Sign up to get updates from us
In the 9th episode of Mindful You, Alan interviews Sam Beard. Beard has worked for eight Presidents of The United States. Through working with the Presidents he has helped in the creation of more than 10 million jobs in impoverished communities across America. This podcast focuses on Beard’s journey into mindfulness and how he got involved. Babies contain spiritual energy and and Beard believe we need to bring the resource of mindfulness into the age 0-3. Sam believes that mindfulness should be accessible to children from grade 1 to grade 3 as well – it is a vital resource. We must remember that there is a vibrational connection in everything around us. We all must remember how powerful we are.
About The Guest:
Sam Beard is a social entrepreneur and public servant who has made significant contributions to the field of public service and youth leadership. Born in 1939, he was raised in New York City and went on to earn a BA from Yale University in 1961 and an MA from Columbia University in 1965. He also attended Stanford Law School from 1962 to 1963.
Beard’s career began with his work alongside U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in Bedford-Stuyvesant, a low-income community in Brooklyn, New York. He focused on social justice and poverty elimination, reflecting his commitment to making a positive impact on society.
After Senator Kennedy’s assassination on 1968, Beard founded the National Development Council, which has played a crucial role in providing revitalization financing worth billions of dollars.
Throughout his career, Beard has initiated and chaired programs for eight U.S. Presidents , including Nixon, Ford, Carter, Raegan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. His works with these presidents has resulted in the creation of over 10 million jobs in impoverished communities across America.
In addition to his work in public service, Beard also ventured into politics himself. He ran in the Democratic primary for the 1988 U.S. Senate election in Delaware. He was also involved in various revitalization efforts, collaborating with former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont and Wilmington Mayor Bill McLaughlin to revitalize the Wilmington riverfront.
Beard’s dedication to making a positive impact led him to found the non-profit organization GIFT (Global Investment Foundation for Tomorrow). GIFT aims to harness the transformative power of mindfulness and meditation movements to address urgent global challenges. Inspired by his own experience of using these techniques to manage his stress, Beard envisions GIFT as the most significant outcome of his lifelong commitment to service.
Sam Beard’s most notable contribution to public service and youth leadership is his role in co-creating the Jefferson Awards, now rebranded as Multiplying Good. This prestigious award recognizes individuals for their outstanding achievements in public service and has had a substantial impact, inspiring and empowering millions of students every year.
About Alan:
Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.
Personal: https://www.facebook.com/alan.carroll.7359
Business: https://www.facebook.com/AlanCarrolltrains
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aca-mindful-you/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnesseminar/
Web Site: https://acamindfulyou.com/
Welcome to the mindful U podcast. Today's guest
Alan Carroll:is Sam beard. Sam is a social entrepreneur has been involved
Alan Carroll:in public service his entire career. He worked with
Alan Carroll:Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Robert Kennedy. And the war on
Alan Carroll:poverty, worked with eight presidents of the United States,
Alan Carroll:and developed over 10 million jobs for the young,
Alan Carroll:underemployed. He recently founded the nonprofit
Alan Carroll:organization called gift gi f t, which stands for the global
Alan Carroll:investment foundation for tomorrow. Which is designed to
Alan Carroll:harness the full impact of mindfulness and meditation in
Alan Carroll:order to solve the urgent challenges and problems that we
Alan Carroll:as humans face today, in this world of ups and downs and
Alan Carroll:agitation and chaos, he is the founder of the Jefferson Awards,
Alan Carroll:which is like the Nobel Prize for service. And I'm also want
Alan Carroll:you to know that in the show notes, there is a three minute
Alan Carroll:video, which goes over Sam's entire life, of service and
Alan Carroll:contribution. So please watch that beautiful video in the show
Alan Carroll:notes, and is with a great enthusiasm and excitement to
Alan Carroll:introduce you to Sam beard. Sam, welcome to the mindful you
Alan Carroll:podcast. And I want to thank you very much for you taking the
Alan Carroll:time to share with our audience, your your journey, and the parts
Alan Carroll:of the journey, which about 10 years ago, you said really you
Alan Carroll:went through a a stressful time situation in life that really
Alan Carroll:ignited a flame in you that was a spark. But it was a flame of
Alan Carroll:mindfulness. And so I'm excited to have you share a little bit
Alan Carroll:about that, that journey into mindfulness, and how you've
Alan Carroll:taken your resources available to you, and how you're bringing
Alan Carroll:mindfulness out into the world specially with that with the
Alan Carroll:GIFT program. That sounds like a very exciting thing. And I
Alan Carroll:really would like our audience to hear it. So the first
Alan Carroll:question would be, how did you get involved with mindfulness?
Alan Carroll:And
Sam Beard:I will answer that. But I just want to start off
Sam Beard:Alan by saying, the privilege of being here with you, with many,
Sam Beard:many years, decades of commitment to reducing stress
Sam Beard:and take mindfulness around the world, you are a treasure of the
Sam Beard:globe. And I absolutely want to start by just saying that and
Sam Beard:underlining. So it's an honor for me to be here. And thank
Sam Beard:you. Now it is true that the My whole life has been service. And
Sam Beard:I'll explain it more later. But basically, I've my whole life, I
Sam Beard:followed my intuition, or my DNA or my whatever you want to call
Sam Beard:it, which was always service. From day one, as a young kid, my
Sam Beard:whole DNA was serve others. And so I did that. Follow my
Sam Beard:intuition, and it led to many things. And then in 2014, I was
Sam Beard:now 75 years old. And it was a personal crisis of great
Sam Beard:tension, lawsuits and mud stuff. I'm a creative, let's build
Sam Beard:something guide. And I built up a nonprofit which had $30
Sam Beard:million. And we, as the introduction says, I had created
Sam Beard:and then run a program for eight presidents of the United States.
Sam Beard:And I've just very simple. And then the press, I put in charge
Sam Beard:of the foundation to do economic development because I was doing
Sam Beard:other stuff now. I went to a board meeting and the answer was
Sam Beard:I was fired. So at age 75, that I didn't have a pension, and I
Sam Beard:was unemployed. So I supposed to start my economics over at zero.
Sam Beard:And that was not a great day. No, not at all. So tremendous
Sam Beard:tension and I don't like pills and stuff. And I went to the
Sam Beard:doctor and he gave me depression pills and I took two of them and
Sam Beard:threw them away. I've been familiar with mindfulness and
Sam Beard:brought had Weiss I'd ever heard of him. But he 20 to 30 years
Sam Beard:ago, I sort of got into it. And I knew it was powerful. And I
Sam Beard:tried to do it, let's say in my early 30s. And the funny part is
Sam Beard:the exercise to reduce stress and go to sleep, as you lie down
Sam Beard:and close your eyes and visualize and boom, you go to
Sam Beard:sleep, the exercise to reach your higher peak is to close
Sam Beard:your eyes and visualize stuff. And then you get connected to
Sam Beard:mindfulness, and be really alert, and at the highest level.
Sam Beard:And all I did was go to sick, so it wasn't quite what was
Sam Beard:supposed to happen. But anyway, the Then, with this crisis, I
Sam Beard:got back into it, and I got the Brian Weiss tapes, and I
Sam Beard:listened to them every night. And with beautiful music and a
Sam Beard:different voice that I never went to sleep, and I totally
Sam Beard:went inside myself. And it, I could totally manage the
Sam Beard:pressure and the tension and the tremendous stress. And that
Sam Beard:opened the field to me. And once I did that, and understood the
Sam Beard:power of going inside, and the heart of this, the thing I
Sam Beard:learned was, return to your true nature of serenity, return to
Sam Beard:your true nature of spiritual energy, return to your true
Sam Beard:nature of service to others. And that was what it was all about.
Sam Beard:And it was, it was like a whole new awakening of joy. And then I
Sam Beard:am rambunctious. So I said, let's I live in Delaware. So
Sam Beard:let's make it a product of Delaware. And let's take it all
Sam Beard:around the world. And in 19 in 2014 2015 gift really started 20
Sam Beard:started in 2015. And then 2016, it was our very first beginning
Sam Beard:in Delaware. And this is interesting because I didn't
Sam Beard:know for the most part, no one would talk about mindfulness and
Sam Beard:meditation in Delaware. It was like woowoo. And watch out. And
Sam Beard:so that didn't bother me because I always been a pioneer. So I
Sam Beard:researched I start meeting people. And then I'd find out
Sam Beard:these extraordinary people. They said, I've been meditating for
Sam Beard:30 years, but 30 years ago, I told someone I was doing it. And
Sam Beard:they thought it was crazy. So I haven't told anybody since then.
Sam Beard:And so we had an original meeting, or we had 25 People
Sam Beard:come in the morning and try to find people in the afternoon 50
Sam Beard:people. And out of that we started and it really was
Sam Beard:groundbreaking because I was going to take it statewide and
Sam Beard:Delaware. And I found that really key leaders had been
Sam Beard:doing this for some number of years and would wouldn't tell
Sam Beard:anybody. So it was really the coming out party of meditation
Sam Beard:in Delaware. And we ended up training 25,000 people in
Sam Beard:schools, veterans mental health, and then we also were taking
Sam Beard:around the world. So that's how it all got started.
Alan Carroll:Who imagined that that seed that was planted and
Alan Carroll:how it grew and how it flourished and how we are
Alan Carroll:experiencing the fruits of your vision and the network that you
Alan Carroll:have in order to manifest that vision out into the world. Oh,
Alan Carroll:that's wonderful. The gifts I just want to make sure that my
Alan Carroll:audience knows is a global investment foundation for
Alan Carroll:tomorrow is the is the is the name of of the organization.
Unknown:If and if they want to go to the website, it's WW gift
Unknown:hyphen connect.org. And gift is the global investment. The IRS
Unknown:990 is a global investment foundation for tomorrow. That's
Unknown:the official name of the website is WW gift hyphen connect.org.
Alan Carroll:Perfect. Thank you.
Unknown:Now thank you. One of
Alan Carroll:the in our previous conversation you had
Alan Carroll:introduced me to a doctor named Jim Walsh a different doctor.
Alan Carroll:This was Lisa Lisa Miller. Oh, yes. Okay. And she wrote the
Alan Carroll:book The Awakening brain. Yes. And so I read the book, and it's
Alan Carroll:rich with valuable mindfulness information. And what she was
Alan Carroll:talking about. And you mentioned that also is that mindfulness
Alan Carroll:spirituality is a resource. Yes, that can be tapped into and
Alan Carroll:brought out into the world in order to Reduce the call it the
Alan Carroll:psychological suffering that that people have. And so I, so
Alan Carroll:one of the the areas of your interest is the zero through
Alan Carroll:three, age range and how how we can bring the resource of
Alan Carroll:mindfulness into the zero to three year old and why that is
Alan Carroll:important. So I'd like to ask you to sort of expand more on
Alan Carroll:that, zero through three and the importance of mindfulness in
Alan Carroll:your, in your view.
Unknown:I will and thank you very much for these are
Unknown:wonderful questions. And thank you for having looked all that
Unknown:stuff up. But let me just start a little bit with mindfulness.
Unknown:Because when we were taking it around the world, 1000s of
Unknown:people would say to me, I've heard about it, but I don't have
Unknown:the time. I've heard about it. But I don't have the time. It's
Unknown:not really for me. And they've all very stressed. So So I would
Unknown:address that issue, which is, don't worry about mindfulness or
Unknown:meditation, don't think of a course you have to sit all you
Unknown:have to do your legs and all that sort of stuff and, and sit
Unknown:in a yoga position. Don't worry about any of that. The point is
Unknown:mindfulness and meditation is stress reduction. Who is you
Unknown:have plenty. So I don't care how you do it. The answer is you
Unknown:don't have the time not to do it. 15 To 20 minutes a day, you
Unknown:don't have the time not to do it. It's completely life
Unknown:changing. So do whatever you want to do. Take your dog and go
Unknown:for a walk in nature. Yeah, just enjoy the flowers enjoy your
Unknown:dog. Look at a bird fly by the hiccups a butterfly. And how
Unknown:joyous is that and look at the colors of the butterfly. And you
Unknown:pick up a stone as a little orange Salamandre to their
Unknown:knees, he scoots off to two foot for protection and you just the
Unknown:beauty of nature and just the relaxation of walking, you can
Unknown:do that. The in the middle of winter, you say oh my gosh, it's
Unknown:snow. 12 inches. If you go out and shovel that snow, you are
Unknown:getting centered you're getting into it's a form of meditation,
Unknown:because you're just you're stopping your energy. And so
Unknown:anything you do, play with your children, here's your little
Unknown:grandchildren, your children roll around on the floor and
Unknown:play with them. That is meditation. It's it's
Unknown:mindfulness. And it's centering yourself, you visualize tension,
Unknown:you're out of the body, and you're all hyper, hyper, hyper,
Unknown:hyper hyper. And that's bad for you stress that all that. Let me
Unknown:try this. All the doctors and scientists know that stress is
Unknown:the cause of every major disease. Stress is the cause of
Unknown:cancer. Stress is the cause of diabetes. Stress is the cause of
Unknown:mental health disasters. So heart heart heart attacks. And I
Unknown:understand that so to SAS, I don't have the time is not the
Unknown:right answer. And I just having talked to 1000s of people all
Unknown:around the world, I think it's worth just saying that people
Unknown:say what is mindfulness? What should I do and I don't have
Unknown:time for the answer is just a way of relaxing and then easy
Unknown:breath a few. I appreciate this podcast and just beforehand, I
Unknown:was very, very busy, very, very busy. And I just went into
Unknown:another room sat on a chair. And breathe in. Breathe, enjoy
Unknown:bringing in positive thinking, breathe out tension, breathe in
Unknown:joy and positive things. I'm looking forward to Alan, and
Unknown:then breathe out touch him. Do that for a minute or two minutes
Unknown:just in and out in and out. It it's anybody can do that at any
Unknown:time. And then I tell people, if they're, if they're going to go
Unknown:make a speech, if they have a presentation event, go into the
Unknown:mesurer go to the ladies room and just sit down and just
Unknown:breathe just for a few minutes, it completely changes your whole
Unknown:makeup and turns you down and get you back centered. And so
Unknown:I'd say return to your true nature of serenity. That's what
Unknown:you're doing with your breath. The essence of it is your
Unknown:breath. So just I just want to say that which is not answer to
Unknown:your question, but I wanted to underline what you've done all
Unknown:your life and when it's so important, and anybody listening
Unknown:to this it's vital to get get this different perspective about
Unknown:it. What I want to do now let's talk to Lisa about Lisa Miller
Unknown:Now Lisa Miller. She is one of the top professors and signs A
Unknown:test in the psychology department at Columbia
Unknown:University Teachers College. And her book is the spiritual child
Unknown:that offers a whole new world, the spiritual child. And her
Unknown:point is, every baby is born with a spiritual gene. Now what
Unknown:does that means? What that means is if you get into a mindfulness
Unknown:state, the other part of true nature is spiritual energy. Now,
Unknown:that allows me to open up when I was saying before, which was my
Unknown:whole life, I followed my intuition. And I didn't know
Unknown:what I was doing. That's just what I was doing. Now, once you
Unknown:get into mindfulness and meditation, it does open up your
Unknown:whole spiritual side. And what I realized was that my intuition,
Unknown:and also when you get into the field of mindfulness and
Unknown:meditation, the word intuition comes out everybody, serendipity
Unknown:comes out as a word all the time, intuition all the time.
Unknown:And what that means each of us with our intuition is connected
Unknown:vibrationally to a higher power. And for whatever religion you're
Unknown:talking about, that is God. And if you're spiritual, that is the
Unknown:magic of a higher power, which governs all the universes in the
Unknown:galaxies, and as a power well past, our understanding. And
Unknown:it's a wonderful thing to understand how powerful we are.
Unknown:So Lisa Miller, the spiritual child. The point is, it's, as a
Unknown:psychologist and scientist, she's proven that everybody has
Unknown:a gene, that capacity is in everyone. And that opens up a
Unknown:whole new world of empowerment. Like, how great Am I I'm
Unknown:connected to a higher power, I've connected to spiritual
Unknown:energy. And then let's tie that into NASA, with a space program
Unknown:is completely changed the understanding of how the
Unknown:universe works. Because the point there is, all of energy is
Unknown:vibrations. And we're just part of the universe of the galaxies.
Unknown:Everything is vibrations. And so our intuition is a vibration.
Unknown:And I then I apologize, because I take a simple question. I have
Unknown:long answers.
Alan Carroll:I love it. I love it. Sam, you're you're a
Alan Carroll:fountain of wisdom. So you go right ahead and, and sing the
Alan Carroll:songs.
Unknown:I walked down the street, and people I've never
Unknown:met. And I ask them three questions. I say Excuse me, do
Unknown:you have a few minutes? And, and also come at them. I say you
Unknown:look very energetic and very professional. You look like you
Unknown:have a big heart. You look like you're an extraordinary Mother,
Unknown:you look like an extraordinary father, you look like your
Unknown:amazing family person. So just to start off, because they've
Unknown:never met me. And looking at them, I can always find
Unknown:something to compliment them about. And then I say, Do you
Unknown:have a little time just for me to ask you three questions. They
Unknown:never say no. And I'm not frightening looking and whole
Unknown:approach is not frightening. So I then say, when you think of
Unknown:somebody, do they ever call you? Or when you think of somebody?
Unknown:Do they round the bend? And there they are? And I would say
Unknown:eight out of 10? Say yes, that's a high percentage. And then I
Unknown:say now, do you think that shows potentially, that human beings
Unknown:have more than five senses? Is there some vibrational
Unknown:connection between human beings more than sight and hearing and
Unknown:taste? That's a vibrational connection. And for the most
Unknown:part, people have not thought about that. And then an example,
Unknown:I went into my wife and I go down into a hole with beach in
Unknown:Delaware for take two or three days off. And we we stayed at
Unknown:this hotel, we had a parent, so we go back to the hotel. And
Unknown:there's the parent, I go to the lady behind the desk and I ask
Unknown:these three questions. And I say, Do you have a few minutes?
Unknown:Yes, I do. Okay, now. B. Do you ever think of anybody that call
Unknown:you? And she said, Well, I'll tell you what happens with me.
Unknown:I'm very close with my sisters or with my family. And my sister
Unknown:lives three miles away. And just last week, I was here and I had
Unknown:a whole visual picture of my sister carrying her new baby and
Unknown:she fell down stairs. I got a movie in my head. I ran out. I
Unknown:call the ambulance I ran over and we brought her to the
Unknown:hospital. That's a that's a pretty dramatic example. You've
Unknown:interconnection of people. And the next question is When you
Unknown:are your most creative, does time fly by, locks disappear and
Unknown:Time flies by, and ideas pour into your head? Definitely 80 To
Unknown:70 to 80%. Say yes to that. And then it happens all the time
Unknown:when you are your most creative. You get into a zone.
Unknown:Professional use the word flow in psychology, the word flow
Unknown:comes in. And ideas pour down to you and it's your most creative,
Unknown:almost everybody says yes. Then the next question is, do you
Unknown:ever think that those ideas are vibrations from the universe and
Unknown:they're channeling into you? And you're absorbing information
Unknown:from outside? Now a very few people say yes to that. But a
Unknown:lot of important people do say yes to that. Paul McCartney has
Unknown:always said that when he gets into this flow zone, all the
Unknown:lyrics and music that he wrote, was channeled to him and he was
Unknown:basically a secretary writing it down. Now, a lot of people don't
Unknown:believe that. Even if he said it, no one believes it. The the
Unknown:Harold Robbins is a major author. You're my friend. Father
Unknown:was a big doctor and how Robbins was the patient of the of that
Unknown:doctor? And my friend was going into movies. And he said, Could
Unknown:I have lunch with Howard Robins? A Howard Robbins, if you go
Unknown:online? How Robbins is one of the top 10 people in the whole
Unknown:history of the world. He's sold more books in the top 10. In the
Unknown:history of books out Robbins. Yep. So I had lunch with him and
Unknown:said, Mr. Robbins, every year you turn out an amazing book,
Unknown:different cultures, different language, different dresses,
Unknown:different everything. And just amazing characters. How do you
Unknown:do it? And how Robin said, it's very easy. This goes back to the
Unknown:early 1980s. He said go back to my typewriter. That's that's a
Unknown:data. That's a data type typewriter. And I write one
Unknown:sentence and all the rest is channeled to me. So I'm a
Unknown:secretary writing this down. So I just most artists, most
Unknown:athletic now in sports, every major sport, if you're not
Unknown:connected to the universe, you're not going to win the
Unknown:championship. And every team is practicing mindfulness and
Unknown:meditation. So I just throw that out, because it's, it's
Unknown:connected to what Lisa Miller is talking about, which is
Unknown:connected to the universe. So on the one hand, mindfulness and
Unknown:meditation, you go inside, and you return to Serenity, or
Unknown:return to calm. And when you do that, you're now connected to
Unknown:vibrations at a higher level. And that gets you into flow and
Unknown:connectivity and creativity. That's pretty interesting.
Alan Carroll:Oh, you bet.
Unknown:And then I'll tell you, Steven Kotler is one of the
Unknown:major experts. And he's a genius, and he has a whole
Unknown:operation to try to prove that being in flow. Work with all the
Unknown:top neuroscientists, the top neuroscientists of the world,
Unknown:but into numbers. If I'm using five senses, and if you make a
Unknown:speech, or if I'm making a speech, I know if I talk too
Unknown:fast, which I probably am now, or bring in too much
Unknown:information, which I probably have now. The the audience can't
Unknown:follow you. Because they're listening in five senses. What
Unknown:if and when you're using your five senses, mostly the front
Unknown:part of your brain and you can properly process information at
Unknown:40 to 50 bits of information a second 40 to 50. So if you do
Unknown:too fast, you're gonna lose your audience. Yep. Now you're in the
Unknown:more middle part of your brain, you're in flow and you're
Unknown:connected to the universe and his normal neurologic scientists
Unknown:know when you're in flow connect to the universe, you are
Unknown:processing information at the low end, 9 million bits of
Unknown:information a second, and on the high end 40 million bits of
Unknown:information per second. And so when Lisa Miller, the top
Unknown:scientists at Columbia says each child is born with a spiritual
Unknown:in connected to the vibrations of the universe, which NASA
Unknown:proves is all that you can go for 40 to 40 million And it's
Unknown:brain size. Everybody has that capacity. So that's pretty
Unknown:interesting. And then Lisa's point is, with your children, if
Unknown:you understand they have that capacity, the different things
Unknown:you can do to encourage it, and on just to talk to them about
Unknown:their creativity talks about their intuition, talks about
Unknown:following their instincts. And then the third question is once
Unknown:you go from more than five senses, and then creativity now
Unknown:the next question is, are you spiritual or religious? And now,
Unknown:many people say they're religious, and many people say
Unknown:they're spiritual. And then I say with that, do you have a
Unknown:sense that there is a higher power? And so to add, people
Unknown:say, yes, they believe there is higher power. And then I say, so
Unknown:do get guidance from that higher power. If you're spiritual, you
Unknown:get guidance from that guy, or if you're religious, you're
Unknown:getting guidance through prayer. With God, and then it's most, at
Unknown:least half say, yes. That, that goes back to what I'm saying
Unknown:about all my life, I followed my intuition, I had no idea what
Unknown:that was. You bet. Basically, my DNA or my karma in mindfulness
Unknown:language, was a higher power and I was following it. And then
Unknown:serendipity. With the, the way you introduced me about the
Unknown:eight presidents to this, that sounds like a lot of stuff that
Unknown:I have done a lot of stuff by very simple. And I view that
Unknown:with huge humility, because it was just a privilege, that with
Unknown:what I call, joyous persistence, I like people. And if you do
Unknown:that, and you trust them, and you have ideas, you can do a lot
Unknown:of things. And it really is following a higher power, which
Unknown:is the leverage of what happened. And again, everybody
Unknown:has that. So now the last part of your thing was gift now is
Unknown:all about early childhood and the brain science of early
Unknown:childhood. And in 2017, I was out in San Francisco. And so I
Unknown:said, go see George Halverson and I'm curious one thing I
Unknown:would tell anybody listen to this. Follow your curiosity. If
Unknown:anybody suggest something, try it. If it's too dangerous, don't
Unknown:do it. I'm a scaredy cat. If someone said jump out of an
Unknown:airplane. I don't have enough guts for that. I wouldn't do
Unknown:that. If I'm on top of that looked down, I get scared. You
Unknown:bet. And the things if someone says why don't you drive 100
Unknown:miles an hour and go around a fast curve? I'm not into that.
Unknown:And so Edie right? But read my life is not my strength. But
Unknown:curiosity, the opens up so many wonderful things, and people shy
Unknown:away from it. But get over that. Right around the corner is
Unknown:something amazing. Always be open to going around the next
Unknown:corner. And so suppose they say George happens to go over there.
Unknown:What do I find George Halverson is one of the top scientists and
Unknown:mental health professionals in the world. And in the United
Unknown:States, there's a health organization called Kaiser
Unknown:Permanente, which is one of the largest. It's nonprofit, but
Unknown:it's one of the largest organizations with three to
Unknown:400,000 employees all about health care. And here's what the
Unknown:top scientists told me. The baby is born, every baby is born. And
Unknown:the brain, billions of synapses are connecting a million a
Unknown:second. And by a third birthday by third 123, third birthday,
Unknown:the the neurological passages of your brain are largely being
Unknown:set, which defined 70 to 80% your capacity to succeed in
Unknown:school. So the baby needs to be spoken to sung to or read to
Unknown:some number of millions of words by the third birthday. Now
Unknown:people hear that and they don't want to hear it. They hear that
Unknown:it's too much, right? But fundamentally, the reality is
Unknown:that the first three years of your life the neurological
Unknown:passages are set. And then so to 80%. that defies your ability in
Unknown:school. So now in the United States If you take the idea of
Unknown:zero to three, and you go to underserved communities, whether
Unknown:it be black or Hispanic or white, low income, poverty
Unknown:schools, underserved communities, when the children
Unknown:from underserved communities come to kindergarten in which
Unknown:about age 670 to 80% of those children are not education
Unknown:ready, and they're not reading ready. And then I say, Well,
Unknown:look, kindergarten is the first year of school. Now, the whole
Unknown:actual point is, the first year of school is when you're born.
Unknown:And actually this starts at conception. Let's make a little
Unknown:more confusing. As soon as the woman is pregnant, you should,
Unknown:she should talk to her baby, the father should talk to the baby,
Unknown:the relatives are talking about, I love you. And I'll talk to all
Unknown:the time and saying to them and read to them right in the womb,
Unknown:you bet. And if their vibrations, when that baby is
Unknown:born, the baby was already ahead of me would not talk to him.
Unknown:From conception to birth. Now the baby is born specters thing
Unknown:to read two millions of words by the third birthday. Now. And the
Unknown:word neurological passages are too complicated. So I look at it
Unknown:this way. They are new and I build something. And we have a
Unknown:we just build a new mindful, mindful you stature and Nepal or
Unknown:something like that. And we want to put pour cement at the front
Unknown:door, just a and then we're gonna put our initials in it to
Unknown:commemorate the amazing thing that we did. And I say, Look,
Unknown:I'm a little older than you, Alan, I'm tired. Let's go have a
Unknown:drink. And I can sleep tomorrow morning, we're gonna come back,
Unknown:we'll put our initials in this event. Now what happens with
Unknown:that? You pour the cement the afternoon, and you come back the
Unknown:next morning? How good are you putting initials into the
Unknown:cement?
Alan Carroll:Cement is hard, you can't do it. Can't do it.
Unknown:So that fundamentally for the most part is the brain,
Unknown:your neurological passages are set in the first three years and
Unknown:then the brain goes and does something else. So I don't want
Unknown:to say it's impossible to catch up. But it's that harder to
Unknown:catch up. And that's the point. And so, once I heard that I
Unknown:can't get out of my mind. And that now is the one thing that
Unknown:we're doing at gift Connect is talking about the power of the
Unknown:brain science of zero to three. And because it's completely
Unknown:transformational. And now let's go back to the underserved
Unknown:communities. If you don't start a deception, and if you don't
Unknown:start zero to three, which is what education really starts,
Unknown:education capacity starts. Now you say, Okay, you're in
Unknown:kindergarten. And it starts by the third grade, you need to be
Unknown:really good at education, writing and reading ready, in
Unknown:underserved communities, children and start, so to 80% in
Unknown:the United States, not there. Now they get to the third or
Unknown:fourth grade as a third or fourth grade, if you're not a
Unknown:good reader, and if you're not education ready by the third
Unknown:grade, now you're in real trouble. Because the first few
Unknown:years they've set the foundation, and then you're able
Unknown:to learn. But the answer is the 70 80% never changes. So in the
Unknown:third grade, obviously, as you go along, your capacity is
Unknown:increasing. But the third graders set a percent said 8%
Unknown:are not when they're supposed to be eighth grade seven 80% are
Unknown:not where they're supposed to be. They graduate so to 80%, not
Unknown:where they're supposed to be. So in the United States in our
Unknown:schools, 1/3 of all the students are graduating with no skills
Unknown:capable of having a 21st century job. That's appalling.
Alan Carroll:Yep. That's appalling.
Unknown:The United States by the way, among developing
Unknown:countries, the United States and the 36. Top developing
Unknown:countries, we are the 34th worst. That early childhood
Unknown:development. Zero to Three, that's a disaster. Now let's
Unknown:look at a global x we talked about globally. I've never done
Unknown:a global project. But this is what mindfulness is global is
Unknown:the first one but now with this, it'd be global. And if you look
Unknown:at developing nations first developed countries they want to
Unknown:close the gap. And we all want to but for the most part,
Unknown:developing countries that spend less than 2% of their education
Unknown:budget, zero to three And then they gotta catch up at school.
Unknown:But if you miss three, you can't catch up for the most part,
Unknown:foreign aid to developing countries less than 1% focuses
Unknown:on zero to three. So this is really significant around the
Unknown:world. And my team has said, Sam, you think of too many
Unknown:things, and you get involved in too many things. And so to be
Unknown:really successful, we're going to get focused on that one
Unknown:thing. So I apologize. But that's a long sort of answer to
Unknown:what you said. So I did flow from mindfulness to Lisa Miller,
Unknown:with opening up your spiritual side to George Halverson, zero
Unknown:to three.
Alan Carroll:Wow. Absolutely, I find that the going back to
Alan Carroll:mindfulness for me is like a pool of energy. Yep. And the
Alan Carroll:quicker you can access that, the quicker you will develop the
Alan Carroll:muscles that allow you to look at whatever issue that you're
Alan Carroll:facing in the 21st century, which is a lot of issues,
Alan Carroll:environmental issues, mental health issues, drug issues, and
Alan Carroll:lots of issues, which cause agitation. And if you can't have
Alan Carroll:a calm view, to deal with the agitation, then you're agitated,
Alan Carroll:trying to deal with the agitation, which is not going to
Alan Carroll:resolve the agitation. But if you have that mindfulness
Alan Carroll:training at an early age, that allows you to wait a minute, let
Alan Carroll:me take a breath. Let let me get this physical body relaxed
Alan Carroll:before I stick my hands in the machinery and try to try to pull
Alan Carroll:the levers. And I think that is absolutely the You said it
Alan Carroll:yourself. The most significant challenge of your service of
Alan Carroll:life is happening now. Because he's because you recognize that,
Alan Carroll:that unless we get mental stability, we're going to be
Alan Carroll:unstable, dealing with unstable things. It's it's got this, it's
Alan Carroll:going to cause major, more major issues. And so I'm a I'm a
Alan Carroll:believer, Sam, and what you're saying,
Unknown:Are they you're more than a believer, you're one of
Unknown:the major world leaders who have pioneered this and been at it
Unknown:with such persistence and power for some number of decades. So
Unknown:the again, I start off by congratulating, I just want to
Unknown:congratulate you again, and really underline the privilege
Unknown:of me to be here. Now then, once I, literally two weeks ago, a
Unknown:bell went off that all these three things were late, the
Unknown:mindfulness of meditation. And then here's Lisa Miller with a
Unknown:spiritual child, and that his his new thing that we're doing,
Unknown:which is the brain science of Birth to Three. And so I call an
Unknown:expert, a fella called Jim Walsh, and he has a he's trained
Unknown:in everything. And he's such a heart. His specialty is
Unknown:mindfulness and meditation and Jon Kabat Zinn. But anytime you
Unknown:have a question, you call Jim, watch, ask Jim, and you get an
Unknown:amazing answer. And he's the one that led us through the whole
Unknown:thing with with a mindfulness of meditation. So I call Jim, and
Unknown:he never lets me down. So he said, Sam, of course, all the
Unknown:three are connected. And then he used a fancy word, when he said,
Unknown:it's all about default mode. Network isn't a technical thing,
Unknown:Default Mode Network. And he explained it this way, the baby
Unknown:is born, and the baby is pure. And the baby has no idea the
Unknown:baby's born now. If bad things happen, the baby is looking for
Unknown:safety. So if bad stuff happened, the brain does stuff.
Unknown:Like watch out for that. Don't do that again. And if something
Unknown:bad happens over here, watch that. And then from a different
Unknown:angle, if if the baby is not loved and taken care of if the
Unknown:baby is sort of abused, if it's not food, the the first four
Unknown:years of your life, you start with a clean slate, and many
Unknown:things happen, which are upsetting to the conscious mind
Unknown:and programmed in the subconscious mind. And that
Unknown:leads to lack of self esteem. I don't believe in myself. All of
Unknown:that is in the first three to four years of life. So now,
Unknown:mindfulness and meditation is the first three or four years of
Unknown:life and you taught how to do that from the big getting, you
Unknown:know how to stress the spiritual child that's a gene, it's like
Unknown:your ability to see or ability to hear your ability to connect
Unknown:to the universe is a genetic, physical connection. And if you
Unknown:are encouraged that you have that power, you have the
Unknown:opportunity to go from 40 to 50 bits of information per second,
Unknown:up to 9 million to 40 million. Everybody has that. And, and
Unknown:that's also happening the first few years. And then the brain
Unknown:science of the neurological passages, which really lead to
Unknown:literacy and abilities. School are the same thing. So the
Unknown:answer is all of that fits into the idea of default mode
Unknown:network. And that's pretty interesting. I know. Usually,
Unknown:people operate, operate in silos. And I think for the most
Unknown:part, very few people have ever put that together in that same
Unknown:way.
Alan Carroll:And that's creativity. And that's, that's
Alan Carroll:one of the benefits of mindfulness. Mindfulness to me
Alan Carroll:has flexibility to it, that allows you to comfortably move
Alan Carroll:around the circle to see the different points of view that
Alan Carroll:people are sharing versus my ego just wants one point of view,
Alan Carroll:it's my point of view. So I spend my life defending and
Alan Carroll:attacking my people who, who are opposed to my point of view,
Alan Carroll:versus flexibility. listening, listening allows you to circle
Alan Carroll:all over and have that flow that that you talked about. I love
Alan Carroll:it. Well, Sam, where we are, we are getting close to the end of
Alan Carroll:our first podcast, I sense we have, we have a realm of
Alan Carroll:information to bring forth you're, you're like a fountain
Alan Carroll:of knowledge. And I really appreciate you sharing all the
Alan Carroll:golden nuggets of your journey and the things that you've
Alan Carroll:discovered and the people that you've talked to what a what a
Alan Carroll:gift you are, to, to, to to the world, and but especially to the
Alan Carroll:audience of the mind for your podcast. And to conclude, I want
Alan Carroll:to thank you for being on the podcast. And we're going to have
Alan Carroll:show notes that are going to have your biography, it's good
Alan Carroll:to have your contact information so that people can reach out to
Alan Carroll:you and connect with you and find out all the things that
Alan Carroll:you're doing in the world. And I just want to I just want to
Alan Carroll:thank you for for what you do. The that Curiosity has led you
Alan Carroll:on a path that inspires millions and millions of people. So it's
Alan Carroll:been an honor, and a privilege to be able to have time to talk
Alan Carroll:to you and have you share your wisdom. So thank you very, very
Alan Carroll:much, Sam. And in conclusion, what would you like to say to
Alan Carroll:the audience
Unknown:there I want to say to the audience is Alan Thank you
Unknown:know, I guess what I want to say to the audience is I've talked
Unknown:about is the capacity of empowerment that each human
Unknown:being has. And if you think you if you think you can, you can't,
Unknown:if you think big, you can do it. If you get started, there's
Unknown:nothing you can't do and trust yourself. Your power is amazing.
Unknown:Trust yourself and it changes your life. You have amazing
Unknown:capacity, coming from a divinity that Allah Thank you.
Alan Carroll:Thank you, Sam. You bye for now.
