Christopher: My name is Christopher Duncan, your host. I interview top experts and guests who have achieved total freedom and share with you the strategies that I have used, to don’t just create one but help over 200 people start a six figure freedom business where they can travel, enjoy their life and make the money they truly deserve. Enjoy the show …
Taryn, I’m so excited to have you on the show. Listeners, Taryn Southern is a musical comedian, actress, video blogger, creator and starter of Taryn TV, which it says here at 400,000 subscribers, but I swear you’re about to hit half a million subscribers. I have to say I haven’t come across you until just recently but I’m super impressed Taryn, by what you’re doing. I watched your stuff on virtual reality. You seem like somebody who has done so many amazing things and I just had to go, “Wow! I need to know this lady,” as I’m clicking through your videos, looking at what you’re doing and looked at your Wikipedia page and so, I’m really inspired to have you here so thanks for spending some time.
Taryn Southern: Oh, thank you. That’s so kind of you. I’m happy to be here.
Christopher: That’s awesome because for me, being someone else who also wants to get out there and share a message and change lives and do big things, sometimes it’s great just to see other people doing it, but the thing I always know is no one lands on top of a mountain or even really thinks they’re at the top of a mountain. So, I’d love for you to fill us in in your story and where you started. Give us a bit of a journey because I’m sure there’s some fun things in there.
Taryn Southern: Sad part is the journey just gets longer and longer every year that goes by. I used to have a very concise journey. Now, it feels like a little longer so I’ll try to keep it elegant. I think brevity is the key to elegance. I tend to be long-winded though so we’ll see. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. I always knew from … I think from seven years old that I wanted to travel the world and see what else was out there. I had this big map above my bed and I would mark down all of the places I wanted to go and see. I just had any quest for adventure and discovery. That followed me through high school. I spend several summers out in Los Angeles; drove out with my dad. I was like, “Dad, let’s just go to LA. I want to figure out what the entertainment industry’s like.”
I had done a lot of plays and musicals growing up as a little kid so I was certainly interested in entertainment. Auditioned for American Idol when I was 17 years old. That was early on in American Idol history. Made it into the finals but had never performed in front of an audience before outside of my high school theater. Certainly [inaudible 00:02:46] national television and my nerves just couldn’t take it. Right before my first semester of college, I forgot all of my lyrics in the final round that I was on American Idol on national television.
Christopher: Ouch.
Taryn Southern: Pretty soul crushing. With my tail between my legs, I went back to school, which was University of Miami in Florida. The furthest place from Wichita, Kansas that you can get, both culturally and geographically, and decided to study anthropology because I thought I’m not destined to do entertainment, it’s just not for me, I’m not good enough, I can’t crack it. Studied anthropology and that was fascinating. I studied [psycho-chronocology 00:03:26] specifically. Hallucinogenic drugs was my senior thesis.
Christopher: No shit.
Taryn Southern: Yeah, so went from this very specific way of thinking in how I was raised in the kind of community I grew up in to something that was polar opposite. I did fieldwork in Peru and Belize. My whole world was just cracked open. It was like, “Oh my God. I just can’t believe that all this exists out there.”
Christopher: Wow.
Taryn Southern: When I graduated, I just felt this immense pressure from possibility, which was probably an amazing thing but also really scary because I realized that all the plans I had had for myself to pursue a traditional career, work my way up the ladder, be successful in terms whatever my parents had sort of set forth were all probably not right. That was the beginning of this crazy journey of me moving to LA and doing what I’m doing now, which has been a plethora of different things over the last 10 years. We can get into whatever you think is most interesting for your audience but that’s the background on me and making that switch into … Like, let’s do something awesome. If we’re going to do something, let’s just freaking do it.
Christopher: Do you know what I thinks the most interesting is, you’ve already said it, is the pressure of possibility and that should really be a book because for us and you and I are very similar age and it’s like we just grew up in this age where everything was possible. We could go anywhere on the planet. We can talk to people anywhere we want and it’s kind of, “Well, what the heck do I chose and how do I know?” I would love to talk to that person who’s sitting out there and they just … I guess I call the luxurious position. It’s so luxurious. You have all of these things but, which one do I choose? For you, how did you choose?
Taryn Southern: That is such a great question and I think, to be honest, why it’s such a great question is it never ceases to lose its relevance in that every single year I sit back and I feel overwhelmed by some extent by my own curiosities. I get taken in so many different directions because I can’t stop myself and so I’m always trying to figure out how to create boundaries and limitations because I think that, for the most part, that’s been a key factor in me being able to actually succeed, to some extent, at what I’m doing but also it has also yielded happiness in many areas. For me, the pressure of possibility, as you put it, it’s very real, all the time and I think in the first [inaudible 00:06:17] of it, I’m not kidding you, in college I had eight jobs. I worked as, over the course of two and a half years, I worked at a PR firm, I worked at Morgan Stanley, I worked in the investigative unit of NBC in Miami, I worked as an undercover alcohol marketer, wasn’t legal to drink, nanny, I worked as a casting director for HGTV, like the most random things because I just was so interested in so many things and I didn’t know what direction life would take me.
I ended up choosing to go to LA, choosing to pursue entertainment because it just felt like the craziest thing I could do. It felt like the most unstable thing I could do and one thing I recognized at that age was that my risk tolerance was sure to go down as I got older. The ability to pick up my bags and go to a city where I knew essentially no one and pursue a career that was completely unstable, had no handbook for success, and relied on talent and connections and I think hard work but you’re not even sure, [inaudible 00:07:27] how you actually succeed in it and it just felt like there’s no other time for me that felt good other than now. So, that’s why I ended up choosing entertainment but quite honestly, I was interested in doing just about anything.
Christopher: And that’s beautiful. It really is and I really love to hear from people who were able to take action because a lot of people don’t have those ideas or have those dreams, they let them go, and I always say this to people is if the fear of regret is higher than your fear of failure, then you take action because you never know what shows up when you just get in action. There’s something else I want to bring to the conversation and that’s this is when we’re young and we’re in our 20s and our early 30s, we have the smallest amount of responsibility that we’ll ever have. It only gets harder as you get older to actually then go and do things, you know. As you get kids and family, a house, and other things, as you get older, there’s more responsibility to go take those chances and so I always suggest is as early as possible we need to try as many things. It sounds like you subscribe to a similar thing to that as well.
Taryn Southern: I was an anthropology major. That’s what we do is we just look [crosstalk 00:08:43] and we dissect and we dissect and we dissect and then we move on to the next thing. Yeah. It’s fun.
Christopher: You brushed across some of your success very modestly but I’ve love you to share maybe some of your top three or five things that you’re the most proud of that you’ve been able to achieve on your time on this planet.
Taryn Southern: I’m so bad at … I’m really not good at talking about myself. I feel guilty. I’m like, “Why would anybody want to hear about what I’ve done?”
Christopher: And so listeners, if you’re listening to this on audio, I’ve just made Taryn completely uncomfortable, she’s got her hands on her face like, “What am I going to say?” And here’s why I asked the question is because I know there’s people out there listening that just want to be inspired by where you’ve got to. For me, that’s a question, you know, it’s more about us being able to share with them as short as possible.
Taryn Southern: Okay, sure. All right, I’m going to do my best and I just apologize if any of this comes off as self [inaudible 00:09:45] or I don’t know, I just-
Christopher: I don’t think that’s going to happen for you. In fact, it’s not.
Taryn Southern: Okay, I appreciate that. I’ve been really fortunate to … I think part of the reason that I’ve been able to do a lot in the 10 years that I’ve been in LA is because I’m just a naturally curious person. Every aspect of storytelling and entertainment has been of interest to me and so I’ve had a number of different opportunities across various fields so I’d say if I were to take like the three to five. As a television host, I think I was the youngest person ever host the Golden Globe’s red carpet for NBC at 22.
Christopher: Wow.
Taryn Southern: That was very exciting. That was early on in my hosting career. Being in that position very early on was exciting for me and a big challenge. I sold a television show that was a travel show to DirecTV. I was an executive producer and host of that, also very early in my career, which taught me a lot about creating your own opportunities in a business where most people wait for the phone to ring. From that point on, proceeded to create a lot of the opportunities for myself. I’ve written and produced or sold four pilots to TV networks and on the digital side have produced over 1,000 videos. It was obviously my YouTube channel, which houses, I think, about 300 of them, and then brands like The Today Show, [inaudible 00:11:22], movietickets.com, Glamor, various brands that I’ve produced long form or short form content series for. When I say produce, I mean wrote or created, conceptualized, and then oftentimes provided on-camera services, whether that’s acting or hosting for.
I … Trying to think … I guess as an actress, I really … I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of my favorite comedians doing comedy shows like New Girl, Rules of Engagement … I know you’re from Australia, right? So, I don’t know …
Christopher: I’m from New Zealand. I’m from New Zealand.
Taryn Southern: New Zealand. I’m sorry. That must be so offensive to hear. Moving along. I don’t know how many of these shows you are familiar with but they involved a lot of actors that I looked up to as a child so it was really fun to be working with people like … I mean, I’ll never actually forget the moment where I booked a job where I had to kiss Johnathan Taylor Thomas, who was famous from being in Home Improvement as a kid.
Christopher: Home Improvement. Right.
Taryn Southern: And I remember thinking like, “You know what? At this point? I’m done. Like I’m good for the rest of my life.” My 10 year old self is freaking out so that was big. I’d say, I produced an album, a musical comedy album, I think four years ago and one of the songs ended up on the top 100 on the radio, which was very exciting and random and unexpected. I’ve done a lot of music stuff as a result of that. That was just an inadvertent hobby of mine and I’ve been able to actually make money and perform. It’s certainly not my focus but an awesome happy accident. I would say those are four areas that I feel proud of and then I’m currently working on a documentary, which I can’t really talk about but I’m sure will … That will be the fifth part of what I feel most proud of, when I finish it.
Christopher: That’s awesome there and good for you and it is really great to hear those stories because I was reading on your Wikipedia and looking up on your bio and I was like, “Wow!” You know, this really inspires me to play a bigger game and do big things. You’re an inspiration and I really appreciate having you on. I’d love to really dive in and talk to the person out there who’s scared to take that jump and to take that leap because to me, when I hear your story and what it is that you’ve done, you know, just going into the acting … Well first, I’ve just to leave the hometown and then go somewhere else and then go do the acting and the musicals and then to do not to just music but also comedy at the same time, which are the scariest things on the planet. No one succeeds in Hollywood. You do. You know, there’s so many things that you’ve been able to make happen. What are you going to say to the person that sitting there that knows that they should to be playing a video game but they’re not?
Taryn Southern: It is scary. It’s really scary. I don’t … Wow, I have so many different thoughts on this topic. Some maybe more rooted in the foundation of practicality than others. I think doing anything that doesn’t have a handbook or a 401K plan is terrifying. Oftentimes, what I find is it’s easier to sit in the terror of the unknown than to actually lean into the terror of failure, of feeling failure. In the industry, like the one I’m in, you feel failure all the time. I mean, from my four years here was mainly stint working in traditional media. So, that meant dozens upon dozens upon dozens of terrible auditions, where I’d go home and cry, or I’d say, “That was so embarrassing,” or I’d worked so hard on this, on this audition for three days, and now it’s done because my nerves failed me or I did something embarrassing and I would just beat myself up, so you felt that kind of failure.
And then moving into a space like with digital media where you’re putting out a video, sometimes two, three times a week, oftentimes, not at the level that you would’ve hoped for or you get … I’ve certainly had videos fail massively in terms of the response and the kind of comments that you read. It’s just … You have to have really tough skin and so I think a lot of people … What they’re really scared of? They’re really scared of public failure. They’re scared of like … It could go as small as … They’re scared of … I always encourage people to talk about every fear that they have associated with starting a project because sometimes you just think it’s, “Oh, it’s so overwhelming. Like all the things that could possibly go wrong.” So then talk about it. Put it down on paper. If you’re afraid about starting your brand because … You might just discover that you have this fear of starting a Facebook page because you don’t like the idea of it having seven likes on it for the first six weeks, right? That’s a real fear. And no one should diminish that fear. That would make anyone feel sad, right?
But let’s acknowledge those fears and say, “Okay, let’s just assume that that’s part of the package,” and like experience those and feel through that so that when it’s time to actually take action, which is usually now, [inaudible 00:16:45] in and we don’t create unhealthy expectations. As it is, there is a journey and failure is required. You don’t have companies like Google become Google or Amazon become Amazon without failing [inaudible 00:17:00] of times.
Christopher: So true … Stop and listen to this. I really hope you’re enjoying the show. This is Christopher Duncan here. And I just want to let you know that some of you out there need to get started in building your wealth online. Have more freedom, more time off. We’ve got a few dramatic gifts online webinars, trainings, and other actionable things that you can go and learn from so you can get started. Whether you want to have more time off by using outsource [inaudible 00:17:25], whether you need a system to start or grow your business, if you need more [inaudible 00:17:30], if you need to make more money. Just by listening to this show, we want to invite you to go be able to go and get some free trainings from me and other experts. Go over to the link www.christophermduncan.com/gifts, and you will receive everything that you need to have total freedom. Now, let’s get back to the show. Write that down, www.christophermduncan.com/gifts, and let’s get back to the show. I hope you enjoy it …
So, you always tell everybody that business is nothing but a series of micro tests and you’re just testing and most of the time when you’re testing, you’re getting it wrong. I love that you talked about fear because it can stop us and I think it’s always there and I really like talking about it and getting it out there. Listeners, I really want you to take this on because I see a lot of people … I see a lot of you and you send me in emails and I hear from you and I know you want to take that action and I just want you to really hear this from somebody who I’m talking to today who has just taken so much amazing action and done so many cool things. I want to talk about some stuff that I’ve seen on your VR because I really want to talk … Do you want to talk about virtual reality today because I definitely do.
Taryn Southern: Yeah, for sure. We can talk about whatever you want to talk about.
Christopher: I love you. You’re the best person-
Taryn Southern: I’m an open book.
Christopher: Here’s something that I think that stumps people a lot is pressure from people they love. Number one, expectations from parents and then comparing themselves to others. Has this been something that you had to deal with and how did you handle that?
Taryn Southern: For sure. There is no version of a career in entertainment where you’re not comparing yourself to others. I’ve now, since I’ve been here for 10 years, I’ve had friends become massively famous and incredibly successful and just get the right project at the right time and it just … It catapults them and then you see other people who have these incredible successes and then all of a sudden, for whatever reason, it’s taken away from them and they just can’t get back on the horse. And then I’ve had friends that just can’t figure it out. They’ve just been trying and trying and trying and maybe they’re really talented, maybe they’re really smart, maybe they’re neither of those things, and they just can never quite find their place. It scams the gamut of all of those things and comparing yourself to anyone, it’s the most futile exercise.
So, something I always tell people to do when they are considering moving into a new career path … Sure, it’s great to understand the market and it’s great to study your idols and to try to learn from them and pick up things, but the second that you’re ready to actually do it, I would recommend to unfollow all those people on Instagram because the fact that you’re actually taking action, it no longer matters what they’re doing. And it shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t be relevant. I think it can be really unhealthy because now you’re always just comparing yourself to them rather than to where you were yesterday. That’s my piece of advice. I don’t know. Perhaps, for other people it’s different.
Christopher: Yeah. You know what? Comparing yourself to where you were yesterday is one of the most important things in success. The number one thing that they found, that when it comes to people that are actually moving forward, is having a scoreboard. And having that has to be one of the foundations so you actually know how you’re moving, from weight loss to stopping smoking to making money to all those things, having a scoreboard is key to success and everybody that gets it has one.
Taryn Southern: I love it. I love it. It’s great.
Christopher: The other part was … Sorry?
Taryn Southern: No. Go ahead.
Christopher: I was going to say the other part was when it comes to parents. A lot of millennials that are similar ages to us that haven’t taken the jump into what they truly want to do, there’s this expectation of family, this expectation of you go to university or college in your example and you get the job. We’re the one of the first generations to completely reject that and say, “Well, we can’t sit there. We can’t do that.” I know how I had to handle it but did you just kind of say, “Screw you. I’m just jumping in. This is what I want to do.” Was that your attitude to it?”
Taryn Southern: Yeah. I think … I’ve told [crosstalk 00:21:45] My parents have … My mother is in the same job that she started 35 years ago. I don’t know that … I don’t know. I shouldn’t speak on her behalf about how much she enjoys that job but my guess is that, not as much as she should. I think a lot of us as millennials, we’ve completely rejected the notions of success and happiness that worked before for our parents. We value freedom, we value purpose, and also we are the product of the information age so we have the ability to create whatever it is we want to create.
I mean, our parents didn’t have Craigslist. So, if you moved to a city and didn’t know anyone, I can’t even imagine how difficult it was to find an apartment. Nevermind all the tools we have at our disposal nowadays for learning and for meeting people. It’s amazing. I don’t … I guess I don’t know what else to say other than you have to be your own person. You have to … What was right for your parents should have no bearing on what is right for you and there is no better time as a millennial in college or right out of high school or right out of college or wherever you’re at, there’s no better time to take the risk and do it because as you get older, and as you become more set in your ways and the things that you like and don’t like and the people and once you have kids, which I don’t have, but I’m sure that once you do, everything really does change because your priority set changes and so this is the time to explore and figure it out.
I guess in my own personal experience with my parents, I did something that [inaudible 00:23:25] the best advice for everyone. I chose to tune them out for the first few years.
Christopher: Yeah.
Taryn Southern: I made the conscious decision that I’d rather not seek out their advice because I knew [inaudible 00:23:36] helpful and rather surround myself, create a new family so to speak, in terms of my work and surround myself with people that thought like I did and would be supporters.
Christopher: That’s another thing and here’s what’s really interesting about this conversation. You keep on hitting on points that I’ve heard from billionaires and hundred millionaire business owners. Like again and again and again, and one of them was just saying is, “You’ll never take money advice from a poor person. You’ll never take weight advice from an overweight person.” And so it doesn’t matter, whether they’re your family or not, you always go take that advice right from someone who’s where you want to be. There’s something else I just loved and here’s something that I believe and I just want to see if it’s true for you is the biggest risk you can ever take is that you’ll sacrifice right now and sometime in the future it will be disproportionately better that it’ll make up for not living true to who you are right now. How does that sit with you?
Taryn Southern: It gives me the eebie jeebies. It reminds me of the whole sort of framework that I grew up with, which is deferred life happiness and I just don’t subscribe to that. You cannot put off happiness and yeah, at the same time, you also cannot avoid pain, so let’s be really clear. Just because I’m doing what I love doesn’t mean that I don’t have weeks sometimes where I wake up in utter pain and like, just like not wanting to … Like, feeling unmotivated or not wanting to do [crosstalk 00:25:02] get me to where I want to be. There are absolutely aspects of what I do that I really don’t like. I think it’s really hard to find a career where everything is roses but the [crosstalk 00:25:09] is we value things that are hard and-
Christopher: Did you see that Jim Carrey video where he says … Oh gosh. He was like, “My dad failed as an accountant and I realized that you can fail at what you don’t like so you might as well do what you love.”
Taryn Southern: Yes.
Christopher: I just got reminded of that. You just brought that through me just then.
Taryn Southern: I love that. I saw that on Facebook and I absolutely pressed the thumbs up button. I-
Christopher: Pressed the thumbs up button.
Taryn Southern: That’s currently the case for me. There are painful moments of … All the time. And it’s a lot of hard work just like any other job and I’m sure this is something that you talk about on your podcast all the time but there’s no path to just like complete and utter [inaudible 00:25:55] happiness with what you’re doing. And to have that kind of expectation, I think is unreasonable, and only lends itself towards unhappiness. Maybe I’m being a really Buddhist in my attachment to detachment but I think you have to create reasonable expectations and ultimately … Yeah, I mean, I can imagine doing anything else now but I know that for every two days of awesomeness there’s going to be another two days of really tough stuff.
Christopher: Yeah.
Taryn Southern: But that’s okay. That’s life.
Christopher: It is. It is. What a beautiful life it seems that you’ve been able to create for yourself. You’re doing some really exciting stuff that I’ve seen. I was inspired to watch your VR, virtual reality, and what you think it’s doing and how you’re helping people and gosh it inspired me. I watched it twice and I’ve sent it to three people. It was a great video. Would you like to change tact a little bit? Let’s talk about why you think that VR is going to change the world and what you’re doing about it because it was a great, great video.
Taryn Southern: Thank you. So, I joke with people in the VR community here in LA, I’m now … There’s a bunch of different little micro VR community. I joke with them that I … The first time I put on a headset, I felt the same way I did as the first time watching a YouTube video. I was like, “Oh, my gosh. This is going to change everything. Everything.” That’s why I’ve jumped in. Like fully jumped in, in the same way that I did with YouTube, although it took me a few years to actually do it. With VR, I’m most excited because … Actually a few reasons. One, I told you I studied psycho tropes in college. So, the human mind and how our brain impacts our behavior is something that’s always been incredibly interesting to me.
I obviously have a passion for storytelling and entertainment and then you take that, you combine those things together with technology and you’ve got VR. I think that why I just naturally gravitate towards it. It’s the first medium that is completely immersive. It have the ability to, I think, completely impact state change and perception of reality faster than any other medium, which there can be some negative consequences to that. I’m aware of those but I think, for the time being, I certainly sit on the positive impact side and I think VR as a medium will completely change how we learn, how we socialize with other, and how we view the rest of the world. I don’t know if you had a chance to put on a Vive or an Oculus. If you haven’t done a Vive or an Oculus, then I say you haven’t done VR.
Christopher: Yes. Yes. I have. I’m hugely into it. I’m very excited about what’s around the corner and I’ve had such a tough year this year that it hasn’t been on my radar but this time last year, I was hugely into it and getting very excited about what’s possible. Here’s what I think about it is … You know we’ve talked for a long time about creating visions and you’re going to create your reality into the lure of attraction so it’s very difficult for people to change this state.
For me, when I put on the headset for the first time, it was instant because it was like I got to control the projector inside of my head with something outside of it because it was that real and I thought to myself, the very first thing that I thought was, “I’m going to be able to change people’s psychology. I’m going to be able to help them feel good. I’m going to help them.” And I was thinking to myself, you know, there’s these people that we lock up in prisons and they stare at a ceiling and they just get themselves more depressed. There’s people at hospitals. There’s people that … It’s always people that we can help with it and then I saw myself in you as you were out there talking in this video, I’m going, “Holey moley, that’s exciting.” What possibilities do you see for VR?
Taryn Southern: I love what you just said. That’s exactly how I feel about it. It really does lend itself towards instantaneous perception shift. How you said that it’s like a …. What was the word you used to describe the movie theater in one’s mind.
Christopher: It’s like a projector inside your head.
Taryn Southern: There you go. Yeah, it really is. I think it will … If we think about our brains as like an operating system and we’re all running software, right? Religion, politics, if you’re a vegan you’re running vegan software, and these things take in inputs and then spit out decisions, emotions, outputs, and I think that we’re in a really interesting time in the world. Given very obvious things going on in America and abroad where we are having a tough time finding each other. It could be that many of us are running on antiquated software systems in our brain and I think that now is the time to be having these conversations but VR presents a really exciting opportunity to upgrade the software and to be able to sit in someone else’s shoes. Maybe you’ve been in Wichita, Kansas, which you might’ve grown up for the last 30 years, and you haven’t really been outside of that, and so while your viewpoint is certainly valid and should be understood, it could be really helpful to see outside of that. VR gives you that opportunity in a way that other entertainment has never been able to offer. This is helpful for anyone in the world. I’m not saying this to just Wichita, Kansas people, LA. Whatever.
I think this offers us an opportunity to grow and learn as a conscious species. I don’t know exactly when that will come, how it will look like, maybe it won’t even be VR, maybe it’ll be contact lenses, maybe this is like some version of black mirror, but I see VR as the first step toward unifying us and making us understand, really the basis behind every thought, every decision that’s spinning through our brain. How can we really make this a better world for everyone?
Christopher: And the possibilities to me are everywhere with VR and I really want this conversation to be one of those things that I look back on because here’s what I know is we create medium, we create media, we create good content, and then advertisers come. For the first 10 years, it’s a lot of fun. It’s this new medium like social media and then the advertisers come and then it turns into a business. But there’s this time, and I can see in the next 18 months, just creating this new place where everyone’s connecting in this new virtual reality, this new thing. Maybe it’s the next three years, I don’t know how fast it’s going to show up but there’s going to be a way to combine that with social and it’s going to be people like you with amazing YouTube presence and actually doing it through a virtual reality. I am beyond excited.
Here’s something that happened two years ago. I attended a conference in Melbourne, Australia. Do you know Anthony Robbins?
Taryn Southern: I do not.
Christopher: You don’t know who Tony Robbins is? So Tony Robbins is-
Taryn Southern: Tony Robbins. Yeah. Of course.
Christopher: So, Tony Robbins. Tony, Anthony, same thing. So, Tony Robbins.
Taryn Southern: Anthony Robbins? Who is that?
Christopher: Who is that guy? Why does he put an [crosstalk 00:33:30]. He did a … Gosh. What was it? He did a hologram seminar where he was speaking and he was in … Was he in San Diego? No. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He was somewhere in California and he hologrammed into over 1,000 people and did a whole day presenting as a hologram. And I sat there in that room and I went, “Oh yeah. This is happening.”
Taryn Southern: Here.
Christopher: It’s so much fun.
Taryn Southern: The future is here. We have … We will not recognize the world in 20 years and as scary as that can be to a lot of people, if you would’ve told your parents back in 1985 that they would have a smartphone with them everywhere they went and they would communicate and they would order food and they would date and they would do all of these things using this tiny device, they would’ve been terrified and they would’ve told you, “That sounds awful. I don’t want a world where that’s where we live,” and yet [inaudible 00:34:27] remarkably good at adapting to technology and making it useful and beneficial to them. So, I think we’ll figure it out but it’s really exciting.
Christopher: I mean like right now, we’ve got on this call we’ve got Austin, my marketing manager in Canada, and you’re in [inaudible 00:34:42] and I’m here and it’s crystal clear video. It’s like in the moment. I don’t actually know how this works so fast. It’s so crazy but I don’t know if you can remember the first time that Skype came out. I can still remember like the first time I got on Skype and it was like you could like see this pixelated image and it was delayed and everyone was okay with that. It was like, yeah but it’s this amazing thing. Now, I walk around on Facebook live down on the beach with 200 people around the world seeing me on live so, it is happening and it’s moving so fast and gosh, it’s been so exciting to me. I don’t know where it’s going but it’s so much fun just to be ahead and I love embracing change and meeting other people that on the forefront of that as well. Who knows where it’s going to go?
Taryn Southern: [crosstalk 00:35:30] never been a more exciting time to be alive?
Christopher: Gosh, I can’t.
Taryn Southern: I can’t.
Christopher: I can’t.
Taryn Southern: And if you enjoy watching thriller movies, this is definitely it. You don’t know what’s around any corner.
Christopher: Right on. Right on. Especially, you know, we’re filming this in January 2017 and there’s all sorts of stuff happening in this country and we’re both in the United States so who knows where that’s going to be when the listeners are listening to this but it a [inaudible 00:35:56] interesting time and I’m in this movie with Tony and a bunch of other people coming out. The movie’s called, “Rise Up,” and it’s really … I think we’re at this point where either we’re going to rise up and everyone’s going to move to a higher playing field, a higher consciousness, we’re going to go higher. It’s going to be full of love and compassion and connection and fun and joy. Well actually, no, that’s the only way it is going to go. I’m not going to put the other option. There is only one way and I’m excited for that.
Taryn Southern: Right. I think that’s great.
Christopher: I can’t believe that we’ve already gone over time.
Taryn Southern: Did we?
Christopher: Yeah. I normally try to keep this nice and short but that’s just how much I’ve enjoyed talking to you. [crosstalk 00:36:38] of all these things. Gosh, how to wrap this up? We’ve talked about so many different things. Actually, before we do, I’m just going to go over time, so listeners, we’re going to go for a little bit longer and I know that I try to keep it short but I want to hear what you’re doing the VR. I know that you’re in school to doing things and I’d love that you’d give a little plug and share what you’re doing and how people can support that because actually that would be very valuable and I’m not a new supporter but a massive supporter of everything you’re doing.
Taryn Southern: Oh, thank you so much. I started … I really appreciate that. I started an organization that focuses on VR for good, Tribe of Good. Our first initiatives are telling social impact stories using 360 video and VR. So, did a piece last fall on Mott’s Children’s Hospital out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They’ve essentially been one of the first hospitals to use VR in their Children’s Cancer Units for pain management. We did a digital piece on them and then also a 360 piece where you could sit in the room with the kids doing VR for the first time in the hospital. Next week I’ve got another piece coming out for an organization called Wish of a Lifetime, which grants seniors with debilitating diseases a final wish. It’s a beautiful organization. We did a digital piece on this woman named Shirley who’s 72 years old and she’d always dreamed of racing a professional race car on a track so we tell her story but then we also put you in the race car with her in 360 video so you can experience what that was like for her [inaudible 00:38:19] track.
We’re focused on telling those kinds of stories. If people are interested or have a story that they want to tell or they know of an organization that would really benefit from this kind of thing, then they can just go to the facebook.com/tribeofgood page and submit there. Right now, I’m just, honestly I’m financing out of my pocket because I believe in it but I think that there will be a time very soon where brands will come in and see this is really good for the world and we should be supporting this and so I just want to encourage that kind of storytelling. Aside from that, Tribe of Good also places volunteers. We are enthusiasts in senior homes, homeless shelters, and children’s hospitals so that people can experience VR for the first time.
We’re still putting that program together. We’ve got a program here in LA. If you live in LA and you’re on the Facebook page, you can just shoot a message and we’ll sign you up to volunteer but we’ll be expanding that and basically just helping people figure out how to institute those volunteer programs in their local communities. If you’ve got a VR headset and you love VR or you can share the happiness.
Christopher: That’s awesome, man. And I want to request anyone out there listening that can support that mission or want to be a part of it that I think it’s a very, very cool thing and the way that we think about the world is … I love the word present. I just stumbled on that word. But present, the word presence, if you break it down, it’s actually pray sent. And so we’re actually pre-sending the present moment forward. So, I feel like if our emotion has already been present and that’s why it’s called the present and so the one thing that I’ve very excited about VR’s, I talk a lot about changing your psychology, changing your thinking. I think one thing it could do is it can literally change what you’re pre-sending because it’s controlling what’s being sent in such a bigger way than any meditation, anything has ever done before. That’s incredibly exciting to think that we really can change our thoughts and our programming in a controlled manner.
Taryn Southern: 100%
Christopher: I’m excited to talk to you about that further. This has been an enlightening and exciting conversation. I feel so grounded and centered talking to you. It’s just been really, really nice. Where can everyone get in touch with you? Obviously on your YouTube. That will be in the show notes. I guess Facebook. It says that you’re on Instagram-
Taryn Southern: I’m on all of the mediums. It’s just my name, Taryn Southern. You can find me anywhere just depending on what your medium of choice is.
Christopher: I’d love you to just share just one last thought or comment with the listeners. How would you like to end off today? What’s something in your heart that you’d love everyone to hear from you today?
Taryn Southern: The pressure of possibility.
Christopher: There it is.
Taryn Southern: My one last thought … I guess my one last thought would be … Oh wow. I almost … The expectation of delivering a negative wisdom is crushing. I would leave everyone with … I’ll leave people with where I’m at now with something that I’m grappling with now, which is don’t be afraid of change and even if you make a decision and commit to something, you can always change your mind down the road. It’s better to commit and take action than to put something off and trying to make something perfect before actually putting it out there to the world. I think that’s really important and I just encourage people to take action and know that you can always change your mind later.
Christopher: I love that. Such a good piece of advice. Taryn Southern, thank you so much for spending time on the Freedom Fast Track podcast. It’s been such a pleasure and I feel so connected with what you’re doing and [inaudible 00:42:23] so thank you so much for taking your time out of your day to spend it with us and listeners, live with freedom. Free your mind, free your time, free your life. Do what matters most and do it right now.
Taryn Southern: I love it.
Christopher: Thank you so much. Yeah. Subscribe, like and share this episode and I’ll see you next week …
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