WATCH THIS If You Want To TRULY LOVE YOURSELF To The Core | Justin Baldoni & Lewis Howes

I think when you become a parent, especially your children are your teachers. And you start to realize the little mini events that happened over the course of your life that you never healed.

I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really? Yeah.

Please welcome Lewis Howes.

In this episode, we discuss topics that include sexual abuse and trauma that might be triggering to some audiences. Please be advised. What's been the thing that's held you back from your most peaceful, loving, calm self when the world happens? And I really look at like when events happen in the world, if we are triggered by them and it really affects us in a big way and we clench up, there might be something there. There might be a wound or something we haven't healed yet. What's the biggest thing you've had to work on to help that healing journey? Which is a journey.

Yeah, I mean so much. So I probably three years ago or so I started realizing that I just had a lot of stored trauma and emotion in my body. And I was somebody that didn't even know, I didn't even know I had anxiety. I didn't think I saw people with anxiety and depression and I was like, I don't know what that's like. I don't know, that's not me. And then one day in therapy I told my therapist, you know, sometimes I can't take a full breath. And I started having some weird back pain in certain areas. And then she's like, oh, I really want you to notice that and look at that. And then it would show up more and more and more. And I realized that, no, I've had anxiety my whole life. But as a former athlete, I just didn't pay attention to it. I didn't pay attention to anything that could slow me down or that could delay my greatness and whatever I was trying to accomplish. Come to find out I did have anxiety. So then you have to go into the anxiety and you have to figure out where it is in your body and where it's coming from and what is it. And as I was writing my last book, I started sharing a lot of stories about my life in an attempt to help other men feel like they're not alone. I didn't have anybody ever model vulnerability to me. My dad was emotional. He was sensitive, he was kind, he was Italian, but he never showed me vulnerability. I didn't know the things that were causing him stress or anxiety. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about the things that hurt me and caused me pain when I was young. And so as I wrote these things, And I wrote about these things, a lot of stuff came up for me in terms of, oh man, sexuality.

Being.

10 years old and finding porn for the first time before my body was ready. And what that did to me in terms of the neuropathways that it carved in my brain and the comparison to feeling like, oh, I'll never measure up or I'll never be that thing that I saw when I was 10.

To.

Sexual situations that I was put in before I was ready, and to even at 20 years old, having my first real sexual experience at my first time not being consensual, having that taken from me in a way that I didn't realize until three years ago was a gross violation of boundaries because I didn't believe that men could get sexually assaulted. Because what are we conditioned as men to believe? Like, if she wants sex, you better be ready. There was no talk about not being emotionally prepared. So all of those things were in my body and I had no clue. I had no idea. And so over the last three years, as I've been healing, so much has been coming out and learning that.

I.

Need to love myself enough to listen to the things that my body is saying, to the things that my soul is saying, things that I need that I've never done before. So, oh, yeah, and a lot, you know, and a lot of other stuff. I think when you become a parent, especially your children or your teachers, and you start to realize the little mini events that happened over the course of your life that you never healed as they play out in front of you with your children. So as an example, I learned that I was never really played with. Nobody ever got on their knees and looked at me and played with me. There was no work. There was just me and that adult. Because I didn't know why it was so hard for me to play with my kids for the first couple of years.

'Cause that didn't happen to you. You didn't see that model.

I had no idea what was wrong. I was like, Wait, why? Why can't I get on the ground with my kids? Like, why am I always worried about what's happening elsewhere or on my phone? What is this thing? And I realized, oh my God, that's because it wasn't their fault. Nobody was really on the ground playing with me. And these things inevitably come up, especially when you're the dad of a little kid. And two little kids at that. And then marriage. A lot of stuff comes up.

I mean, you're in what, 12 years married?

10 years? We just celebrated nine years. So we're on the journey to 10 together for almost 12 now. But you're in a loving, passionate, amazing relationship and you know that that person is a mirror and that person, if you're doing it right, I believe, will bring up all of the stuff that.

You haven't looked at.

That you haven't resolved yet.

Yeah.

Or resolved or looked at it. It will just all come up inevitably and it's not their job to fix, it's your job to fix. So I guess that's my answer to your question.

If you could, you know, I saw, me and Martha saw you a year, about a year ago in Cabo, as we were kind of a few months into our dating experience and we had talked with you and your wife and.

You were so synchronistic.

It was crazy because we were sitting down for dinner and we're like, you did a post or something on Instagram that we both saw. We were like, oh, it was such a beautiful thing that you were talking about. I think it was with your wife, your relationship, or you guys were on a healing journey, something like that.

And it's like, man, that's really beautiful.

And then, like, 20 minutes later, you walk down in Cabo and we're like, oh, what is happening? You're a powerful manifest. You know? And it was, it was cool because then we had, we hung out for a couple days a little bit here and there, talking about our experience and your experience. And at the time, it sounded like you guys had gone through some some darkness in the previous years individually and then not darkness, but some challenges in the relationship and a marriage where you were questioning things and there's friction and now you're on starting the healing journey. I'm curious, what is the biggest lesson you've learned about marriage since starting that healing journey eight, ten years into marriage that you didn't do in the first few years of marriage?

What we, those first few years, didn't do right is that we expected the other person to do the work for us.

What work? Give me an example of what you expected her to do for you.

So one of the things that Emily says is, that I love and I quote her all the time, is the greatest activism is self-activism. And my wife is a sage, so I just, you know, she's my muse in so many ways. And I was really struck by that because you can't, you can't really show up for anything in this life if you haven't done the work on yourself first. And when it came to me and Emily, early on there were expectations that maybe one of us had for the other. And when that wouldn't be met or when something would happen, she would be upset or I would be upset. And so then you share it with another person and then you expect them to change.

You share with your partner.

You share it with your partner and then you expect them to change. But in reality, what has to change isn't just the behavior, one, it's your part in it. So a great example of this is there is this thing that happens when you're married and you have kids. And if there's any traditional gender role in the house or whether, or even if both couples are working, Or both people are working and you have kids, there is this thing that inevitably happens, which is who's more tired?

I'm more exhausted.

Who's more tired? There's dishes to be done, there's laundry to be done, toys to be picked up, the kids have to go to school or whatever it is.

Logistics and travel.

And there is a business in running a family. And then you have your business outside of the family. But for many women who stay at home or who have given up their dreams or sacrificed to be able to stay at home and be with their kids, oftentimes men don't see the amount of work that goes in to just managing the household. Just being the CEO of the Baldoni house and the kids. And oftentimes some women, and I can use my wife as an example, don't always see the other side of it, which is the work and how hard it is for the man and all of the hours that we're putting in and all of the, you know, and being away from the family. And we had this conflict. for a few years early on because I was like, you know, I was in the middle of my TV show, was building a company. I was directing movies during. During the Hiatus. Like, I wasn't taking a break. And When you had kids, when you.

We just.

We just first started having kids. And at the same time, I was really missing my kids and my wife and being at home. And yet I would get home and I was exhausted. and there was still stuff to be done and there was conversations to be had and, you know, we, she was tired and I was tired and inevitably there's conversations like, well, okay, but I was out working all day and she's like, yeah, but I did 5,000 things today and we kept missing each other. We went to therapy about it, we talked about it and in doing our own work and unpacking for me masculinity and for me, looking at the system itself, looking at, okay, what is it in me? What is it about my socialization that makes me feel like I have to not just be an actor on a TV show, but I have to also go build a business and go direct movies and go do this. Where is this drive for success, for being the best coming from? Why do I have to do all of it?

Why do I then have to write books?

Why do I have to do TED Talks? Why do I have to be such an overachiever that I have to be the best at whatever it is that I'm doing? And I have to have the most impact and heal the most people? Like, what is that? And I had to go into that thing and ask myself, what's really going on? Where is this all coming from? And part of it was it was absolutely a drama response for me. I absolutely wanted people to love me.

And to like me.

I wanted to be seen because I didn't feel seen when I was a kid. And the only place that I felt like I could be seen is if I was in the top of the mountain. If I had the money, if I had the cars, if I had the house, if I had all of it. That was where I would get respect and be seen and be valued and be loved. When in reality, where I was really seen and valued and loved was right at home. But my conditioning, my socialization, all of it was like, no, go, go, go, go. Now, it's not to say it was all a trauma response. But a part of it was. And the other part of it was, I believe that's part of my work as a soul here on this earth, is to help people recognize their innate enoughness. Just like yours is what yours is. And then she had to do her own version of that. And what we found one day in a conversation was, I with a bleeding heart in tears, told her how.

I.

Didn'T feel she was acknowledging the way that this system is hurting me too. Because all of these things that I'm doing out there that are paying the bills, all of the providing that I'm doing and the protecting is taking me away from my children. I don't get to be there. as often as she gets to be there. For the first four years, I experienced a lot of milestones via FaceTime. And nobody really talks about that. And for the first time, she had compassion for what it was like for me as a man to be walking through the world feeling like if I don't reach the top of that mountain, then I am not enough. Because I believe the The way masculinity works is that it tells us that our worth is tied to our productivity. We stop being productive, we don't have value. Nobody wants us anymore. We won't be any good to our children or our wives or our friends. We won't be invited to places. We don't have money. We can't provide. What are we? That's why we're seeing so many men our age and older taking their lives. They don't have a job, they lose their job, something happens, they don't feel like they have value, boom, we're done. Because masculinity can be taken from them. And so she looked at me in tears and I'm like, I would love the chance to stay at home. I'd love the chance to be able to like be a stay-at-home dad and be there with my kids. Now, being fully honest, when I've done it, It's way harder than my job.

Well, it's not your natural style.

I get so much more tired.

Doing.

That job, getting on my knees and playing with my kids and having conversations with a four-year-old all day long than I do at the other job because there's a part of that other job that's also fulfilling something in my soul.

100%, yeah.

And when she was able to see and understand that, it changed the dynamic. And when I was able to see and understand how hard her job really is, putting myself in her shoes, looking at me out in the world having conversations with adults and having fame and all of this while she's at home and the world doesn't recognize what she's doing as valuable. The world doesn't congratulate mothers the way it congratulates fathers. Otherwise mothers would be considered the top prospect for employers, but instead they're at the bottom. Who's the top? Fathers. A man who's a father of a child is a hirable man. We want that guy. But a woman who's a mother, well you don't want to hire her because, well what happens when there's a doctor's appointment or the kid gets sick? Well, she's gonna have to leave work. But we've conditioned our men to believe that like, oh, well, A dad won't do that. A dad will stay committed to the job. We want the qualities that come from being a father. We don't want the responsibilities that come. So it was this combination of these two things that changed our entire relationship and that happened fairly early on. I did my own work, she did my own work, and then we came together and we shared honestly without needing to change the other person. And when we had empathy and compassion for each other, It blew the doors wide open.

What would you say to the if you could go back to yourself, obviously you don't want to change anything, but if you could go back to yourself the day before you got married, and you could have a conversation from this standpoint right now, you to that younger version of you, and you could only share three lessons of like, hey, these are three things I really hope you start doing from day one before the marriage begins. Knowing what you know now on how to create more harmony and peace and connection and conversation and alignment in the marriage. Not that you've had a bad marriage, but I'm just saying to just eliminate some of the frictions. What would you, what would those three pieces of advice be to your younger self before marriage?

It would be, the first thing would be to do your own work. To really do your own work, to excavate and dig up the things that have happened to you because they are 100% influencing the way that you love.

100%.

To really meditate on those things. It's not the other person's job to fix you.

100%.

It's not the other person's job to heal you. It's the other person's job, as we talked about earlier, to hold space so that you feel safe enough to do that work on your own. And it's really hard when only one person does the work, as I know you know.

Very hard.

We talked about. And when both people do the work, it's amazing. It's. Emily and I, we keep saying it's getting better and better. We never imagined that we'd have a marriage like this. with this much love and compassion and empathy and fun and joy and like safety. Because so many of us didn't get safety when we were kids. We don't know what safety really feels like. The world doesn't feel safe. So when you have that safety in a marriage. Oh my God.

Beautiful.

So doing your own work is number one.

Okay.

Two is loving the person the way that they want to be loved, not the way that you want to be loved. That requires empathy and sensitivity, requires listening and being observant and thinking about what that person needs versus what you need. That's not how we're raised. That's not what we see in the movies. That's not what most of us saw from our parents. The third thing that I would say to myself, enjoy it. Relationships, marriages, I believe when you do those first two things are meant to be enjoyed. Enjoy each other. Like find time for fun. We get lost, man. We get lost in this like desperation and need to be seen from the other person sometimes. But like, I think when we see ourselves, then it makes it much easier for the other person to see us. And then just have fun. And that's the next phase for Emily and I is we're really learning to like have fun. Because when you do as much work as we've done, when you have kids and there's businesses and all this stuff, you can forget. So it's making time. Enjoy it. It's making time to carve out fun. The other night we went out under the moon and moved our bodies and just sat there for a second and just marveled at how magical this universe is and how small we are. And just that. I had to read a script and give notes on something and it was in between things and she was like, she pulled me out of it and we just went and we just looked up and just sat there in silence. And silence can be so filling when there's like a container of love and safety. It just like, it just fills you up because you know that the person you're with has your back and you have theirs and you're together and connected in a way that like nobody will ever understand.

It's beautiful, man. Why do you think most relationships, you've been married again, you've been together for 10 years roughly, and you've been around a lot of people who've been in relationships, who've gotten married, who've gotten divorced, who've stayed married but suffer in the marriage, who've thrived in marriages. What do you think is the number one reason why people fail in relationships? What's holding them back?

The best advice my dad ever gave me. about marriage and relationships was that he told me that there were times in their marriage and they're still married and have an amazing marriage. There were times in their marriage, him and my mom, where he didn't wake up feeling like he was in love with her. He didn't wake up with the warm and fuzzies and he didn't know if it was gonna work. And now he didn't tell me this.

Until he was married.

This goes back to the vulnerability thing. What could that have done for me if I knew? Which is why I put it in the book. But he said that he had to wake up every day during certain periods and seasons of their marriage, 40 years now, and choose to love my mom. He had to choose it. And that really struck me. Because love is a verb. Love is an action. Love is a choice. And I think the number one mistake people make is that they choose to stop loving. I think that there are a lot of relationships that could make it, but one of the two makes a choice. And we've been sold this idea, this myth, this mirage of what love looks like. And I think we have to choose. Just like we choose discomfort, right? We have to, we choose these experiences. We choose to go to the gym. The gym's not fun, but I know I'm gonna benefit from going to the gym.

Mm-.

Right?

And love is very similar. You're gonna change. Two people, you're not gonna ever be the same person you were yesterday. And my wife is gonna have moments where like she is just on her own journey way over here, And it's not my job to follow her. It's my job to be on my journey with whatever that looks like. But every day, the thing that brings us together is that we're both choosing each other. And I think that we forget to choose. And I think we forget that love is a choice and love is a verb and love is an action.

Before the interview continues, if you feel like you're not living your most authentic life, not leaning into your purpose and not living the life that your future self would be extremely proud of, I've written a new book called the Greatness Mindset. And I think you're going to love this. Through powerful stories, science-backed strategies, and step-by-step guidance, the Greatness Mindset will help you overcome all the different challenges in your life to design the life of your dreams and then turn it into your reality. Make sure to click the link below in the description to get your copy today. Okay, let's get back to this video. Do you think love is enough?

No.

I don't think love is enough.

What else do you need to have a thriving relationship?

I think that love, there's a quote in the Baha'i writings, Abdul-Baha, and I'm going to butcher it, Abdul-Baha, says that love is the force that binds the planets and the stars. It's like the thing If scientists could have strong enough microscopes to keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going, they would just find love. It's already there. So they keep looking for the thing that's originating the thing and it's already there. You can't understand it, you can't touch it, it's love. But there are scientific principles in addition to love. that give the world order, right? That create the atoms and the molecules that move. And I think it's the same thing in relationships. Like, you can have love, but there's lots of different kinds of love. So you need to have the.

The.

Building blocks of a healthy relationship in addition to the love. And I think if you have those things, if anything, it allows the love to to grow and to thrive and to survive. 'Cause there's a lot of things out there that are drowning out love. I mean, look, I have great friends who were married and got divorced. They loved each other and they did certain things in their marriage that wasn't okay. Boundaries were crossed. But they found a way to love each other in a different way after they got divorced. That's still love. It's just a different kind of love. It's a love after boundaries were crossed and things that that shouldn't have happened, and that love has to change. So I think that the necessary ingredients are the three things we talked about, you know, doing the work, reciprocation, safety, honesty, communication. Like you need all of those things in order for a marriage and a relationship to really work. So no, love is not enough, and yet, And yet, love is all you need. If that makes any sense. It's both.

It's both.

It's not enough, but it is what can keep it together.

It's not enough, and yet it's everything.

Yeah.

And yet it's everything. I actually believe that the number one ingredient for a healthy marriage, and this is where, you know, I'm sure I'll lose a lot of, people who are on this journey with me, but I believe that it's putting God in the middle. I believe that there are so many forces that are trying to distract us and take our attention in this world. And in the Baha'i faith, when you get married, you put God in the middle. Because the idea is that you are two entities, but when you come together, There's this third entity that's formed, kind of like the sperm and an egg individually, right? They're just a sperm and an egg. But they have the capacity to be more. And it's when they come together, this new life is created. And it's very much the same thing with marriage. So I believe that it's like putting God in the middle. You're coming together with an intention of this marriage is going to be of service to humanity. It is our love for something greater than ourselves that brings us together. that it allows the marriage, the space to thrive and for that love to thrive.

I'm curious, I'm gonna ask you a question that may not make sense for you, but, 'cause you don't like to measure things.

It's not that I don't like to measure things, Louis. It's that what I'm trying to do is not compare myself to like the end all be all.

I hear you.

I hear you.

'Cause this is measuring you versus you.

That is, I do like to do that.

Okay, so what I'm gonna do right now. On a scale of 1 to 10. Let's call it the self-love peace scale. 10 for you being ultimate peace and self-love. You don't beat yourself up, you don't speak nasty to yourself, you don't get anxious, you're in peace and you have ultimate self-love out of 10. One being you're in constant chronic suffering.

Of.

How you talk to yourself and you don't feel self-love. Where are you currently on that self-love slash peace scale? In this moment.

Probably a 6.5.

6.5. What was the moment you were the lowest in your marriage and the moment you were the highest on that scale? Can you remember the lowest days, weeks, months, a year, and the highest point?

Yeah, I think Well, I think I'm at my highest point now.

6.5.

I mean, and I'm measuring 10 by, you know, I look at like the prophets of God, I look at, you know, the, I look at the.

The.

Folks who are, you know, I spent 10 years telling stories of people who are dying.

Mm-.

And being with them as they went to take their final breaths and telling, you know, and learning from them and And there's something that happens to somebody when they're at the end. And I've learned from the dying in a lot of ways. And their families and the decimation of the ego that happens when you have no place to go except to submit. and to accept and love yourself. So I look at that as like one day, hopefully, you know, I'm very old. I'm on my deathbed, and I'm, like, taking account of my life, and I've reached the point, and that's. I'm not there. I'm not. I have a long way to go in terms of healing still.

But what if you didn't have a long way to go? You're telling yourself you have a long way to go, but what if you. surrendered and allowed yourself to heal.

Yeah, and that's the... and be whole now. And if we could do that, if I could just snap my fingers and go, boom, I am whole and I'm ready and I'm healed, I would do it in a heartbeat. It's a daily practice for me. That's where meditation and prayer comes in. That's where a lot of this work comes in. It's where, you know, Even the love I'm getting from my children and the way they look at me and the world comes in.

It must be amazing.

The relationships and how I'm healing the relationships in my own family and getting closer to my parents now at 38 years old than I ever have been. That's where that comes in. But at the end of the day, it's a self-love thing. It's a recognizing that who I am is enough thing. So where I am at 6.5 today, which is why I'm like, I'm not a 10. I could say I was a nine, but I still know that I have a long way to go. I've been, oh man, I've been in the cycle of addiction, I've been in the cycle of self-loathing and just.

My.

Wife and I call it this inner critic that just constantly reminds me that like, Nobody's gonna care. I'm not enough. I've been, I know what it's like to be in that darkness and just to pretend to be something that I'm not.

You still have that inner critic now?

Yeah, but I'm learning what that inner critic really is. And I'm learning how to love that inner critic, which is really just little me.

Yes.

The little me that didn't get the love that he needed, wasn't seen the way that he needed to be seen, wasn't safe in the way that he needed to feel safe. And I'm learning how to have compassion for that little boy, because that's all it is. It's just learning how to love that part of ourselves, learning how to love the, as my old therapist, who's just now a friend, Brad Rudey would say, our horrible rotten selves. It's learning how to love that part of ourselves because we're not that. That's not who we are, but that's how we felt at some point in our lives. And that's what shows up. So when I look in the mirror and I see the parts of myself I don't like, which is what I did for my entire life, I would look in the mirror and I'd be.

Like, oh, my shoulders aren't big enough.

Or like, oh, my nose is too big and all this. And I would just find all the things that were wrong with me. That's just a boy that wanted so desperately to fit in and to be liked and to be seen and he thought that if I looked a certain way he would be or that the girls would like him or all of those things. Now I wake up in the morning and I write down the things I like about my body.

Oh, that's beautiful.

I literally write down the things I'm grateful for and never in my life have I ever said I'm grateful for my legs because I can stand up and carry my children up the stairs. where I can get on my knees and play with my kids. It was always like, oh, I want strong legs so I can run a 4:40. I want strong legs so that I can dunk or so that I can look good in a bathing suit or whatever it is. It was always about an outcome, which is why I'm trying to remove myself from so much outcome thinking. And so now it's like, that's what I'm working on. Oh, no, I'm a good looking man. I'm beautiful. I'm okay. I had a skin cancer scare, so I had a huge scar. I have a huge scar on my nose. I had basal cell carcinoma. It came out of the blue. I saw this dot and I had a weird feeling. And because I'm doing so much work in my body, I could feel that there was something wrong. I went to my dermatologist. He said it was nothing. Something wasn't sitting right. I could feel it. I was thinking about it at night. It disappeared. I went back. He obliged. He took a sample and it turned out to be basal cell carcinoma. So we had this huge chunk taken out of my nose. And I was so devastated for a second because I was like, But I'm an actor. I'm not going to be good looking anymore.

And this.

And I had to really walk myself back to the point where I'm like, oh, but this scar now is actually a sign of maturity. It's a sign of growth. It's a sign of listening to my body and healing. Self-love. I love myself enough to go in. And so now I look at it, I'm like, oh, oh, I'm grateful. And it's just, it's the spin. And that's what I'm working on. It's when the critic comes in, how.

Can I spin that? You know, it's interesting you talk about the critic and the spinning. I've learned over the last, I don't know, a handful of years to be the coach that I always wanted, the positive coach. In sports, I had some really, I would say, challenging, toxic, whatever you want to call it, coaches that led by fear and screaming and putting you down. No matter how perfect you were in every play, if you missed one, then it was like an attack. And that never worked for me. That always made me feel more anxious, more stressed.

I feel that with you talking about it, because I know the exact same thing.

It was not fun. It made me feel like, no matter how good I am on this field or court, no matter how perfect I am, it's never gonna be enough if I mess up once because I'm gonna get screamed at. But then I had coaches that were so loving and gave me the encouragement and gave me the words and also allowed me to make mistakes and didn't punish me or things like that and allowed me to learn on my own but also guide me that I still think about today. I called one of them this morning actually. called a coach of mine from 25 years ago, called him. And there was just a great leader, right? Not perfect, you know, he's flawed too, but overall beautiful coaching in a positive way, not criticism, but coaching in a positive way. Thinking about that spin, I was telling you right before this that I went to a seven-day meditation retreat with Joe Dispenza, and you asked me, did I have any kind of like out-of-body mystical experiences? And I said no. And I take it back halfway because I didn't go out of my body, but I had an experience that just came up for me. Cause for most of my childhood, I was putting myself down, right? I was a critic in my mind and my heart, putting myself down, I'm not enough, you know, whatever I create is not good enough, all that stuff. I'm stupid, I'm not smart enough, I'm not talented enough, whatever it was, constantly. And I've been doing a lot of the healing over the last few years as well about letting that go and rewriting the story from the memories of the past.

Yeah.

And something beautiful happened on one of the last days of this retreat where my father passed away earlier this year. And I had a visualization during this process, one of these five hour meditations. And there were some beautiful moments from my childhood with him, and there was also some scary moments, right? But I had this process where in my mind, I went back to all the memories of my mind from as early as I can remember with my father, of like playing catch in the backyard and him taking me to the ball games and him, you know, tucking me in every night and saying he loved me. All these different things he did and just going through every age that I can remember up until, you know, my last memory with him of him being there for me. It was just a beautiful experience. And I just embraced, okay, here are all the blessings and all the good things that happened from my childhood until now. And then something crazy happened. For whatever reason in this meditation, I went back and did it over again with me standing here now, going back to visiting my younger self. I get it kind of chills thinking about it because I went there and the whole time, I always had this critic inside of me, but there was always someone in a voice that was like, keep going. I remember going to school and getting in trouble in elementary school and going to the principal's office and saying over and over again, I wish I were dead. I wish I were dead. I would say it over and over again. I wish I were dead. I don't know why I'm here. when I always felt like something was wrong with me. So I had this inner critic, but then there was like this voice. It was kind of like this voice that was like, just make it another day. Just treat it. You're gonna figure it out. And for whatever reason, I went back as myself now.

Yeah.

And I was there and it was like, I saw all the moments where I felt like I was alone and afraid and scared. I'm getting it too. And from five years old from my first memories of sexual abuse until now. And I just flashed through all these moments with me running next to my younger self. Like when I would train alone because no one would hang out with me. I was just like throwing a ball against the wall for hours or running in the backyard alone. I was there with me. The adult version of me now is there with me as a child now. And I had this experience where I was just like, you know, lifting him up and putting my arm around him and hugging him and saying, you got this, keep going. And I was like, huh, I wonder if that was that voice. It was my future self telling me to keep going because you never know where you're going to create, what you're going to go, what you're going to do in this life. It was this beautiful experience of my father and then my son.

So, when I asked you, you had a crazy experience.

That was it.

Yeah, yeah.

But it wasn't like... You said no, but I didn't have this like... That is it.

That was it. No, it was powerful. But it wasn't like Martha had where she like left her body and like.

Transcended space and time. You did leave your body.

And you did transcend space and time. It was crazy, man.

No, but it was a beautiful healing journey.

That is healing. It's huge.

That's what it is.

So, I don't believe that there's space and time. It's a construct of this world. Our souls are not bound by that. It's infinite. In the Baha'i writings, we're told that to understand death, we have to look at birth.

Right?

Number one, for every spiritual law, there's a physical counterpart. But to understand how we could have an existence outside of our bodies after this life, God gave us the sleep state.

To experience it. The field.

Every single night. Our body, our temperature drops, our breathing changes. We get as close to death as we do, like over the course of our lives, every single night, and then we travel, we dream, right? And there's a lot of this kind of stuff happening. My wife had a very similar experience where she was with herself the moment her dad died. And I believe with all my heart that we can go back, we can time travel through meditation, through prayer, and be there and heal the traumas and the parts of ourselves that need healing. And if you remember the voice, why couldn't that have been you?

It could have been me.

And that's like a whole, I mean.

We just want to do a whole other. But like, this is where, this is like, this is where we're going. And it's a really exciting time to be alive because this is.

It's very exciting. And, you know, as a storyteller, as a writer, as a director, you tell stories, right? And we, our whole memory is stories. And a lot of times, the memories, we tell the story 10 times bigger than it actually was. And sometimes we think 20 years ago something happened that didn't happen.

Oh, yeah.

But we've embellished the story to be bigger or more painful than it was sometimes.

Or because it was big in your body.

At the time. And now we explain it with different terms and different things and we make it even grander, right? and what if we could go back and tell that story in a different way and find meaning from the story in a different way? It doesn't mean that we want that thing. It doesn't mean we want it to happen again to us or to others or that it was okay or these events were fun to experience. But what if we could go back and tell those stories in a different way, all those moments of trauma or pain or wounds and rewrite those stories now and tell them in a different way where we don't get a trigger response where we don't feel like, You know, this happened to me. Just so we can have more peace and harmony now. As opposed to living in the past.

We can, and I think we 1,000% can. I've experienced that completely, but I think that also we have to be patient in those moments. Because I don't think that it... I think that different experiences have different wounds.

Yep.

And healing is a deeply uncomfortable, nobody talks about like the painful parts.

Painful, man.

And we need to normalize that. We need to normalize that like, oh, okay, well we know that there's gonna be pain in the gym. No pain, no gain.

Right?

Well, it's the same thing with healing. In some ways it's the same thing in relationships. and as men were taught, oh, let's go into the pain in all these areas, but we kind of disregard it in these areas. Like we have enough pain in these areas, but like, no, I don't want to have, I don't want to deal with discomfort in my marriage. I don't want to deal with discomfort. I'm fine. I mean, for a lot of men, this conversation is already too much because, well, we're not allowed to be broken. We're not allowed to have traumas or pains or things that need to be healing. We don't even go to therapy. There was like a number of men, it was like a crazy, what was it? 68% of men don't go to the doctor even though they know something is wrong. I think this was a health line statistic. So we have to even get to the place where we understand that like there are things that need to be healed and make that mainstream.

Physically, as well as emotionally. Emotionally and physically.

Like there is a whole conversation that needs to happen where we invite men in and say it is okay that that happened to you and that you have pain there. It's okay that you have anxiety. It's okay that you are sad. Because the only acceptable thing that as men were allowed to feel is anger. That is a socially acceptable feeling. But what's underneath the anger? All of that stuff. Okay, so let's just say that every person, every man in the world then understands that okay, I didn't have a perfect life. I'm still good. There's some stuff I gotta heal. I have some underlying anger issues. I have this, I have this, whatever it is. It's not just gonna happen like that. I mean, you've been doing, you've been on this journey for years.

10 years. It took me 25 years until I started opening up about the sexual trauma. And then it's been a 10 year journey.

Yes.

That's unlocked new healing. And then we did a seven day retreat. I keep doing that. In that seven day retreat. somewhere probably day four or five, you had this amazing experience where you were able to go back and rewrite your history. That didn't happen like that.

Right, it's a consistent process.

It's a daily practice, which is why I said I'm at a 6.5. Because I don't know yet all of the things that are coming up and that I'm uncovering. I've been really surprised. And then there's things where I've absolutely done that and I've healed. And then there's things that, I'm not quite there yet, that I still have a little bit of a trigger with.

What's the thing that you feel like if you could let go of surrender or release would take you to a whole another level, spiritually, emotionally, physically?

For me, between the ages of 10 and 13, and the discovery of porn, the situations that I was put in with specifically another boy that I write about in the book. And then what then porn did to me and what it gave me and how I was so mesmerized by these images and by these things while feeling so terrible about myself.

Shame and yeah.

Shame and like, you know, hadn't hit puberty yet and these other boys had and I was being put in these situations. So there's a lot of, as I've gone into my work, there's this 10 to 13 period of my life.

It's so funny you're saying that, yeah.

Where I am currently on the journey of loving that boy and reminding him that he's exactly where he needs to be, that his body is where and then it's exactly where it needs to be. Because, you know, look, our, our, that root chakra is our life force. That's our creativity. That's not just about sex and like relationships. It's about it's everything. And when we have wounds there, it affect a lot of other areas. So that 10 to 13 area. And then there's also, there's also a period of around 16 that I'm going in and really, really looking at. And, you know, there's parts of myself that I'm healing that have to do with how I treated other people.

Sure. How you react to situations.

Oh, no, even like being in relationship with other girls, you know, and 17, 18 years old and feeling like I had no power anywhere in my life and finding ways to feel powerful with women. and with girls and taking advantage and hooking up with girls that I didn't like and care about and going in and reconciling and forgiving myself for not being the best guy in my teens and 20s and understanding that, oh wow, I was doing those things because I felt like I wasn't enough. I felt like I didn't have power. I felt like nobody cared about me and that made me feel good. That made me feel powerful. So going in and even Taking account and forgiving myself for the things that I've done is also a part of it. Not just the things that happened to me. I think it's all of it. So yeah, but I could just list a hundred things. I could go and list all the things that I'm working on. But that 10 to 13 and 16 age range, I'm definitely going into right now.

It's interesting you're saying that. I'm going to show you afterwards on my phone, on my screen saver on my phone is a photo of me when I was 11. yeah.

Inner child work.

Yeah.

Well, I started at five.

Yeah.

And from five to, you know, 10, and now I'm on 11 to 13 as well. Because I. I feel like that was a massive breakthrough in my life from probably 11 to 12 and a half. There wasn't, you know, again, and our memory does tricks on us, but I remember always feeling like I needed to steal something out of a store, like a candy.

Right.

I wasn't stealing, like, a bank or something, but, like. a pack of gum or a candy bar or something, right?

Yeah.

It kind of gave me that power. Like I'm doing something. I knew it was wrong, but I felt like, okay, there's somewhere I can control something, right?

Or attention.

Who knows?

Yeah.

To brag about it, all these things.

All these things that, you know, I was doing.

And.

And in my, you know, kind of therapy coaching, that's the stage that I've been working on the last, you know, three, four months is like. forgiving that, that version of myself, healing that. It's one of the reasons why anytime I go out to, to eat, I feel like I need to pay for everyone.

Oh, yeah.

And pay. Like, I can't. It's hard for me to let anyone pay for a meal. It's like, I always want to pay and I always over tip, and I'm like, I just want to pay back.

Yeah.

Me stealing candy bars when I was 10 or 11.

Right.

And, and I got in trouble one day. I I stole twenty dollars from one of my dad's clients at his his house, my dad's client's house. He took me to, like, a client trip, and the guy caught me stealing it. And it was probably the most shame I've ever felt, stealing twenty dollars from.

Like, a dad's friend.

Friend of your dad, too. And it was. It was a breaking. It was a. It was a point where I was like, okay, am I gonna go down and go worse or, like, never do this again? And I was like, I never want to feel this again. I'm never stealing anything. And if I think I've stolen something accidentally, I'm like, how do I pay like 10 times more? So in a way, like learning that, you know, and feeling that much pain at that time and shame and embarrassment on my dad and like what I could have done to his business or whatever, made me say, okay, this is not the path. And when I hit 13, like everything started to shift. So those years were really, you know, meaningful for me too.

I mean, that's what this book is about. I mean, middle grade boys, like we don't have Who do we talk to? Who do we have in our lives at 11, 12, 13, 14 when we're going through these things? I mean, most kids don't feel safe enough to talk to their parents. We don't feel safe enough to talk to advisors or teachers. Most people don't have older brothers to talk to, and if they are, they're.

Not telling them the right things.

So who do we have? And so that's why I wrote Boys Will Be Human, because I didn't have that person at 11 or 12, just like you didn't. And what if we had, what if somebody would have told me that all of the things, you know, all of the things that are gonna happen to me, all the things that nobody talks about, you know, doesn't, nobody prepares us for what life's gonna be like.

Yeah, there's a lot of moms that listen to this show and that play, the reason why we bleep out all swearing words is because moms emailed me early on and saying, can you make sure there's no swear words, 'cause I play the show for my kids. to listen to these conversations in the car to school and other places. So I know there's a lot of moms that listen. What do you wish every mom knew about raising a young boy into a healthy conscious man?

First of all, I want every mom to know that they are amazing. I think mothers, mothers, I know that I'm sure there's a lot of people that say, Mothers get all the credit. I think mothers don't get enough. Mothers are so important. I believe that we learn empathy and compassion and sensitivity and kindness, all of these like quote unquote feminine attributes, which are really not gender specific. We learn them from our mothers normally. I want mothers to know that they don't have to turn their boys into hard men. A lot of moms are like, I don't know how to raise my boy. He doesn't listen to me. I don't know what's happening to him at school. He just shuts down. And I just want them to know that it's really hard to be a boy. There's no section at the bookstore for boys. There's no material for young boys because we just say boys will be boys. We can't change them. There's nothing we can do. They're just going to become who they are. And I just disagree with that completely. I want moms to know that your boy is sensitive and sweet and empathetic. He has all those things, but the world's telling him he's not allowed to be. So the more that a mom can create a safe container, a safe space for that boy to feel all the things he needs to feel without trying to fix him, the more I think that that boy will be willing and able to share the things that are happening in his life with her. Because it's really hard to be a mom of a boy. You don't have the life experience of what it's like to go through what we've experienced. It's also really hard, by the way, to grow up and be a girl. It's just hard to be a human being. Let's just be real. But men and boys don't have a sense of community where we can share about the vulnerable things that happen to us. And so we feel like we're alone. We feel like we are the only person that's happening to. I'm the only person that gets an erection in third period when I'm in eighth grade.

Nobody else does.

And so I'm ashamed that I'm embarrassed. I wasn't even thinking about a chick. It just happened. Nobody else gets erections except me. And then you feel shame. You name it. We just go through it. And so I want moms to know also I want them if the boy does have a father or if the mother is married to a man, I really think it's important for men to read this book. Not just moms. It's written in a way where it's like an amazing companion piece for men and their kids and for mothers and their kids to read together because it creates uncomfortable conversation. And it asks you, it prompts you through my stories of really embarrassing things that have happened to me to maybe share things that have happened to you. And those, that is where trust is built. The sharing of vulnerability, putting that in the table, saying, Hey, son, I remember this thing happened to me and then suddenly the kid's looking at his dad in a whole new way.

Wait, you're like me?

You're not this impermeable superhero that doesn't have feelings? You know what that's like and then you're closer. I mean, relationships are like that. Marriage is like that. That's why leading with vulnerability is so important. And it's also important, equally as important, to not punish those who display vulnerability. especially if you are a man in a relationship with a woman, to be really mindful if you are vulnerable, maybe that woman's not used to it. Maybe that's a new thing. Maybe it triggers something in her. But don't just not do it again if she punishes you for it. And for women to be really mindful to not punish their men for being vulnerable. And mothers, when a boy comes to them and says, Hey, Mom, I'm really scared or this happened to me to not just brush it off because you want to create a strong man. I don't believe that strength and sensitivity are mutually exclusive. I think that real strong men are sensitive.

I love it, man. Boys will be human. A get real gut check guide to becoming the strongest, kindest, bravest person you can be. I want people to get this for, it's really for parents to read to learn more about kids. Is that really, or is it for boys to read also?

It's really written for boys. But we have a hard for boys.

I've never read anything.

What boy, what 12-year-old boy is going to the bookstore to pick up books? However, I keep hearing from the people that have bought it that the boys are gravitating towards the book.

That's great.

They're picking it up and I'm getting messages from moms and the book's been out for five days saying, I've never seen my boy read anything. And he's just, and he's wanting to read it because I think we're starved for someone to talk to. we want to be seen. We want our experience to be validated and we want guidance. And I don't give, I'm not an expert. I just share what happened to me and what I've learned.

Well, you've got expertise in your experience.

You've got expertise in my experience. That's great.

Pick up the book. You can go to anywhere on Amazon or manenough.com or social media for you, Justin Baldoni everywhere. What's the main place you hang out? Is it Instagram? Tick Tock now. I see you on Tick Tock a lot. Well, see you creating some cool content over there.

Yeah, honestly, I just am, I'm trying to detach from all of it.

I know, man.

But, but I guess, but yeah, Instagram and, and Tick Tocker are the things that I'm doing now. Thank God I have help.

I hear you, man. Yeah, I hear you, man.

Trying to get off that screen as much as I can.

What, if you could share one thing with every boy, in the world, hypothetical scenario. And this is the only thing you can share with young boys. What is that message that you would want to say to them?

You're enough. Nobody can take your masculinity away from you. No boy can take that from you. No girl can take that from you. You can't be emasculated. who you are as you are is enough. You don't have to prove your enoughness to anybody. You're good, you're beautiful, you're sensitive, you're.

Kind.

You'Re human, you're enough.

Sounds like something you needed to hear too, Nathan.

I wrote this for me.

Right.

This work is for me.

A 12-year-old version of you.

10, 12, 15, 38.

Yeah, exactly.

It's the same thing I tell myself every day.

That's beautiful, man. I love it.

Make sure you guys pick this up. Again, Boys Will Be Human. Check it out. Grab a copy for your friends as well. I think you'll find a lot of value from this. So make sure you guys check it out. Very honest, real book. Justin, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for your constant growth, your constant development, and you being willing to share and reveal these things. on your own show, Man Enough, but also here in other places. It's really beautiful to see your journey and how you keep evolving. And I think it's something that I hope we all do, myself included, continue to evolve and grow and develop as human beings. I think the more darkness we experience, that's when we can develop the best. A photograph, if taken out of the darkness too soon, doesn't look good.

Doesn't fully develop.

So we've got to learn that our pain and our challenges are here for a reason to give us wisdom. and to blossom into something beautiful. I'm sure there's some quote in your Baha'i faith that says better than that, but I think that's part of why we go through challenges, is to find the meaning and the wisdom later in life to be of service in a greater way. So I really appreciate you showing up in being of service to young boys, to men, to moms, to help their boys grow, develop, and heal from their challenges as well. It's really beautiful, man. I really appreciate it.

Let me give you that quote. Ready?

Give it to me.

Calamity is my providence. Outwardly, it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly, it is light and mercy.

I love it.

Beautiful, man.

Beautiful.

It's beautiful. Final question. I asked you this before, but I'm curious if it's changed. And so if people want to hear your previous three truths, We'll link it up in the descriptions so you can go back and listen to that episode and those three truths. But again, another hypothetical question. If it's your final day on earth many years away, you get to accomplish everything, you see your family grow into however they're supposed to be, and you live a life at a, you know, you get to a 10 on the scale, all these things happen for you.

The 10 on the healing scale.

Yes, exactly. But for whatever reason, it's your last day, we don't have access to your books and your work and your content anymore for whatever reason in this hypothetical scenario, what would be those three lessons you would share with the world, those three truths that you would share if you can time travel right now into your future and share that?

Oof. I felt that question. Meditate on your mortality.

We.

All know we're gonna go somewhere. We have a one-way ticket. And we can choose to pack for that trip or not. And I think we need to meditate on that and not delay, delay, delay.

Delay.

I want to be prepared, so I'm going to develop all of the attributes, because I know that's what I'm going to need where I'm going next. Number two, a lot of people say, like, treat others the way you want to be treated. This is just coming to me now. Who knows if I'm going to feel this way in five years or six years, but what's coming to me now as a second truth is, treat yourself the way you want others to treat you. And as somebody who has been really.

Mean to myself, for the first six.

Seven years of marriage, my wife would say, Be kind to my husband. She'd hear me talk about myself and she'd say, Be kind to my husband. And it got me. I think As much as we want to be nice people and good people in the world, I think we have to be kind and good to ourselves. Otherwise, it's performative and it's not real. And the third, Abdul-Baha in the Baha'i Writings says, if a man has ten good qualities and one bad one, to look at the 10 and forget the one. And if a man has one good quality and 10 bad ones, to look at the one and forget the 10. And I believe we have to start to see the good qualities in people. I think we're living in a time and in a culture where the one bad quality that people have defines them. We heap onto that. oh, but they did this thing so they can't be a good person, or they did that, or that happened. And I think we are disregarding that we are all beautiful and also broken and in need of love. And many of us haven't learned to love ourselves or haven't had the love that we need to grow like we talked about in those relationships. And I think that we need to start focusing on the good in people, because when you see the good attributes in people, you see God. And if we see God, then life is complete.

Those are beautiful. I think they're different than the last time.

I'm sure they are. I can't ever say the same thing twice anyways.

Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

Humility. Humility.

Oh man, appreciate it. If you enjoyed that interview, then I know you'll love what we have coming up right now.

I think I first heard about you when you were doing the Skid Row event, which you do a carnival every year for homeless on Skid Row, and I think you had a thousand volunteers show up for more than 2,000 homeless people. And what do you do with that?

What is that?

Yeah, this year we actually had 2,000 volunteers show up.

2,000 volunteers.

Yeah, Skid Row Carnival, by the way, I love that that's how we're starting this conversation.

Sure.

Because that is one of my favorite things to talk about.

Hey.

So yeah, I had a crazy idea three years ago to throw a carnival for those who are experiencing homelessness.

Like a festival.

Yeah, it's like a celebration. A carnival, if you think about what a carnival really is, it's like it's a traveling event that comes through oftentimes towns that are that are not doing that well, where there's not a whole lot of activity happening, where the people kind of need inspiration, and they come.

To pick me up.

It's a pick-me-up. And they come through and the whole idea of the carnival is to bring joy for a day or a week or however long. And Skid Row doesn't have anything like that, man. We have 57,000 homeless people in LA.

Really?

And I think only 5 to 10% are on Skid Row. But it all started nine, about nine years ago, I started going down to Skid Row to celebrate my birthday. Because I didn't have a lot of friends. I've never been like a birthday guy. I don't drink, so I was never, let's go to a club and let's go come celebrate me. It always felt weird to invite people to come out to celebrate me. And that's my own thing. I got my own baggage around that.

Sure.

It's probably, it has to do with being young and not having friends. So nobody would come to my birthdays anyways.

Yeah, yeah.

So as I got older, felt weird about having them. So I decided to go down and have my birthday on Skid Row. So I'd invite friends and we'd make little bags of food. We started with six or seven people and we'd pass them out and the goal was always, we're not going to put a dent in the homeless epidemic or stop people from being hungry, but if we could go down and connect with 20 or 30 people and let them be seen, then like that was a day well spent. And it comes, you know, I grew up in the Bahá'í Faith and in the Bahá'í Faith we're told that our work has to be our service and that the whole purpose of life is really being of service to humanity. And this was my way of being of service on a day that was normally about me. Flash forward seven years, more and more friends started coming. I kind of got my feet.

You started getting friends.

I started making real friends, you know.

And they're like, Hey, what are you doing here?

You know, and it grew from 20 to 30 to 40. to 60 people. And then when Jane the Virgin hit and I fell back into acting, this kind of idea of mini celebrity started to happen and suddenly, and you know how it works, suddenly you do something that the industry thinks is kind of cool and then you would get more friends, right? Or there's more people that want to be a part of it. And so for me the question was, well how do I take that illusion of popularity and turn it into something that's good? And one day I was driving and I just was like, let's throw a carnival. And that was all it was.

It was an idea.

It was an idea and I just called everyone and said, we're throwing a carnival. So basically what it was the first year was it was about 75 of us coming together and it's all about one-on-one connection. So people would line up, so our friends who are experiencing homelessness would line up outside of this parking lot and all of us would line up and we'd have food and we'd have carnival games and we'd have clothing sections and we'd have toiletry sections and book sections and feet washing and these things the first year. But it was really about taking and creating an experience for one person. And it was both for the person who's experiencing homelessness and also for our volunteers.

Who were giving and people were giving.

Because it works both ways. And you know that as a teacher, you learn more than the student. And there is no teacher in this situation. The whole idea was let's come together and for four hours, let's not be able to tell who's homeless and who's not, who's sick and who's healthy, who's black and who's white. Can we all just be one human race for three or four hours? And that's exactly what it turned into. We had a dance party. Everybody was doing the Macarena and the electric slide, and everybody's dancing. And we realized after that first year that there's something really here. Flash forward to this last year in January, we had 2,000 volunteers show up. Before the carnival started, the local police told us we were already over capacity. So we had to ask 500 volunteers to leave.

Holy cow.

Because it makes no sense to have a carnival for those experiencing homelessness if they can't get in.

Yeah.

But what we found was that the capacity for young people in this city that want to be of service is massive. They just haven't had an outlet before. So The Trojan, the carnival is really a Trojan horse of sorts. We want to bring in and make volunteering sexy and cool, but really it's a way to say, do not forget about these souls that are in your backyard that every single night don't know where they're going to sleep or have to sleep next to the rats or have to drink themselves to sleep because they're sleeping on the pavement. Do not forget about these kids that live in these housing units where there's, you know, next to, next to cocaine addicts and, you know, and prostitutes and pimps like there is a whole population of people down there that are forgotten. And this is a day that brings us all back together so that we remember. And we had medical professionals, we had legal services, we had the DMV handing out ID cards, we had Starbucks teaching people how to do interviews so that we could get people off the street and do jobs. And we served 4,000 people that day. And really it's about teaching them and empowering them through the gift of vision and sight to to, you know, hopefully get off the street one day. So it was pretty cool. And amazing. And we're going to be launching a winter version of the carnival.

Really?

Yeah.

So we're going to do a winter. We're going to do a winter wonderland. We're going to. I had another crazy dream is I want to bring real snow to Skid Row.

Shut up.

And I want to let kids experience real snow, and I want to have a Santa that looks like them because I think that's really important. And this year, the volunteers will be elves.

Wow.

And I want all the kids to have presents. You know, because they don't get to experience like these days that we all take for granted.

Sure.

So that's something we're working on.

Are there a lot of kids down there?

There's an insane amount of kids.

Really?

It's unbelievable how many kids there are. Yeah, there's a lot. And there's kids that sleep in tents, man. You know, I met a father the other day who was in Beverly Hills singing, trying to make money that he takes back. to his two young boys that sleep in a tent with him. No way. Because he couldn't get into a shelter because a lot of the shelters are for women and children. And you can't let it a man because unfortunately there's been a lot of issues around that. So him and his two kids were sleeping on the street and he was just trying to get off. He recently got off. We checked back in with him. But yeah, there's a lot of kids.

That's cool, man. There's not many people who are once they get an audience who are giving back in a big way.

So I think it's really cool.

What's the point of an audience? It's true.

I was just for yourself.

Just for yourself.

What is the point of having all of these people that are looking at you and looking to see what you're going to do next if you're not going to do something good? What the hell's the point?

I agree.

I mean, and you get it. But in general, I just like, I look at these people that have millions and millions of followers. And again, I'm not judging, but I'm just like, oh, the potential. The potential that exists to make an impact, to make an impact, because our world is hurting.

Mm- so badly.

Yeah.

Anyways. Well, that's what I love about your, your account and your page. I was looking, we were looking at this earlier.

If you guys follow the Instagram. Yes.

Follow Justin Baldoni on Instagram and you'll see he's got 90% of the people that are, are following him are women.

Which blew me away.

We were just, we were just laughing about it.

Yeah.

But the cool thing is every post has a meaning to kind of be thought, provoke. Women, namely not everyone, but lots of them I'm looking at right here have a meaning. to get people to think differently and have a different conversation about their relationships, about their parenting, about their health, about their body image, about their spirituality, about their mission, their work, their service. And I think that's what I love about you and what you're up to in the world is that everything you do is meaningful. And again, obviously there's some fun posts on there or whatever, but it seems like there's always a question, there's always something that's like, okay, are you thinking about your life's sweat?

Yeah, it's intentional.

Yeah.

I think it's really cool because you have a platform that's, yes, you're trying to make money and thrive and achieve things and you're an actor on shows and director and all these other things, but you're also trying to create a platform that gives back, which I think is really powerful and a great example. Why do you think 90% of your following is women? Besides the fact that you're extremely attractive.

I think How come men don't like you? Yeah, it's been something I've been asking myself. That's weird. Since I was a kid. I've really asked myself that since I was a kid.

Do you not like me, Louis?

I did like you. Okay, good. Yes.

So we're good.

Yeah.

So good about that.

But I'm, you're really manly.

I'm curious though, why don't men follow you? It's really interesting. Look, I think my Instagram grew on accident. It was not an, that was not intentional. I didn't really know. I'm not really savvy when it comes to social media. Yeah, I post far less than I'm told by people that are looking at my socials, like, you're doing this all wrong. You need to be doing this way more and this and this and this. And it's never been that, it's never been that thoughtful in that way. It hasn't been manipulative in that way. It's been intentional in what I say. But I haven't really, did it grow from the show? So I think it's a combination of it grew from the show. which again, that's a big reason why it's a lot of women because Jane the Virgin is really aimed at women. It's a feminist show.

Got it.

So it's aimed at women. It also started growing when I started to be intentional about the messages to my wife and my daughter. And I think that men follow really manly men. Men follow men, I think they want to be more like they follow men that like, you know, have their shirts off and are super ripped and they're like, here's my diet and, you know.

Here's how much money I make.

Get 25% off this product and like, I'll hook you up. They follow super hot chicks that wear nothing. They follow, you know, then they follow like the guys that drive, you know, fly around the country in their private planes and like have like, you know, they're on yachts with like chicks that are wearing nothing and they're like, this is the life, you know? And I think that there's a part of men that want to live that way. And my social media is a little bit different.

It's like you with your daughter.

It's me like, yeah, with your wife. What's up? This is me and my daughter before daycare. But I don't know. So when I proposed to my wife six years ago now, it was like an epic proposal. They called it that. And then other people called it the worst thing ever. But it was a gift from me to my wife that we eventually put on YouTube reluctantly. We actually put it on YouTube after we were married. A lot of people proposed to their partners and then before they're, they just, this is, it's done. They said yes, it's on YouTube.

Let's go on Ellen.

Right.

It's kind of like this thing that's, it's like a goal, right?

It's like, if I can have the.

Best proposal ever, most epic, most epic choreography and crazy stuff, then maybe I'll become famous and it'll be great.

And we did not want that.

And so we, in fact, even though you guys are both actors, well, and that was the thing is, and it was interesting because It was kind of before social media was massive and I didn't want to be the proposal guy. I wanted to be known for my work and I was really directing. I wasn't even acting then. I was only directing. I'm gonna get back to the man question. So after the proposal went viral, men started coming up to me and thanking me. But it was a quiet thank you. It was like, hey man, I cried last night. I'm like, you know, that was awesome. Fist bump me. They were almost embarrassed to tell me. And generally men come up to me and they're like, Yo, my girlfriend showed me your stuff. Or there's this barrier between them being okay being vulnerable with me because it's not the norm. So it always has to do with their girlfriends or their wives or their daughters. and I find that really interesting. So I think that men are a little hesitant to follow because you can see who you follow. Like I can look and see who you're following and I think that men want to like be more manly and here I am not, you know, look, I was an athlete. I was a great athlete. You know, I'm in decent shape. Like for all intents and purposes, I fit a stereotype of what a man would look like. But I don't talk about the things that normal men talk about. I think that men are a little sensitive around that because we're so afraid of like, God forbid someone thinks less of us or someone thinks this or my men, my, my boys think that I'm weak or whatever that is. So, yeah, so that's a long answer.

Sure. When did you start? How come you don't have the conversations or how come you have different conversations and share these other things? These vulnerable or more real or just authentic things that are happening in your life? How come you share those things? And when did you start putting that out there as opposed to, this is me with my shirt off and rolling backstage or, you know, in my trailer.

So funny, too, man. We talk about this because I, I could probably double my audience if I did that. And that's something that when you're, you know, when you're on our side of the business, I mean, look, followers equal Revenue.

Yeah.

To a certain extent.

That's a job.

At the end of the day, yet we are in a business, so, so it's a, it's a moral choice for me to do it this way. I think that I'm a seeker of truth. Truth is everything to me. Honesty is everything to me. Integrity is everything to me. And I think I grew up feeling like I was living in a world where nobody was being truthful. And even early conversations with my parents, I had the best family. My mom and dad are the best. But even they struggled with having real uncomfortable authentic conversations. And I was a very young kid growing up, and I was always wanting to like burst through that glass facade, whether it was friendships or whether it was family or whether it was anything. And at one point, I think in my 20s, it was like that feeling, you know, it's like when the Hulk kind of like becomes like this, like he rips off his clothes. That's how I felt about the world. And I was like, why aren't we not communicating? why are we not saying what we really believe in? Why am I not telling you how I actually feel?

Why?

And I couldn't figure out an answer. So I just kind of went on my own journey to, I'm just seeking truth in everything that I do. Like, I, you know, in my faith, Bahá'u'lláh, who's the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, he says to ornament our souls with honesty, right? Like a Christmas tree ornament. Like, and that the foundation The foundation of all spiritual virtues is truthfulness, but yet that's the thing that we lack the most, right? And you can't build anything on something with a weak foundation. You can't build anything, but yet we enter into relationships and transactional relationships of all kinds off of a misrepresentation of truth. So like you enter a relationship from the start, if you're not honest, that's not gonna work. You enter a friendship, if you're not honest, that's not gonna work. And honesty has so many varying degrees when I think about honesty for me, it's just I want to be honest in every situation because we're only here for a short amount of time. We're not here for that long. So what's the point of not being honest? If I have a feeling, why would I not talk about that feeling when the time is right? Of course, there's always a time and a place. It's not just let me just be honest all the time about everything. You know, and I've been exploring this with my daughter who has no filter. She's two. She's turning two on Tuesday. She has no filter. So when she feels something, she must cry. She must yell. She must throw a tantrum on the floor. Because she doesn't have that, she doesn't have years of learning how to repress those things. But she also gets over things instantly.

It happens and then she moves on.

She cries, she yells, she screams, she throws a tantrum in the middle of Whole Foods. And 30 seconds later, she's the happiest child in the world.

She felt it, she experienced it. she released it.

I think we just need to find a balance as grown men, as grown women, as adults, of how do we take these things in that we feel and then when the time is right allow ourselves to experience them, to talk to each other, to talk to men about things that we're experiencing, and to just be a seeker of truth in general. And I do think that Gen Z, millennials to a certain extent, that's why so much of the media landscape is changing because we are seeking truth. We're tired of all the crap we see in the media telling us we need to be this way or look this way or feel this way. We want authenticity. The problem is that now millennials and Gen Z are in charge of the media. So now what we're going to start having and what we're experiencing is the illusion of authenticity.

Which is fake.

Which is real.

It's filtered, right? So you have like, oh, that's real. Oh, yeah, I love that commercial. That's real. But it's a commercial.

Or you see some of the most followed people on Instagram, it's all photoshopped.

Or it's... Oh, they don't get me started on that. Filtered in other ways. It's right. Physical ways. I just found out that they had apps that retouched your Instagram photos. I was like, no.

Excuse me? Yeah.

Yeah, that's a real thing, evidently. Or they just go to the doctor and retouch everything. That's another thing. But that comes down to body image and security. And again, I don't judge any of that. Sure, sure. But I just think that there's a, for me, it's just that I just believe in truth and openness and vulnerability because we're all humans having the same experience. So why aren't we sharing it?

Right?

We spent too long dividing ourselves based on what you're feeling or this, or this is an other and this person's black and this person's white, which again, these are real things, right? But why aren't we sharing our experiences as those people so that we can then start to build compassion and empathy and relate to each other?

Mm-. Wow, man. I love it.

Sorry, I'm not supposed to talk this much.

You are.

This is your show, man.

This is your show.

This is your show.

No, this is your show.

You're the expert.

Let's talk about you.

Let's talk about, you know, I wasn't going to dive into this this quickly, but I think we're on the topic of manhood and masculinity. Where do you feel like is your biggest challenge to step in the man you've always wanted to be? Is there something you're challenged with right now that you feel like You still get to overcome or embrace to help you become a better version of the man you want to be?

Yeah.

I don't think there's one thing. I think there's an endless number of things that I'm challenged with.

What's the biggest?

You know, I think one of the biggest challenges for me is the control of my ego.

It's hard, man.

Got all these followers, all these likes, all these opportunities, TV shows, billboard. Once you open a billboard recently, I.

Think I saw or something.

Thank God I didn't see it if I was.

I think you're up on Sunset, a big billboard to you. Just, yeah, I don't think just, yeah.

It must have, that must have not been real.

It was real ever. I think it was you with the.

Well, Jay the Virgin.

It was probably, yeah, one of seven people. Yeah, I was at three, maybe, but yeah. But I think that, I think part of our journey as human beings is the balance between our lower and higher nature and learning how to control it. So you obviously have spirituality, religion, divinity, things that are designed to help us come into our higher nature. And then you have everything else in the history of existence that's attacking our lower nature.

Right, right. Our ego.

And our ego, that whispering voice, is strong. It's really strong. It's strong in men, it's strong in women. It starts with children. And for me, it's definitely always been my ego. And my ego can also be something that cripples me because when my ego is hurt or when it's bruised or when it feels attacked, then I don't function from my higher nature. I function from my lower nature. And that happens in all sorts of ways. And then of course there's the idea of success, which is relative, right? Because it is a never-ending Search, because there's no such thing as true success. Like, when would you be successful enough? When you're George Clooney? Okay, George Clooney, are you successful enough?

No.

Or something else he wants?

Yeah. Right?

Find me someone who's happy with their success. You can't, but you can find me someone who's happy because they're content with where they are and what they have, because they're grateful. So success is also interesting because where I am, so much of what I do also is dependent on other people validating it.

Yeah. So if I watch it, buying a ticket, whatever it is.

Exactly.

And especially in our town and this business, relevancy is like the Delta that is everything.

Are you afraid of that, not being relevant?

I'm not afraid of it. What's interesting is that I've mostly never been relevant. The fact that even anybody wants to hear what I have to say is interesting. and really cool. But what I am is aware of it. So I'm aware of the fact that I have a short window called Jane the Virgin that is interesting to people. After we're done in five years, I might not be relevant. Who knows?

Yeah.

Who knows?

So I look at it like I have this amount of time to say what I want to say, and then maybe no one's gonna want to hear what I have to say again. Unfortunately, that's just the way it works. You have your 15 minutes, and then it's on to somebody else. And the other night, We were just talking about, my wife's shooting a movie right now and she's shooting a movie with a woman who was nominated for three Academy Awards in the 60s. And we know when you get nominated for Academy Award, your name is everywhere. But I had no idea who this woman was. She had experienced tremendous success. She's in her 80s now. So you just look at the chart of being in the moment and feeling success and then getting to a place where You don't, you no longer have that. And then you have to realize that, well, do people not care about me? Because I'm not doing a podcast with Lewis, does that mean I'm not valuable to the world? Does that mean I'm not, am I not relevant to anybody just because I'm not relevant to the media or to the world or to social media right now? If I didn't have any followers, would that be a reflection of my self-worth? so these are things that are important and they affect us on both sides of the spectrum. They affect us when we don't have any success, when we're trying and we're struggling and we're like, we're getting off the ground.

We're striving to be relevant.

We're trying to be relevant, which is really something that I struggle with because it's like, are we trying to be relevant? And why are we doing that? Or are we just fulfilling our purpose and it's going to happen? So on one side you have that struggle and then on the other side when you have it. you have that struggle because then you have to fear losing it. And then you have to decide, and this is where the ego comes in, and this is something that I battle with, is am I doing this out of love or am I doing this out of fear? And if I'm doing it out of fear, then I'm doing it from a place of lack because I'm afraid that I'm gonna lose it. I'm afraid that if I don't do it right that someone's not gonna respond or I'm not gonna get enough likes or this many people won't watch my YouTube video or whatever it is. And the same thing goes for writing a television show and being on a show. So your ego creeps in everywhere. Your ego creeps in in relationships and mine creeps in in my marriage. It creeps in absolutely everywhere. And so one of the struggles that I think we'll always have is figuring out the balance between a healthy ego and an ego that's managed. And for me, the only way I've found to be able to manage my ego is through spirituality and it's through prayer, it's through communing with God and really it's through service because the second year of service, the goal is to take yourself out of the equation. We have a phrase we like to call it, we call it secret service. Would you still do it if nobody knew you had done it? And that's kind of your measure. Like it's service if you will do it and you don't care if anyone knows. So oftentimes, I'm gonna go do something, I will practice intentionally not telling anyone I did it.

Mm-.

Because that's a, it's a muscle. Like we go to the gym, we work out. Absolutely. We don't go to the gym and work out just because it's fun.

Right.

It sucks. But we need it. The same thing goes for service. The same thing goes for spirituality. It goes for, you know, whatever, whatever.

It is we do.

So, yeah, so it's a practice. It's, it's like, it's building the muscle that fights the ego. Because the evil, you know, the ego is strong. Christians call it the devil. Some you know in some ways like it's it is the devil it will take us down to places that you never ever want to go to Unless.

You'Re using it for a bigger purpose to serve others I guess or serve.

Something else yeah, and you can use yeah, and you can and your ego can drive you I mean, there's a reason we have it right? It's a necessary evil yeah, if none of us had an ego we'd be living in utopia and there'd be no reason for us to like why are we here? Either there'd be no reason but why are we even alive right? We're alive too to experience a journey to start somewhere, to go through hardship, and eventually, hopefully, to learn lessons and come out on the other side. So if there's no Journey, like, if there's no ego, if there's no.

Yeah.

Taking us into the darkness, then there's no light.

Right.

So ego exists, I think, so that we can overcome it. Yeah. I think if we're living in service every day, whether it's, you know, I do a lot of little acts of service. You get little acts of service where.

No one knows about, where I'm just.

Opening a door for someone, or tell me. In general, I'm not telling you specifics. No, no, I'm just kidding.

Yeah.

But I think also just smiling at people down the street is an act of service as opposed to having your head down and being disconnected. I think showing up with an open heart is of service. And those are the things I have a battle with this sometimes because we, I'm going to announce it, we build schools for kids all around the world who need support, right? And I've always been like, I never.

Want those to promise.

The promise.

Yeah.

I love it.

And, you know, I remember when I first got into it, I was like, I don't want to let people know because I don't want to be like, have my ego involved. Like, I did something. But then someone told me one time, they were like, you're doing a disservice by not letting other people know because you're not inspiring other people to do the same thing. There's a balance.

Okay.

Yeah.

How do we balance? And that's. And that's the struggle. Yeah, it is. And that's a struggle that nobody talks about.

Yeah.

Because I can go do this good row carnival.

-Huh and not tell anybody. Yeah. And have a carnival with myself.

Right, exactly. Or you can say, Hey, we're doing this.

But how many people can I affect? The challenge becomes, and this is again, it's controversial, but you can look at a lot of these proclaimed life coaches and spiritual guides and pastors. You look at people that are in positions of power where their job is to influence and help people become enlightened, inspire people, and you can see how quickly that can become self-serving. Absolutely.

When everyone's looking at you.

Because everybody then is looking at you.

Everyone.

And what happens is we forget that the only reason you're there is because you were a clear channel from God to them.

Right?

So then as man, we suddenly go.

Oh, it's my idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right?

I had this Carnival idea. Well, the truth is, dude, the idea came through me.

Absolutely.

That absolutely was not my idea. It was just crazy enough that I did it.

Yes.

So that's where it can get dangerous, as we start to think it's about ourselves. So even service is a test of the ego, right? So it's like, how do you stay pure and true and honest and authentic in service? It's knowing and it's checking that like, yeah, you're going and building those schools. You might build five schools and not tell a soul, but you get it on the sixth school, you're gonna go tell everybody because you need the money to go build more schools. The challenge is when Louis becomes more important than the school.

Absolutely.

And that's why it's important to have friends that are like right in there with you, that check you, like your boys, like I know you have here, like your best friends for females to have their girlfriends or guy friends, I mean whatever, to always kind of keep us authentic and grounded. Because it'd be very easy for me to make the Skedaddle Carnival about me.

Right. The creator of this thing.

I did this thing. But what we realized through the process, and by the way, I tried at one point to not make it about me is that it needed me.

It needs a most person or a someone. It needs an entry, a story.

It needs something to galvanize people. And I was okay being that, but it comes at a cost. Let me tell you why. I don't get to enjoy the carnival like everybody else. You're making sure it's all working out.

And everyone's in their place.

I'm doing interviews or I'm doing this.

Or I'm making sure it's running. But all I desire honestly is I want to sit down and wash people's feet. Three years I've done the carnival. I haven't gotten to wash one person's feet. And that breaks my heart.

Carve out 30 minutes.

That's the goal.

That's the goal.

But by the time, and again, it's something that we're working on. So my carnival experience isn't the same as someone else's. However, my experience is necessary. But the second it becomes about me, the carnival will die. The nonprofit will die, because that's not what it's for. And that's where the ego comes in. So all these likes, all these posts where there's now instant feedback, it's like, oh, great, they got 5,000 likes in two minutes. I did something right, I better do that again. That's the ego versus I'm happy that people responded to that. And we don't have that healthy dialogue with ourselves right now because we're so minute to minute with our phones. Anyways, that's a long answer to your question. We could talk about this forever.

You did a project.

You have to tell me what it.

Was called again, where you interviewed people who were about to die, right?

My last days.

My last days.

Yeah.

How many people did you interview? And what was the biggest lessons you learned about these experiences?

So my last days was a documentary series that started on YouTube. It aired actually on Rain's Soul Pancake channel on YouTube. It was their first show.

Really?

And everybody said it was crazy. No one will ever watch, choose to watch a show on YouTube about people that are dying. And I, from the beginning, fought everyone and said, it's not a show about people dying, it's a show about people living. Because we are all so afraid of our own mortality that we don't know that it could actually be one of the greatest gifts ever to become friends with it and to be aware of it. so that we can start to live a purposeful life. So the show was really my attempt at holding a mirror to an audience to say, you are going to die, but what are you choosing to live for now? What are you choosing to do with your time today? And it's something we don't think about. So if you wake up every morning and you don't know if you're gonna live tomorrow, you're gonna live your day differently. And so I wanted to go find people that had this mentality, that were told they were dying and were making a conscious Intentionous choice, intention is even a word, a conscious intention to live in the present and to truly experience their lives. So I did the first season, I did seven episodes of the show on YouTube. We had no money. I lost my house, my house went into foreclosure while I was shooting the show. I built my company Wayfair from the living room of that foreclosed house. because I quit acting to focus just on this show and basically pay for the show with Soul Pancake and make no money. And it was the best thing I ever did in my entire life because for one full year I got to be of service to build relationships with these people and to create something that had never really been done before. An inside look at life told from the eyes of people who were dying. And the last episode of that season was a young young man named Zach Sobiech, who was 17, and he had osteosarcoma, and he wrote a song called Clouds. And Zach said in his My Last Days that he wants everyone to know that you don't have to find out you're dying to start living. And that documentary went on to be one of the most watched documentaries online ever. It's been seen 20-something million times. His song hit number one on iTunes. I remember this. We've raised nearly a million dollars or over a million dollars for Osteosarcoma from the song and from the success of the documentary. And now we're shooting the show for CW. So now we're shooting season three and season four right now of My Last Days, which will air once a year as a three night special on the CW. So to date, I've done about 20 documentaries of people who are dying. and I would say the thing I've learned the most, to go back to your question, is, is to not sweat the small stuff.

And.

To really tell the people in your life, your life, how you feel about them and to just be present. And I think that goes back to my kind of mission statement of being a Seeker of Truth and wanting to know truth. Because when you find out you're dying and I'm sitting across from you and you're choosing to give me your most valuable asset, which is your time, I know you have three months to live and here you are with me for three days.

Crazy.

You've just given me a significant percentage of your life. And when we sit down, there is no room and there is no time for inauthenticity. There is no room For keeping anything.

Back or hiding anything back.

Are we allowed to say bullshit on this?

Sure.

There's no room for bullshit. It's all here. Because their intention is to leave something behind for their family and to say something to the world. And it's been one of the hardest experiences of my life. I've lost very close friends because, again, these people become family. They're all on my phone. Two of my friends from the last season of my last days are struggling badly right now. Claire has cystic fibrosis and she has a sepsis infection and my friend Jessica has got brain cancer and her lymph nodes are attacking her and she's waiting on her results from her MRI and this is a constant thing and my wife and I struggle with this a lot because we've invited this into our lives which causes us to reflect on our own mortality all the time, which is a good and a bad thing. One, you walk around being terrified because you know how precious life is and on the other hand you're in the moment and you're saying, I'm gonna live.

Fully.

Fully.

Authentic.

And if you imagine if we did that, right? It's like, what are the things in your life that you're waiting to do that you're not doing? Who are the people in your life that you're waiting to call that you haven't called? When you find out you're dying from my experience of watching these people, then those things are gone. Suddenly it's not about seeing how many likes you got on your phone, but it's about posting something that makes people feel a certain way, and it's about having a conversation with people that you love.

Yeah.

So like I've seen these human beings transform and become like they're like gurus, you know? And it's amazing that like being on death's door, what that can do to your, you know, to you becoming like a pure channel.

Yeah.

Wow, man.

It's powerful stuff.

How can people find that or watch it online? Is it online right now still?

Yeah. So you can watch last season of My Last Days on thecw.tv.com, the CW website. And you can watch the first season where Zach's episode is on SoulPancake.com.

Cool. How has getting married and having your first child giving you a new perspective about being a man, your purpose, your mission?

That's a good question.

So, being married and fatherhood, how has that changed anything, your perspective about Being a man.

You know, I used to think, I went through a period where I was mad at my dad because I didn't think that he was manly enough.

Really?

I didn't think that my dad taught me enough how to be a man. And because I didn't learn how to camp or fish, I didn't learn how to like hunt. I didn't learn how to hunt, didn't learn how to fight. I didn't learn those things. And I took that into my marriage a little bit, wanting to, wanting to, like, struggling with my identity of masculinity because my dad was, my dad was a businessman who made Financial mistakes. Like, I watched him make mistakes, but, and I think when I was younger, I judged that because I saw my, because we put, we grew up part-time in Oregon, and I saw, like, all their, my, my friends friends were camping and hunting and fishing and like, you know, they're like, yeah, yeah. My dad was on the phone. Yeah, that was doing business.

Sales calls or whatever.

Yeah.

But he was also showing up to all my soccer games. He was also there for my wife or for. For my mother, who's his wife, always there for my sister. And so I kind of grew up grappling with this. And when I got married, I realized how much he actually taught me. and that my dad was the exact definition and example of what it is to be a man, in my opinion. Because marriage taught me that there is no such thing as a perfect happy ending. That there is no such thing as a perfect marriage or a perfect relationship. That love doesn't just happen to you. That it's actually a choice that you make.

Daily.

And you can wake up and choose to not love the person you're with and choose to not find them attractive that day or choose to be annoyed at the way they answered that question or the fact that they didn't do the dishes or do your laundry or you might not have a conversation that you might not be able to have a conversation with the person you're with that day because there's just nothing to talk about. So you can choose to not love the person. Or, you can make a conscious choice to focus on the good and to love the person. And to me, that's what being a man is. And that's what my dad taught me, that I didn't realize until I got married. And then I watched him constantly wake up and choose to love my mom, no matter how crazy she was. My mom is the best woman on the planet, but she's nuts. She's a feng shui master, she's an artist, she's a free spirit. She lives in another dimension, but it's the greatest thing ever. Everyone loves my mom. But he woke up every day and he made a choice. They never got divorced. They went through difficult times. And he told me that he chose to love my mom. And when I got married, it hit me. It really hit me how much we have to be proactive in love and in relationships and friendships and how much we have to choose our own happiness and choose to be present and vulnerable and hold space for the person that we're in a relationship with. And I didn't realize that before I got married. And the same thing goes for my daughter. Because what happens to a man when you enter a marriage and then when you have a child is then suddenly you don't become, you're not the most important person in the relationship. suddenly, you know, you're not gonna be number one, right? Your child becomes number one and your wife is your number one and she was and then you have a child and your child's your number one and then there's this whole other thing and then you have to really check your ego and being a man is about learning how to balance all those things and still wake up every day and choose. It's very easy to choose to not be present. It's very easy to choose to just be like, yeah, okay, you got it, baby. You go do that thing. But it's harder. It's the harder choice to choose to show up every day in love and.

While also providing for a family, while.

Also trying and working on all these things and struggling and going through your life tests and all the things that we all go through as human beings. It's part of our experience. But it's that choice. It's that choice that my dad taught me that I really learned when I married my wife. And that is, it's not perfect. There's no such thing as perfect. but you can choose, you can choose your perfection, you can choose your love and it's important and it's crucial to any successful happy life or marriage to choose that happiness.

I agree, that's powerful, powerful lesson he taught you.

Yeah, he did.

He's not angry at him anymore.

No, and it's so interesting because, you know, and I struggle with a lot of things with our parents because I think that we all do and that's part of life is healing half of the trauma that you went through.

Exactly.

Yeah. But as I've been on my journey to re, to kind of to redefine what it means to be a man, I've realized that my father was exactly the man that I needed him to be. And he never, he never ever strayed with his love for me or with his love for my with my mom and for our family. And he always showed up. And my idea of what it was that I thought I needed was not real. And he was everything that I needed. So my dad was the exact definition of what I feel masculinity is. I didn't realize it until I went on my own journey. And I hope he's listening now. And I'll make sure he does, because I think it's really important that he knows that.

Yeah, that's cool. What do you think is missing in your life right now to get you to the next level for your career, your marriage, your relationship with your daughter.

Your relationship with your parents? I don't think anything's missing. I don't look at life that way. I don't think anything's missing. I think if I were to think something was missing, then I'd be looking at my life from a place of lack. I choose to look at life from a place of abundance, but not in a way that I think a lot of people do, like this think it and the universe will provide for you. I just think that God gives us everything that we need when we need it, even if it doesn't look the way that we want it to. There's a quote Bahaullah says, Nothing save that which profiteth them can ever befall my loved ones. And it's this idea that nothing that happens to us happens to us except that which will benefit us or profit us.

And.

What I have in my life right now, I've worked very hard for. Is it perfect?

No.

Am I where I want to be? Of course not, because I have an ego and I'm a man. And I can see right over there, there's a nicer house. And that guy's got a nicer car and that guy's got more success and more money in the bank.

And Lewis has a book.

I want a book. cool podcast in this room. I want a podcast. I can do that all day long forever. But I don't think that abundance comes until we are content with what we have and grateful for the opportunities that we've been given and are detached from the outcome. And in my faith, that's a big part of it. In my faith we talk a lot about dying to the world. This idea of being so detached from all these things. these transitory things that it doesn't matter if we have nothing or if we have everything.

Right?

Because, because, and there's another great quote, Baha'u'llah talks about how poverty is followed by wealth and then wealth is followed by poverty.

Right?

And eventually in the end, we leave with nothing. So what's the point? So the only thing missing for me, I'd like to pray more. I'd like to make more time to to pray more and be more intentional with my prayers. And I'd like to do better with balancing the time I spend working versus with my family. And I'd like to do better at shutting off technology at certain points.

Yeah, such an addiction.

And it's going to be harder. It's going to be harder with two kids. And I'm learning how to. I'm learning the battle of the fight between technology and success and money, because it is. It's a form of income, but also. the line between family and being present and making sure I have time for my friends.

Right?

So that's, that's a tough line that would, that can be blurred in our business. How are you gonna do that?

How you gonna manage it all?

Yeah.

Well, it's something I struggle with now. I mean, that's why, that's what I was, that's what I was saying was it's, it's not something that I would say is missing, but it's something I'm working on actively. I have a quote here on my arm. It says, where there's love, nothing is too much trouble and there's always time. And it's a quote from Abdul Baha. And to me, this is my reminder always, is that when I start something with love, then I'll always find the time. And the things I love the most are my family and my friends, of course.

And I love my job.

I love what I do. But that's. That's transitory. It's not. This goes back to the ego thing. Like, if I am not relevant in a couple years, I will be okay, right?

Yeah.

I'll be okay.

Your ego might be a little hurt. Sure it will.

Sure it will. But it's nothing it hasn't dealt with before. And guess what? I had my moment, even if it wasn't as big as someone else's moment. What else do I need?

Yeah, right?

It allowed me to get a home for my family, to take care. Like I've gotten a chance to do amazing things. I'll be okay. And if God wills that I stay relevant to a certain extent, then I'll continue to be of service with what I have. But to me, that's. That's what it's all about. And then finding the time and the balance between family and work. as long as your intention is pure, right? The person that you're with knows your intention is pure and they know that you're working for your family or you're working for the betterment of humanity, then there will be a middle ground and you guys will figure it out together. It looks different for everyone. For me, I just need to be intentional about it.

Yeah.

You're working a lot about redefining manhood. I see you talking about this a lot. You're working on some other projects we don't even get into, which I don't think you've made public. We can talk about it. Okay, yeah.

We can make it public on your show.

Yeah, you've got a project you're working on called the men's room, right?

Yeah.

And you're talking about redefining manhood. And I think that's why we connected because Aubrey wanted us to meet and we're talking a lot about similar things.

Yeah.

And, you got a book coming out about it.

I do.

The Masculinity.

Yeah, I'm excited. You're going to sign the copy for me today, right?

I will.

Yes.

Yes. But why are you so committed to this message of redefining manhood, masculinity, and sharing it so much and so passionate about why? that topic. Why now?

So I point a lot of things back to my faith.

As you can, it's.

For me, it's my foundation.

It's the. It's.

It's the soil from which everything in my life grows. We're told explicitly in our faith that we are moving out of an age where masculinity, the toxic masculinity that we're used to, the ruling by force and power. We're moving out of that phase into an era that will be more feminine in nature.

Your faith talks about this.

Our faith talks about this out of necessity, because it's very clear where we will keep going if we continue on the path that we're on. Because ruling by force and oppression...

It's very destructive.

It's destructive, and these are the things that are wrong with masculinity. and again, if you think about the qualities that man has that we think about, strength, power, reason is one that which is, I don't know why we get, but you think about these things that we place on men, you think about things we place on women, compassion, empathy, kindness. Well, Jesus, don't you think we need more of that? It's just so simple.

Right?

I know a lot of very analytical thinkers that before they make a decision, they weigh the pros and the cons. Just real simple chart. What are the pros? What are the cons? If I date this person, what are the pros? What are the cons?

Right?

What do you think about our world? And you line up all the qualities that men are known for and all the qualities that women are known for. I would argue that if you shifted them around and you had the women qualities leading and the man qualities supporting, We would have a much healthier, happier, more fruitful, equal world. It's that simple. As a man, I think it's my.

Job.

When I had that moment of shedding my skin and all my old clothing, getting rid of the mask that I've been living in and going after truth, I realized I was this middle ground between both.

Right?

So I look like what a man should look like.

Got the beard, shredding.

Now I got the beard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not as shredded as I want to be, but that's a different topic. But I look like what a man might look like, but in many ways they act like a very feminine man. Which is again, it's what it's a label that society is based on, of course.

Of course.

And maybe that's my mission. maybe my mission is to be in the middle, to show that moderation and balance could be a good thing. Like, what's wrong with being in shape or, you know, appearing manly and having a beard or having, you know, clothes, cool clothes and a beautiful, like, what's wrong with that? And also being open and willing to be vulnerable and having compassion for people and. And doing things not just for yourself, but for others and, like, talking about the empowerment of women. Like, can you have both? I also think that we're, I think it's a, we're living in a time where it's, it's not just, it's not just important, but it's needed. It's needed in, like, a, an urgent way.

Yeah.

Like, we're going down a dark path.

We as in the world.

We as in the world.

Yeah.

I mean, you can say we want about America, but I would say that I would argue that in general, we're, you know, the world is not in the best shape. I believe that if women were ruling our planet, we wouldn't have hunger. How could mothers, like women that have been mothers, understand what it's like to have a child cry because they're hungry? How could we let millions and millions of people around the world not just cry, but die because of hunger. They wouldn't let it happen. I believe that. Might be controversial, but I believe that.

You think if women were ruling, let's just say the world, would they shift into a more masculine points of views and their ego would take over?

I think there just needs to be balance. I think that first of all, I'm not saying women are without egos.

Right.

Right.

And I'm also not saying that women are not masculine. So there's a whole... Because there's no, like women can absolutely have masculine qualities. There's nothing wrong with that. just like men can have feminine qualities. I think we need balance. And I think right now we need men to start having the kind of conversations I'm praying that we start having so that they can be open to empowering women. I'm not saying that men just need to roll over and not be leaders anymore and say, okay, you think you.

Can do it better than me?

Take it. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need to start having conversations that open up the hearts of men. that allow men and give them permission to be vulnerable and to be open and to start to exercise some of these more perceived to be feminine qualities so that they can also start to see women as equal. And not just, and because at the end of the day, look, I'm a feminist, right? But who's holding the glass ceiling? It's one side of it, it's important to do the work for feminism, but until men are doing the work that support women, How is the glass ceiling going to be broken? We're just going to either force women to become more masculine so that they can break through it themselves, or we can do it with them. What seems easier? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Why don't we just work together? My work with men is simply about opening up hearts and creating conversations so that we can all just simply realize that we can do it together. why did God create man and woman for it not to like, where was it ever said that women are not equal to men? And where was it ever said that men have to be a certain way? And I believe that's changing. So with what my faith teaches me, with what I'm seeing and witnessing, with the conversations that I'm having independently with men, I see that there is a desire and a thirst and a hunger for men. to be vulnerable and open up. And it's happening in silos all over.

The country and the world.

My intention is just to make it more mainstream and to have that conversation in a bigger way. That's really all it is. Because, man, we need role models. I mean, who did you have? Who did I have?

Really?

Like, athletes.

Yeah, Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger. And God bless Schwarzenegger. Schwarzenegger is awesome. But what are the examples of masculinity? This is a guy who cheated on his wife with his maid and had a child out of wedlock.

Right?

Like is that a good role model? Like if we're just thinking, if we're stripping it down all the way, he's made amazing business decisions. He's done a lot of good in the world. But I'm talking about straight up, who do you want your child or your son to grow up to be like an emulate? And who are those men? Now, there's nothing wrong with doing that and then coming back, because I also think that masculinity is about redemption. And it's okay, it's important for men to have those experiences and to screw up and then to come back and.

Say, I screwed up. I'm sorry.

I was wrong. I learned from my mistakes. That will never happen again. That's a part of masculinity.

Yeah, because we're not gonna be perfect. You know, we're gonna make a lot of mistakes.

We can't hold ourselves to perfection. And I will always fail if you.

Think I'm gonna be perfect.

But we still need role models. We need role models that are open and honest and vulnerable and that are willing to, if they've made those mistakes, to come back and say they did. and this is what I learned from it. So I can teach you instead of just living my, living the perception of what you think I am in my perfect life.

Yeah, I think a role model for me is actually someone who's made a big mistake and come back and owned it and then said, here's what I'm committed to creating moving forward.

And that's being a man. Yeah. At it, like to me, I would, I would say that that's part of redefining what it means to be a man. I love having one of my best friends and he's probably the one guy I go to when I really need advice. He's been married three times, cheated on his first two wives. He's about to have his fourth kid, has had tremendous hardship and struggle. And I know that that man has true wisdom.

He's been through it all.

He's been through it all. And guess what? He's open, he's vulnerable, he has a healthy sense of shame for what he's done, and he wants to make sure that his friends don't repeat his mistakes. That's a man, right? These are the men that we need to strive to be like. It doesn't mean we have to be perfect. It doesn't mean we have to.

And it doesn't mean we have to go that far either.

Right?

And we don't have to look for mistakes to get into trouble. No, no, no. You don't have to look for mistakes. But it's about where, like in our own lane, can we learn from the.

Mistakes that we've made? And then help each other, right? Because there's a brother. Having a communication, an open communication with one another, where most men in general.

Again, aren't freely sharing their fears, their.

Pains, their concerns, their.

Why do you think that is?

I think it's a level.

I'm gonna flip the table.

I think it's a level of comfort. You know, they don't feel comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities because they don't want to be judged or they don't want to be, you know, known as not man enough or they don't want to feel like made fun of by other guys, you know, just not being accepted. I think it comes down to is someone gonna like us? You know, are they gonna love us for who we are? And do I need to have a certain mask on for them to like me? yeah, a certain level of I know enough or I'm smart enough or whatever it is. It's freaking scary putting yourself out there. You know, it's really scary, so. But I think the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And whenever you have a problem, you don't, like, hold it in. You just say, shoot, I need to talk to my buddy and be like, hey, man.

Yeah.

You know, my, my buddy Matt, who you met, you know, we'll go on runs, and I'm like, this is what I'm going through. I'm going through a struggle with my relationship or, you know, with one of my family members or whatever, something in the business and. Just having someone to share and connect with and be like did I really mess up am I messing up like horribly right now or and you're so.

Lucky you have that because most men don't yeah, and most men go at it alone yeah, and they think they can't share it with anybody so they don't go on runs with anyone They go on runs by themselves and they try to figure it out themselves and they don't have that accountability They don't have someone to look at them objectively and say yeah, I don't know if that was the right thing move. Did you think about how that made her feel? Or like, what are you doing with your family member? They don't have that. Men don't have that because we're so uncomfortable. Like, it's our responsibility.

It's our responsibility to create it, too.

We have it.

The opportunities are there. We don't create it.

Yeah, that's why we're more comfortable talking.

About, like, football or sports or making.

Money, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

Like, men get together to watch sports and to root on you.

Whoa.

And, you know, talk about girls. Talk about girls. Locker room talk.

You have that stuff.

But how often do we get together to just check in with each other.

And see how we are?

Yeah, that's why I think it's cool what you're doing with the men's room, to be able to have these conversations and then hopefully inspire more conversations, groups of men around the world to be.

Like, Hey, maybe we can create our own men's room.

That's exactly the point. Get together, whether it be two guys, eight guys, 20 guys, and just having conversations. You know, I love these, there's different men's groups in LA. I don't know if you've been invited.

To any of these.

Yeah.

Some of them are Christian based or faith based or whatever. And I think that's really cool. It doesn't matter what it is, how it's based, just having open conversations. More mentioned. I think they do like once a month, they get together and they have bring in a guy speaker to talk about a topic. And I think it's powerful to be able to, even if you need that once a month to go somewhere, you know, even if it's comfortable for you once a month, at least start there. You have to. And then try to incorporate daily in your life if you need to.

Because you can't just sit with it. You sit with it and it becomes cancer.

It does. I appreciate this conversation, man. I'm really glad you came on. And, I want to ask a few final questions. Before we get to the final questions, where do you like to hang out the most online where people can connect with you and learn about everything you're up to? Obviously, the show, you've got a lot of documentaries you're doing, everything.

I think your company site, all that. All my social is the same. It's @JustinBaldoni. So Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter. Most active on... I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook. So come hang out.

And he needs some more guy followers. So any of the guys listening.

Yeah, you got exactly 50% of men and women, which is beautiful. And that's a... I try to connect the world, but that's a beautiful testament to you. Yeah, that's amazing. So you're equally attractive to both sexes and that's fantastic.

I try, you know.

Yeah, you're doing a good job. Yeah, so yeah, come hang out.

Come hang out.

Come on, men.

And women.

I think, yeah, you'll have a lot of people have a lot to learn when they follow you.

And I have a lot to learn from them.

Absolutely. And then your website, if people want to learn about Wayfair.

Yeah, my company, we are wayfair.com We are Wayfair.com.

We are Wayfair.com.

We create content of purpose, purposeful intentional content. Our goal is to create disruptive inspiration and that can be joyful, that can be painful, that can be all kinds of things, but we want you to.

Feel something and then do something.

And yeah, we're doing all kinds of.

Cool stuff right now.

I love it.

I love it, man. Final few questions for you. Am I missing any questions you want me to ask?

No.

Okay.

See, I'm incorporating them. since you asked before. This question is called the three truths. And we're going to tie it in two ways. Imagine this microphone is connected to the entire world right now. And everyone's put headphones on, and there's 60 seconds. You get to share your three truths with the world. And everyone can understand you in English.

Oh, man, I should have prepared more, right?

And from all the lessons you've learned from, again, growing up to creating content, to being a father, having a child, to everything. What would you say are your three truths that you would share with the world?

I'd say my first truth.

Is that.

Our life is not our own. Your life is not just yours, it's shared. And I think that we are here for a very short time. There's an analogy in my faith that talks about the journey of the soul. And in the span of the journey of the soul, of how long the soul lasts, the time we're here on earth is like a bird flying through one end of a bird cage to the other. It's a millisecond of how long the journey of our soul is. So do not spend your entire life living for yourself. There are five billion people on this planet, and you have a unique gift to be of service and to contribute to the betterment of mankind in a way that only you were destined to. So that's my one. My second is to become friends with dying, to make death an ally, to be scared of it and also have it motivate you to live in the present, to live purposefully, to live truthfully, and to not procrastinate, because none of us know our end date. But we all know that we have one.

So.

Being aware that you are immortal and that you are not immortal is my second truth. And my third truth.

Is.

To not be afraid to love. Because love is the foundation of life itself. I think love is the secret of the universe. The thing that scientists will never find that is actually what's holding the molecules and the atoms together. And that everything in this entire world is made with love. And to not run from it when it comes to you. And to learn how to always have it be active in your life and have it move through you, and to look in every situation for a way to love. And that can look like a lot of different things. It's not just romantic love. It's friend, it's strangers. But love is a feeling and as a way of being, I think is something that if we all remembered, the world would look a lot different. So those are my three truths. Those are powerful, man, which I've never thought of until you just asked me, so I hope that was okay.

They're powerful, man. They're powerful. Well, before I ask the final question, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for redefining what it looks like to be a great man. Because I feel like you're setting a great example on a daily basis from the actions you take, the words you speak, and how you show up, your way of being, your love, for men, for women, for the planet is infectious in a positive way. And so, thank you for leading the way. Thank you for having the uncomfortable conversations, even when it may not be the popular ones, and for having a beautiful heart that spreads to so many people. I think you're doing an amazing job. So, acknowledge you for that.

Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.

Of course.

That means a lot to me, brother.

Of course, man. Of course. Final question. What is your definition of greatness?

Humility.

Justin Baldoni. Thank you.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it so much.

So what I'm saying is that addiction is never a choice and it's not.

Some kind of genetic disease which is.

Totally nonsense, but it actually is an attempt to solve a problem in your life. In your case, you were trying to solve a problem of being trapped, which is based on your childhood trauma, which you might have.