FINDING JOE | Full Movie (HD) | Deepak Chopra, Robin Sharma, Rashida Jones, Sir Ken Robinson

many years ago in Thailand there was a temple that was called the temple of the Golden Buddha and there was a huge statue of Golden Buddha and word came to this village where the monastery was that an army from neighbouring country was about to invade and they got the brilliant scheme to cover the Golden Buddha which is quite large with mud and concrete's so that it looked basic like a stone Buddha ma the army would perceive no value in it [Applause] and sure enough this army rolled in with his case signs and weapons and as

they passed by the monastery they saw nothing with a big stone Buddha and they had no reason to plunder it while years went by because the army continued to occupied until there was a time when the monastery in the village when no one remembered that the Buddha was golden until one day a young monk was sitting on the Buddha meditating on his knee and as he got up a little piece of concrete happened to crack off and he saw something shiny he realized it was gold under there and so he ran to his fellow monks

said the Buddha's golden the Buddha's golden they all came out and they realized he was telling the truth and they took their picks and hammers and eventually unearthed the Golden Buddha [Music] [Applause] now what's submitted for here's the metaphor is that each of us is golden by nature we were born golden we're born high we were born knowing were born connected to our bliss were born knowing truth were born knowing everything every great spiritual master has ever said we were one with the Christ the Buddha everyone but then we went to school on they said

you had to just like this and this would boil it girls do this with black people this with white people do on and on and on and so we developed a casing of stone over the Buddha to a point where at a young age maybe four or five six or seven we believed that we were the stone Buddha not the golden one and then something comes along that cracks our casing maybe it's an injury a divorce the financial setbacks our government will change something that really scares us some bugs us and knocks off a piece

of our our armor and only in that moment of the armor being knocked off do you get to look inside and see the goal then let me tell you friend at the moment you see that gold the armor and the concrete will never satisfy you again at that point you truly answer the true hero's adventure and all you want to do for the rest of your life is pick away the stone because the gold is so much more fun [Music] who is Joseph Campbell and why should we care a topic that comes up a lot

Joseph Campbell was one of the leading mythology experts of all time Joseph Campbell is a philosopher the man who had this ability to see the truth in a world where we've lost sight of that in many ways he studied all of these classical myths traditions and they actually started by studying Native American mythology he fell in love with it when he was a kid this was his bliss he wound up studying the Aboriginal cultures he studied Greek mythology he studied Arthurian a legend he dissected and really diagrammed all of our stories he compared the philosophies

the mythic stories of the whole world our myths or movies or novels or romances and he find this one story within all the stories that we can relate to no matter where you come from he recognized that in spite of all the different stories we seem to be telling there's really only one and he called it the hero's journey there must have been thousands and thousands of hero stories from every culture but until Joseph Campbell came along certainly I never realized how they all kind of fit together and how they were basically the same story

I was a religion major in college I was taking my final exam I had a moment where I've just gobsmacked [Applause] it's just like holy crap it's all the same thing I mean it is really all the same thing the hero's journey is a pattern you can almost think of it as an algorithm that has three basic parts separation initiation and return separation you are in one kind of a reality in one kind of a place you are separated from it initiation you're put into another place where you are in some manner initiated returned you

come back a simple version of the hero's journey is you know someone starting out in their normal protected world and then Vinci getting a call to adventure a call to adventure there's a vision there's a quest it's the story of the hero enduring some trials various trials and ordeals meeting different obstacles along the way people that hurt you people that help you doors will open as Campbell would say for you where there are no doors for others dragons will appear that your dragons alone you get to like the innermost cave where you're really challenged like

the greatest crisis and you find your true self the achievement the glory but then that's not the end of it that has to bring that back to the community there's a return to tell the story that is a heroic journey separation initiation return all of the adventures of the human story are in there all the heroes all the villains all the gods and goddesses and all of the knights and all of the fantastic creatures we can conjure up in animation they're all in there because they're all in here because they're all in here this is

where they come from if you look at some of the greatest pieces of literature the greatest works of philosophy they all have what Joseph Campbell called the hero's journey and if you look with a piercing eye you can recognize his outline and just about any movie a story would read Star Wars The Matrix Harry Potter Wizard of Oz that's a classic story of a hero's journey you first see Dorothy and her natural environment and just like out here in regular life a person is operating in their natural environment every day and living in their house

and that kind of thing and then something happens to shake that world up and you go on a journey in which you have to face certain tests and challenges [Music] storytelling is typically about people learning something you go to a place which is dark and mysterious you are faced with yourself there is a relationship between facing fear and this kind of soul gain you acquire quality a hidden strength of value moments where somebody is tested somebody moves to a place where it feels like a crisis point and then they are restored redeemed made better through

that trial and we call them heroes [Music] if all of these stories boiled down into one map we can use that map because all human beings are the same whether they're going through a war like World War two or going through a war inside it's basically the same kind of process in other words we're not separate from the characters we see in our movies and in our novels they are us it's one journey [Music] the whole idea of hero's journey a journey of life clear patterns to guide you through you're born you you have a

childhood you have a adolescence and you try to find the place for you to become an adult and you go through adventures you struggle with your inner conflict and finally you become a hero you slay the Dragons use you succeed in in conquering all the demons and and you step over stressful with the final you have arrived we can old we die but within the short span we have to have some meaning some reason for this existence doesn't have to be higher mighty and fantastic you can have a very simple life still go through the

similar pattern we go on we watch a great hero's journey movie it's that impulse within us that seed of potential that wants to be actualized that's being talked to during those movies and being whispered to it's time for you to do that that's the story here that's what it's all about there's wonderful narrative iconography for how to live life [Music] the idea that trihard you get the little engine that could I think I can I think I can I think I can I can this idea that we really can do better be better that our

greatest cells are still hidden and that the future is the prospect of coming to terms with that cell Dorothy had to confront her inner barriers and so the journey she went on was not just a journey to find out how the deal with the Wicked Witch of the West it was how to deal with her own inner resources how to claim her own inner resources and at the end of the movie how did she get back home while she clicked her heels together so she had it all the time the ability to get back home

but it didn't get mobilized for her until she went through all of those challenges and was able to kind of test herself it's kind of the ordinary moving into the extraordinary it's going through the dark to come out to the light going from an unsatisfying life to a satisfying life by pushing through the scariest things you could imagine you the most important thing that the myths teach us is to go beyond what we perceive as the limits of our possibility so mythology needs to be seen for what it is which is a metaphor for our

human existence it's not a history lesson it's a metaphor for life and for universal experiences a lot of people read the myths and they say well that refers to something historical the creation of the world or something like that but Joe didn't think that he thought that it's really a narrative about the psyche what Jung called the self [Music] the problem is that many of us are metaphorically impaired we don't realize that this thing that they're talking about is actually a metaphor for a transformation process just kind of like the holy grail where it's not

the thing it's not the actual concrete grail it's an intangible thing but the holy grail is a metaphor for that intangible feeling and so if you look at a book and it says you will go to heaven and you don't realize that they're talking about heaven on earth heaven in our bodies heaven right now in the now you might fall into a trance of thinking that you're literally gonna go someplace else if you follow the rules having been brought up in a mythical culture I was very familiar with the different motifs and themes that were

encapsulated in say a mythical being whether it was the Lord Shiva or Ganesh or a goddess just thinking the name of that person the whole story was evoked Carl Jung called these archetypes archetypes up from module encapsulated stories or mythologies and they're in this form of a seed in consciousness when you plant that seed in consciousness that archetypal seed that mythical journey then that seed starts to sprout and as it sprouts the patterning forces create the situation circumstances events and relationships for the unfolding of the story it's better to have a story to look through

at life than an explanation the reason for that is the story is richer I [Music] say select two or three heroes and heroines either in mythology or religion or history and then ask these mythical beings to incarnate through you and then don't be surprised when you see situation circumstances coincidences synchronicities relationships short suddenly short that actually are part of the story that you have been seeking to Express once upon a time in the forest there was this little tiger cub amongst a flock of sheep and he ate grass and he wandered around with the Sheep

[Music] and when he tried to say anything all that came out was a sort of little meow not much of a roar and one day through those forest comes a large male tiger and he's just about to pounce on the sheep and he sees this tiger cub he says what are you doing here tiger cub goes man picks the tiger cub up by the scruff of the neck and he carries him over to a pod and he puts his face over and he says look see that face you're not a sheep you're a tiger the

male tiger says okay we need to do something he slays a sheep but he grabs a big hunk of raw meat and he shoves it in the little tiger's mouth [Music] and the little tiger gagged on it is all do on the truth but it went down and he got a little bit energy and pretty soon he had a bigger tiger roar and eventually he had a full tiger roar he went off with the male tiger I think the moral here is self-evident if you're a tiger living among sheep you're a pretty poor specimen of

a tiger and we are all Tigers living among sheep we are all individuals with an a self that we don't even begin to understand and unfortunately I've you could open a metaphor out the food we get from the culture around us is maybe food for sheep it's not food for Tigers [Music] we have to catch at least the spark on what your life is going to be or you may spend those dreary decades in corporate America climbing the ladder only to discover it's against the wrong wall you get to the top who cares if this

path of the hero's journey is fairly simple in design why then is it that everybody isn't living it [Music] well the answer is that most people on the planet live under a kind of a mass hypnosis [Music] there's a tremendous pressure even in the media on really keeping people in their place in the sense of keeping them happy tranced out consumers [Music] it's a trance of comfort it's a trance of not sticking your head up above the crown very much that keeps the enterprise nor most people think it's a luxury and a great privilege to

stay home and look at their 800 inch television if you just spaced out you're not developing we're stimulated by some images and some loud noise it's about collecting things and stuff and making a lot of money and doing a lot of things and it's impossible to enjoy that because you end up on that treadmill and you can't get off and so most people unfortunately because they are so victimized by the environment they have no time to think or be themselves they become bundles of conditioned reflexes and nerves that are constantly being triggered by people and

circumstance into very predictable outcomes and predictable patterns of behavior there is no creativity that's the trance that's the wasteland where we're just guided toward this weird sense of what's real in our lives and those ideas that are imposed on us from the outside about what we should and should not do it usually starts out with something like you shouldn't talk to that person because they're from a different tribe you certainly shouldn't marry that person you should go to this school you should have a certain type of car you should live in a certain type of

house you should have a certain number of kids buy this type of age should should should should should what I experienced in my own life was I gotta have the degree from this University I've got to have this advanced degree from this university preferably either a law degree or a medical degree or something to that effect some letters after my name which would say that I have a stamp of credibility I can go out and make my six figures in society can kind of deem me worthy I have countless examples of young people who go

to college because they expected to go to college and they studied biology because since the time they were 6 they were supposed to be a doctor it's very difficult for a person who's brought up in this environment of instant gratification with the media with advertising with all the promises of instant gratification by buying something for example or having a certain level of affluence that you lose contact with this mythical domain which is actually part of your soul it's there in everyone it's their passion with their blesses their unique skills is their unique ways of expressing

themselves is their soul which if they think they could do anything if you look at every her own journey the hero has been confronted with the fact that the world that they thought was reality was nothing more than an illusion I go back to the matrix which is what was the matrix it was just this big illusion it was the dominant values and beliefs that the world had put around this guy neo the seeker on the hero's journey and what did he do he felt this longing to go beyond the illusion to go beyond the

matrix so he took the red pill and he woke up to reality and what was a reality reality was he was full of potential [Music] separation begins with what we call the call to adventure Campbell tells us there's literally almost a phone ringing it's like the universe the divine God whatever you want to call it literally dialing you up and ringing and giving you a call asking you to step out until with your journey something breaks into the your quotidian reality and makes it impossible for you to continue well you could hang up the phone

you can run away but he'll keep coming back it'll keep coming back until you finally answer the call [Music] if you're not paying attention the wake-up calls come in the form of a sledgehammer you know if you're paying attention they might come in a tickle feather so we don't always get the call as a choir of angels with trumpets singing to us beautifully one Sunday morning in Star Wars Luke comes back his house has been burnt down he's gotta go oftentimes it comes in the depth of our despair in losing a job getting fired getting

divorced - having your House foreclosed on these things that you just would never want to have happen or often the exact things we need to catapult it's to catalyze us into the next that next version of ourselves bad things happen to good people and when that happens to them they typically are thrown for a loop because they frequently have felt everything's going along I'm doing everything right what happened well you know the universe just up ended you and it does do that Chinese symbol for crisis r2 symbol the first wise danger and second why immediate

is opportunity so crisis is ballz danger and opportunity this idea that if one storyline collapses that that's the end of the movie it's not true of human life and never wants true of human life I know people who have prospered in the most extraordinary way in the worst type of adversity but actually reveals something to them about themselves they didn't know and that became the new journey they took let me put this into really practical hundred-pound terms because if the camera had been pointed at me when I was 24 years old what it would have

seen was a person who weighed 320 pounds you would have seen me puffing on two or three packs of Marlboros a day relationship that I didn't want to be in and I had a job I hated everything was wrong in my life and so those are ripe moments for a wake-up call in life you know if you haven't been paying attention enough so that you end up with the job you hate a relationship you don't want to be in a body you don't like and you're addicted to a bunch of things you're ripe for a

sledgehammer blow from the universe and I got it you step over a threshold meaning you move from one world into another sometimes you're shoved from one world into the other I went out for a walk and I stepped on the ice on the road and my feet shot out from under me and I smacked my back of my head on the ground frozen ground and it knocked me out just enough I wasn't completely unconscious but I had a vision while I was semi knocked out I could see down through all the layers of myself to

this pure consciousness inside and I could see how all the fat I had was organized around a whole bunch of feelings I didn't want to let myself feel like sadness from childhood and a lot of old grief and my family and anger and things like that and I realized that the fat was there to keep me from feeling those feelings and so as I began to come back to normal consciousness I made a vow that I was going to change my life so that I could live in that state of pure consciousness instead of having

to have all of that armor around me once you make the decisions that Joseph Campbell is talking about about really hearing the call and being willing to take on the challenges of that new awakened life once you do that you begin to feel a power that it's like nothing else I've ever experienced and I think a lot of us are just plain old afraid of that [Music] I tend to think that people wake up to the fact that they're the hero of their own life when they get tired of being the victim of their own

life at the point that that you say enough you know IIIi don't want to listen to my parents anymore I I have had it with my boss I'm really having problems perhaps with the sermon I'm being taught you could either surrender to victimhood and a lot of people do or you can surrender to a fundamentalism you can basically give your responsibility to someone else and say tell me what to do and I'll do it or you can say I have a choice here and I'm responsible now what what does it mean to be the hero

of your own life it means to be responsible for your own adventure [Music] Campbell talks about metaphorical death where something dies so that something can live and in every hero's journey there's some death moment where some old has to go on some new has to stay he quotes Nietzsche and he says that the snake that cannot shed its skin must perish [Music] when death is a motif in a myth it doesn't refer necessarily to what happens at the end of one's biological and physical existence it's an indication that changes taking place I went through that

process when I stopped being a tribal administrator and started becoming a writer I put that aspect of myself way it was valuable and I learned a lot and that drawn it but it enabled me to go on no death no life no death no transformation no death no change I said okay I don't want cut anymore I want this put that away made myself into something else and in essence resurrected into being right the whole key to blessing death is to recognizing that it's just a death of one old form that has played itself out

has no use anymore which always as the phoenix rises and gives way to some new form that has new intrinsic meaning i makes your life even bigger and better you want a new birth new revelation new insight into life as you grow as a human being you will learn to keep dying [Music] I think it's tricky to afford a proof I think there are proofs in our lives I think the proofs exist in our ability to transcend the worst things that have happened to us um my proof is I was abused as a little boy

and not something I chat about typically but in this context it was the whole the worst thing ever you know and it went on for a very long time I was very young and and I'm Who I am in part because I had to face that because I had to wrestle with that because I had to accept that and acknowledge that and forgive and and all the terribly difficult things that come with that I had to tell my parents I had to you know it's this you know and by the way it's one of these

things that you work with for the rest of your life but from that most difficult thing also came a kind of understanding I get high marks on compassion I wouldn't wish it on anybody but it is part of what made me mean so the truth is it's not what happens to us it's what we do with it the forest represents the darkness the unknown the edge of your world and it takes the courage of a hero to go into that forest the people in your community don't understand why you want to go into that for

us and in fact they're pulling you back asking you why can't you be happy with what you have here but there's this urge that exists within the year to go and explore Joseph's often used the knights of the round table when they behold the golden chalice there's a story with King Arthur and his knights [Music] after the night's have seen the Grail and decided to go forward on a quest they made a vow [Music] they decided that the Knightly thing to do the noble thing to do as individuals seeking their own in the collective was

to go in to the forests at their own points each night enters the forest where it was darkest and there was no path they cannot follow other people that they have to go in find their own entry into dr. Horace and Campbell makes it really clear if you go into the forest where there's already a trail that's the one sure sign that you're not on your path because if they follow somebody else's entry is somebody else's path that's not going into the forest that's not initiation you need to find your own path and that kind

of comes from that impulse within to go out and really discover who you are beyond it's the narrow confines of how you've been conditioned what you've been told to do and go out and explore for yourself what your truth is and how you can go out and rock it [Music] the hero's journey for me is having the courage to look within yourself and say what am i here to do what am I most passionate about in my life what are my greatest gifts how do I give them to the world and Joseph Campbell captured it

with a phrase follow your bliss follow your bliss I don't think more profound teachings that have been given than this one follow your bliss means listening to your heart and following your truth there's something specific about the word bliss it's not ecstasy it's not um happiness there's a serenity and bliss I like to talk about your bliss is the thing you can't not do so it's your authentic journey I've heard follow your bliss but I didn't know where it came from and what's cool is that it's grounded in deep Hindu spirituality and philosophy and it

comes from the Upanishads there were three launching points into enlightenment sat-chit-ananda so saath means beingness chit means consciousness and Ananda means bliss or rapture Joseph Campbell said to himself I don't really know what my beingness is if I'm honest with myself I don't really know what my consciousness is but I do know what my bliss is and I can follow my bliss and that idea of trusting ourselves and trusting that deep impulse within us to go out and follow our bliss do what makes us feel most alive that's the path that's the key that's the

essence of the hero's journey [Music] follow your bliss does not mean get addicted to pleasure it's more than just something that you wish for it doesn't mean escapism it doesn't mean hedonism it doesn't mean selfishness it doesn't mean listening only to sensory pleasures like having sex with anybody to look at or sticking up a candy store if you want candy don't follow what other people think is your bliss don't follow your wallet follow the thing that's presenting itself as as your your most serene and fulfilling state sometimes it's difficult to let go of that inner

resistor and just say okay I accept the possibilities of the present I will follow my bliss I will listen to the call of spirit that's a very big deal [Music] daddy said what do you want to do I said I need to leave school I'm never gonna learn anything I'm not going to university said I want to play drunk I've learnt to play drums in the Attic and that's my world and totally naive like so dad sends me off to London with the drum kit so I went to London and all of it came true

of course I'm not sitting out I've got to be originally got to be famous but I have to be doing something I love to do and I have so much passion and I didn't even know what that was really all about but I do now [Music] how do we find our place this is what everybody's as [Music] first thing is ask yourself what am i passionate about now what are the things I love do it what are the activities when I engage them it feels like hours go by in minutes that's one big clue about

what you Blizzard [Music] what I say is find out what you most love to do and then do more of that thing ask yourself right now what was it that made me different as a child what set me apart what caused me to cry at night in my pillow because I didn't fit in with the in-crowd that is probably precisely where the door to your bliss is going to open go back and find it [Music] let's say you would never had to think about money and you never had to think about time but all the

money in the world and all the time in the world how would you express yourself and how would that benefit the ecosystem the larger web of being we have to find a way of reflecting on those experiences we've had that engaged us in where we became lost and totally absorbed in them so for some people that way to do that might be to write these things down others don't think like that they don't like to use words all the time so maybe collect some images you know cut some images just magazines collect music that's always

inspiring you but some way to to bypass that outer barrier to your own sense of energy it's not about being successful it's not about feeding your family right some bad poetry do something that gives you that moment you can write in a journal is writing in a journal as a conversation you have with yourself you can get to know your gifts your talents your weaknesses your hopes your dreams your lessons [Music] Joseph Campbell always gave the same advice to his students graduating Sarah Lawrence don't do what daddy says because daddy has one interest in mind

for you and that's your security and if you bargain away your life for security now you will never find your bliss I started skating because my older brother was into it and I enjoyed it but I didn't take it that seriously until the first time I went to the skate park and I saw these guys literally flying out of empty swimming pools I got so excited that that was even possible as a person to be you know to be flying in the air with a skateboard in your hand once I saw what was possible and

what you could do with this this thing that I had come to enjoy I had to keep going I mean I just wanted to fly [Music] I think it's really important to do things that make you happy and I know that sounds very obvious and you know some of you the viewers might say well now let's hold hands and sing Kumbaya but when you look at every great inventor every great business person every great scientist you look at these people who have gotten to the so-called mountaintop and almost every single one of them to a

person didn't do it for the money they did it because they were chasing their bliss if you're following your dream and you're doing what you love it's not always going to be a financial success but it will be a personal success because you are still doing this thing that you love doing and what's more important [Music] I would describe my discovery of surfing exposure [Music] I was just watching surfers there watching what they were doing and what surfing was all about and the routes that they were taking and the ways they were doing it I

think I knew subconsciously before I knew consciously I think I knew that I was gonna do something in surfing I knew that surfing was gonna be a big part of my life so I wanted to absorb all the information I could just because you don't know what the call on your life is right now doesn't mean play ostrich and stick your hand in the sand and say well just because I don't know and I guess I shouldn't move towards anything the very fact that you're looking for your bliss means that you're in the process of

getting to your bliss I mean part of life and part of the whole journeys exploration human results is often buried very deep we don't know they're there and we don't know they're there often because we don't look for them we don't take the journey some people found them and many people have not found them and because they've not found their talents they think they don't have any I believe passionately that we all have deep talents go look try things you've never done before if there are things you wish you'd done but you never did well

why didn't you go and do it try if you always go the same route to work take some different motives that people you never speed to go and speak to them at least put yourself out there but don't anticipate what you'll find put yourself in uncomfortable situations at least every seven days if every set at least every seven days people aren't laughing at you are scratching their heads wondering why you're dreaming so big or doing what you're doing or have such a fierce resolve to achieving your goals that I don't think you're stretching enough and

ultimately we grow the most through the things that stretch us the most you [Music] my personal journey I was bright enough I got into the best university but a part of me need the journey I was interested in the West so I jumped at the next opportunity to get a scholarship and then get on the boat and my slow boat to the West took 14 days I am I landed in Portland Oregon and to be a foreign student I stretched myself I arrived I know very little English and go to a classical English for foreign

students I learn English and I embrace the Western culture I search myself so suddenly I see a part of me which which I never knew us there [Music] one of Joe's most beloved quotes about bliss is that when you follow your bliss the universe will open doors where there were only walls a wonderful image and in fact a lot of people's experience is so like this you feel like you're beating your head against a brick wall and then suddenly you you shift just a tad and lo and behold there's a passage that opens up when

you truly step forth and and trust your bliss unseen forces have the power to rearrange things to accommodate your step of faith I took that robert mckee course i thought well that's not that hard um and I wrote a screenplay and I sent it to a friend of mine who was somebody's assistant who left it on his desk and some other agent wandered by and picked it up and read it and said oh this is good and so then my friend went oh and he ran to his boss he said you should read this because

that guy over there who's a junior agent liked it and his boss was a senior agent and then I got a phone call that was fantastic was the craziest thing and so it seems like I sold the first screenplay ever a row but the truth is I kept writing till I got lucky if I stopped writing I would never gotten lucky there was no luck coming to my house going hey here's a book deal hey we want to buy that screenplay that you haven't written you know you just keep doing it and eventually you're likely

to get lucky why do most people not follow their voice one word fear right we're literally overwhelmed by fear and primarily were overwhelmed by the fear of what other people will think of us Campbell says that what will they think of me must be put aside for bliss one of the biggest inhibitors to following our bliss is what will they think of me am I going to look like an idiot if I follow my bliss and I fail am I going to look like a fool all these different questions come into our mind your friends

and family you know it can be very well-meaning but really we'll collude with you to create a story that is hard for you to get out of for example you know don't do music you won't be a musician you know there's no point trying to be a dancer because you never make a living doing them I think that's the first step to the journey there the demons we often have to face down we are each our own greatest inhibitors and so people people can say oh yeah this guy's holding me back or this situation but

really you're holding yourself back and you're deciding hey I don't want to look bad in front of those guys or I don't want those guys to say some bad things about me so I'm not gonna do that who made that decision you I am NOT going to do that it means you've decided [Music] there's a poem of Rumi the great mystical poet from the Middle East in the 12th century who said I want to sing like birds sing not worrying who listens or what they think but if you can do that then you can achieve

the impossible [Music] for me one of the most formative times the first probably most formative time was when I dropped out of law school all of my friends at the time told me at least stay through the first year and I couldn't make it through the first semester I was literally nauseous at the idea of completing this that burned my resume I had no desire to live within the corporate world in any sense and at in the same 24-hour period of time and did my relationship of five years and dropped out of law school it

was an incredibly gut-wrenching soul wrenching time moved back in with mom there were several months where I just laid in bed and slept and read it wasn't a pretty process but the only thing I knew I wanted to do was to coach a little league baseball team a little bit of instinct that I had a little bit of bliss I had my life at that time was to work with these kids and I had no idea what would come out of it and then three six months later I had an idea that wow there's an

amazing opportunity to serve families and sports the internet was just getting going this was 1998 and I had a vision of what I could do to serve these families and created a company that there's no way I could have imagined when I dropped out of law school no possible way but as it turns out I started this business we won the business plan competition at UCLA we raised five million dollars I hired the CEO of Adidas to be our CEO and we hired the law firm that I would have wanted to work for before I

graduated from law school so this is beautiful you know sense of this is it this is what happens when we follow our bliss magical things happen that we couldn't have imagined when we're going through the tough point of making the decision to take the leap to go for it and to make the difference [Music] there are two roads in life the red road in the Black River the Red Road is the tough road because it's narrow it's winding it's full of storms it's full of obstacles the black road is easy it's straight and it's wide

doesn't offer any challenges the storyteller never says you have to travel this road or you have traveled this road [Music] they end up telling you the story of the red and black road by saying this the choice is yours always the choice is yours living the spontaneous life with my father the bond and the passions that my father shared with me we got on a plane 7:00 in the morning out of Santa Monica Airport flying towards a Big Bear where I had won a ski race the day before we're returning to Big Bear to collect

my trophy on the way we enter storm and we crash headlong right into this rugged mountain 8200 feet it's the level we crash I woke up our bodies were sprawled in this 45-degree icy shoot it was a blizzard it was hard to find everybody it took me about you know half hour 45 minutes peace everybody where they were my dad's girlfriend Sandra was still alive my dad was hunched over and it was unclear whether he was dead or just so knocked out that he you know sort of like comatose or something I just told myself

that he was knocked out at a certain point I had to admit that he wasn't able to help me anymore that was on my own Sandra and I took shelter under a wing many things happen eventually we started down this initial icy chute she slipped and was killed an hour later I came across her body I covered her with twigs and leaves and stuff even though I knew she was dead pretty much but her eyes were open so it was confusing for me at that age I was 11 and then I continued down and varied

terrain and all kinds of things happen I got stuck in snow I had to get through Little Creek gulches and broken rock and ice and I just wanted to go away more than anything in the world I wanted that pain to go away now had I not had I not you know gone in there and seen that that thing that that thing I feared the most I would not have learned to sort of find the gem and the treasure of pain those answers that were there for me and had I not face that pain had

I not gone and stared in the eyes of the thing I feared most that I wanted to run through most I would not be here now with this book which is really besides having a kid the most satisfying experience of my life [Music] Campbell talks about the fact that when we go on the hero's journey there's a dragon we must sway now a dragon is the most challenging fierce creature that can ever be created in mythology Joe Campbell describes the dragon as being a beast covered with scales and on every scale it says either thou

shalt without shalt not [Music] so this beast is a construction of all of the rules regulations social obligations cultural accretions that have made you feel that you either have to or can't do certain things [Music] slaying the dragon to me is the most interesting it's the final moment it's the time when you are faced with the scariest thing you've been faced with and you get to take everything you've learned and and knock this guy out if you were to ask me what's the one thing that's that keeps people from their mountaintops what's the one thing

that keeps people small rather than allowing them to present their genius to the world it's it's they're fierce or as Joseph Campbell says it's they're dragons there is anything that gets in you it's a beast it's a monster fear is you know what we face every day you know we fear that we're gonna be rejected that we're going to be you know no one's gonna answer return our phone call that no one's gonna like what we made or what we did or what we said fear that is unfazed has a tendency to creep it moves

through your experiences it starts to toxify your perceptions you become scared and love is what web on with and fear is what we learn and I think there's a great truth in that I I decided I wanted to do a full loop round you know and I had this idea I knew it was physically possible I mean you know you do what you do with hot wheels you can do with a skateboard right and so I presented the idea to my sponsor at the time and I said hey I think I could do this and

they said that sounds awesome let's build a ramp and I designed the ramp you know and all this was on paper and it was my idea and I'll never forget driving up and seeing it and this wave of fear just crashed over me like oh my what tonight are you serious like I made a loop I'm really gonna like and I'm the only one that's even volunteering to do it and at that point I felt like there was so much at stake to not do it you know cuz at the time no one was building

extravagant ramps no one really had money to do that kind of thing and there was and I was like and I just had to sort of internalize and say okay you keep telling yourself this is possible this is the time we got to make this happen and little by little I figured it out and I took some heavy heavy hits that day [Music] actually now we own one for our hot Jam tour that we can do on tour every single night but but that first time you know that was so I was just frightening but

I had I had to really step back and go okay you can do this [Music] fear is a very interesting fact first of all we need to realize that fear is an inherent part of the human experience but it's not about getting rid of fear where is it gonna go it's not there's nowhere for it to go the issue is to have courage to move forward in spite of the fear you feel the courage is not a lack of fear the courage is is dealing with your faith nobody would ever be smart as courageous you

didn't confront their own fear that's not courage at all it's just doing something that you find relatively unchallenging curt is when you know what to do and you do it and lack of courage is when you know what to do and you don't do it courage is is the ability to to get up after you've fallen and and try again exploring the unknown and trying stuff that maybe people have thought was impossible it's just like a muscle if you want to get stronger you want to run a triathlon to run a marathon or do whatever

you want to do physically you know you need to train you need to get stronger courage is exactly the same thing you think of it like courage Jim you've got to consistently go up to your fears and go one step past it one step past it and you'll find your comfort zone expand each time you do that things used to freak you out won't freak you out as much and now you have the tools you have this strength literally to lift more in your life as you face your fears more and more authentically there is

some power monsters get by being darkened in the closet and there is some diminishment by facing them facing them head-on so joseph campbell talks about slaying dragons and what do most of us do in our lives whether it's a difficult assignment at work whether it's a difficult conversation we know we should have with a loved one whether it's something we're resisting we leave and run in the opposite direction rather than running away we should go closer to because once we can see our fears the death of the fear becomes certain do the things that scare

you you know courage is what comes afterward it is okay to be scared that shouldn't stop you a healthy warning but it shouldn't stop [Music] [Music] Oh grrrrrr dragon that hoards all of these stories talking those terms for several reasons on the one hand we could call it projection in a psychological sense so we project out and we create an antagonist that we have to slay but what's actually happening is we're dealing with the energies inside ourselves what is outside is in fact a reflection of what's inside that in fact you've sort of chosen your

monster of course in Star Wars which was pretty much entirely based on Campbell's paradigm Luke Skywalker has to go into the cave where he does battle with Darth Vader where finally he cuts off Darth Vader's head and the head rolls to his feet and Darth Vader's helmet opens up what does he see but his own face he thinks that there's evil outside of him when the struggle between good and evil is understood to be going on inside of us it can be very beneficial this is part of a personal transformation overcoming our negative aspects emphasizing

our good ones but what often happens of course we want to feel that we are good so we don't find the negative within ourselves we're gonna find it somewhere out there the great obstacle for most of us really is ourselves you know if we can overcome that basic fear about what we might achieve and we take that risk I think all kinds of things open up in Campbell's terms know we we can all be heroes [Music] the hero encounters these obstacles and inflames at the and that's how we react when we find ourselves in a

situation where we have that kind of cognitive dissonance how do I get out of it well first thing is you have to surrender you have to stop fighting it so slaying the dragon is really coming to terms with that inner part of you yourself that you think is bigger than you and in doing that then you grow a bigger sense of yourself [Music] however I think that it's loving your dragon that's the much more efficient thing to do it also feels a lot better [Music] when you do that then frequently whatever the dragon was hiding

hoarding they step away and give it to you they give it to you because there's nothing what are you fighting you're fighting yourself when you stop fighting yourself then you're no longer engaged in the fight and you're open to what might come to you there's always a gift in battling demons and overcoming them because that's what our souls journey is about it's about facing fear and growing beyond it and as we overcome our fears we gain power to look at her lives the best most rewarding moments have come after a struggle as such what we

do with our lives is what makes us heroes or not [Music] and there's Grayson knowing that and there's a gift in believing that every - is half of a + waiting for stroke of vertical awareness in other words on one level it's a negative yeah you had your device yeah you had that health challenge yeah you got fired okay we're not arguing that was not troublesome but what awareness can you add to it so you get a far bigger picture that helps you master it at a certain point in the hero's journey it's going to

become about you loving and accepting yourself as you are that's a powerful moment because that lines you up directly with the universe now there's no more war going on inside yourself and as that gap heals between you're unlovable self and your ability to love that unlovable self you gain an awesome power in life the way we think of time is as linear I'm born I'm gonna go through these things and I'm gonna die the hero's journey tells us no you're gonna go here you're gonna have this adventure and you're gonna come back and guess what

you're gonna be right back where you were now you're gonna go over here and have this adventure you come back you're gonna go here you're gonna have this adventure in your and come back and guess what you're gonna be right back where you were now you're gonna go over here and have this adventure you come back and guess what you're right here what did you bring back what the hero brings back is a story Gilgamesh for example the Gilgamesh epic he went out and even if it looked for the plan of immortality he went through

all kinds of trials with the feminine with the monster and so on but he finally swam to the bottom of the sea and got the plan of immortality he came up on the shore and put it down while he was bathing the snake serpent came and got the plan of immortality but he went home to auric anyway and he had this story to tell for Gilgamesh there was no concrete objective thing widget to give to the community no gold no treasure and so on the story of the Train getting the treasure is the treasure and

so the giving of the story is the invitation for other people to make the same journey that's why it's a circle and never ends I love that idea that there's a circle and the circle needs to be closed and the way to close the circle is to come back return with something different than you started with and to share that and that to me is like a perfect hero's journey that's the ultimate into the hero's journey it's not slaying the dragon it's not being the bad guy it's giving back the essence of that journey what's

life about how can I make a difference and who can I make a difference two and four and then it gets real easy hey can I get a shirt oh yeah here the shirt hey can I get a board yeah here's a board oh my friends got an autistic son he's trying to make a movie he doesn't have the money what can we do that finish the movie all of a sudden we're doing things that we are gonna do anyway but down the said we can make money for him and make him finish the movie

and then I'll send it's like well let's do that again that was great [Music] when I found this success in skating that I never dreamed possible the first thing I wanted to do was to try to help kids get a facility and that was the first thing I did I started a foundation for public skate parks to date we've helped build about 500 skate parks it's my passion it's of what I would love to do is to provide facilities for these kids who who deserve a chance I love talking to young riders about riding there's

a scholarship i fund which is of screenwriting scholarship at Wesleyan where I went to call it we owe it to everybody who wants to be what we are when they grow up they say if you speak to somebody at the level of the mind and you'll speak to them right if you speak to me a heart you will speak to the heart but if you speak through your life and your life is the story then you'll change lives and that's what mythical beings do and it's why stories are great because my story right now which

is my also my truth may have an effect on you and therefore I am picking the internal I'm making it external and through that I'm sharing experience [Music] no matter how long you get to live life is ultimately very short and before all of us know we're gonna be dust and the street sweeper gets buried next to the CEO and all that really matters at the end of the day is how big we showed up and how courageous we were [Music] [Applause] [Music] and I think when we are on our death beds what fills our

heart with the greatest regret is not all the risks we took and not all the opportunities we seized and out all the times we went out on a limb and looked silly what fills our heart with regret at the end if our lives are all the risks who didn't take in all the opportunities and you didn't cease and it's really all you got to do to get to the next step I believe we all have it in us to think to ourselves I can't give up that choice to not give up is a story you're

telling yourself [Music] makes you feel the morning that makes you feel like you can overcome anything that makes you feel transcendence and that's all we done [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] you