 I say this all the time publicly. I actually don't give a shit about meditation itself. I really don't. The only reason why I teach meditation is because it is a tool. It is a mechanism that we can use to actually get more done, to be more productive, to be more effective, to be more present with our families, with our emotions, and to hold the space for it all. So I've been excited for this episode because as a meditation skeptic, someone who's struggled with the apps and we've had apps on the show as sponsors, and of course I've tried it myself and it just never really stuck and we got introduced through a mutual friend and essentially was like, hey, I want to figure out this meditation thing because everything that I'm hearing online, the science of it, we hear it everywhere, but of course we're all about science here on the show first. So today we're so excited to welcome Justin on the show to talk about meditation and not only the science, your story, and how you helped me actually enjoy meditation. So thank you for joining us, Justin. Yeah, really glad to be here today, guys. So obviously we love going deep into the science of socialization, connection, and we'd be remiss if we skipped over the science of meditation because I think a lot of people hear meditation, mindfulness. I know Johnny got a little skeptical. We were laughing. They just think the woo. Exactly. A touch of the woo. Yeah. But there is a lot of science. We were talking about this earlier that is now backing up the benefits to our mental health, our physical health, and well-being all through meditation. Yeah. And I think for a lot of people, there's a lot of different elements that sort of attach themselves to meditation because of its benefits. And then because of that, their message kind of gets muddies the waters and it makes it difficult for a lot of people to really understand just what it is, how it works, and what they should be looking for when they're doing it. Yeah. And it's a really interesting thing that's happening right now because one of the weird phenomenons that's happened is everybody, if it's your yoga teacher, your Pilates teacher, or whoever you're going to, they are going to like, oh, let's meditate, but they don't know what the hell they're doing. Most people haven't been trained in meditation, actually, how to teach the practice. And I have to say, Johnny, I'm actually with you, so I'm half-woo, half-science, and I really am a skeptic at heart and really like digging into the science. And so one of the things that was super important to me even when I was writing the book, I partnered with Dacher Keltner, who's actually over, he's the head over the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. And they've done tons of quantitative and qualitative research around things like happiness and mindfulness and mental health and awe. And we put tons of science in the book to show that this stuff is not just woo-woo. Like what's happening right now is the science is actually catching up with these ancient practices that the mystics knew worked, and now we're finally understanding why. And when we were talking about the first question that I had for you was, how long am I supposed to meditate? Because the apps say 10, some say hours. I know there are full retreats. We're not speaking to anyone for days at a time. Which are awful if you ask me. I don't like those. So I'm not going to ask, just if you're on this podcast, no, I'm not going to ask you to go sit quietly for 12 days. That's not my vibe. Okay, so how long should we be meditating? What does the science say there? Yeah, so there's some research that's actually coming out of Amishi Jaws lab in Florida, actually, and they found out they're integrating mindfulness into the military. And of course the military, which is like fully integrated now by the way. And so the military of course wants to know, okay, what's the minimum dosage? Like what's the minimum amount of time that we have to take? And what they found that it's at about 12 minutes. 12 minutes is when you start really getting the benefits. And I think this is really freeing because so many people think, oh, I have to sit for 30 minutes. I have to sit for an hour. I have to sit for whatever. But what the science shows is that short meditations consistently is where you actually get all the benefits from not necessarily from a longer meditation every once in a while. Those might feel good, but the real benefits that we see in terms of reducing stress and cortisol levels and anti-aging and focus that all comes from a little bit of a longer and consistent practice. And for a lot of us when we start meditating, our first thought is, okay, I got to look at the time. How long do I got to do this? Your mind immediately starts wandering from the meditation and you're like, okay, just how much longer? So 12 was so liberating to know, okay, 12 is definitely something everyone can squeeze into their schedule. And there's a time frame that's best for this as well, isn't there? Yeah. So I mean, really what I tell people is there are different times of day that you're talking about what time of day to meditate, right? So there's different times of day that you can meditate. And I usually say to people, mornings are best. And I know that's hard for a lot of people. So if you got to get it in somewhere else on your lunch break, when you're going to sleep, whatever, that's good. The main thing that I say is don't meditate right after you eat because your body's kind of like busy doing stuff, right? So it's hard to relax. But mornings are really important because science has actually proven that our brains are in a similar state to being hypnotized when we wake up in the morning for about the first 10 or 15 minutes after you wake up. So whatever you see, whatever you read, whatever you do in that first 15 minutes of your day has a consequential influence on the trajectory of the rest of your day. There was a study that Ariana Huffington actually posted about it was something like this. I think this is the exact number that for people who watched even three minutes of anything negative within the first 10 minutes of their day had a 27% chance of having a negative day six to eight hours later. And the other thing that was interesting about it is without knowing why. So I want to really key in on that. There's already so much that can make us have a negative day. So if we're already starting with a 30% chance of having a higher likelihood of having a negative day, we're putting ourselves up for failure by the way. Certainly everybody has woken up, looked at their phone, and guiding extremely pissed off within five minutes. I mean, that just seems to be the norm though. And I think, and I know AJ and I have talked about this about our morning routines and how we're trying to deviate from even looking at that until we've been to the gym till we are able to process things properly in perspective without getting upset while still lying in bed. Yeah. And here's the thing that I say, check yourself before you check your phone. Check yourself before you check your phone. Even just for a few minutes, if you hate everything that I say today and you don't start meditating, even if you just got up and brushed your teeth and made your coffee and did your thing without looking at your phone and just took a few deep breaths, that would change the trajectory of your day and give you a 27% chance of having a higher likelihood of having a good day. After we sat down and we'll get into the mantra work that we did, I went through my morning routine and my habits and I realized that the trigger for me was my phone, was my alarm clock. And it crept in. So we got new phones. I was on an old phone and I was just using my regular alarm clock and I got the new phone. So sitting in bed with the new phone, the phone is now in the nightstand and it's my alarm. So sure enough, I'm getting notifications the second I grab that thing. So what did I do? I moved my charger across the room, have an analog alarm clock. I'm not allowed to check phone at all until I'm back from the gym and I've walked puppers. That's amazing. How much time is that? It's about an hour and a half. That's great. Now here's the thing that I noticed. I had a couple off days and they were off. They were off. They were absolutely off. Amy picked up on it, she noticed it. And I started moving my meditation. So I was trying to do it in the afternoon and evenings. I started moving that to first thing in the morning. It hasn't quite stuck yet, but I definitely feel a difference. So I totally agree with that. If you set the day right by resetting your body, by not letting that to-do list, which is your inbox, it's your to-do list and requests from other people or your Slack or whatever communication it is, creating that little bit of space for myself to just ease into the day, get myself right and then tackle my biggest task, eat the frog. It's been amazing. So I've been so thankful around that one insight alone. Just looking at the cascade effect that these little actions we have, these small habits in the morning, have on our mental well-being. Huge. And you're an overachiever with an hour, hour and a half in the morning. Even if you can do 15 minutes, it really makes a big difference. And one of the things about your phone, because I use my phone as an alarm and I had to test all this stuff out. So this is my personal trick. I turn all the notifications off of my lock screen. So I can't just see them when I look at the time. And I also turn my phone on actual airplane mode when I go to sleep. I don't have it on, do not disturb. Because then you turn off your alarm and then right there you see the notifications. And that still affects the brain negatively. Because before you've even begun your day, you already feel like you're behind. And so that goes into your brain. And you're like, Oh, damn, like I have so much to do. And you haven't even taken two breaths cautiously. So. And for me, even just not, even seeing the number of notifications, I didn't have to see what the notification was, but see, okay, I have X texts and I have Y slacks, was anxiety-ridden. Totally. I would check it. I wouldn't actually get into any of that stuff. I'd throw in my gym clothes and leave, but that was on my mind while I'm working out. I got this stuff. I got to get back to this person and I'm telling you, I fought it tooth and nail and then I just went to the gym and kept going to the gym and then I gave myself the second you finish your workout. Go ahead, check your phone. Then I was like, you know what, let me walk Puppers and just extend this. And it's an hour and a half of just this mental clarity that I, for whatever reason, I didn't even realize what's happening, how quickly you just plug into everyone else's notifications in life and you're not resetting your own. Well, I think for all of us, we all live in Los Angeles as well and I'm sure all of us have family or friends or business on the East Coast. On the East Coast where they're already up three hours. They're already digging us. Dude, when I was just in Hawaii, when I was just in Hawaii, it was actually really stressful because I would wake up in Hawaii at what I thought was early, like 7 a.m. or 6 a.m. and I already had emails that started coming in from the East Coast at 4 in the morning. But if I checked it first thing in the morning, I still, even with all the practice that I've had, it still affects you. So that's why we call these things a practice because it's not like, okay, I did it for a week, now I'm good. It's like we have to incorporate these into our lives as consistently as possible. We have a buddy that lives in Hawaii and he said that he's already comfortable with the rest of his friends who live in the States thinking he's a slacker because of what time he wakes up. He's like, what do you want me to do here? So he's like, I don't worry about it. I wake up when I want to wake up. I ain't dealing with anybody's. I found that alone to be huge for my mornings and then had a massive effect on how the rest of the day went. So I'm not surprised by the science there. Now, could you explain to our listeners why being clear with your intentions and your purpose is so important? Because we talk about it a lot on the show, but there's actual science behind that as well. Yeah. So people throw around this word. This is one of these buzzwords right now, like what's your intention? Like intention setting or what is the vision that you have and all this kind of stuff. And I think it's wonderful, but so few people know the science behind what's actually happening in the brain when we set an intention. So what I want people to know about is there's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. And for the purposes of this podcast, we'll call it the RAS. And the RAS is the part of your brain that helps you notice things. So what science has proven is that the brain actually has a limited amount of storage. And so we can't process everything that comes into our heads. Thank God, right? That we're not processing every sound, every smell, every emotion, everything that's coming at us. And with the billions of stimuli that are coming at us all day, the brain needs a mechanism or a filter to filter out what's important and what's not. And that filter, that mechanism is the RAS. And so when we don't set an intention, here's why intention setting is important. When we don't set an intention, our RAS works on what's called default mode. And default mode is there to just keep us in the same spot to keep things at this state of balance wherever you are. So if your life is kind of like, shitty, can I say that on here? Yeah. Okay, so if your life is a little shitty, like your brain doesn't quite know that. It just says, this is where I'm comfortable. So let's keep things this way. And so we notice things throughout our day, our RAS is picking things up throughout the day that keep us in this similar state. But for the people listening to this podcast, I know every single person listening to this wants to change, right? And they want to grow or take their life or their businesses to the next level. Setting an intention can really be revolutionary because what happens is instead of working in default mode, we tell our RAS that which we find important. This is what I want to see. This is what I want to notice. And there was this one study that I remember someone telling me about where they did, I'm not going to say the exact numbers here, but they had a group of people go out and they said, all right, go in this parking lot and count how many white cars you see. And so the people go out and they count these white cars and they all come back in and they say there's eight cars, eight white cars. And then at the end of that, they said, well, how many red cars did you see? And there was actually like, they planted an obscene amount of red cars in the parking lot and people like, well, I don't know how many red cars there were, I didn't count. And they go out and look, they're like, what the, there's like a million red cars. The red cars were there the whole time, but the intention was set on the white cars, so they missed it. And so when we're trying to change our grow in our life, when we set our RAS on something new, something that we find as important, something for growth, we start to see things differently in the world. And this is not just like manifesting, woo, woo, like, let me just sit here and have an intention and things attract towards me. This is you literally noticing different things. This is you seeing different things as you're out in the world. This is you noticing things that people are saying in conversations that answer questions that you might have had and helping you take you towards the next level of your business or your dreams and your goals. And it's active, right? Active. That's sort of the manifestation I think trips people up is because it's like, well, I'm just going to sit here and it's going to come to me. No. But you have to actively like the practice, train your brain to be focused on the intention. Yeah. The intention is just step one. And really, I'll say this, like, I say this all the time publicly, I actually don't give a shit about meditation itself. I really don't. Like the only reason why I teach meditation is because it is a tool, it is a mechanism that we can use to actually get more done, to be more productive, to be more effective, to be more present with our families, with our emotions and to hold the space for it all. You know, so many of us have so much experience pushing stuff down because we're just trying to function. But if we're able to hold more, if we build our capacity to hold more, then we live more fully. I think one of the biggest things that I know we're going to get into the myths, but one of the biggest misconceptions about meditation, especially for people who are type A or who are entrepreneurs or overachievers, you know, is we think that meditation is supposed to be about relaxing. Meditation is actually not about relaxing. That's actually not what it's about. You may feel relaxed. What meditation is about is becoming more alive, more connected to your passions, more connected to your emotions, more connected to your job and your family and everything that you care about. And sometimes that means we have to feel some difficult shit. Like that's what that means. But if we don't give ourselves the capacity or build our capacity to hold it, then we never end up holding the difficult stuff so that we can transform it and break through to the next level of our lives. Well, we certainly have enough distraction in our lives to certainly push everything down, but just keep everything at bay. So we don't have to deal with it. But then we have the burnout, the stress, the depression that comes along with it. It comes with it. And I always, I always give this scenario on the show where 20 years ago, you would go to the bank and then you would get in line and you would have to deal with yourself. I heard you say this on an episode. Till someone calls you. Yes. And now it's get in line. If you're even going to the bank, pull out your phone and start scrolling. You have everything at your fingertips to keep you distracted from having to deal with yourself. And I think this is why meditation and mindfulness and all these where now seem like the buzzwords and the buzz activities, but there is a, there is a practical use which everyone is using to be able to diffuse thoughts from emotions and be able to work through these problems because unless they set time for it, they're, they're never going to do it. No. Now you in your meditation journey started as a skeptic as well. Totally. Your first time experiencing meditation, you weren't really impressed by the experience. No. No. So tell us that story. Dude, I had, so I'll tell you. So the way that I, I got into meditation is so this was over a decade ago. So first of all, I didn't know any black people meditating for sure. Like Oprah hadn't done a meditation challenge. Like, you know, that was not a part of what was happening today. And I got introduced to the concept of meditation. I remember the first time somebody said to go try it, I was like, what is that? Isn't that a cult? Like, what is, is that worshiping the devil? That's like the things that I thought, you know, growing up in church. And the reason why it got introduced to me was because I grew up in a, in a pretty rough environment, like literally gunshot holes on the outside of the house that I grew up in and domestic violence and a lot of love in my family, but just a lot of trauma. And I think we all have our traumas that we, you know, grew up with. This is not the trauma Olympics, you know, but we all have our stuff to deal with then growing up in the environment that I did, kind of the three ways that you get out of that are number one, sell drugs, which I didn't do. Number two, be really good at sports and get some athletic scholarship. I sucked at every sport. And number three, be really smart and go to college. And so, gratefully, I got a full ride academic scholarship to go to UCLA, was getting straight A's graduating with honors, the whole thing. And in that moment, I was, it was interesting because here I was now for the first time in my life on a scholarship, I had extra money, living in a super nice neighborhood, getting perfect grades. I followed all the rules and I still felt like shit inside. Like I did everything on the external. And I think so many of us have this experience, like trying to change the outside to hopefully feel better within, you know? And so what happened was somebody said, go try meditation. It's supposed to help. So I go to this class and I hated it. I literally was sitting there kind of like you were saying, Johnny, earlier before we started, you know, like, God, like I can't get my mind to stop thinking I'm hungry. When is this going to be over? We have to sit here for 20 more minutes. What the hell, you know? And that night, what happened is this is where kind of fate came in. One of my friends invited me to go to a birthday party of somebody who I didn't know. So I went to this meditation class, go to the birthday at night. I sit down at the party next to this older gentleman. So you have to get the picture here. I'm like an early 20 year old super flaming gay just out of the closet, like black dude, right? Still black. And I'm sitting next to this white guy, white hair in his mid 60s. And he leans into me and he's like, Hey, young man, how was your day? And I was like, Oh, I went to this meditation thing. Have you ever heard about meditation? And little did I know I was sitting next to one of the world's most renowned meditation scholars named Lauren Roche. He's written a book called Meditation Made Easy that's been in print for like 30 years. And what happened at the end of that conversation, he just said, look, kid, if you want to learn to meditate, meet me at the beach tomorrow at the end of Ocean Park at 10 o'clock in the morning and I'll teach you everything I know. And I'm looking at him like, what? Like what? First of all, I thought he was trying to pick me up. That was number one. And then once I found out who he was and that he was serious, he just said to me, look, in my 30 years of teaching, I've never met someone who looks like you, who's gone through what you've gone through, who has your background interested in this practice. And one day, they're going to be people who need to hear your voice who don't need to hear mine. And so that's how it got started. I ended up apprenticing with him for three years, building his teacher training program, traveling all over and then building my own practice teaching people. And a lot of people when they hear meditation, they hear mindfulness, they get them confused. And we talked a little bit about this that there's mindfulness, of course, awareness, but then there's the practice of meditation. And what is the difference for you? So this is a really interesting concept because a lot of people say things like this, like, Oh, well, my meditation is when I run, or my meditation is when I draw, or my meditation is, is when I sing. And here's the thing, it's fabulous that those things get you into a state of flow or into a centered, mindful state. But there's a difference between practicing mindfulness and practicing meditation. So practicing mindfulness is being fully present and mindfully aware while you're doing something. So it can be running or cooking or whatever. And practicing meditation is about being mindful with just you, with just yourself, what's going on in your body, in your mind, with just you alone. And the reason why I find this to be so important is not to tell you to stop running or to stop doing the things that you're doing, it's to do it as a supplement to it to make everything go deeper, because this is the thing you guys talk about values and stuff a lot on this podcast. And I find that if you can't be with you alone, then you're constantly trying to build your life based on feedback from other people and feedback from what you do. But the real magic in our lives, and you guys know this from what you've the work that you've done, the real magic in our lives comes from when it's coming from deep inside. And people say that you have all the answers within, but no one ever tells us how to get within, right? And it's you're not going to get within by doing, you're going to get within by being with yourself. And so that's kind of the difference between mindfulness and meditation. And I think they go hand in hand, but a practice of being with yourself is how you really get to know yourself and get to know how you're unique, how you're authentic, and then how you can show up in the world and serve. And how those emotions can swing. And you'll have sessions that are great. And you'll have sessions that you feel beat up after because you really had to fight through some heavy stuff. Yeah, I explain it kind of like people think that meditating and this is one of those myths, right? People think that like meditating is going to be like this Instagram picture where you're like sitting on a mountaintop and it's like a white light surrounding you and you know, hear like this sound of angels. That's not what it's like. A real meditation usually sounds like this. So we have a mantra. Let's just say what's give me a mantra to use. So mine was soothing blue calm, soothing blue calm. Okay, so so AJ's with soothing blue calm. So let's say your mantra is soothing blue calm and we'll get into mantras in a second. This is what a practice might sound like. Soothing blue calm, soothing blue calm, soothing blue calm. Oh, I'm so calm. Oh, shoot. I was wearing a blue shirt yesterday. I don't really like blue. I think I look fat and blue. No, I'm way I should wear red. Oh, shit. I was meditating soothing blue calm, soothing blue calm, right? So the mind thinks that's what it does. And this idea that we have to get the mind to stop thinking to meditate is just like me saying, Oh, you have to get your heart to stop beating to meditate. It's just it's not going to happen. Nobody's done it. If anybody's telling you they got their mind to stop thinking they either died or they're lying. Okay, try to take your money. Yeah, they're trying to take your money like you're not in your mind to stop this is scientifically proven. You know, the brain is is the mind is wandering. I think that the science is 47% of our day. And that's the brain like chilling. You know, this is normal. What we want I find is people say they want to get their minds to stop thinking that's not what we really want. We want our thoughts to work for us instead of against us. That's what we want. It's not about getting the mind to stop. It's getting our thoughts to work in service of actually our growth and our transformation. And the last thing I want to say about this AJ is you mentioned about people thinking that it's always going to be like this peaceful experience. And I mentioned earlier about these feelings of anxiety and overwhelm and all this stuff that we have to try to push down and push away. And meditation is the moment that you actually allow that stuff to come up. People think that meditation is supposed to be about feeling good. It's not. It's about making you feel, period, like feel and be able to paint with the full canvas of all the emotions that you have. And when you don't do it, we all know what happens when you're pushing down the sadness, you're pushing out the anger. It shows up in your health. It shows that you're blowing up at your partner. It shows up in all these other ways. So this is how we let it up and release it. And for a lot of us, especially us in the show, maybe we don't have people that we can vent to or feel comfortable with sharing this. So you really do just have yourself. You need to work through this stuff. And we've had sponsors, therapists on the show who all talk about this problem that we're all seeing in the kids, stress and our inability to focus and distraction. And then of course, the numbing of those emotions and the negative. Well, the other thing, I mean, once our lives had become sedentary, what did we do? We started looking for opportunities to work out. And then of course, now we have these distraction machines in front of us that are going to our pocket. So it's like, well, now what are we going to do to set up time for us to work through these problems that we would be working through if we didn't have these things in front of our face at all times. And we're now moving to, to where the gym and meditation retreats. And yet these things need to be scheduled into your day for basic maintenance. And that's the thing that I just saw a study that showed that the fastest growing app is mindfulness. So meditation, calm headspace, they are all in the fastest growing category on Apple App Store. And of course, you look at it's like, well, these devices are driving us mad. We're not communicating like we should as we talk about all the time here on the show. And then we're not dealing with ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's really interesting. I think what's happening is we're feeling that tension inside. Everyone is, we're feeling it and people are looking for something like, is there something that can work? Is there something that can help? And these apps and headspace and calm and insight timer, they're all, they're all amazing. I actually just did a course for insight timer and I think they're really good starting points for people. And one of the main reasons why I wrote Stay Woke and, and talked about the style of freedom meditation is because what I find when people get really honest with me is that they try the apps for a week or two weeks or three weeks and then they fall off or they do it for 21, a 21 day challenge and then they fall off, you know. And the reason why is because those apps are, you know, I don't want to down talk them because they're actually amazing and I think they're incredible. But if you want to create a lifelong practice, which is actually what you really need, it's not like, oh, I meditated for a year and now I'm done, don't need to do it anymore, you know, then you need to create a practice that actually is a little more unique and customized to you. And this is how meditation traditionally used to be taught like way back, you know, in the day, like the guru used to meet with this person and learn all about their life and then prescribe them an individual practice that was individualized to them. And right now we have apps that tell us, okay, you want to meditate, meditate on peace. Well, what if you don't need peace? What if you need power? You know, like what if I'm getting ready to go on stage and speak in front of a huge group of people? What I need is not calm. I need authenticity, magnet, magnet, magnetism, power, you know. And so when I like to do, when I'm teaching people to practice and what I do with the book is guide people through an experience of creating their own energy signature, their own practice, that's a unique recipe for them. Well, for me, anything that gets them into the door and investigating with when they're going to eventually lead to somebody like yourself, who can give them that? We'll take the apps if it's opening doors. Yeah, I love the apps. I like, again, no bad anything towards them. Yeah, I mean, before the apps, no one was really talking about it at all, and put it on the map for sure. But my struggle with the apps was exactly that, you know, I went through headspace and it felt repetitive and it was in someone else's voice. And I felt myself wandering more versus having my own mantra. I felt I was able to focus more in those sessions and work through more than I was feeling with headspace. So that for me, and we can get into the mantra here in a second. But that for me was really the eye opening part was, okay, there are also just a lot of different ways to meditate. And I think we often just find like the, you know, goop de jure meditation, whatever's hot right now. But these are ancient practices that have literally worked for centuries. Yeah, here's the thing, like most people find it really fascinating. I don't remember if we talked about this earlier. Do you guys know how meditation started? How first started? So it's really interesting. So meditation started with a bunch of men who were monks thousands of years ago, and women couldn't meditate, first of all, was not allowed. And to become a monk back then, you had to literally renounce everything in your life, you had to leave your family, leave all of your friends, never have sex again, sometimes sit under a tree devote your life to spiritual practice forever, not eating, not drinking. Like to do that, it was freaking intense to actually imagine like leaving your mother and seeing her on the street and not being able to speak to her anymore. And then to try to not feel the emotions that come up because of that, so that you're not distracted from your devotion to God. And this is what monks, ancient monks had to do. And so to devote themselves this deeply, they had to create some techniques and some tools to help disconnect themselves from their emotions and their feelings. And for many other things, and one of those tools, and one of the most powerful of those tools was meditation. But the thing is, is we're not monks. We have iPhones and to-do lists, and we listen to podcasts and we have family and some of us hopefully every once in a while having sex, like, you know, we have lives that we want to be more connected to. And so we don't need to be doing the same style of meditation that the monks were doing because we're not monks, you know? And there's, this is the thing, there's so many styles and there's different styles that work for everyone. But if we're doing styles that are incongruent with our lives, then we end up sitting down trying to do it. And then it just feels like we're trying to get our mind to stop thinking, we can't stop thinking, we're trying to disconnect from everything, we can't do it. And that's because we're not sitting under a tree alone devoting our life to spiritual practice. We have other stuff going on. And so the style of meditation that I like to teach, freedom meditation really incorporates the very real struggles and things that we have going on in our lives. And I think those are the kind of practices that people need today. And for me, when we were chatting, you know, what my focus was in dealing with stress, essentially, and some health complications that came about through stress was really the whole reason I started exploring this idea of meditation and seeing the science and its impact on blood pressure, mental health. I was fascinated, but it just never really stuck for me. And then you walked me through a meditation that allowed me to find this mantra. And I've been able to hold on to it now for a few weeks. And I actually, it, to me, makes more sense. It just clicks versus the apps. But I know a number of our fans of the show, we've had the sponsors on, we've enjoyed the apps ourselves. It works for a lot of people. But you're so right, finding that right recipe is what matters more than following the herd and being trendy. Yeah, the real point of meditation, I think, is to realize the gurus in you. Right. And you have the answers inside of you. You can actually have the agency to create a practice on your own. And like, I'll tell you, I'm doing a 21 day meditation challenge right now on an app. And I teach this stuff, like, and use the apps, you know, when you want to. And sometimes I love the apps when you have something going on in your life that you need some extra guidance on. But like your baseline practice, I believe is most powerful and has longevity when it's something that you've cultivated for yourself. I believe that I think for, for me to sustain it as long as I have compared to the apps, it was definitely the mantra. So let's unpack that style and how the mantra comes about. Cool. So let's start with the word mantra, right? Because this is another one of those words loaded word. Yeah, we throw around all the time. So let me tell you a couple things of mantra is not, it's not an affirmation. It doesn't have to be given to you by a guru. It doesn't have to be sung or chanted. It doesn't have to be devotional to God. It doesn't have to be kept secret or private to lose its power. And it doesn't have to be in some, you know, foreign language that you don't know. A mantra, the actual word comes from two roots in Sanskrit. Mon and trough, obviously, which is where it comes from. Mon us and trough, which are the two. And Mon is the mind and trough is a tool. So a mantra is a tool of thought. And just like you would grab a drill, if you were going to hang up a curtain or grab a hammer and nails, if you were going to hang up a picture frame, you grab a mantra if you need to work out something in your mind. And so a mantra can be any word, any phrase, any group of words, or even a picture of visualization in your head that you anchor your brain towards during meditation. And that's, you know, I think first and foremost, before we even get into showing people how to create their own mantra, we have to understand what it is. Right. And now that this whole sort of idea around mantra and this loaded word of, oh, I got to memorize it for someone else. I have to pay for this mantra. How can we find our own mantra? Yeah, we can hold on to. So here's here. Can I guide you guys through the experience with everybody? Okay, we're going to do a little guided thing right here. So if you're listening to this, you're in a comfortable. Yeah, Johnny, come on. In a space that you can, and it feels comfortable for you to close your eyes, go ahead. If not, you can do this with your eyes open or come back to it later even. And place your right hand over your heart. This is actually scientifically proven to release oxytocin in the body, the chemical that helps you feel good. And take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. Let's take one more deep breath in and exhale it out through the mouth. Just allow yourself to experience this two minute experience with both feet in. I want you right now to imagine yourself living the life of your dreams with all obstacles surpassed. Every challenge that you have around you is no longer a challenge. You're making the money you want. You're in the relationship you want. You're in the house you want. You have the job you want. Imagine you could rub a magic lamp and all things are possible. You're living the life of your dreams. What does that look like in your mind? And you may have a few images kind of fanning themselves around you like the will of fortune. That's fine. Let them come up and see if you can just land on one moment and see a vision of yourself in the future. A future version of you who is living the life of their dreams. And now in this vision, what do you notice? Are you indoor or are you outdoor? Is there anybody else there with you? What colors do you see around you? Do you see any furniture or any plants or any greenery? What do you see? And most importantly, what do you feel in this vision? What is this future version of you feel like to be living the life of their dreams? Take a moment to let this vision expand noticing anything else you can see in the vision even if it's incomplete. And I want you to answer this question. What energy do you need to cultivate in your life now to become the person that you see in that vision? Trust whatever comes up. What arises when I ask you that? What energy do you need to cultivate in your life today to step into becoming the person that you see in that vision? Just trust whatever you see and whatever arises is what you need to know for today. And see if you can just land on a word or a few words and then take a deep breath in and a deep breath out. So whatever word or words you landed on, that's your mantra. That's what will help you cultivate the energy that you need to step forward in your life. So, Johnny, I'm curious what you landed on there. Well, I was transfixed in where it was. Isn't that amazing when we allow ourselves to go there? Yeah. And for myself, it was outside. It was a patio. It was wicker furniture, like patio furniture and coffee and a grapefruit and the sun. And I was pretty relaxed. And when I ask you what energy would you need to cultivate to get there today, what would that be? That was funny because the moment when you said that, I was like, relax, I need to relax. There you go. Because you're relaxed. So that could be the mantra that you could try on is like, relax. Like to relax. And you could also try on and go back into that vision and pick another one. Did you have anything different come up this time? It was. It was definitely sunny and bright and yellow was the color. So the last time it was obviously blue and calm. There was a lot of water. This time I saw just a lot of sunlight. That's great. So that was kind of like a microquick version. And for you listening, whatever came up for you, when we look at the energy that we want to cultivate in our own lives to become who we want to be, that's a fun mantra to have. And now our meditations feel purposeful because it's like, oh, this is where I want to go in my life. I have the agency to say where I want to be going. And this is the energy that I need to cultivate. So it's not somebody telling me I need to cultivate peace or I need to cultivate Babana Namaha or I need to cover you know, whatever it is, I get to say what it is. And that's really powerful. And I find when people are able to do that, they're able to stick with their practices more long term. Yeah, I feel more agency and I feel more of a drive of like, I know this is moving me forward versus just throwing on something in the background and letting my mind wander. Yeah. And you could even use it throughout your day. Like what I do all the time, like one of my first mantras was complete authenticity. That was my first first mantra when I sat with Lauren Roche on the beach that day. And it was like, if I knew that if I could really cultivate this energy of complete authenticity, my whole life would change because I had spent so much of my life trying to fit other people's expectations. And you know, I think so many of us do that. And that mantra I stuck with for like two years. And you would see in moments when I felt myself not being authentic because I had that relationship with the mantra that I built in the mornings, I could literally close my eyes like for 10 seconds ago, complete authenticity, complete authenticity. And the energy of it just goes boom, you know, and starts waking up moments in your life. So you can drop into it. I call them like in the book, I call them cigarette break meditations, like drop into them when you need it. I did a super quick one in the bathroom right before I came in here to record with you guys. And then you have your cornerstone practice that you do for at least 12 minutes in the morning. So that's interesting. Your mantra has changed over time. Over time. Yeah. So I recommend that people kind of stick with the same mantra for a little while. What might happen is, for example, like Johnny with yours, you were a little unsure, like I think it was relaxed, you know. So what happens oftentimes in this first experience is it's kind of like, I don't know, trying to buy a pair of jeans, like you look at it on the rack, you're like, these look great. And then you go put them on, you're like, oh no, these don't look so great. So you might try on your mantra and be like, I need to change it. So instead of it being relaxed, it might actually be ease and peace or something like that. So similar energy, but just different words. And once you land on something, I say stick with it for at least 40 days. But really most of my clients like stick with them much longer until the mantra is kind of done with you. Like you feel like you've had the transformation and then you get a new one. This is much like what we were saying for our listeners about values of trying them on, engage with them, see how they feel, give them an opportunity, give yourself an opportunity to engage in them in a way that you know you have engaged in it to a full expectation of how you would need to see out fills. To really get a real response. Yeah. And then if it's not working, change it. If you don't feel that you've engaged enough to do that, then what are you going to do differently this week to be able to do that? And what I tell people is, so oftentimes people are like, well, how do I know I need to change it? And this is one thing. Just because it doesn't feel good doesn't mean you need to change it. Because what's going to happen is if your mantra is relaxed, then what's going to come up for you in your meditation is all the shit in your life that's making you not relaxed. And that's what has to happen because the mantra is using itself to kind of lure in all the things in your life that are out of alignment and then like bathe and soothe them with its energy, release it, show you where you need to change. And this goes back to what we were talking about earlier of if we think our meditation practices are only going to be relaxing, then we kind of rob ourselves from the real benefit of having awareness to see where we need to take action in our lives. So it will show you the things that you need to change. And the whole point of me saying that is if your mantra makes you feel anxious or sad or whatever, that doesn't mean change it. That means it's working. And the way that you know you need to change it is if your mantra makes you feel like this. I don't know. If you just feel bored, like blah with it, change it because it should feel either really exciting or really stressful. You want your emotions to fully engage and take over with it. Yeah, I love that. And AJ is probably happy to hear me say the words relaxed. Like please, would you please relax? I like this vision of you on the beach with a grapefruit and a coconut and whatever was on the beach. I'm seeing North Carolina. No, no, that was a quick note. That's not we just lost all of our listeners in North Carolina. I love North Carolina. It might be the hills of Spain, Bass country. But yeah, another thing that now as we're unpacking this, what are some good questions to explore during our meditation? And what are some bad questions for us to explore? So this is the thing that I always say, you know, life is going answer the questions that you ask it. And so we might as well ask really high quality questions. You know, some people say, Oh, there's no such thing as a dumb question. There are lots of dumb questions, you know? And so if, for example, you know, one of my clients, one of these women like, and this goes for a lot of women, actually, they would say, like, Oh, like, why can't I lose this weight? Guys will say this to why can I lose weight? Right? Well, even if you got the answer to the question of why you can't, how is that taking you forward? It's not giving you any high quality answers. And what I find is that low quality questions usually begin with why and high quality questions usually begin with how. So it's like, how can I lose this weight in a way that feels fun and exciting to me? Or how can I build my business in a way that feels sustainable? How can I learn to relax without slacking off in my work versus why can't I relax? You know, it's not high quality. So meditation is one of the places where I get most of my creative ideas. It's where my best ideas always come from the idea for this book. I mean, every great idea I've come from I've had has come to me in meditation and to be honest, in the shower and in the gym, those are like the three places that I get great ideas. And but when they're in meditation, if you have an idea come to you, this is my golden rule, never interrupt your practice to write the idea down. Because what happens is sometimes meditation is just kind of like this dishwashing cycle, like cleaning stuff out. And sometimes the one idea you have was just coming to be the catalyst for the real idea. And so if you interrupt that whole process, then you kind of miss the chance to get it to his full, you know, fruition. So when you're done meditating, if you still remember the idea after you're done meditating, then it might be something worth looking into a little bit more deeply. I think anyone who's in working with anything where they have to be creative, understand the process of just allowing yourself to just write or just paint or just play guitar. And, and everyone goes into it like, what do you want me to play? Just play, just play, just sing, just, just paint, just write. Yeah. And because, because those ideas will come out, you'll start to, things will start to take shape, but you're not going to have anything to work with if you don't get started. Right. And you certainly are not going to be perfect in your intentions of, of knowing what's right beforehand. It's just got to, you got to let go. And the thing is meditation, like, and this is, again, more science is, is proven when we're using as a supplement, as a supplement with our creative practices or with our businesses and our work, it makes us more productive, more creative, more artistic, more, all of this stuff. And so when you start getting a practice that you have in the morning, then right before you go to play your music or right before you go to write your book, you drop into like a one or two minute meditation to ground yourself in the energy that you need. And then you'll see people, this is the thing. When people start meditating, they often feel like, Oh, I don't know if I, if I see the benefits. But then what happens is when you end up skipping a day or skipping a few days, then you're like, Oh, I see the benefits. Like you feel it afterwards. And so this is a really important practice to just engage with consistently and then watch how it affects all the different things you're doing in your life. Very much like working out. We all know when we don't have the gym, how we feel that day. Now, Johnny mentioned core values. We've been talking a lot about core values this month with our core value training. And one of your core values is to be of service. And it's a big mission you have with the book launch as well. So why is being of service so important to you? How did this core value for you come about? It's just man, I feel like so many of us, we are trained to ask how do we get ahead? That's like our constant thing, like what's in it for me? How do I get ahead? And I understand why that's the case with with everything happening in the world today. But what we really want in our lives and the things that come from being like from being valued and respected and admired and success, all those things come from actually being of service from really helping people. And I'm not saying that you have to start a nonprofit or that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, how do you use your gifts and your talents and your skills and the things you love to actually help and benefit people? Like how do we really do that in an authentic way, not in the way that we like trick ourselves and like marketing lingo to like, I'm really benefiting you, you know, no, like, are you really like if you're creating an online course or some platform and like no one's finishing it, but you've sold a bunch of them, are you really helping people? No, you know, so like how can we look at this stuff a little bit more deeply and and be authentic about it. And so for me, you know, my grandmother really like instilled into me this idea of being of service and I wasn't it wasn't always this way. But once I shifted my awareness towards instead of how can I get ahead? How can I serve? Everything started to unfold for me. And with this book, you know, one of the things that's been just the biggest blessing, like I can't even believe that my publisher okayed this because it's nuts. I had this idea when I wrote Stay Woke, I wanted kids and youth all around the country who can't afford these practices who can't afford things like mindfulness. And you have to understand when you go into some of these underprivileged communities of all different colors and races and things, they what the studies are showing is that the kids are actually dealing with the level of PTSD that's similar to returning war veterans coming back from the from the war. And the thing is, is there's nothing P post about it when it's happening every day. It's like present traumatic stress this or you know. And so these kids need us, they need tools, they need especially as us adults are trying to figure out what the hell to do with this world and how to make everything better. They need a tool. And so my dream was to go to high schools and go to colleges in tons of underprivileged communities around the country like in Flint Michigan and South Side Chicago and Oakland and Atlanta and give the book away for free and do this big kind of TED talk slash music concert style event and teach all the kids how to meditate in a way that's like fun and engaging for them. And so you have to imagine like I call my publisher, it sounds true. I call the owner and founder and CEO, Tammy Simon. And I'm thinking I'm about to ask my publisher if they can give tens of thousands of copies of my book away for free. She's either going to tell me you're freaking crazy or yes. And what she said was, you know, what you don't know, Justin, is that we are launching this year the Sounds True Foundation and our biggest mission with the foundation is to bring these kind of practices to underserved populations. And we've been wondering, how are we going to do that? And I think you're going to be the vehicle to help us do that. And I was like, whoa, you know, timing. So we're going to high schools, we're going to colleges. And one of the most exciting things as much as I want people to preorder or order the book, what I want more than that is people can go to this website where they can actually give any amount. It costs $8 to give this to a child. It costs us like $15,000 to go to a city. There's sponsorships and partnerships. And we're going all over the country and giving this to kids around the world. So can I say the website? Yeah, absolutely. The website is staywokegiveback.org. It's staywokegiveback.org. And every donation is fully tax deductible. And it's just a real honor and privilege to be doing this all around the country this year. Well, that is certainly a mission and a lot of work behind it. So for you listeners out there, help out our friend Justin here. Oh, thank you. Yeah. And I, you know, someone who grew up in Detroit for a good part of my youth and then moved to the suburbs, I totally understand how difficult it is to get this stuff that works so well into our inner cities where it can really benefit people because right now, with the apps and with the courses and the expense of it, it's not offered in school. I didn't encounter anything about meditation. No, of course not. Yeah. And, and the thing is, is it's known now, like it's not, it's not a secret that meditation actually is really helping kids. It's just when you go to some of these schools in places like Detroit, which we're looking at going to, you know, the teachers are so just like stacked. They have no time and no energy. So to try to get these teachers to start teaching the kids how to meditate, we got to get the teachers meditating first. You know, so even something as simple as thoughts being entwined with emotions and being able to diffuse those things. And we talk about it in our classrooms. And when the, the really young kids come through the 18, 19, 20, 21, they have, they've grown up with this technology and they really haven't had much time to sit there and think about themselves and what's going on because they've had this distraction. And when I, when we go through these, this class on Friday, when we're going through diffusion for them, this is the first time that they're hearing anything like this. And they're, and they're looking at me like, like, am I even human with this information that I'm giving them because they've never came across it. But it is a, it's a complete foundation and you being able to come to terms with yourself of what's going on and to be able to look at things objectively. Yeah. I will never forget the first moment. And I was actually, luckily in high school when this happened, there was this movie that one of my teachers was playing called what the bleep do we know or something like this. And it's, it's a trip. The movie is a trip. It's about quantum physics and stuff. And I, she was watching it in the classroom during her lunch break. And I was in there because I used to get bullied at school a lot. So I would like go hide in her classroom. And they were talking about, oh, you were not your thoughts. Like you have thoughts. And I remember my first time knowing that I was like, whoa. Yeah. You know, when they even said like, okay, you're thinking about something right now, who can hear you thinking that's actually you, you're not the thoughts that blew my mind, you know. And for some people, even on this, it might be blowing their mind right out. But like, yeah, imagine kids, you know, learning this younger, it just feels really exciting to me to get out in the world and doing this. Absolutely. Now the book was not originally called Stay Woke. What was it's working title? Oh, okay. So it was meditation to get shit done. And we had two titles. We had meditation to get shit done and meditation for type a people who can't stop thinking. Those were the two original sounds like our audience. Yeah. Exactly. So check out Stay Woke and of course donate. It's such a great cause. Thank you so much for joining us, Justin. Thank you.