Episode 16: Reverse Engineering Your Dreams with Giovanni Marsico

Welcome to Super Connections. I am your host, Jennifer K. Hill, helping you with the Golden Triangle of Connection, where you will super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. Join me each week as I will share from some of my favorite tips and tools for super connecting, and I'll bring in some of my favorite friends and thought leaders To help support you on your journey to super connecting to the life of your dreams. Hello friends, and welcome back for another episode of Super Connections. You are joining us for episode 16 of Super Connections, where we help you to super connect to yourself, others, and your purpose. And today's episode is a very special episode where we're not just going to talk about your purpose, We're gonna talk about how you can super connect to your dreams. Who's in? So today our special guest is a dear new friend, soul brother, new best friend. You know how sometimes we talk about you just meet somebody and you're like, you're my person. That's who Giovanni Marsico is for me. Not only is he an award-winning filmmaker, award-winning event producer, he's been producing incredible events since the age of 14 years old. But he is also the man who helps you to reverse engineer your dreams. He produces incredible events like his Destiny Events, one that's coming up in Toronto, I believe it's around September 13th, that we'll get into a little bit more here. And also ones that are called Top Secret. And I think you're gonna have to deep dive a little bit further to find out what the Top Secret events are all about. So Gio, my friend, my new bestie, it's great to have you here.

I am so honored. Thank you.

Oh, I love you, my friend. I love that we get to share your wisdom and your magic with our audience. So tell us how you went from producing events at 14 years old to producing award-winning films to now being the guy who's known for reverse engineering dreams and helping them come true. Tell us a little bit about that.

I think it started with people telling me I couldn't do things.

That's why we get along. Don't tell me you can't do it, otherwise it's, it's on.

It was like, it was a permission slip to prove them wrong. And my whole life has been like that, right? Our very first event that we ever produced had 1,000 attendees, and this is when we were in high school, which is mind-blowing. And then by the time I was 19 years old, we had 5,000 people a week at our— and these were like dance parties that we were producing in nightclubs and concerts and shows. Feel very blessed to have figured out what my gifts are at such an early age. And then it led into a whole bunch of interesting adventures or journeys with my parents saying, don't do these things, go to school and get a degree and all of that. And when I stopped producing events for a while, I, it was the first time I ever experienced what people would call anxiety or depression. Hmm. And now looking back, realizing it was more of my body letting me know my GPS was off course. And then when I started producing events again for people in the either entrepreneurial or creator or people who wanna change the world realm, I had what I called a bliss attack. So I've had panic attacks, I've had really severe ones. One I thought was a heart attack. I called 911

and— Me too. Me too. I went to the hospital.

Yeah, I got— ambulance came to my house and they said, no, this is a— you're having a severe panic attack, which was crazy. And then after doing the events I do now, I had this moment where it felt like a lightning bolt of electricity passing every positive emotion through my body to the point where I was like burst out crying, like tears of joy. But it was so overwhelming and I called it a bliss attack and it felt like my body's saying, you're back, you're back on track.

Oh.

And it was so beautiful. And I have the privilege of talent scouting and casting, and those are words I use for my events, the most incredible attendees. We have the best speakers on our stages, but it's not about that. It's about who, who shows up to transform themselves and be in a room with the most wonderful people on the planet.

That's beautiful. And how do we do this, Geo, for so many of us? I know some people tuning in, listening, watching, whenever and wherever they're listening Right now might feel disconnected. They might be more in the panic attack state, which, again, I've been there. I remember I was working recruiting, and I'm sitting there, and I'm like, oh my God. And I remember rushing to the ER because the same thing, I thought I was having a heart attack. So how do we move from those panic attacks to those bliss attacks? And how do we have the courage to follow our dreams?

What works for me And I think would be useful is something I call time traveling. So what I was taught 12 years ago, or 2011, was that 14 years ago, because I was again feeling depressed and anxious, I hired a coach and she taught me how to communicate with my future self. Ah, yes. And she said, imagine what you would look like in 10 years, which is hilarious, by the way, because now thinking about it, back then I had a lot of hair. And when I closed my eyes and visualized, I started laughing because I said, this can't be right. He's bald. Like Professor X, who's my favorite superhero. He has a shaved head and it doesn't make it— I would never do that. And if you can't see me on camera right now, I have a shaved head. I literally became the person I used to pray to back then. And she would— and she said, give him a name that's different than yours. And whenever you have a big decision, ask what would he do? Not you, but what would he do? And that has guided me since then. And then I also time travel to the past when I was a little boy and I, I become the adult he needed now. And I give him love and attention and I give him safety and security and support and wisdom and advice. And time traveling is fun and it's, it sounds a little out there for some people and it's the most useful tool I have.

I agree 150%. A couple weeks ago, it might've even been a month or so ago, we did an episode on inner child work. And that was, has been a saving grace in my life. The backwards time traveling, imagining if you didn't have a parent, listen, good for you. If you had great parents who were loving and there and emotionally available, congratulations. A lot of us did not. I've met many wonderful people who grew up in a very peaceful, healthy way. But even if you had great parents, You might have been bullied at school or things might have happened. And it's great just to be able to go back and reparent yourself. And I love the future talk and the future self as well. There was years ago a woman that I trained with, and much like you, I saw like an 83-year-old version of myself with like pure white hair standing in front of a group, like a million people plus. And it's so wild. But what I love that you just touched on, and if I may, do I recall it's Morpheus? Is that your future guy? Yeah. I remember we were talking about that lunch last week. Is that this idea of naming your future self and not just doing it as a one-off, because when I was taken through this technique a couple of years ago, I did it as a one-off. Okay, cool. I saw this future version of myself. She told me a lot of things though. I love that your future self is your guide and is the guide to fulfilling on your dreams. So talk us through a little bit more of that process of how you take yourself in and out of any of these time traveling processes.

Yeah, I think my favorite word is the word dream. And I think we are obsessed with story and the concept of story. And we learn through stories and we share ideas through stories. And we often don't remember facts, but we will remember the details of a story. It's why we love books. It's why we love movies. And I was in a movie theater I don't know if I told you, every week for the past 17 years, outside of the COVID years, I go to a movie theater by myself during the matinée, like during the day, and watch whatever came out. It's my escape. It's part of my ritual. And I was there a few days ago and I realized stories are dreams.

Oh.

We, you go to sleep, you have the most fantastic stuff happen if you could remember. You wake up and you're like, oh, that was wild. And for a moment, or whatever the time period is, you are taken somewhere else. It's an escape. It's— you're taken to an extraordinary world and you lose track of all time and space. That's what happens in a good film if you're in a movie theater. That's what happens with a good book. It's what happens on psychedelics. It's what happens in different ways where you lose track of space and time. And To me, I, I think we're all connected to dreams and stories in this way where life is like that. Like our whole life is a dream.

Wow.

And what if we realize we're not just the hero of the journey, we're also the guide, we're also the narrator, the scriptwriter. And going back to your question, if you understand how, like Joseph Campbell and his whole world and the hero's journey, every amazing story has to have a hero, the main character. And then there's always a guide character. If you think of The Matrix, there's Morpheus. If you think of Lord of the Rings, Gandalf. If you think of Star Wars, Obi-Wan and Yoda. But your future self could be your guide, could be that wizard or Glinda the Good Witch in Wizard of Oz, right? Your future self can be that for you today, and you could be the guide to you in the past. And then you could also be that guide to other people. It's amazing.

It's so powerful. And you make me think of another dear friend of mine who was like a father to me, Dr. Mark Goldston, who I love and adore. He passed away just over a year ago. And Mark also had a really fun thing where it wasn't his future self. He called it his Dead Mentor Society. I call it my metaphysical board, but I do not have my future self on my metaphysical board. I have people like Oprah and Bill Gates and all these wonderful prolific entrepreneurs. But my friend Mark, because he was very famous himself and was friends with Larry King, he had Larry passed away. So Larry was on his dead mentor society. And if he ever had a problem, he would just sit quietly and imagine calling a board meeting of his mentors who had passed away and would consult with them about things. So I love to do the same thing from a metaphysical board standpoint. And I'll just sit there and I'll ask this person or that person for advice. So I love this idea of What if you are your own best advice giver, right? When you have Oprah or whatever thought leaders you might have, Gandhi, you know, what if you actually had yourself as your own best advice? Because who's going to give you the best advice for your life? You.

Have you seen the Avengers, like, Endgame?

Oh, of course. Yeah.

Okay. There's a scene where Iron Man is speaking to Doctor Strange, who I know you love. And Doctor Strange's head's flying all over the place. And he says, where were you? He said, I was in 14 million versions of the future trying to see what's going to happen. And Iron Man asks, how often do we win? He said, once.

Yeah.

And my whole thing is that's perfect because there are infinite versions of our future based on choices we make. But if you can believe that there's one version of the future where you've achieved all your biggest dreams, that's the one you communicate with.

Yes, I'm snapping my fingers in agreement here for those of you who can't see us. I love that. And if there's just that one version— so here I'm going to play devil's advocate with you on this, Joe, because why not? We're all just playing in this game and theater called spacetime anyways. So I'm going to play devil's advocate. Let's imagine, yes, there's one version. Going back to Doctor Strange and Iron Man, those are not very encouraging odds, which I would argue many of us are looking at as humans right now. We're going like, Oh God, no matter where your politics or beliefs lie, religion, politics, or otherwise, the future doesn't look particularly great for people. So how do we overcome the uncertainty, Gio? How do we push past, whether it's globally or just individually? Oh, I went through a hard breakup. Oh, I've lost my job. AI is taking over my job. How do we circumnavigate all of that in our mind's eye and still be able to have The deeper listening and wisdom to hear the whispers of that higher future self.

That's where you go back in time. This is why the time traveling in both directions is so important, because if you, in quotes, from 20 years ago had a chance to speak to you today, they wouldn't even believe where you are.

True story.

That's your one in a million. You already are the one in a million in so many ways. Even if things didn't go your way, or you feel like— even if for people who feel like they're a failure, if you actually used data and said, hold on, what am I doing today that I would have been scared to do in the past? What comes naturally to me today that I couldn't even fathom doing before? Or how have I evolved and changed? And you can be your own case study.

Yeah, it's so true. It's so funny as you said that, Gio, I look at this and that you and I are sitting here having this conversation, that I get to live in my dream home in Portugal, and that you're getting to live with your incredible family in Toronto, and that we both get to have the freedom to have free will to speak to one another right now and even have this conversation. How fortunate are we and how quickly we forget our blessings. A couple weeks back, I had also mentioned, I think it was in the inner child episode or maybe one on forgiveness. About this idea of just spiritual counting. Count your blessings. Write down every night before you go to bed, what were the miracles? What was alive for you in your life? I love to teach people that. People say, how do you live a miraculous life? The secret is appreciate the itty-bitty miracles. There was sunshine today. Wow. I got to talk to a dear friend today. I had freedom of choice with what to do with my day, whatever that looks like. When we can appreciate the mini miracles, it makes it easier to appreciate and to see and receive the ginormous miracle that is our dreams, that is our life, right?

I once spoke to this incredible monk, and he said part of the challenge we all face is focus of awareness. And he gave an analogy that's so beautiful. He said, imagine you're in a pitch-black room. On one wall is all the Terrible things happening. And on the wall opposite of that is all the amazing things happening, whether it's macro or micro, like all the things happening in the world and all the things happening to you. You are in the room, it's pitch black, but you're holding a flashlight.

I love this. I use the same analogy. Keep going. I literally have been thinking about this for decades.

Where are you shining that light? And if you shine it on the wall with the negativity, it feels like the whole world is crumbling. If you turn around and shine on the other wall, it doesn't mean the things, the other things aren't happening. It's where you're putting your awareness and energy and focus. Because if you focus on the positive wall, it creates hope and creates confidence and it creates momentum and energy and the things you might even need to tackle the big crises. And it's a choice though. And the bigger problem is we're either taught or there's a default of shining the light in the negative. And then we are, depending on your algorithms, It's exponential on social media because there's a lot of fear poured into it because that gets attention. So it's up to us to actually shift the, the light.

I agree 100%. I cannot believe you just gave that example. For well over a decade now, I've been sharing a story in terms of neuroscience, how every second of every day we have Millions, literally 11 million bits per second of information bombarding us per second at a subconscious level. Yet at a conscious level, we are only paying attention to 50 to 120 bits consciously. So that begs the question, what the hell is happening to the rest of it? It is exactly that analogy. I use that analogy of a miner's helmet walking through an infinitely large pitch-black warehouse, and all you have is this itty-bitty little penlight. And we are only going to see of all the infinite possibilities, not just walls, but there is a warehouse, infinite warehouse of every potentiality, all the 14 million ones Dr. Strange talks about. So I'm just so delighted that you shared that.

Thank you.

Beautiful, my friend. Gosh, I could talk to you for hours. We'll have to have you on future episodes. Where can people connect with you? Where can they find out about Destiny, all the incredible events, your filmmaking? Where would they go to find out about that?

destiny.live, L-I-V-E, is the main hub. And then follow me on— look up my name on Instagram, follow me there.

Perfect. So again, we have Giovanni Marsico with us today, M-A-R-S-I-C-O, who is a prolific, incredible, award-winning event planner, producer, filmmaker, and human being, my friend. I'm so happy our paths crossed and so grateful that you are here to share your wisdom with our audience. And so grateful to each of you for tuning in. Much love, everyone.