planted and
8:25
how it grew and how it flourished and how we are
8:29
experiencing the fruits of your vision and the network that you
8:34
have in order to manifest that vision out into the world. Oh,
8:38
that's wonderful. The gifts I just want to make sure that my
8:42
audience knows is a global investment foundation for
8:46
tomorrow is the is the is the name of of the organization.
8:51
Unknown: If and if they want to go to the website, it's WW gift
8:55
hyphen connect.org. And gift is the global investment. The IRS
9:03
990 is a global investment foundation for tomorrow. That's
9:07
the official name of the website is WW gift hyphen connect.org.
9:13
Alan Carroll: Perfect. Thank you.
9:15
Unknown: Now thank you. One of
9:17
Alan Carroll: the in our previous conversation you had
9:20
introduced me to a doctor named Jim Walsh a different doctor.
9:27
This was Lisa Lisa Miller. Oh, yes. Okay. And she wrote the
9:32
book The Awakening brain. Yes. And so I read the book, and it's
9:39
rich with valuable mindfulness information. And what she was
9:45
talking about. And you mentioned that also is that mindfulness
9:49
spirituality is a resource. Yes, that can be tapped into and
9:56
brought out into the world in order to Reduce the call it the
10:02
psychological suffering that that people have. And so I, so
10:07
one of the the areas of your interest is the zero through
10:11
three, age range and how how we can bring the resource of
10:16
mindfulness into the zero to three year old and why that is
10:21
important. So I'd like to ask you to sort of expand more on
10:27
that, zero through three and the importance of mindfulness in
10:30
your, in your view.
10:32
Unknown: I will and thank you very much for these are
10:36
wonderful questions. And thank you for having looked all that
10:38
stuff up. But let me just start a little bit with mindfulness.
10:41
Because when we were taking it around the world, 1000s of
10:45
people would say to me, I've heard about it, but I don't have
10:48
the time. I've heard about it. But I don't have the time. It's
10:53
not really for me. And they've all very stressed. So So I would
10:58
address that issue, which is, don't worry about mindfulness or
11:02
meditation, don't think of a course you have to sit all you
11:05
have to do your legs and all that sort of stuff and, and sit
11:08
in a yoga position. Don't worry about any of that. The point is
11:12
mindfulness and meditation is stress reduction. Who is you
11:15
have plenty. So I don't care how you do it. The answer is you
11:20
don't have the time not to do it. 15 To 20 minutes a day, you
11:25
don't have the time not to do it. It's completely life
11:27
changing. So do whatever you want to do. Take your dog and go
11:31
for a walk in nature. Yeah, just enjoy the flowers enjoy your
11:36
dog. Look at a bird fly by the hiccups a butterfly. And how
11:42
joyous is that and look at the colors of the butterfly. And you
11:46
pick up a stone as a little orange Salamandre to their
11:49
knees, he scoots off to two foot for protection and you just the
11:54
beauty of nature and just the relaxation of walking, you can
11:58
do that. The in the middle of winter, you say oh my gosh, it's
12:03
snow. 12 inches. If you go out and shovel that snow, you are
12:09
getting centered you're getting into it's a form of meditation,
12:13
because you're just you're stopping your energy. And so
12:17
anything you do, play with your children, here's your little
12:23
grandchildren, your children roll around on the floor and
12:26
play with them. That is meditation. It's it's
12:30
mindfulness. And it's centering yourself, you visualize tension,
12:34
you're out of the body, and you're all hyper, hyper, hyper,
12:36
hyper hyper. And that's bad for you stress that all that. Let me
12:40
try this. All the doctors and scientists know that stress is
12:46
the cause of every major disease. Stress is the cause of
12:51
cancer. Stress is the cause of diabetes. Stress is the cause of
12:56
mental health disasters. So heart heart heart attacks. And I
13:03
understand that so to SAS, I don't have the time is not the
13:06
right answer. And I just having talked to 1000s of people all
13:11
around the world, I think it's worth just saying that people
13:15
say what is mindfulness? What should I do and I don't have
13:18
time for the answer is just a way of relaxing and then easy
13:24
breath a few. I appreciate this podcast and just beforehand, I
13:30
was very, very busy, very, very busy. And I just went into
13:34
another room sat on a chair. And breathe in. Breathe, enjoy
13:41
bringing in positive thinking, breathe out tension, breathe in
13:45
joy and positive things. I'm looking forward to Alan, and
13:49
then breathe out touch him. Do that for a minute or two minutes
13:53
just in and out in and out. It it's anybody can do that at any
14:00
time. And then I tell people, if they're, if they're going to go
14:03
make a speech, if they have a presentation event, go into the
14:07
mesurer go to the ladies room and just sit down and just
14:12
breathe just for a few minutes, it completely changes your whole
14:21
makeup and turns you down and get you back centered. And so
14:26
I'd say return to your true nature of serenity. That's what
14:29
you're doing with your breath. The essence of it is your
14:31
breath. So just I just want to say that which is not answer to
14:36
your question, but I wanted to underline what you've done all
14:41
your life and when it's so important, and anybody listening
14:44
to this it's vital to get get this different perspective about
14:51
it. What I want to do now let's talk to Lisa about Lisa Miller
14:54
Now Lisa Miller. She is one of the top professors and signs A
15:00
test in the psychology department at Columbia
15:02
University Teachers College. And her book is the spiritual child
15:09
that offers a whole new world, the spiritual child. And her
15:13
point is, every baby is born with a spiritual gene. Now what
15:17
does that means? What that means is if you get into a mindfulness
15:22
state, the other part of true nature is spiritual energy. Now,
15:29
that allows me to open up when I was saying before, which was my
15:32
whole life, I followed my intuition. And I didn't know
15:35
what I was doing. That's just what I was doing. Now, once you
15:39
get into mindfulness and meditation, it does open up your
15:42
whole spiritual side. And what I realized was that my intuition,
15:50
and also when you get into the field of mindfulness and
15:52
meditation, the word intuition comes out everybody, serendipity
15:56
comes out as a word all the time, intuition all the time.
16:00
And what that means each of us with our intuition is connected
16:04
vibrationally to a higher power. And for whatever religion you're
16:08
talking about, that is God. And if you're spiritual, that is the
16:12
magic of a higher power, which governs all the universes in the
16:16
galaxies, and as a power well past, our understanding. And
16:20
it's a wonderful thing to understand how powerful we are.
16:25
So Lisa Miller, the spiritual child. The point is, it's, as a
16:33
psychologist and scientist, she's proven that everybody has
16:37
a gene, that capacity is in everyone. And that opens up a
16:41
whole new world of empowerment. Like, how great Am I I'm
16:45
connected to a higher power, I've connected to spiritual
16:48
energy. And then let's tie that into NASA, with a space program
16:55
is completely changed the understanding of how the
16:58
universe works. Because the point there is, all of energy is
17:03
vibrations. And we're just part of the universe of the galaxies.
17:10
Everything is vibrations. And so our intuition is a vibration.
17:16
And I then I apologize, because I take a simple question. I have
17:21
long answers.
17:23
Alan Carroll: I love it. I love it. Sam, you're you're a
17:25
fountain of wisdom. So you go right ahead and, and sing the
17:28
songs.
17:29
Unknown: I walked down the street, and people I've never
17:32
met. And I ask them three questions. I say Excuse me, do
17:36
you have a few minutes? And, and also come at them. I say you
17:41
look very energetic and very professional. You look like you
17:44
have a big heart. You look like you're an extraordinary Mother,
17:48
you look like an extraordinary father, you look like your
17:51
amazing family person. So just to start off, because they've
17:56
never met me. And looking at them, I can always find
17:59
something to compliment them about. And then I say, Do you
18:03
have a little time just for me to ask you three questions. They
18:05
never say no. And I'm not frightening looking and whole
18:13
approach is not frightening. So I then say, when you think of
18:18
somebody, do they ever call you? Or when you think of somebody?
18:22
Do they round the bend? And there they are? And I would say
18:26
eight out of 10? Say yes, that's a high percentage. And then I
18:32
say now, do you think that shows potentially, that human beings
18:38
have more than five senses? Is there some vibrational
18:42
connection between human beings more than sight and hearing and
18:46
taste? That's a vibrational connection. And for the most
18:51
part, people have not thought about that. And then an example,
18:57
I went into my wife and I go down into a hole with beach in
19:01
Delaware for take two or three days off. And we we stayed at
19:05
this hotel, we had a parent, so we go back to the hotel. And
19:09
there's the parent, I go to the lady behind the desk and I ask
19:12
these three questions. And I say, Do you have a few minutes?
19:15
Yes, I do. Okay, now. B. Do you ever think of anybody that call
19:20
you? And she said, Well, I'll tell you what happens with me.
19:24
I'm very close with my sisters or with my family. And my sister
19:29
lives three miles away. And just last week, I was here and I had
19:36
a whole visual picture of my sister carrying her new baby and
19:41
she fell down stairs. I got a movie in my head. I ran out. I
19:45
call the ambulance I ran over and we brought her to the
19:48
hospital. That's a that's a pretty dramatic example. You've
19:53
interconnection of people. And the next question is When you
20:00
are your most creative, does time fly by, locks disappear and
20:06
Time flies by, and ideas pour into your head? Definitely 80 To
20:13
70 to 80%. Say yes to that. And then it happens all the time
20:19
when you are your most creative. You get into a zone.
20:24
Professional use the word flow in psychology, the word flow
20:27
comes in. And ideas pour down to you and it's your most creative,
20:32
almost everybody says yes. Then the next question is, do you
20:37
ever think that those ideas are vibrations from the universe and
20:42
they're channeling into you? And you're absorbing information
20:46
from outside? Now a very few people say yes to that. But a
20:53
lot of important people do say yes to that. Paul McCartney has
20:57
always said that when he gets into this flow zone, all the
21:06
lyrics and music that he wrote, was channeled to him and he was
21:10
basically a secretary writing it down. Now, a lot of people don't
21:14
believe that. Even if he said it, no one believes it. The the
21:25
Harold Robbins is a major author. You're my friend. Father
21:33
was a big doctor and how Robbins was the patient of the of that
21:37
doctor? And my friend was going into movies. And he said, Could
21:40
I have lunch with Howard Robins? A Howard Robbins, if you go
21:44
online? How Robbins is one of the top 10 people in the whole
21:49
history of the world. He's sold more books in the top 10. In the
21:56
history of books out Robbins. Yep. So I had lunch with him and
22:01
said, Mr. Robbins, every year you turn out an amazing book,
22:06
different cultures, different language, different dresses,
22:08
different everything. And just amazing characters. How do you
22:13
do it? And how Robin said, it's very easy. This goes back to the
22:19
early 1980s. He said go back to my typewriter. That's that's a
22:23
data. That's a data type typewriter. And I write one
22:27
sentence and all the rest is channeled to me. So I'm a
22:30
secretary writing this down. So I just most artists, most
22:34
athletic now in sports, every major sport, if you're not
22:39
connected to the universe, you're not going to win the
22:41
championship. And every team is practicing mindfulness and
22:44
meditation. So I just throw that out, because it's, it's
22:48
connected to what Lisa Miller is talking about, which is
22:52
connected to the universe. So on the one hand, mindfulness and
22:56
meditation, you go inside, and you return to Serenity, or
23:00
return to calm. And when you do that, you're now connected to
23:05
vibrations at a higher level. And that gets you into flow and
23:11
connectivity and creativity. That's pretty interesting.
23:15
Alan Carroll: Oh, you bet.
23:17
Unknown: And then I'll tell you, Steven Kotler is one of the
23:21
major experts. And he's a genius, and he has a whole
23:24
operation to try to prove that being in flow. Work with all the
23:29
top neuroscientists, the top neuroscientists of the world,
23:35
but into numbers. If I'm using five senses, and if you make a
23:42
speech, or if I'm making a speech, I know if I talk too
23:46
fast, which I probably am now, or bring in too much
23:49
information, which I probably have now. The the audience can't
23:54
follow you. Because they're listening in five senses. What
23:58
if and when you're using your five senses, mostly the front
24:02
part of your brain and you can properly process information at
24:07
40 to 50 bits of information a second 40 to 50. So if you do
24:13
too fast, you're gonna lose your audience. Yep. Now you're in the
24:19
more middle part of your brain, you're in flow and you're
24:21
connected to the universe and his normal neurologic scientists
24:26
know when you're in flow connect to the universe, you are
24:30
processing information at the low end, 9 million bits of
24:34
information a second, and on the high end 40 million bits of
24:37
information per second. And so when Lisa Miller, the top
24:43
scientists at Columbia says each child is born with a spiritual
24:50
in connected to the vibrations of the universe, which NASA
24:53
proves is all that you can go for 40 to 40 million And it's
25:00
brain size. Everybody has that capacity. So that's pretty
25:04
interesting. And then Lisa's point is, with your children, if
25:10
you understand they have that capacity, the different things
25:13
you can do to encourage it, and on just to talk to them about
25:18
their creativity talks about their intuition, talks about
25:21
following their instincts. And then the third question is once
25:28
you go from more than five senses, and then creativity now
25:32
the next question is, are you spiritual or religious? And now,
25:39
many people say they're religious, and many people say
25:41
they're spiritual. And then I say with that, do you have a
25:46
sense that there is a higher power? And so to add, people
25:52
say, yes, they believe there is higher power. And then I say, so
25:56
do get guidance from that higher power. If you're spiritual, you
25:59
get guidance from that guy, or if you're religious, you're
26:02
getting guidance through prayer. With God, and then it's most, at
26:11
least half say, yes. That, that goes back to what I'm saying
26:15
about all my life, I followed my intuition, I had no idea what
26:19
that was. You bet. Basically, my DNA or my karma in mindfulness
26:24
language, was a higher power and I was following it. And then
26:29
serendipity. With the, the way you introduced me about the
26:35
eight presidents to this, that sounds like a lot of stuff that
26:38
I have done a lot of stuff by very simple. And I view that
26:44
with huge humility, because it was just a privilege, that with
26:49
what I call, joyous persistence, I like people. And if you do
26:55
that, and you trust them, and you have ideas, you can do a lot
26:59
of things. And it really is following a higher power, which
27:04
is the leverage of what happened. And again, everybody
27:07
has that. So now the last part of your thing was gift now is
27:15
all about early childhood and the brain science of early
27:20
childhood. And in 2017, I was out in San Francisco. And so I
27:29
said, go see George Halverson and I'm curious one thing I
27:32
would tell anybody listen to this. Follow your curiosity. If
27:35
anybody suggest something, try it. If it's too dangerous, don't
27:39
do it. I'm a scaredy cat. If someone said jump out of an
27:42
airplane. I don't have enough guts for that. I wouldn't do
27:47
that. If I'm on top of that looked down, I get scared. You
27:51
bet. And the things if someone says why don't you drive 100
27:55
miles an hour and go around a fast curve? I'm not into that.
27:59
And so Edie right? But read my life is not my strength. But
28:13
curiosity, the opens up so many wonderful things, and people shy
28:17
away from it. But get over that. Right around the corner is
28:22
something amazing. Always be open to going around the next
28:24
corner. And so suppose they say George happens to go over there.
28:29
What do I find George Halverson is one of the top scientists and
28:33
mental health professionals in the world. And in the United
28:38
States, there's a health organization called Kaiser
28:41
Permanente, which is one of the largest. It's nonprofit, but
28:45
it's one of the largest organizations with three to
28:47
400,000 employees all about health care. And here's what the
28:51
top scientists told me. The baby is born, every baby is born. And
29:00
the brain, billions of synapses are connecting a million a
29:04
second. And by a third birthday by third 123, third birthday,
29:11
the the neurological passages of your brain are largely being
29:17
set, which defined 70 to 80% your capacity to succeed in
29:21
school. So the baby needs to be spoken to sung to or read to
29:27
some number of millions of words by the third birthday. Now
29:31
people hear that and they don't want to hear it. They hear that
29:38
it's too much, right? But fundamentally, the reality is
29:42
that the first three years of your life the neurological
29:49
passages are set. And then so to 80%. that defies your ability in
29:56
school. So now in the United States If you take the idea of
30:03
zero to three, and you go to underserved communities, whether
30:07
it be black or Hispanic or white, low income, poverty
30:12
schools, underserved communities, when the children
30:16
from underserved communities come to kindergarten in which
30:18
about age 670 to 80% of those children are not education
30:25
ready, and they're not reading ready. And then I say, Well,
30:30
look, kindergarten is the first year of school. Now, the whole
30:35
actual point is, the first year of school is when you're born.
30:40
And actually this starts at conception. Let's make a little
30:45
more confusing. As soon as the woman is pregnant, you should,
30:49
she should talk to her baby, the father should talk to the baby,
30:53
the relatives are talking about, I love you. And I'll talk to all
30:56
the time and saying to them and read to them right in the womb,
31:00
you bet. And if their vibrations, when that baby is
31:03
born, the baby was already ahead of me would not talk to him.
31:08
From conception to birth. Now the baby is born specters thing
31:14
to read two millions of words by the third birthday. Now. And the
31:21
word neurological passages are too complicated. So I look at it
31:25
this way. They are new and I build something. And we have a
31:32
we just build a new mindful, mindful you stature and Nepal or
31:41
something like that. And we want to put pour cement at the front
31:48
door, just a and then we're gonna put our initials in it to
31:52
commemorate the amazing thing that we did. And I say, Look,
31:57
I'm a little older than you, Alan, I'm tired. Let's go have a
32:00
drink. And I can sleep tomorrow morning, we're gonna come back,
32:04
we'll put our initials in this event. Now what happens with
32:06
that? You pour the cement the afternoon, and you come back the
32:11
next morning? How good are you putting initials into the
32:13
cement?
32:14
Alan Carroll: Cement is hard, you can't do it. Can't do it.
32:17
Unknown: So that fundamentally for the most part is the brain,
32:20
your neurological passages are set in the first three years and
32:24
then the brain goes and does something else. So I don't want
32:27
to say it's impossible to catch up. But it's that harder to
32:31
catch up. And that's the point. And so, once I heard that I
32:35
can't get out of my mind. And that now is the one thing that
32:39
we're doing at gift Connect is talking about the power of the
32:45
brain science of zero to three. And because it's completely
32:51
transformational. And now let's go back to the underserved
32:54
communities. If you don't start a deception, and if you don't
33:02
start zero to three, which is what education really starts,
33:08
education capacity starts. Now you say, Okay, you're in
33:12
kindergarten. And it starts by the third grade, you need to be
33:18
really good at education, writing and reading ready, in
33:21
underserved communities, children and start, so to 80% in
33:26
the United States, not there. Now they get to the third or
33:29
fourth grade as a third or fourth grade, if you're not a
33:33
good reader, and if you're not education ready by the third
33:36
grade, now you're in real trouble. Because the first few
33:38
years they've set the foundation, and then you're able
33:41
to learn. But the answer is the 70 80% never changes. So in the
33:46
third grade, obviously, as you go along, your capacity is
33:50
increasing. But the third graders set a percent said 8%
33:54
are not when they're supposed to be eighth grade seven 80% are
33:57
not where they're supposed to be. They graduate so to 80%, not
34:00
where they're supposed to be. So in the United States in our
34:03
schools, 1/3 of all the students are graduating with no skills
34:09
capable of having a 21st century job. That's appalling.
34:17
Alan Carroll: Yep. That's appalling.
34:19
Unknown: The United States by the way, among developing
34:21
countries, the United States and the 36. Top developing
34:24
countries, we are the 34th worst. That early childhood
34:29
development. Zero to Three, that's a disaster. Now let's
34:33
look at a global x we talked about globally. I've never done
34:36
a global project. But this is what mindfulness is global is
34:40
the first one but now with this, it'd be global. And if you look
34:44
at developing nations first developed countries they want to
34:47
close the gap. And we all want to but for the most part,
34:52
developing countries that spend less than 2% of their education
34:56
budget, zero to three And then they gotta catch up at school.
35:02
But if you miss three, you can't catch up for the most part,
35:05
foreign aid to developing countries less than 1% focuses
35:09
on zero to three. So this is really significant around the
35:15
world. And my team has said, Sam, you think of too many
35:18
things, and you get involved in too many things. And so to be
35:21
really successful, we're going to get focused on that one
35:23
thing. So I apologize. But that's a long sort of answer to
35:28
what you said. So I did flow from mindfulness to Lisa Miller,
35:36
with opening up your spiritual side to George Halverson, zero
35:40
to three.
35:43
Alan Carroll: Wow. Absolutely, I find that the going back to
35:51
mindfulness for me is like a pool of energy. Yep. And the
35:57
quicker you can access that, the quicker you will develop the
36:04
muscles that allow you to look at whatever issue that you're
36:09
facing in the 21st century, which is a lot of issues,
36:14
environmental issues, mental health issues, drug issues, and
36:18
lots of issues, which cause agitation. And if you can't have
36:22
a calm view, to deal with the agitation, then you're agitated,
36:29
trying to deal with the agitation, which is not going to
36:32
resolve the agitation. But if you have that mindfulness
36:37
training at an early age, that allows you to wait a minute, let
36:42
me take a breath. Let let me get this physical body relaxed
36:48
before I stick my hands in the machinery and try to try to pull
36:52
the levers. And I think that is absolutely the You said it
36:59
yourself. The most significant challenge of your service of
37:04
life is happening now. Because he's because you recognize that,
37:09
that unless we get mental stability, we're going to be
37:13
unstable, dealing with unstable things. It's it's got this, it's
37:16
going to cause major, more major issues. And so I'm a I'm a
37:23
believer, Sam, and what you're saying,
37:27
Unknown: Are they you're more than a believer, you're one of
37:30
the major world leaders who have pioneered this and been at it
37:36
with such persistence and power for some number of decades. So
37:42
the again, I start off by congratulating, I just want to
37:47
congratulate you again, and really underline the privilege
37:50
of me to be here. Now then, once I, literally two weeks ago, a
37:56
bell went off that all these three things were late, the
38:00
mindfulness of meditation. And then here's Lisa Miller with a
38:04
spiritual child, and that his his new thing that we're doing,
38:07
which is the brain science of Birth to Three. And so I call an
38:13
expert, a fella called Jim Walsh, and he has a he's trained
38:17
in everything. And he's such a heart. His specialty is
38:21
mindfulness and meditation and Jon Kabat Zinn. But anytime you
38:25
have a question, you call Jim, watch, ask Jim, and you get an
38:30
amazing answer. And he's the one that led us through the whole
38:33
thing with with a mindfulness of meditation. So I call Jim, and
38:37
he never lets me down. So he said, Sam, of course, all the
38:42
three are connected. And then he used a fancy word, when he said,
38:47
it's all about default mode. Network isn't a technical thing,
38:51
Default Mode Network. And he explained it this way, the baby
38:56
is born, and the baby is pure. And the baby has no idea the
39:02
baby's born now. If bad things happen, the baby is looking for
39:06
safety. So if bad stuff happened, the brain does stuff.
39:10
Like watch out for that. Don't do that again. And if something
39:13
bad happens over here, watch that. And then from a different
39:19
angle, if if the baby is not loved and taken care of if the
39:24
baby is sort of abused, if it's not food, the the first four
39:29
years of your life, you start with a clean slate, and many
39:36
things happen, which are upsetting to the conscious mind
39:40
and programmed in the subconscious mind. And that
39:44
leads to lack of self esteem. I don't believe in myself. All of
39:50
that is in the first three to four years of life. So now,
39:54
mindfulness and meditation is the first three or four years of
39:58
life and you taught how to do that from the big getting, you
40:01
know how to stress the spiritual child that's a gene, it's like
40:07
your ability to see or ability to hear your ability to connect
40:10
to the universe is a genetic, physical connection. And if you
40:15
are encouraged that you have that power, you have the
40:18
opportunity to go from 40 to 50 bits of information per second,
40:21
up to 9 million to 40 million. Everybody has that. And, and
40:26
that's also happening the first few years. And then the brain
40:29
science of the neurological passages, which really lead to
40:32
literacy and abilities. School are the same thing. So the
40:36
answer is all of that fits into the idea of default mode
40:40
network. And that's pretty interesting. I know. Usually,
40:45
people operate, operate in silos. And I think for the most
40:49
part, very few people have ever put that together in that same
40:52
way.
40:54
Alan Carroll: And that's creativity. And that's, that's
40:56
one of the benefits of mindfulness. Mindfulness to me
40:59
has flexibility to it, that allows you to comfortably move
41:04
around the circle to see the different points of view that
41:07
people are sharing versus my ego just wants one point of view,
41:10
it's my point of view. So I spend my life defending and
41:13
attacking my people who, who are opposed to my point of view,
41:18
versus flexibility. listening, listening allows you to circle
41:22
all over and have that flow that that you talked about. I love
41:27
it. Well, Sam, where we are, we are getting close to the end of
41:31
our first podcast, I sense we have, we have a realm of
41:36
information to bring forth you're, you're like a fountain
41:40
of knowledge. And I really appreciate you sharing all the
41:45
golden nuggets of your journey and the things that you've
41:48
discovered and the people that you've talked to what a what a
41:51
gift you are, to, to, to to the world, and but especially to the
41:56
audience of the mind for your podcast. And to conclude, I want
42:00
to thank you for being on the podcast. And we're going to have
42:04
show notes that are going to have your biography, it's good
42:07
to have your contact information so that people can reach out to
42:12
you and connect with you and find out all the things that
42:15
you're doing in the world. And I just want to I just want to
42:18
thank you for for what you do. The that Curiosity has led you
42:24
on a path that inspires millions and millions of people. So it's
42:28
been an honor, and a privilege to be able to have time to talk
42:32
to you and have you share your wisdom. So thank you very, very
42:35
much, Sam. And in conclusion, what would you like to say to
42:38
the audience
42:39
Unknown: there I want to say to the audience is Alan Thank you
42:45
know, I guess what I want to say to the audience is I've talked
42:51
about is the capacity of empowerment that each human
42:55
being has. And if you think you if you think you can, you can't,
42:59
if you think big, you can do it. If you get started, there's
43:03
nothing you can't do and trust yourself. Your power is amazing.
43:10
Trust yourself and it changes your life. You have amazing
43:14
capacity, coming from a divinity that Allah Thank you.
43:20
Alan Carroll: Thank you, Sam. You bye for now.