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[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Many years ago
in Thailand, there

was a temple that was called
the Temple of the Golden Buddha.

And there was a huge
statue of a golden Buddha.

And word came to this
village where the monastery

was that an army from
a neighboring country

was about to invade.

And they got the
brilliant scheme

to cover the golden Buddha,
which was quite large, with mud

and concrete so that it looked
basically like a stone Buddha,

and the army would
perceive no value in it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

And sure enough,
this army rolled in

with its caissons and weapons.

And as they passed
by the monastery,

they saw nothing but
a big stone Buddha.

And they had no
reason to plunder it.

Well, years went by, because
the army continued to occupy it,

until there was a time in the
monastery in the village when

no one remembered that
the Buddha was golden,

until one day a young monk
was sitting on the Buddha

meditating on his knee.

And as he got up, a
little piece of concrete

happened to crack off, and
he saw something shiny.

And he realized there
was gold under there.

And so he ran to his
fellow monks and said,

the Buddha is golden,
the Buddha is golden!

And they all came
out, and they realized

he was telling the truth.

And they took their
picks and hammers,

and eventually they
unearthed the Golden Buddha.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Now what's the metaphor here?

The metaphor is that each
of us is golden by nature.

We were born golden.

We were born high.

We were born knowing.

We were born connected
to our bliss.

We were born knowing truth.

We were born knowing everything
that every great spiritual

master has ever said.

We were one with the Christ,
the Buddha, everyone.

But then we went to
school, and they said,

you have to dress like
this, and this what boys do,

and this is what girls do.

This is what black people do.

This is what white people
do, on and on and on.

And so we developed a casing
of stone over the Buddha

to a point where at a young
age, maybe four, five, six,

or seven, we believe that we
were the stone Buddha, not

the golden one.

And then something comes
along that cracks our casing.

Maybe it's an injury, a
divorce, financial setbacks,

a governmental
change, something that

really scares us and
bugs us and knocks off

a piece of our armor.

And only in that moment of
the armor of being knocked off

do you get to look
inside and see the gold.

And let me tell you,
friend, that the moment you

see that gold, the
armor and the concrete

will never satisfy you again.

At that point, you truly answer
the true hero's adventure.

And all you want to do
for the rest of your life

is pick away the stone, because
the gold is so much more fun.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Who is Joseph Campbell,
and why should we care?

Topic that comes up a lot.

>>Joseph Campbell was one
of the leading mythology

experts of all time.

>>Joseph Campbell
is a philosopher,

a man who had this ability
to see the truth in a world

where we've lost sight
of that in many ways.

He studied all of these
classical myth traditions.

And he actually
started by studying

Native American mythology.

He fell in love with
it when he was a kid.

This was his bliss.

And he wound up studying
the aboriginal cultures.

He studied Greek mythology.

He studied Arthurian legend.

>>He dissected and really
diagrammed all of our stories.

>>He compared the
philosophies, mythic stories

of the whole world.

>>All myths, all movies,
all novels, all romances.

>>And he find this one
story within all the stories

that we can relate to no
matter where you come.

>>He recognized that in spite
of all the different stories

we seem to be telling,
there's really only one.

And he called it
the Hero's Journey.

>>There must have been thousands
and thousands of hero stories

from every culture.

But until Joseph
Campbell came along,

certainly I never realized how
they all kind of fit together

and how they were
basically the same story.

>>I was a religion
major in college.

I was taking my final exam.

And I had a moment where
I was just gobsmacked.

It was just like, holy crap,
it's all the same thing.

I mean, it is really
all the same thing.

>>The Hero's Journey
is a pattern.

You can almost think
of it as an algorithm

that has three basic parts--
separation, initiation,

and return.

Separation-- you are in
one kind of a reality,

in one kind of a place.

You are separated from it.

Initiation-- you're put
into another place where you

are in some manner initiated.

Return-- you come back.

>>A simple version
of the Hero's Journey

is someone starting out in
their normal protected world

and getting a call to adventure.

>>The call to adventure.

>>There's a vision.

There's a quest.

>>It's the story of the
hero enduring some trials.

>>Various trials and ordeals.

>>Meeting different obstacles
along the way, people that

hurt you, people that help you.

>>Doors will open, as
Campbell would say,

for you, where there
are no doors for others.

Dragons will appear that
are your dragons alone.

>>You get to like the
innermost cave where you're

really challenged, like
the greatest crisis,

and you find your true self.

>>The achievement, the glory.

>>But then that's
not the end of it.

That is to bring that
back to the community.

>>There's a return
to tell the story.

>>That is the heroic journey--
separation, initiation, return.

All of the adventures of the
human story are in there.

All the heroes,
all the villains,

all the gods and goddesses,
and all of the knights

and all of the
fantastic creatures

we can conjure up in animation,
they're all in there,

because they're all in here,
because they're all in here.

This is where they come from.

>>If you look at some of the
greatest pieces of literature,

the greatest works
of philosophy,

they all have what
Joseph Campbell

called the Hero's Journey.

And if you look
with a piercing eye,

you can recognize his outline
in just about any movie

or story you would read.

>>"Star Wars," "The
Matrix," "Harry Potter."

>>"Wizard of Oz"--
that's a classic story

of a Hero's Journey.

You first see Dorothy in
her natural environment.

And just like out
here in regular life,

a person is operating in their
natural environment every day

and living in their house
and that kind of thing.

And then something happens
to shake that world up.

And you go on a journey in which
you have to face certain tests

and challenges.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Storytelling is
typically about people

learning something.

You go to a place, which
is dark and mysterious.

You are faced with yourself.

There is a relationship
between facing fear

and this kind of soul gain.

You acquire a quality, a
hidden strength, a value.

Moments where
somebody is tested,

somebody moves to a place where
it feels like a crisis point,

and then they are
restored, redeemed,

made better through that trial.

And we call them heroes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>If all of these stories
boil down into one map,

we can use that map.

Because all human
beings are the same.

Whether they're going through
a war, like World War II,

or going through a war
inside, it's basically

the same kind of process.

>>In other words, we're not
separate from the characters

we see in our movies
and in our novels.

They are us.

It's one journey.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>The whole idea of a Hero's
Journey, a journey of life,

clear patterns to
guide you through.

You're born, you
have a childhood.

You have an adolescence.

And you try to find a place
for you to become an adult.

And you go through adventures.

You struggle with
your inner conflicts.

And finally, you become a hero.

You slay the dragons.

You succeed in conquering
all of the demons.

And you step over thresholds.

And finally you have arrived.

We get old.

We die.

But within this
short span, we have

to have some meaning, some
reason for this existence.

It doesn't have to be high
and mighty and fantastic.

You can have a very
simple life, still

go through the similar pattern.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>We go out, and we watch a
great Hero's Journey movie.

Is that impulse
within us, that seed

of potential that wants
to be actualized that's

being talked to during those
movies and being whispered to,

it's time for you to do that.

That's the story here.

That's what it's all about.

>>There's wonderful
narrative iconography

for how to live life, the
idea that try hard you get,

the Little Engine That Could,
I think I can, I think I can,

I think I can, I can, this idea
that we really can do better,

be better, that our greatest
selves are still hidden

and that the future is
the prospect of coming

to terms with that self.

>>Dorothy had to confront
her inner barriers.

And so the journey she
went on was not just

a journey to find out how
to deal with the Wicked

Witch of the West.

It was how to deal with
her own inner resources,

how to claim her
own inner resources.

And at the end of the movie,
how did she get back home?

Well, she clicked
her heels together.

So she had it all the time,
the ability to get back home,

but it didn't get
mobilized for her until she

went through all
of those challenges

and was able to kind
of test herself.

>>It's kind of the ordinary
moving into the extraordinary.

It's going through the dark
to come out to the light,

going from an unsatisfying
life to a satisfying life

by pushing through the scariest
things you could imagine.

>>The most important thing
that the myths teach us

is to go beyond what we
perceive as the limits

of our possibility.

>>So mythology needs
to be seen for what

it is, which is a metaphor
for our human existence.

It's not a history lesson.

It's a metaphor for life and
for universal experiences.

>>A lot of people
read the myths,

and they say, well,
that refers to something

historical, the creation of the
world or something like that.

But Joe didn't think that.

He thought that it's really
a narrative about the psyche,

what Jung called the self.

>>The problem is that many of
us are metaphorically impaired.

We don't realize that this
thing that they're talking about

is actually a metaphor for
a transformation process.

>>Just kind of like
the holy grail,

where it's not the thing.

It's not the actual
concrete grail.

It's an intangible thing.

But the holy grail is a metaphor
for that intangible feeling.

>>And so if you look
at a book and it says,

you will go to
heaven, and you don't

realize that they're talking
about heaven on Earth, heaven

in our bodies, heaven
right now in the now,

you might fall into a trance of
thinking that you're literally

going to go someplace else
if you follow the rules.

>>Having been brought up
in a mythical culture,

I was very familiar with the
different motifs and themes

that were encapsulated
in, say, a mythical being,

whether it was the Lord
Shiva or Ganesh or a goddess.

Just thinking the
name of that person,

the whole story was evoked.

Carl Jung called
these archetypes.

Archetypes are primordial,
encapsulated stories,

or mythologies, and
they are in the form

of a seed in consciousness.

When you plant that
seed in consciousness,

that archetypal seed,
that mythical journey,

then that seed starts to sprout.

And as it sprouts,
the patterning forces

create the situation,
circumstances, events,

and relationships for the
unfolding of the story.

>>It's better to have
a story to look through

at life than an explanation.

The reason for that is
the story is richer.

I say select two or three
heroes and heroines,

either in mythology of
religion or history,

and then ask these
mythical beings

to incarnate through you.

And then don't be surprised
when you see situations,

circumstances, coincidences,
synchronicities, relationships

suddenly show up that
actually are part of the story

that you have been
seeking to express.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Once upon a time
in the forest,

there was this little tiger
cub amongst a flock of sheep.

And he ate grass.

And he wandered
around with the sheep.

And when he tried to say
anything, all that came out

was a sort of little
meow, not much of a roar.

And one day through the forest
comes a large male tiger.

And he's just about to
pounce on the sheep,

and he sees this tiger cub.

And he says, what
are you doing here?

And tiger cub goes, baa!

Picks the tiger cub up by
the scruff of the neck,

and he carries him
over to a pond,

and he puts his face over, and
he says, look, see that face?

You're not a sheep.

You're a tiger.

The male tiger says, OK,
we need to do something.

And he slays the sheep, and he
grabs a big hunk of raw meat.

And he shoves it in the
little tiger's mouth.

And the little tiger gagged
on it, as all do on the truth.

But it went down.

And he got a little
bit of energy,

and pretty soon he had
a bigger tiger roar.

And eventually, he
had a full tiger roar.

He went off with the male tiger.

I think the moral
here is self-evident.

If you're a tiger
living among sheep,

you're a pretty poor
specimen of a tiger.

And we are all tigers
living among sheep.

We are all individuals
with a self

that we don't even
begin to understand.

And unfortunately, you
can open the metaphor out.

The food we get from
the culture around us

is maybe food for sheep.

It's not food for tigers.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>You have to catch at least
the spark of what your life is

going to be, or you may
spend those dreary decades

in corporate America
climbing the ladder,

only to discover it's
against the wrong wall.

You get to the top.

Who cares?

>>If this pass of
the Hero's Journey

is fairly simple in
design, why, then, is it

that everybody isn't living it?

Well, the answer is that
most people on the planet

live under a kind
of a mass hypnosis.

>>There's a tremendous
pressure, even in the media,

on really keeping
people in their place

in the sense of keeping them
happy, tranced-out consumers.

It's a trance of comfort.

It's a trance of not
sticking your head up

above the crowd very much.

That keeps the enterprise going.

>>Most people think it's a
luxury and a great privilege

to stay home and look at
their 800-inch television.

If you just space out,
you're not developing.

We're stimulated by some
images and some loud noise.

>>It's about collecting
things and stuff

and making a lot of money
and doing a lot of things.

And it's impossible
to enjoy that,

because you end up
on that treadmill

and you can't get off.

>>And so most people,
unfortunately,

because they are so victimized
by their environment,

they have no time to
think or be themselves.

They become bundles of
conditioned reflexes and nerves

that are constantly
being triggered

by people and circumstance
into very predictable outcomes

and predictable
patterns of behavior.

There's no creativity.

>>That's the trance.

That's the wasteland,
where we're just

guided toward this weird sense
of what's real in our lives

and those ideas that
are imposed on us

from the outside about what
we should and should not do.

>>It usually starts
out with something

like, you shouldn't
talk to that person

because they're from
a different tribe.

You certainly shouldn't
marry that person.

>>You should go to this school.

You should have a
certain type of car.

You should live in a
certain type of house.

You should have a certain number
of kids by this type of age--

should, should,
should, should, should.

What I experienced
in my own life

was I gotta have the degree
from this university.

I've got to have this advanced
degree from this university,

preferably either a law
degree or a medical degree

or something to that effect,
some letters after my name,

which would say that I have
a stamp of credibility.

I can go out and
make my six figures,

and society can kind
of deem me worthy.

>>I have countless examples of
young people who go to college

because they expected
to go to college.

And they study biology because
since the time they were six,

they were supposed
to be a doctor.

>>It's very difficult
for a person who's

brought up in this environment
of instant gratification,

with the media,
with advertising,

with all the promises
of instant gratification

by buying something,
for example, or having

a certain level of affluence,
that you lose contact

with this mythical domain, which
is actually part of your soul.

It's there in everyone.

It's their passion.

It's their bliss.

It's their unique skills.

It's their unique ways
of expressing themselves.

It's their song, which if they
sing, they could do anything.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>If you look at
every Heroic Journey,

the hero has been
confronted with the fact

that the world that
they thought was reality

was nothing more than illusion.

I go back to the "Matrix,"
which is, what was the matrix?

It was just this big illusion.

It was the dominant
values and beliefs

that the world had put around
this guy Neo, the seeker

on the Hero's Journey.

And what did he do?

He felt this longing to
go beyond the illusion,

to go beyond the matrix.

So he took the red pill,
and he woke up to reality.

And what was reality?

Reality was he was
full of potential.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Separation begins with what
we call the call to adventure.

[PHONE RINGING]

>>Campbell tells us there's
literally almost a phone

ringing.

[PHONE RINGING]

It's like the
universe, the divine,

God, whatever you want to call
it, literally dialing you up

and ringing.

[PHONE RINGING]

And giving you a call,
asking you to step out

and to live your journey.

>>Something breaks into
your quotidian reality

and makes it impossible
for you to continue.

[PHONE RINGING]

Or you could hang up the phone.

You can run away.

But you'll keep coming back.

It'll keep coming back
until you finally--

[PHONE RINGING]

--answer the call.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>If you're not
paying attention,

the wake-up calls come in
the form of a sledgehammer.

If you're paying attention, they
might come in a tickle feather.

>>So we don't
always get the call

as a choir of angels
with trumpets singing

to you as beautifully
one sunny morning.

>>In "Star Wars,"
Luke comes back.

His house has been burned down.

He's gotta go.

>>Often times, it comes in
the depth of our despair,

in losing a job, getting
fired, getting divorced,

having your house
foreclosed on, these things

that you just would never
want to have happen,

are often the exact
things we need

to catapult us, to catalyze
us into that next version

of ourselves.

>>Bad things happen
to good people.

And when that happens
to them, they typically

are thrown for a loop.

Because they frequently have
felt, everything's going along,

I'm doing everything
right, what happened?

Well, the universe
just upended you.

And it does do that.

>>Chinese symbol for
crisis are two symbols.

The first one is danger.

And second one immediately
is opportunity.

So crisis is both
danger and opportunity.

>>This idea that if
one storyline collapses

that that's the end of the
movie is not true of human life

and never was true
of human life.

I know people who have prospered
in the most extraordinary way

in the worst type of adversity.

But it actually
reveals something

to them about themselves
that they didn't know.

And that became the
new journey they took.

>>Let me put this into really
practical, 100-pound terms.

Because if the camera had
been pointed at me when

I was 24 years old,
what it would have seen

was a person who
weighed 320 pounds.

You would have seen me
puffing on two or three

packs of Marlboros a day,
a relationship that I

didn't want to be in,
and I had a job I hated.

Everything was wrong in my life.

And so those are ripe moments
for a wake-up call in life.

If you haven't been
paying attention

enough so that you end
up with a job you hate,

a relationship you don't want
to be in, a body you don't like,

and you're addicted
to a bunch of things,

you're ripe for a sledgehammer
blow from the universe.

And I got it.

>>You step over a threshold,
meaning you move from one world

into another.

Sometimes you're shoved from
one world into the other.

>>I went out for a walk, and I
stepped on the ice on the road.

And my feet shot
out from under me,

and I smacked the back of my
head on the frozen ground.

And it knocked me
out just enough.

I wasn't completely
unconscious, but I had a vision

while I was semi-knocked out.

I could see down through
all the layers of myself

to this pure
consciousness inside.

And I could see how all the
fat I had was organized around

a whole bunch of feelings I
didn't want to let myself feel,

like sadness from childhood and
a lot of old grief in my family

and anger and things like that.

And I realized that
the fat was there

to keep me from
feeling those feelings.

And so as I began to come
back to normal consciousness,

I made a vow that I was going to
change my life so that I could

live in that state
of pure consciousness

instead of having to have
all of that armor around me.

Once you make the decisions
that Joseph Campbell is talking

about, about really
hearing the call

and being willing to
take on the challenges

of that new awakened
life, once you

do that, you begin
to feel a power.

It's like nothing else
I've ever experienced.

And I think a lot of us are
just plain old afraid of that.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>I tend to think that
people wake up to the fact

that they are the
hero of their own life

when they get tired of being
the victim of their own life.

At the point that
you say, enough, I

don't want to listen
to my parents anymore,

I have had it with my boss,
I'm really having problems,

perhaps with the sermon
I'm being taught,

you can either surrender to
victimhood, and a lot of people

do, or you can surrender
to a fundamentalism.

You can basically give your
responsibility to someone else

and say, tell me what
to do, and I'll do it.

Or you can say, I have a choice
here, and I'm responsible.

Now, what does it mean to be
the hero of your own life?

It means to be responsible
for your own adventure.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Campbell talks about
metaphorical death,

where something dies so
that something can live.

And in every Hero's
Journey, there's

some death moment where
some old has to go

and some new has to stay.

>>He quotes Nietzsche, and
he says that this snake that

cannot shed its
skin must perish.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>When death is a
motif in a myth,

it doesn't refer
necessarily to what

happens at the end of one's
biological and physical

existence.

It's an indication that
change is taking place.

>>I went through
that process when

I stopped being a
tribal administrator

and started becoming a writer.

I put that aspect
of myself away.

It was valuable, and I learned
a lot, and I draw on it,

but it enabled me to go on.

>>No death, no life.

No death, no transformation.

No death, no change.

>>I said, OK, I don't
want that anymore.

I want this.

I put that away, made
myself into something else

and in essence resurrected
into being a writer.

>>The whole key
to blessing death

is to recognizing that it's just
a death of one old form that

has played itself out, it has
no use anymore, which always,

as the phoenix
rises, it gives way

to some new form that
has new intrinsic meaning

and makes your life
even bigger and better.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>If you want to have new birth,
new revelation, new insight

into life as you grow
as a human being,

you will learn to keep dying.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>I think it's tricky
to afford a proof.

I think there are
proofs in our lives.

I think the proofs
exist in our ability

to transcend the worst things
that have happened to us.

My proof is I was
abused as a little boy.

And not something I chat about
typically, but in this context.

It was the worst thing ever.

And it went on for a very long
time, and I was very young.

And I'm who I am
in part because I

had to face that, because I had
to wrestle with that, because I

had to accept that and
acknowledge that and forgive

and all the terribly difficult
things that come with that.

I had to tell my parents.

I had to-- and I by the way,
it's one of these things

that you work with for
the rest of your life.

But from that most
difficult thing

also came a kind
of understanding.

I get high marks on compassion.

I wouldn't wish it
on anybody, but it

is part of what made me me.

So the truth is, it's
not what happens to us.

It's what we do with it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>The forest represents
the darkness, the unknown,

the edge of your world.

And it takes the courage of a
hero to go into that forest.

The people in your
community don't

understand why you want
to go into that forest.

And in fact, they're
pulling you back,

asking you, why can't you be
happy with what you have here?

But there's this urge that
exists within the hero

to go and explore.

>>Joseph often used the
Knights of the Round Table

when they behold
the golden chalice.

>>There's a story with King
Arthur and his knights.

After the knights
have seen the grail

and decide to go
forward on a quest--

>>They made a vow.

>>They decided that the
knightly thing to do,

the noble thing to do as
individuals seeking their own

in the collective was
to go in to the force

at their own points.

>>Each knight enters the
forest where it was darkest

and there was no path.

>>They cannot
follow other people.

They have to go in, find their
own entry into the dark forest.

>>And Campbell makes
it really clear.

If you go into the forest
where there's already a trail,

that's the one sure sign
that you're not on your path.

>>Because if they follow
somebody else's entry,

it's somebody else's path.

>>That's not going
into the forest.

That's not initiation.

>>You need to find
your own path.

And that kind of comes
from that impulse

within to go out
and really discover

who you are beyond just the
narrow confines of how you've

been conditioned,
what you've been

told to do, and go out and
explore for yourself what

your truth is and how you
can go out and rock it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>The Hero's Journey for
me is having the courage

to look within yourself and
say, what am I here to do?

What am I most passionate
about in my life?

What are my greatest gifts?

How do I give them to the world?

And Joseph Campbell
captured it with the phrase,

follow your bliss.

>>Follow your bliss.

I don't think more profound
teachings have ever

been given than this one.

>>Follow your bliss means
listening to your heart

and following your truth.

>>There's something specific
about the word "bliss."

It's not ecstasy.

It's not happiness.

There's a serenity in bliss.

>>I like to talk
about your bliss

as the thing you can't not do.

So it's your authentic journey.

>>I'd heard "follow
your bliss," but I

didn't know where it came from.

And what's cool is that
it's grounded in deep Hindu

spirituality and philosophy, and
it comes from the Upanishads.

There were three launching
points into enlightenment, Sat,

Cit, and Ananda.

So Sat means beingness.

Cit means consciousness.

And Ananda means
bliss or rapture.

Joseph Campbell said to
himself, I don't really

know what my beingness is.

If I'm honest with
myself, I really

know what my consciousness is.

But I do know what my bliss is.

And I can follow my bliss.

And that idea of trusting
ourselves and trusting

that deep impulse within us to
go out and follow our bliss,

do what makes us feel most
alive, that's the path.

That's the key.

That's the essence of
the Hero's Journey.

>>Follow your bliss does not
mean get addicted to pleasure.

>>It's more than just
something that you wish for.

>>It doesn't mean escapism.

It doesn't mean hedonism.

It doesn't mean selfishness.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>It doesn't mean listening
only to sensory pleasures

like having sex with
anybody you look at

or sticking up a candy
store if you want candy.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Don't follow what other
people think is your bliss.

Don't follow your wallet.

Follow the thing that's
presenting itself as your most

serene and fulfilling state.

>>Sometimes it's difficult to
let go of that inner resistor

and just say, OK, I accept the
possibilities of the present.

I will follow my bliss.

I will listen to
the call of spirit.

[EXHALING DEEPLY]
That's a very big deal.

[DRUMMING]

>>Daddy said, what
do you want to do?

I said, I need to leave school.

I'm never going
to learn anything.

I'm not going to university.

I said, I want to play drums.

I've learned to play
drums in the attic.

And that's my world
and totally naive.

So Dad sends me off to
London with a drum kit.

So I went to London.

And all of it came true.

Of course, I'm not sitting
here, I've got to be rich,

and I've got to be famous.

But I have to be doing
something I love to do.

And I have so much passion.

And I didn't even know what
that was really all about,

but I do now.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>How do we find our bliss?

This is what
everybody is asking.

>>The first thing
is, ask yourself,

what am I passionate about?

What are the things
I love doing?

What are the activities
when I engage them

it feels like hours
go by in minutes?

That's one big clue
about what your bliss is.

>>What I say is, find out
what you most love to do.

And then do more of that thing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Ask yourself right
now, what was it

that made me
different as a child?

What set me apart?

What caused me to cry
at night in my pillow

because I didn't fit
in with the in crowd?

That is probably precisely
where the door to your bliss

is going to open.

Go back and find it.

>>Let's say you never
had to think about money

and you never had
to think about time.

You had all the money in
the world and all the time

in the word.

How would you express yourself?

And how would that
benefit the ecosystem,

the larger web of being?

>>We have to find
a way of reflecting

on those experiences
we've had that engaged us

and where we became lost and
totally absorbed in them.

So for some people,
a way to do that

might be to write
these things down.

Others don't think like that.

They don't like to use
words all the time.

So maybe collect some images,
cut some images from magazines,

collect music that's always
inspired you, but some way

to bypass that outer barrier
to your own sense of energy.

>>It's not about
being successful.

It's not about
feeding your family.

Write some bad poetry.

Do something that
gives you that moment.

>>You can write in a journal.

Because writing in a
journal is a conversation

you have with yourself.

You can get to know your
gifts, your talents,

your weaknesses your hopes,
your dreams, your lessons.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Joseph Campbell always gave
the same advice to his students

graduating Sarah Lawrence.

Don't do what Daddy says.

Because Daddy has one interest
in mind for you, and that's

your security.

And if you bargain away
your life for security now,

you will never find your bliss.

>>I started skating because
my older brother was into it.

And I enjoyed it,
but I didn't take it

that seriously until the first
time I went to the skate park

and I saw these guys literally
flying out empty swimming

pools.

I got so excited that
that was even possible,

as a person to be
flying in the air

with a skateboard in your hand.

Once I saw what was
possible and what

you could do with this thing
that I have come to enjoy,

I had to keep going.

I mean, I just wanted to fly.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>I think it's really
important to do

things that make you happy.

And I know that
sounds very obvious,

and some of the viewers
might say, well, now

let's hold hands
and sing "Kumbaya."

But when you look at every great
inventor, every great business

person, every great
scientist, you

look at these people
who have gotten

to the so-called mountaintop,
and almost every single one

of them to a person didn't
do it for the money.

They did it because they
were chasing their bliss.

>>If you're following your dream
and you're doing what you love,

it's not always going to
be a financial success,

but it will be a personal
success because you are still

doing this thing
that you love doing,

and what's more important?

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>I would describe my
discovery of surfing exposure.

I was just watching surfers and
watching what they were doing

and what surfing was all
about and the routes that they

were taking and the
ways they were doing it.

I think I knew subconsciously
before I knew consciously.

I think I knew that I was going
to do something in surfing.

I knew that surfing was going
to be a big part of my life,

so I wanted to absorb all
the information I could.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Just because you don't know
what the call on your life

is right now doesn't
mean play ostrich

and stick your head in
the sand and say, well,

just because I
don't know, I guess

I shouldn't move
towards anything.

The very fact that you're
looking for your bliss

means that you
are in the process

of getting to your bliss.

Part of life and part of the
whole journey is exploration.

>>Human resources are
often very, very deep.

We don't know they're there.

And we don't know they're
there often because we

don't look for them.

We don't take the journey.

Some people found them, and
many people have not found them.

And because they've not
found their talents,

they think they don't have any.

I believe passionately that
we all have deep talents.

Go looking.

Try things you've
never done before.

If there are things you wish
you had done but you never did,

well, why didn't you?

Go and do it.

Try it.

If you always go the
same route to work,

take some different route.

If there are people you never
speak to, go and speak to them.

At least put yourself out there.

But don't anticipate
what you'll find.

>>Put yourself in uncomfortable
situations at least

every seven days.

If at least every seven days
people aren't laughing at you

or scratching their
heads, wondering

why you're dreaming so big or
doing what you're doing or have

such a fierce resolve
to achieving your goals,

then I don't think
you're stretching enough.

And ultimately, we grow
the most through the things

that stretch us the most.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>In my personal journey,
I was bright enough,

I got into the best
university, but a part of me

need the journey.

I was interested in the West.

So I jumped at the
next opportunity

to get a scholarship
and then get

on the boat and my
slow boat to the West.

And I took 14 days.

I landed in Portland, Oregon
and to be a foreign student.

I stretched myself.

I arrived, I know very little
English, I go to a class called

English for Foreign Students.

I learn English, and I
embraced the Western culture.

I stretched myself.

So suddenly, I see a part of me
which I never knew was there.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>One of Joe's most
beloved quotes about bliss

is that when you
follow your bliss,

the universe will open doors
where there were only walls.

It's a wonderful image.

And in fact, a lot of people's
experience is so like this.

You feel like you're beating
your head against a brick wall.

And then suddenly you shift
just a tad, and low and behold,

there's a passage that opens up.

>>When you truly step
forth and trust your bliss,

unseen forces have the power to
rearrange things to accommodate

your step of faith.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>I took that
Robert McKee course,

and I thought, well,
that's not that hard.

And I wrote a screenplay.

And I sent it to
a friend of mine,

who was somebody's assistant,
who left it on his desk.

And some other agent wandered
by and picked it up and read it

and said, oh, this is good.

And so then my friend
went, oh, shit.

And he ran to his boss.

And he said, you
should read this,

because that guy over there,
who is a junior agent liked it,

and his boss was a senior agent,
and then I got a phone call.

And it was fantastic.

It was the greatest thing ever.

And so it seems like I sold the
first screenplay I ever wrote.

But truth is, I kept
writing till I got lucky.

If I stopped writing, I would
never have gotten lucky.

There was no luck
coming to my house,

going, hey, here's a book deal.

Hey, we want to
buy that screenplay

that you haven't written.

You just keep doing it,
and eventually you're

likely to get lucky.

>>Why do most people
not follow their bliss?

One word-- fear, right?

We're literally
overwhelmed by fear,

and primarily we're
overwhelmed by the fear of what

other people will think of us.

Campbell says that "what
will they think of me?"

must be put aside for bliss.

One of the biggest inhibitors
to following our bliss

is, what will they think of me?

Am I going to look like an
idiot if I follow my bliss

and I fail?

Am I going to look like a fool?

All these different
questions come into our mind.

>>Your friends and
family, who can

be very well-meaning but
really will collude with you

to create a story that is
hard for you to get out of.

For example, don't do music.

You won't be a musician.

There's no point in trying to be
a dancer, because you'll never

make a living doing that.

I think that's the first
step to the journey.

They're the demons we
often have to face down.

>>We are each our own
greatest inhibitors.

And so people can say,
oh, yeah, this guy's

holding me back
or this situation.

But really, you're
holding yourself back.

You're deciding,
hey, I don't want

to look bad in
front of those guys,

or, I don't want those guys to
say some bad things about me,

so I'm not going to do that.

Who made that decision?

You.

I am not going to do that
means you've decided.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>There's a poem of Rumi,
the great mystical poet

from the Middle East in
the 12th century who said,

I want to sing
like birds saying,

not worrying who listens
or what they think."

But if you can do that, then
you can achieve the impossible.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>For me, one of the
most formative times,

the first probably
most formative time,

was when I dropped
out of law school.

All of my friends at the
time told me, at least

stay through the first year.

And I couldn't make it
through the first semester.

I was literally nauseous at
the idea of completing this.

I burned my resume.

I had no desire to live
within the corporate world

in any sense.

And in the same
24-hour period of time,

ended my relationship
of five years

and dropped out of law school.

It was an incredibly
gut-wrenching,

soul-wrenching time.

Moved back in with Mom.

There were several months where
I just lay in bed and slept

and read.

And it wasn't a pretty process.

But the only thing I
knew I wanted to do

was to coach a Little
League baseball team.

The little bit of
instinct that I had,

the little bit of bliss I
half in my life at that time

was to work with these kids.

And I had no idea what
would come out of it.

And then three,
six months later,

I had an idea that, wow,
there's an amazing opportunity

to serve families and sports.

The internet was
just getting going.

This was 1998.

And I had a vision
of what I could

do to serve these families
and created a company

that there's no way I could
have imagined when I dropped out

of law school-- no possible way.

But as it turns out, I
started this business.

We won the business plan
competition at UCLA.

We raised $5 million.

I hired the CEO of
Adidas to be our CEO.

And we hired the law
firm that I would

have wanted to work for before
I graduated from law school.

So there's this beautiful
sense of this is it.

This is what happens
when we follow our bliss.

Magical things happen
that we couldn't

have imagined when we're
going through the tough point

of making the decision to
take the leap, to go for it,

and to make the
difference in our lives.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>There are two roads
in life, the red road

and the black road.

The red road is the tough
road, because it's narrow.

It's winding.

It's full of storms.

It's full of obstacles.

The black road is easy.

It's straight, and it's wide.

It doesn't offer any challenges.

The storyteller never says,
you have to travel this road,

or you have traveled this road.

They end up telling you the
story of the red black road

by saying this.

The choice is yours.

Always the choice is yours.

>>Living this spontaneous
life with my father, the bond

and the passions that my
father shared with me,

we got on a plane at
7:00 in the morning out

of Santa Monica airport,
flying towards big bear

where I had won a ski
race the day before.

We're returning to Big
Bear to collect my trophy.

On the way, we enter a
storm, and we crash headlong

right into this rugged
mountain, 8,200 feet.

That's the level we crashed.

I woke up.

Our bodies were sprawled in
this 45-degree icy chute.

It was a blizzard.

It was hard to find everybody.

It took me about a
half hour, 45 minutes

to piece everybody
where they were.

My dad's girlfriend
Sondra was still alive.

My dad was hunched
over, and it was

unclear whether he was
dead or just so knocked out

that he was sort of like
comatose or something.

I just told myself that
he was knocked out.

At a certain point,
I had to admit

that he wasn't able to help me
anymore, that I was on my own.

Sondra and I took
shelter under a wing.

Many things happened.

Eventually, we started down
this initial icy chute.

She slipped and was killed.

An hour later, I
came across her body.

I covered her with twigs
and leaves and stuff,

even though I knew she
was dead pretty much.

But her eyes were open,
so it was confusing for me

at that age.

I was 11.

And then I continued
down in varied terrain,

and all kinds of
things happened.

I got stuck in snow.

I had to get through a little
creek, gulches, and broken rock

and ice.

And I just wanted it to go away.

More than anything in the world,
I wanted that pain to go away.

Now, had I not gone
in there and seen

that thing, that thing
I feared the most,

I would not have
learned to sort of find

the gem and the
treasure of pain,

those answers that
were there for me.

And had I not faced that
pain, had I not gone

and stared in the eyes of
the thing I feared most

that what I wanted
to run through most,

I would not be here now with
this book, which is really,

besides having a kid, the
most satisfying experience

of my life.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Campbell talks about
the fact that when

we go on the Hero's Journey,
there's a dragon we must slay.

Now, a dragon is the most
challenging, fierce creature

that can ever be
created in mythology.

>>Joe Campbell
describes the dragon

as being a beast
covered with scales.

And on every scale, it
says either "thou shalt"

or "thou shalt not."

So this beast is a
construction of all

of the rules, regulations,
social obligations,

cultural accretions
that have made

you feel that you either have
to or can't do certain things.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Slaying the dragon to me
is the most interesting.

It's the final moment.

It's the time when you are faced
with the scariest thing you've

been faced with.

And you get to take
everything you've learned

and knock this guy out.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>If you were to ask me, what's
the one thing that keeps people

from their mountaintops?

What's the one thing
that keeps people small

rather than allowing
them to present

their genius to the world?

It's their fears.

Or as Joseph Campbell
says, it's their dragons.

>>Fear is anything
that gets in you.

It's a beast.

It's a monster.

>>Fear is, you know,
what we face every day.

We fear that we're
going to be rejected,

that we're going to be-- no
one's going to return our phone

call, that no one's going
to like what we made

or what we did or what we said.

>>Fear that is unfaced
has a tendency to creep.

It moves through
your experiences.

It starts to toxify
your perceptions.

You become scared.

>>Love is what we're born with,
and fear is what we learn.

And I think there's a
great truth in that.

>>I remember when I decided I
wanted to do full loop ramp.

And I had this idea.

I knew it was
physically possible.

I mean, you do it
with Hot Wheels.

You can do it with
a skateboard, right?

And so I presented the idea
to my sponsor at the time,

and I said, hey, I
think I can do this.

And they said, that
sounds awesome.

Let's build a ramp.

And I designed the ramp.

And all this was on
paper, and it was my idea.

And I'll never forget
driving up and seeing it,

and this wave of fear
just crashed over me,

like oh, my-- what did I--?

Are you serious?

Like I made a loop?

I'm really going to--?

And I'm the only one that's
even volunteering to do it.

And at that point, I felt like
there was so much at stake

to not do it.

Because at the time, no one
was building extravagant ramps.

No one really had money
to do that kind of thing.

And there it was, and I just
had to sort of internalize

and say, OK, you keep telling
yourself this is possible.

This is the time.

We gotta make this happen.

And little by little,
I figured it out,

but I took some heavy,
heavy hits that day.

Actually, now we own
one for our Huckjam tour

that we can do on tour
every single night.

But the first time, that
was just frightening.

But I had to really step back
and go, OK, you can do this.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Fear is a very
interesting thing.

First of all, we need to realize
that fear is an inherent part

of the human experience.

But it's not about
getting rid of fear.

Where's it going to go?

There's nowhere for it to go.

The issue is to have
courage, to move forward

in spite of the fear you feel.

>>The courage is
not a lack of fear.

The courage is dealing
with your fear.

Nobody would ever be
described as courageous who

didn't confront their own fear.

That's not courage at all.

It's just doing
something that you

find relatively unchallenging.

>>Courage is when you know
what to do and you do it.

And lack of courage is
when you know what to do

and you don't do it.

>>Courage is the ability
to get up after you fall

and try again,
exploring the unknown

and trying stuff that
maybe people have thought

was impossible.

>>It's just like a muscle.

If you want to get strong or
you want to run a triathlon

or run a marathon or do whatever
you want to do physically,

you know you need to train.

You need to get stronger.

Courage is exactly
the same thing.

Think of it like courage gym.

You've got to consistently
go up your fears

and go one step past
them, one step past them.

And you'll find that
your comfort zone

expands each time you do that.

Things that used
to freak you out

won't freak you out as much.

And now you have the tools.

You have the
strength, literally,

to lift more in your life as you
face your fears more and more

authentically.

>>There is some power
monsters get by being

dark and in the closet.

And there is some diminishment
by facing them, facing

them head on.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>So Joseph Campbell talks
about slaying dragons.

And what do most of
us do in our lives,

whether it's a difficult
assignment at work,

whether it's a difficult
conversation we know

we should have with a
loved one, whether it's

something we're resisting?

We leave and run in
the opposite direction.

Rather than running away,
we should go closer to it.

Because once we can see our
fears, the death of fear

becomes certain.

>>Do the things that scare you.

Courage is what comes afterward.

It is OK to be scared.

That shouldn't stop you.

It's a healthy warning,
but it shouldn't stop you.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>Ogre, dragon that hoards,
all of these stories

talk in those terms
for several reasons.

On the one hand, we
could call it projection

in a psychological sense.

So we project out and
we create an antagonist

that we have to slay.

But what's actually
happening is we're

dealing with the energies
inside ourselves.

>>What is outside is,
in fact, a reflection

of what's inside,
that, in fact, you've

sort of chosen your monsters.

>>Of course, in Star Wars, which
was pretty much entirely based

on Campbell's paradigm,
Luke Skywalker

has to go into the cave,
where he does battle

with Darth Vader, where finally,
he cuts off Darth Vader's head.

And the head rolls to his feet.

And Darth Vader's
helmet opens up,

and what does he see,
but his own face.

He thinks that there's
evil outside of him.

>>When the struggle
between good and evil

is understood to be
going on inside of us,

it can be very beneficial.

This is part of a
personal transformation,

overcoming our negative aspects,
emphasizing our good ones.

But what often
happens, of course,

we want to feel
that we are good,

so we don't find the
negative within ourselves.

We're going to find it
somewhere out there.

>>The great obstacle for most
of us, really, is ourself.

If we can overcome
that basic fear

about what we might achieve,
and we take that risk,

I think all kinds
of things open up.

In Campbell's terms,
we can all be heroes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>The hero encounters these
obstacles, and flails at them.

And that's how we react when we
find ourselves in a situation

where we have that kind
of cognitive dissonance.

How do I get out of it?

Well, first thing is,
you have to surrender.

You have to stop fighting it.

>>So slaying the
dragon is really

coming to terms with that inner
part of yourself that you think

is bigger than you.

And in doing that, then you
grow a bigger sense of yourself.

However, I think
that it's loving

your dragon that's the much
more efficient thing to do.

And it also feels a lot better.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>When you do that,
then frequently whatever

the dragon was
hiding, hoarding, they

step away and give it to you.

They give it to you.

Because what are you fighting?

You're fighting yourself.

When you stop fighting
yourself, then you're

no longer engaged in
the fight, and you're

open to what might come to you.

>>There's always a gift in
battling demons and overcoming

them.

Because that's what a
soul's journey is about.

It's about facing fear
and growing beyond it.

And as we overcome our
fears, we gain power.

>>If we look at our lives, the
best, most rewarding moments

have come after a struggle.

>>As such, what we
do with our lives

is what makes us heroes or not.

And there is grace
in knowing that.

There is a gift
in believing that.

>>Every minus is half
of a plus waiting

for a stroke of
vertical awareness.

In other words, on one
level, it's negative.

Yeah, you had your
divorce, yeah,

you had that health challenge,
yeah, you got fired.

OK, we're not arguing
that was not troublesome.

But what awareness
can you add to it

so you get a far bigger picture
that helps you master it?

>>At a certain point
in the hero's journey,

it's going to become about you
loving and accepting yourself

as you are.

That's a powerful moment,
because that lines

you up directly
with the universe.

Now there's no more war
going on inside yourself.

And as that gap heals
between your unlovable self

and your ability to love
that unlovable self,

you gain an awesome
power in life.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>The way we think
of time is as linear.

I'm born, I'm going to
go through these things,

and I'm going to die.

The Hero's Journey tells us no.

You're going to go here, you're
going to have this adventure,

and you're to come back.

And guess what?

You're going to be right
back where you were.

And now you're going to go over
here and have this adventure,

and you come back.

You're going to go here, you're
going to have this adventure,

and you're going to come back.

And guess what?

You're going to be right
back where you were.

And now you're going to go over
here and have this adventure,

and you come back.

And guess what?

You're right here.

What did you bring back?

>>What the hero brings
back is a story.

Gilgamesh, for example, the
Gilgamesh epic, he went out

and he looked for the
plant of immortality.

He went through all kinds
of trials with the feminine,

with the monster, and so on.

But he finally swam to
the bottom of the sea

and got the plant
of immortality.

And he came up on the
shore and put it down.

While he was bathing,
the snake, serpent,

came and got the
plant of immortality.

But he went home to Uruk anyway.

And he had this story to tell.

For Gilgamesh, there was no
concrete, objective thing,

widget to give to the
community, no gold, no treasure,

and so on.

The story of getting the
treasure is the treasure.

And so the giving of the
story is the invitation

for other people to
make the same journey.

That's why it's a
circle and never ends.

>>I love that idea
that there's a circle,

and the circle
needs to be closed.

And the way to
close the circle is

to come back, return
with something different

than you started with
and to share that.

And that to me is like a
perfect Hero's Journey.

>>That's the ultimate end
to the Hero's Journey's.

It's not slaying the dragon.

It's not beating the bad guy.

It's giving back the
essence of that journey.

>>What's life about?

How can I make a difference?

And who can I make a
difference to and for?

And then it gets real easy.

Hey, can I get a shirt?

Oh, yeah, here's a shirt.

Hey, can I get a board?

Yeah, here's a board.

Oh, my friend's got
an autistic son,

and he's trying to make a movie
and he doesn't have the money.

What can we do to
finish the movie?

Oh, all of a sudden
we're doing things

that we are going to do anyway,
but then all of a sudden we

can make money for him and
make him finish the movie.

And then all of a
sudden, it's like, well,

let's do that again.

That was great.

>>When I found this success
in skating that I never

dreamed possible, the
first thing I wanted to do

is try to help kids
get a facility.

And that was the
first thing I did.

I started a foundation
for public skate parks.

To date, we've helped build
about 500 skate parks.

It's my passion.

It's what I would love to
do, is to provide facilities

for these kids who
deserve a chance.

>>I love talking to young
writers about writing.

There's a scholarship
I fund, which

is a screenwriting
scholarship at Wesleyan,

where I went to college.

We owe it to everybody
who wants to be

what we are when they grow up.

>>They say if you
speak to somebody

at the level of the mind, then
you'll speak to their mind.

If you speak from your heart,
you'll speak to their heart.

But if you speak
through your life,

and your life is the story,
then you'll change lives.

And that's what
mythical beings do.

And it's why stories are great,
because my story right now,

which is also my truth,
may have an effect on you.

And therefore, I am
taking the internal,

I'm making it external,
and through that, I'm

sharing experience.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

>>No matter how
long get to live,

life is ultimately very short.

And before all of us know,
we're going to be dust.

And the street sweeper gets
buried next to the CEO.

And all that really matters
at the end of the day

is how big we showed up
and how courageous we were.

And I think when we are
on our death beds, what

fills our heart with
the greatest regret

is not all the risks
we took and not

all the opportunities we
seized and not all the times we

went out on a limb
and looked silly.

What fills our heart with
regret at the end of our lives

are all the risks we didn't
take and all the opportunities

we didn't seize.

>>And it's really all you gotta
do to get to the next step.

I believe we all have it in
us to think to ourselves,

I can't give up.

>>That choice to not give up is
a story you're telling yourself

that makes you feel immortal.

It makes you feel like
you can overcome anything.

It makes you feel transcendent.

And that's all we got.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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