Transcript of Yara Shahidi Opens Up: How To Prioritize Mental Health & Overcome Self-Doubt To Achieve Any Dream

So many times people would assume that I'm just an upbeat person. I think for the most part, a smiling individual. But I think the anxiety and overwhelm are overshadowing the excitement of what's next. I think it's also aligned with a lot of self-work of prioritizing what it means to take care of myself. I put my own needs behind everything else, even when it's not being asked of me. You know her as an actress on Black-ish and Cromish. Since then, she's graduated from Harvard, become a successful producer, The incredible Yara Shahidi. It truly starts as a vision board. Some random day, I was 18 and wrote down every deal that I wanted to have. I don't typically think that way of being like, Oh, I'm going to get this deal with this. But I just written down a list. Two years later, I was like, Oh, we did it all. The priority in this world is building relationships with people around you. It's not building networks, it's not building contacts, it's building relationships.

My whole life has been about relationships. Yeah. What do you feel like has been the most challenging thing you've had to overcome?

I don't know if I've talked about this.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have Yara Shahidi in the house. So good to see you.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah, I'm excited because You have had an incredible career as a young actor, but also just talking you beforehand with your mom is just inspiring what you've been able to create for yourself from your career in TV, film, but also graduating from Harvard while acting as well on one of the biggest shows on TV and making that work. You're launching a podcast now with your mom called The Optimist Project. You were telling me right before that you're actually not that optimist of a person.

Yeah, I think the podcast truly came from conversations we're having. The thing is, what's nice is if you know me, you know that me and mommy are very similar people, which is why our friendship, but also our business relationship works. So many times people know, I'll say, Carrie Shahidi. Because so many times people would assume that I'm just an upbeat person. I think for the most part, day to day, smiling individual. But I think so many of the conversations we were having, particularly while I was in school, was just hitting that mental block of, one, having a deep anxiety about what growing up looks like and feeling like what's happening when the anxiety and overwhelm are overshadowing the excitement of what's next. Also, simultaneously in school, reading all of these theorists and people, I was in this year-long course for my major in which you have to read everyone from Hobbes to Marx and every social theorist in between. There's some dark stuff. Some dark stuff. But more than the dark content in their books, it was like, you all live dark lives. The amount of people that wrote a book and then became recluses or ended up separating from family, I think it meant top of mind for me was, Oh, if this is something that I want to continue to study, what does that mean for me to prioritize quality of life?

I was that annoying person in all of our discussion classes like, But were they happy? But were they happy? And what does it mean if they weren't? And why are we taking this so seriously if they weren't happy?

Interesting. Do you feel like you're happy right now?

It's a good question. Today, yeah. Today, yeah. I think I've been.

On a scale of 1-10, of happiness, where have you been this entire year? One being miserable, 10 being elated, optimistic, positive, joyful.

I think-On average. That's a good question. I feel like I'm a solid seven.

Okay.

Because I think the difference between even my life last year to this year was in knowing that there are natural ebbs and flows of emotions. Because I think last year, as much as I go through something and be really sad for an extended period of time, I always felt like that feeling was going to be permanent. Then I would snap out of it, and then I'd forget. Oh, yeah, everything is temporary. I think this year, I carry a knowledge that it's all temporary, which allows me to float through it a little more. But I think it's also aligned with a lot of self-work of prioritizing what it means to take care of myself in a way that I wasn't a year ago, two years I think that also helps because for the first time, I'm like, Oh, I took seriously the idea of having tools to manage stress and challenges.

How did you manage the stress and challenges as a rising child star from acting on TV and then going to one of the hardest universities in the world of the pressure of both. One of those at 18, 19 is a lot of pressure. Between Harvard and the top TV show and traveling cross country every week, how did you manage that? Your emotions, mindset, and mood throughout all that?

Honestly, yeah, and COVID hit. That was crazy. I think starting a career early, the beginning, I didn't have to think about it much because I think the way my parents had said it, it up was like, Oh, this is a hobby. This is something that you tap in and out of. But I was full-time enrolled in school. I had so many hobbies outside of acting. People would laugh. Casting directors would laugh because they knew if they wanted me or my brother to audition during the school week, they'd just I have to reconfigure some things because if I had a test or my brother had an important basketball game, life came first. But by the time Black-ish came, that was the first time where I really had to re-anchor my life around being on TV in a way that I never had to before. I think that was the first set of stresses and challenges. It was a great set to be on. But I'm number 5 on the call sheet. I'm not working every day. The idea that this was the first time I wasn't in school full-time in person, but I'm also not acting as much as I necessarily want to be on You're just in a trailer for hours.

Waiting to do a couple of lines, a couple of scenes here in that.

I love my cast rates dearly, but having had such a full life beforehand, I think that was the first moment where we were like, Okay, we have to do a little reconfiguring. I think that was when mommy and I looked at each other and she was like, It's time for you to live your whole life again. So what else is interesting you? I think that's when I became more publicly, politically engaged and started doing voting work, started going to concert, seeing my favorite artist, just really pursuing other things. So my free time became a little more well-rounded. Then by the time Grownish hit, once again, it was a level up in terms of what the commitment was because I had turned the industry term legal 18 over the summer because I had graduated from high school a year early. I forgot when I was getting my little high school diploma that this meant that I could work endless amount of hours. I may have been like, Wait, I forgot to take a class. I still got to be in high school. By the time Grownish started, I went from working 10 hours to 17 hours a day.

A day?

Yeah, and given. We fineste and finetuned that.

You're in a trailer a lot of the time.

But also, I wasn't even in a trailer a lot for season one because my character was in both story lines. We're typically, you have A storyline, B storyline, and actors trade off between what the storyline is, and so you always have a break. First season, I was in every all the time. 17-hour days? 17-hour days, which I think it is what it is to be a new show. We're on cable. We're just trying to prove ourselves. But I came from Blackish where we got a juice truck. We have great trailers. We're on broadcast. It was funny because we would even sneak over to their craft services because they had it made, and we were just the little cousin trying to carve its own path. But yeah, I think that also was another where I had to learn how to take care of myself and what that looked like because it was my first real challenge of being like, Oh, a lot is being expected of me. I think there were a lot of conversations, luckily, coming from such a tight-knit family, but also coming from the line producer and Kenia and other people coming from Blackish and having seen me since I was young, they were definitely able to approach it from, Okay, she's a human first and foremost, but we had to have those conversations.

My mother had to have those conversations with a first AD that would be like, She doesn't need to eat right now. She's good. We got to film this. To be like, No, we got to see her as a human being first, and then an actor second. I think adjustments were made along the way to then figure that out and what that rhythm looked like. I'd go into the writers room every day. I'm like, Please write my cast up. They're brilliant humans. Zoe does not need to be in everything. It's the opposite of what she needs to be in. It's It's nice to say that we hit a cadence. But then, of course, always seeking a challenge. Then I was like, great, I'll go to school. Now that my character's written down a little bit, I'll go to school full-time. I'd have to say I did not have it down pat what it looked like taking care of myself. Really?

In terms of what? Emotionally, especially Spiritually, physically?

All of the above. I think I've always been a task-oriented person, and I think I put my own needs behind everything else, even when it's not being asked of me. Really? Yeah. Oftentimes, I say, the best way I can say is my goal is to take care of myself as well as the people around me take care of me because I have such great examples around me of people that are like, Yeah, you need rest and you need to rejuvenate. But I'm the first one to throw that away and say, Hey, I have a paper due, I have this due. My grown-ish schedule became, Oh, I'm pulling all-nighters. I'm filming, pulling all-nighters to do schoolwork, and then going back to set. I think at the time, part of it was just what the necessitated. I don't know if there would have been many other ways to accomplish that. But I think what was hard was that I also didn't have, for myself, a list of things to be doing to pour into myself, whether that be physically. As much as I look back at pictures of me in school, I was like, Oh, I was ripped.

Girl, that's a calorie deficit. You weren't eating. I was like, That's not muscles. You're walking with basically a weighted vest, which is your backpack, and forgetting to eat all day. Wow, yeah.

Man, that's incredible. You mentioned before that you don't like challenges.

Yeah, I was saying...

This seems like a challenge that you've been taking on for the last 10 years of your life.

Yeah, I guess the way I'd put it is I know life consists of challenges, and at this point in my life, it's been a high priority to become friends with challenges because they don't excite me.

They don't. I think-What's a challenge to you? I think What does that look like that you don't want to do?

It's more so maybe another word is misalignment. I think to be a creative and to be in the production world, any creative endeavor, obviously, there's a lot of passion behind it, but there's a lot of business behind it. There's so many times in which you hit bumps on the general road. There's so many times I just get very disappointed. It somehow feels like when we hit a let's say, with a partner of being like, Why aren't we on the same page about this? Out of alignment. Why is this? When we're out of alignment, I think where I'm surrounded by people, they're like, All right, cool. This is just a cue that we need to realign. I'm like, Oh, Lord, what's happening? What's happening in the world? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? This should be so simple. I think a lot of that is also the fact that I love the creative industry, but in my mind, I'm like, What we do should be so straightforward. Out of all the life-saving things that people do in the world that really do require a lot of challenges, why is creativity so challenging?

It's part of what prompted the podcast because it was like, okay, a lot of the solves that I even experienced were just through conversations with friends, mentors, and peers in certain rooms where they would contextualize, is it a challenge or is it this? Is it a part of your personal alignment? Just in them sharing personal stories, I think it gave me a lot more context for the idea that I was just taking it too seriously, taking the sign of a challenge too seriously versus being like, it's just a part of life. It's just life. Yeah, it's going to happen. It's not that you've done anything wrong or could have done anything better. It's just the process.

Where do you feel like you're out of alignment in your life right now?

That's a good question. I think this is actually right now is the result of diagnosing the misalignment some months ago and being like, We're going to meticulously find alignment. I'd have to say what's been most inspiring about right now is that creatively, we're working with people that we love. On the business side, it's like, Oh, we have a team where it's like we're all... Even when we deal with the basic issues that happen externally, as a team, we're all such a united front that it's also made those moments easier to get through because there's no internal divide. We're all on the same page now. It's just about how we communicate that to the rest of the world. I feel like I'm reaping the results of diagnosing misalignment. Wow.

When you think about your vision for yourself in the world and what you want to create, when you dream, when you imagine, when you're thinking about manifesting something or bringing something into reality, do you put your body or your mind or your heart in a certain vibration when you're thinking about dreams, ideas, alchemizing something, bringing it to life? Or is it just a part of your process where I'm just thinking about it, then I'm just taking the analytical steps? How do you manifest the things you want in your life?

That's a great question. I think there are many different ways I think for some of the bigger things, it really is, I don't know the best way to say it other than getting downloads in moments of like, Oh, I think that's next. I think this thing is next.

What does that download come? Is an analytical voice in your head? Is it a heart vibration? You just see something differently in the air? What does that down the look like?

I think a lot of it is that feeling of when you get When I get a wave of excitement, it's like, Oh, that's interesting. That means that my curiosity is piqued. A lot of, I think, what I'm interested in tackling next comes from a wave of curiosity. For some reason, this has grabbed my attention. I couldn't tell you why. It's not because, Oh, it's the logical next step. I think whether that be the podcast starting as conversations, and then I think I wrote the name The Optimist Project on a random hotel, like a little pen and pad they had at the bedside. Then the analytical side starts of like, Okay, how do we bring this into the world? But I think, yeah, a lot of it comes from that just wave of, Oh, I'm really curious by this. This keeps grabbing my attention. If it's grabbing my attention, it must mean something. It really ranges from even as random as it may seem for my endorsement deals and fashion side. I remember at some random day, I was 18 and wrote down every deal that I wanted to have. I don't typically think that way of being like, Oh, I'm going to get this deal with this shoe company, this deal with this.

But I just written down a list. I think two years later, I was like, Oh, we did it all. Now what?

You got to write a new list.

Yeah. But I think that's what's nice about the fact that our team is also aligned in how we think and that it's like, all of us get these waves of curiosity, and then we bring in the analytics to be like, Now, how are we going about it? It truly starts as a vision board. It starts as like, Oh, What do we see?

I love this. You had an amazing TED Talk. The quote that I wanted to pull from that that you said about curiosity, you said, Chasing curiosity means that my purpose is constantly unfolding in front of me. All I have to do is pay attention. Similarly, each Each and every one of us have a special set of interests that are totally unique to us like a thumbprint. You say, Please join me in recommitting the curiosity because honoring your so-called distractions is an act of creating. It's to sit in the grandeour of all of our options. It's to acknowledge our infinite possibilities when the world tries to convince us it is indeed finite. Refuse to let your world get smaller and let's build new futures together. I thought that was really cool from your TED Talk about curiosities and allowing distractions if it piques your interest to lean into that and see what's possible.

So much of my path has truly been defined by honoring that random thought, honoring that feeling I think going to school, I talked about it in that TED Talk, but going to school for me was honoring a distraction, especially within the scope of the industry and the idea that it's really unheard of to take amount of time out of your career to go focus on a degree that you don't need for your career because I didn't go to study acting. I think it was what allowed me to enjoy acting again, too, because I needed that balance. I'd always loved what we do. But again, going from a world where it was very strategic that we lived full lives and then we'd go act now and then to suddenly being a life where it's like, Oh, this is what we do for eight months. Then those couple months down are about promoting the things that we that you did. There's no downtime. Then you go back into it. Yeah, school was that necessary balance and counterpoint of, Here's a world where, almost to an extreme, no one cares about what you're doing in the world. Every counselor I had was like, I really could care less.

About you being on television.

They want you to get good grades.

They want you to get good content. The amount of people that even told me, Come back later when you're not working. I was like, Hey, six-year contract, friends, that's not happening anytime soon. It's now or never for me. But yeah, I was in an environment where they prioritized who I was as a student. I think acting meant that school also had a balancing point because I think it's very easy to be in a cute little liberal arts environment with your books and feel like you solved the world.

You're not creating anything also.

Yeah. It was also nice to have a business side to what I was doing to be like, Oh, but I also get to go make things in the world. I go think about things in the world. I go make things in the world. It was nice after being in a space of just making things in the world to go think about things.

Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, That's fascinating, though, because you didn't need to go to school. I mean, you were making the degree you got. You're making more money with the career you already had than the number three could give you. In anything, if you're paying full tuition, you have debts for years that you have to pay off for the education. Were people thinking you were crazy that you were going to go to school? Because they were like, Can't you just enjoy your life and you're making so much money and you're on TV and you're famous and you live in LA? Why would you want to go to the cold in Boston and pay all this money, whatever it is?

I think it's why alignment has been the word of the hour because even how we selected my team. When me and mommy and My prior manager walked in to take all of the big meetings with, you have WME, UTA, CAA, other talent agencies. I was 16, and I already knew I wanted to go to school. I had been talking I'm not talking about it forever, but I knew I wanted to go to college. I knew I wanted to go to college because even my high school career, we chose a program that wasn't even meant for actors so that I could maintain my full AP schedule, even though I was distance learning. When we took those meetings, I was very clear about, Hey, I plan on going to school in the next year, year and a half.

If they're not on board, they're not for me.

It was so telling. It was so telling because many people had the general reaction of like, Oh, yeah, we had an actor trying to go to school, and I sent him all the scripts that he was missing out he dropped out in the semester. For me, CAA, and particularly the team that I have, they were the first ones in the room immediately to be excited about it, to really want that for me. It's even funny to be out of school now and to think about certain team members who I love that waited patiently, as I said, no to pretty much everything because I was like, I'm going to complete my obligation and my commitment to seeing through Grownish as an actor and as a producer. But other than that, I wasn't taking on anything new. That was made possible because I think by the time it was time to go to school and make that decision, I was surrounded by people that understood and surrounded by people that were excited. But I think it did take a lot of weeding out early on of Those conversations of people that are like, Yeah, why school? Having a career, honestly, was the most privileged way to get into college because I was able to think about where my curiosities were.

I had so many friends because they were because, like you're saying, because of the expense of it, because so many times, especially as Black and Brown students, you're dealing with the reality, this may not even translate to a job offer, this Ivy lead degree of mine. I had so many friends have to prioritize what makes the best job offer, what makes the best resume. Whereas coming from a place where I was like, I have my career, I was able to take, Oh, I'm taking a hip hop class. I'm taking a health care and morality class. I'm taking this random theory class. Ultimately, all of it contributed to my own growth in ways I I wouldn't even be able to name when I was choosing the classes. But I think those classes wouldn't have even been on my radar if I went in the traditional sense and said, All right, I got to make something of myself using this degree. It gave me another level of freedom in being like, What am I interested in? Let me try that stuff.

Now, have you ever struggled with self-doubt or the fear of failure?

Yeah, I think fear of failure, feeler of...

Like, rejection?

I think that's what makes the creative industry something that I'm always personally having to figure out how I want to engage and how do I move with confidence. Because part of why I liked school so much is that I got direct feedback every day that I was doing well. It's a perfectionist dream. Being in an industry where it's even above you how many nos you deal with, how imperfect it is. I get grades, I get clear feedback on what I could do better next time.

You're in control of your results? Yeah. If I study on it, I get the answer right.

Cause and effect. I put the time in. I got a great grade. I put the time in for my thesis, suma suma, great, cute. I think creativity presents self-doubt for me because it's so informal in how I even self assess, what does doing well look like? So many times doing well can be attached to, again, results of being like, Oh, I have a show on air. Oh, I made this happen. I'm promoting this project. For me, even my own health journey, prompted by maybe the collision of graduating, finishing the show, all these things happening at the same time, I think I've now intentionally been prioritizing what are experiences that I know I'm not going to be great at and how do I move through it? Because it's even random stuff. I was on the American bake-off, the the American version of the British bake-off. Was it fun? It was so fun. That's cool. I love watching the show, and even though I'm only really a sous chef in the kitchen, I was like, Yeah, I'll do it. But truly, my first priority was, Don't get upset at the fact that you don't bake professionally, and you're not about to come off as a professional baker.

You're not good. No.

Because I think for me, I definitely... Maybe it's just being public-facing. I don't necessarily know where I got it from, but I definitely have a sense of I do things that I know I'm good at. But it was limiting in the sense that if I'm not good at it, I just am like, I don't know if this is for me.

But now you're starting to lean into it.

Leaning into it because we had even done... We had created a show. It was called Yara's Day Off, and it was on Metta, and it was where I would go with guests to do their activity, their hobby. And boy, oh, boy, was that an immersive therapeutic experience that I don't even know if I took away the biggest lessons from until a year later? Because it was me making a fool of myself for 12 weeks, which I had never done. Of being like... I remember one time I had a guest, Elton, and he's an incredible gymnast. I cannot do a handstand. More than that, I have no desire to do a handstand. I'm a black belt in karate. There are things that I like to do that I'm good at. But I say to the team, I'm like, Hey, guys, I can't cartwheel. Don't want to cartwheel. I'm down to try other things out, but just FYI. They call action. They're like, Yeah, we're going to teach you how to cartwheel. Wow. I tell you, I went to the bathroom and shed a single tear because it was just It was such an embarrassing experience for me of being like, Oh, I'm doing something.

By the end of the learning session, I still couldn't cartwheel. I think for me, that idea of not having that linear progress was really frustrating to deal with of being like, Yeah, I know you have to grow in things, but as long as I see myself growing, I'm good. It's those moments where the growth is so granular and so small that I've had to continue to move through to be like, No, you got to wait it out. You may not know how to four times doing this. You may not know for the whole year. I still don't know. But my friends have signed me up to teach me next week.

What is it about not being good at something right away that bothers you?

Again, a question I ask myself. I think some of it is the public-facing pressure of knowing the stakes of failure at times, knowing we don't I think especially the time that Blackish came on air, we were one of the only Black families on broadcast. It also meant you're a part of this small group of actors that have this opportunity to be on primetime television every week for the whole world to see. I think it just created this sense of responsibility of being like, Oh, I want to be as responsible as possible. I think however my brain worked, I moved being responsible to being, again, as correct as possible, moving as as properly as possible. Still, couldn't tell you where I got it from because not how I was raised. I was raised under like, Yeah, you make mistakes, you figure it out. That's part of life. You can fail in as long as you feel like you learned something, even just spiritually, worth it. That's a success. I don't know exactly where it came from, but I could tell you I also doubled down because people didn't believe that I was as let's say, perfect or put together as I presented.

I think that made me double down because I also didn't like dealing with the doubt of being more- To look more perfect or to... Yeah, I think there is a sense of perfectionism I deal with, but there's also... I landed on the planet this way of being like, Yeah, I just was never a really drinker because I just never really had the desire to. It wasn't from some like, I can't drink because...

I've never been drunk in my life.

I know I just started drinking, but I'm like, Same, because I'm just like, either it has to taste phenomenal, which most times it doesn't. I think being introduced to drinking on a college campus where I'm like, The warm beer or warm orange juice, not appealing. I think to me, I was like, Yeah, never done drugs, never desired to. It was never even a decision of, Oh, I can't because that would look like this or that. Never desired to. It's just your makeup. Yeah, some of my makeup. I think a lot of times I felt as though people were challenging my makeup as though I was moving super strategically when it wasn't that. Of course, I definitely had a fear of failure, but I think the core tenets of who I am and how I move through the world came from authentically just how I landed here. I think some of the attention I got for moving the way I did made me feel more... What is the word? Made me feel like people were waiting for me to slip up. Really? Because it was always so voiced. It was voiced to me so constantly the more I did that of being like, Oh, but you know you can be just a regular kid.

I don't know why you think you need to do all this. I'm doing this because I want to do it. I would not have been able to go through four years of school if I didn't want to be there. No one could have convinced me into that, flying back and forth. It's a lot of work. No one could have convinced me into doing a voting initiative unless I wanted to do that. I think the mistrust people had that it was coming from just truly who I am, and I have a team of people that were honoring who I am. It wasn't coming from external voices of, You know what would look great? But I think it made me skeptical, are people waiting for me to slip up? Are they waiting for me to be? I don't know. It's something that I'm not. I think that definitely made me more aware of how I came off in the world because before, I never questioned it. Really? Until I got the comments, I never questioned why I was making certain decisions because it was just second nature. Is that who you were? Yeah, it's who I am.

I think that's something that I'd I had to move through where the strategic thinking didn't come in until after I had heard, Oh, people are waiting for me to slip up for whatever reason.

What's your biggest fear moving forward now? You've had so much success from TV and film and graduated Harvard and all the things you're creating, what is the fear moving forward?

Well, I think, honestly, the fear moving forward has been not living I think I spent... Luckily, I don't think I was in that headspace for too long, but I think, again, feeling like, okay, people are waiting for me to slip up. Okay, I need to be on my Ps and Qs. Also just having an immense responsibility of being like, I'm on a show that needs me to be on It doesn't matter if I didn't sleep. It doesn't matter if I have to catch a flight. I'm at a school that needs me to be on my A game. It doesn't matter if I didn't sleep. It doesn't matter if I have to catch a flight. I'm at a school that needs me to be on my A game. It doesn't matter if I was working. I can't write at the end of the paper, Sorry, I was on set. So this is why this is like this. I was writing my thesis, and in that week, right before leading up to my thesis, we were in Paris, Dubai, LA for work. Then I landed, and I had 48 hours to turn in my thesis in person.

Again, an abundance of opportunities and things I'm grateful for. But I think after graduating and after, again, my general health journey and what that spurred for me mentally, I think the fear now has been not learning from all of that.

You don't feel like you've learned from it.

I think I have. I'm saying that the fear to me would be if I don't continue to take it as seriously, if I slip up from all the learnings that I've had in the last year, two years. I've made such great leeway, I feel like, in being able to show up as myself, show up authentically. I think as I figure out what that next phase of life looks like, what that next phase of career looks like, I don't know whether it's a fear, a want, a wish. I think my wish is to maintain and hold on to with a fear this feeling of authenticity that's been curated and graded.

How do you navigate other people's opinions about you? Whether they're directed towards you, speaking to you about their opinion or just online or just what you think people are thinking about you. How do you navigate opinions?

I think it was a great therapy session that I was in where she asked the question, How do you feel about people? I think as simple as that was, it changed the game for me because I was so curious about what people thought of me. It wasn't even about... I was able to opt out of what people thought of me publicly pretty quickly. By just opting out, we realized being on Twitter is not mandatory. Just go look at this. You may feel like it's mandatory, isn't. Getting off of Twitter, great feeling for the spirit. Getting off of TikTok, not looking myself up. All those things were, I think, adjustments and things that I was able to learn in real-time and get support to be like, All right, this is how I'm going to navigate the fact that I'm a public person, you need all these social media things for your job, but you don't have to engage in this way of being super accessible all the time and always looking at what people are saying. Luckily, that was a lesson that I think I learned in real-time and was able to learn from. But in terms of just interpersonal relationships, I think it's the nature of just my job is when you're in an audition room, half of it is acting well, but also being liked.

I think it made me aware of what people thought me. I'd like to think it didn't take up too much of my brain space, but particularly if I was at events, I'm like, I'm so preoccupied with how am I coming off right now? Even the idea of I'm working-So you were thinking about it at events, like, Here's how I'm coming off, or How am I coming off? Or even that feeling of... It sounds so silly. It's a good problem to have. But here I am coming in with my little Harvard degree, and again, seeming so put together that I'm putting an extra effort to seem super chill. I'm super laid back. I know you know me as the kid that multitasked in the show, but-But I'm relaxed. I'm relaxed. The thing is, I am relaxed, but I was doing this other layer of performing because I knew that people saw me as this type A getting things done person. Or even if I'm at events and not drinking, then there's a lot of questions because if you don't say, Oh, it's because I'm sober, or I have this weird hard and fast rule, unfortunately, you still get a lot of questions like, Why is that?

It never stops. Right. Now my issue is I'm like, I drink Coca-Cola at events just to have something in my hand, but now I'm drinking so much soda that I never intended to drink.

Just drink water. Yeah. Sparkling water is my go-to.

I know, but I'm saying for some reason within this age demographic, getting water is even more like, Wow, you think you're all that. You're drinking water at the function.

Why care about what people think about you?

Precisely. Anyway, after drinking a ton of soda-Who cares what they think?

If they're going to poison their brains. It's like, why care when someone is poisoning themselves, thinks about you being healthy?

I think that's truly the work. I think I knew immediately, Okay, this is something to sort through because my journey is not drinking this much soda to make people feel comfortable as simple as that was. My journey is not doing all of this extra work to seem chill because I think they think that I'm this way. I say that to say I was talking through it with my therapist, and she was like, Oh, well, how do you feel about the people that you meet? I realized I wasn't developing an opinion. I was so preoccupied with what they thought I was like. As simple as that was, going into events and going into spaces, checking in with how I was enjoying myself has gotten rid of almost immediately all of the little thinking and notes I made in my head about, Oh, I wonder if that was awkward. I wonder how they feel about that. I wonder... But yeah, I was prompted by me going to this event and knowing immediately. I was like, I'm so in my head, and here I am in a beautiful room with beautiful people. It's a privilege to be here.

It should feel like It shouldn't feel like this constant job. Luckily, I had learned... She had asked me that question almost a couple of days after because I was like, It's time to work through this. I really did feel such an immediate twist in being like, Oh, if I am always asking myself how I'm feeling, there's just less room and space to ask myself how they're feeling about me. Still not perfect. I still close in my moments, but it definitely made a big shift in just how I move. Wow.

When you have a big casting, a big meeting, a big event you're going to where it seems big, in the grand scheme of things, maybe it's not, but it seems like, Oh, this could be a big opportunity. I'm meeting someone that could influence my career or whatever it might be. What is the intention you set before going to the events, the meetings, and situations where you know this could change the trajectory of my career or future?

I think part of the positive thing in suspending the traditional cause and effect, if I do this super well, then this is going to happen for me because of this event or because of this meeting. I've started to have more personal self-development goals and less career goals when I go into those things. What? Meetings, again, it's being honest. My goal in this meeting is to be as honest as possible about where I am, how I'm feeling. It happened even last week. I was in a director's meeting, and it was a It was a great meeting. I liked the person, but they had some questions on the fact that I live such a straight and narrow life and whether I'd veer from that for the sake of a role. It was nice where I think I typically would have just laughed my way out of it and then had the team handle like, Oh, tell There may be a misalignment. It was so nice to have the wherewithal to be like, Hey, yeah, I don't think that's the journey I'm interested in going on. I'm not excited by that. So you were honest with them? Yeah, and I said it in the meeting, and I think that was really new for me to be like, I have the feeling.

All right.Thank you.I know where to have the courage. Yeah, but I think it was setting-It takes a lot of courage. It was setting intention of saying, Oh, if my goal is honesty, if my goal is finding what excites me, then it changes how I move in these rooms. I honestly feel so much better about it because the times that I've gone in, I speak in second person at times, the times I've gone in to a meeting with the idea of they are the keepers of this opportunity or thing, I feel like a short circuit just because it's like, What What are you supposed to do with that information? How does that change how you relate to somebody or how you show up in the world? I think the idea of having fun at events, as simple as that is, that's so much, so many times been the intention. Let's say it's the Met Gala, and I think it's always a high energy thing. But I think we realized pretty quickly it shouldn't be high stress. No, it's not fun. Again, it's a fundraiser. It's a fundraiser. People spent X amount for you to show and get your team out there for you to look a certain way.

It's nice because when we've been intention setting, it's been like, no, the priority is having fun and having a new experience. The priority is being open. The intentions change time to time. But I think as of late, they've really been more so about, in my 24 years of life, what experiences am I looking for in myself? What things am I trying to unlock for myself? It has pretty much immediately affected how I show up in rooms because I used to feel as though I was auditioning for things. But even in non-audition settings, it feels like, Oh, it's an audition.

Really? What do you feel like now?

I think it's just an opportunity. It's just another day. I think it's just another day. It's another opportunity to learn about myself. I think, especially in an industry where I'm grateful that the question that I'm being asked more than anything is, What do I want? I'm not 100% certain. I have ideas. I have things that, again, pique my curiosity, but I have no hard and fast. This is where I want to be in five years. This is what I want to do. My top priority right now has truly been I want to have new experiences. I've been in school for 16 years of my life. I've been on a show for 10 years, and I'm grateful that those have been net positive for me, things that I've really enjoyed doing. But it means that even as an actor, I've been acting for 20 of my 24 years, and there's still so many experiences I've never even had on a set. I think it's been nice even honoring the uncertainty in times where I think, No, my job is to come in super certain. You know what I want? I want...

Right now, you're not clear. You're like, I'm open.

I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm unclear in a great way in that. I'm like, There's so much that excites me right now.

How does that feel, though, to be not having a current show, I guess, on TV when you've had 10 years of success with that and not knowing what the next, I guess, big project on TV or film will be? Do you feel at peace about that? Where most people in transition be like, When am I going to book the next thing? I'm going to make money, or if I'm not relevant, then who am I? How do you feel about that?

I think the thoughts are inevitable now and then. I'd have to say it's not a main thought I have, primarily because of how diversified my interests are, what we're involved in. I think that's where having the production company is really beautiful because while there are projects that I'm connected to that may start filming soon, but you just, again, with this industry, you never know. It's nice to be like, We have our hands and things that inspire us, that get us to wake up and do the work every day. I think today there should be a script coming in. We're very excited to read, but it's from a project that started with myself, Kari, an incredible other producer across from us, an incredible writer, looking at each other and saying, Oh, we want to be in business together. We just enjoy how we all move. We're all from the Midwest, so I think that also helps. Very similar sensibilities amongst the team. But I think that is really helpful, the fact that I... Whether it even be like, I love doing college tours and public speaking at colleges. I was in North Carolina last week. I was in Boston the week prior.

I think having those things are very anchoring because it feels like I'm not sitting here literally waiting for the call because there is a real pressure to it. Auditioning, I think what's funny is that it is so not personal and so personal at the same time. It's because it's extremely subjective. There's nothing you did right or wrong most of the times because they're putting so many puzzle pieces together. It could be your height. It could be like, Oh, they have a new vision for the character. I think those feelings of doubt and those feelings of, Okay, what's next will always be there. But I feel like having a very well-rounded world has allowed me to enjoy the challenge of that and has allowed me to then, even as an actor, prioritize. Working on television is very different because it's a job. You're working for eight months, you're doing 20 episodes, you're doing 18 episodes, 13 episodes. The edits of the lines are happening day of. You're getting your script and getting rewrites as you're heading to set. It teaches you how to be able to be a professional actor, but it doesn't necessarily, if you don't prioritize it, teach you process and what do you enjoy as an actor.

Because I'm like, yeah, my skill set is learning lines incredibly fast. It's how do I get this end result? I mean, I come from My bub is a director DP, so I'm thinking that Steadicam is super heavy. The little rig that they have to wear. I need to get my lines out as fast as possible because I'm thinking about everybody else on set. I think it's actually been really exciting to be in this theatrical, more film-centered part of my life where it's really been about what is my process as an actor? Because I was approaching the other sets as a producer, and I know how behind we are. I know what we're supposed to be shooting.I know our schedules.Let me nail this the first time, guys. Yeah. I wasn't necessarily giving myself the space to play. I'm happy with what we did. I'm happy with the set environment, but I think the space to play is what I've been given now. Even just in auditions, of being like, Oh, my task is how do I do something I typically wouldn't have? I had an audition yesterday morning that I was taping, and it was just really what was most fulfilling was that feeling of, Oh, I'm really happy I did this process because that was something new for me, and I wouldn't have done that typically.

So that felt like the win in that.

How do you not take it personally when you're auditioning for you spend a few days or a week imagining and practicing and rehearsing what you're going to do and getting really excited and investing in the character and then pouring your heart out in front of it, whether it's taped or in person, and then crickets or it's a no, or we're going in a different direction. How do you deal with the rejection or the not getting the part?

Honestly, it's where community plays a big part. I'm grateful that mommy and I are business partners because I think not only do we make the business side of it fun, and we think similarly in that business side, and then she thinks beyond even what I imagine, but she's also invested in me as a human being, not as a client, not as an actor. They're trying to get on a job. When I think about her and I think about even the rest of the team that I have around me, they're great people to talk to. I do get to pick up the phone and be like, Yeah, that hurt a little bit. That sings a little bit, and have people to talk through it with. Rather than trying to avoid the feeling, I think the The quicker I've leaned into the feeling, the quicker I'm through it. The more I've tried to hold off and be like, That's fine. They went in another direction.

It doesn't hurt me at all.

On to the next. The more I'm spending time at night actually being like, Oh, that stung. But I remember getting a note even a couple of months ago for a director session that I had a very particular cadence, and that's something that didn't necessarily make me a fit for the character.

They said you had a particular cadence.

Given. It was because you have agents asking for notes. Well, she got so far, so what could it be? It wasn't like they called like, Hey, her cadence is so off, she doesn't have it. It was after asking, Hey, what is it? They said, Cadence. I remember just being stuck on it for a second because I'm like, Do I... I mean, I know I have particular speech patterns. I have to do voiceover for the show all the time, so I'm always hearing myself talk. But I think that was a really funny instance because when there's very little you can do about how you speak. But it was actually a great... It was the perfect exercise where it wasn't personal enough to super-sting. It wasn't like, Yeah, she looked funny. It was something that was just a little bit annoying, and it was just a great exercise in, How am I going to move through this? How am I going to talk through this? How am I going to just keep it pushing? I ended up keeping it pushing because at the end of the day, it was like, yeah, they handed out a note because they feel like you have to give an act or something to hold on to, especially when you make it really far in a process.

It's what they thought of. They have every right. They have a vision of the character that I only approximated. The vision of the character also being on the producing side of the things. I've seen casting sessions, and it was so enlightening because when you go in as an actor, you don't realize how much is happening around you that has absolutely nothing to do with you. The producer shaking their head in the corner, not having anything to do with your performance. They're handling some line item. Being on the other side when we did Grownish and seeing those sessions, I was like, Oh, my God, this This is the best education because it meant that in auditions, I already know there's so much happening, and I just happened to walk into the room right now. Some of your reaction is going to be about me, some of it, you're not even going to have an opinion about me until I leave the room and you watch the tape the next day because so much is happening.

You got to see all the people that have auditioned, and it's like, okay, maybe you're not the right fit at the beginning, but two days later, oh, that person was great actually. Absolutely.

There's so many times where it's like, oh, yeah, The height doesn't work out because we just cast this person that's really tall or, Oh, now that I've seen all these people, I have this new idea for this character. I may not have even said it in the room, but they're allowed to honor their creative instincts because that's their job. I think my job is to honor mine.

Yeah, and try not to take it personally. Try not to. What is the emotion that you do really well on camera with struggle in life?

That's a great I think being frustrated. My character Zoe, for the last 10 years, she's always perplexed about something, always a little frustrated by the people around her for something that they did. I'm actually proud of her. She voices what she's upset about pretty immediately all the time. I think that's something that I don't always do because I'm working through this again, but I think so much of my personal process is, let's say I get annoyed I go, Why am I annoyed by that? Why is that annoying me? I automatically think of that as just internal work I got to go sort out. I think there's some truth to that, but I also think there's certain external variables that are just annoying. The two of them write to say, are annoying. I think I've been on a journey of finding the middle ground of like, I can't always internalize, Oh, there's something about that that made me angry. Why am I angry about that? Let me go figure that out at my own time. It has nothing to do with that person. Sometimes it has something to do with that person. It's important to voice that.

My character does a really good job of that. I think in many ways, it's what's fun about playing a character that's so opposite of who I am for so long was that... I wish every teenager, imagine going through puberty and having an alternate world with no consequences where you got to just be a different person. It's a real treat to be like, Oh, I never am inclined to yell in real life, but here I am on set screaming. That's fun. Yeah. I get paid to do this? A real win.

What is the biggest challenge with having success, fame, and money at a young age?

I think anecdotally, it's the feeling of, Have I peaked? Because there's always that feeling of, Why is this coming? Sometimes I deal with a question of, Why is this coming easily? Why is this coming easily? I've just felt very lucky in that I wasn't the kid that woke up and said I had to be an actor. For me, it was I have a creative urge and instinct. I started in printing commercials. I said no to auditioning for my first movie when I was seven because I'm like, I love printing commercials. I go play. Half the time, I'm playing with my family.

Just taking photos, mostly, right?

Yeah, I'm taking photos or a commercial like, you're hula-hooping, you're biking, you're just doing different things. When I had done my first movie at seven, I think what it unlocked in me, wasn't even the instinct of, Oh, I have to do this for the rest of my life, but that was a lot of fun. I learned how to ice skate. I got to make pancakes. I got to work with these cool people. That was super fun. I think because, again, I've always had this diversity of interests, in some ways, as much as I think every actor, and I'm always dealing with rejection and misdirection, it's come easy in that I'm like, I've gotten to go to school and be on a show. That's unheard of. They made it happen. It took a lot of work, but after a call, they were on board. There was no convincing that had to happen. I think if it wasn't for COVID, they were going to move the entire shooting schedule to the summer, so I just had an unencumbered year. Again, unheard of. That comes from everybody, from the president of ABC to the president of Signature to the line producer, all working in tandem.

Do you ever feel guilty for how easy it's been?

I think that's the flip side feeling of like, Is this right? Is this that it comes with ease. But I think I've started to realize ease is the alignment, and it's because- There should be ease. Yeah. When there's alignment, there's ease. I think the thing I've been and my family has always been It's pretty discerning. There's still ways to become more discerning, but I think I was like, Oh, some of the ease is because there's been such a discernment of pretty immediately. I was like, Oh, that's not for us. Oh, that's not supposed to be for us.

You haven't said yes to every shiny You've been like, No, this is for us. We're going to do it. I like this.

I mean, there have been challenges within that, but for the most part, I'm like, The fact that macro, I'm not walking out with any crazy stories about being on set as a child actor. I'm not walking out with any crazy traumas from 10 years on set. I'm like, How lucky.

When you're hearing all these other child actors coming out about-Yeah, you hear all these other stories.

I have a family that takes pride in us as individuals, both me and my brothers, handling our money and having a grasp of money management. I'm like, We've never had a fear that one day it's going to be gone because I know where it all is.

You don't have any money, wounds, or traumas, huh?

I was doing an interview about money yesterday, and they were like, So what were your money troubles? I'm like, You got to see how I was raised. Again, I feel so lucky. I'm like, I was raised with a family that was so intentional about being like, We want you to feel in charge and autonomous, and we're here to guide you. But I was going, mommy set it up so I'd go make friends with accounting at Black-ish, and I'd go my check every week, where typically you don't see it as an actor. It gets sent to your team, and then you see the end result. I got to see it. I got to see how much the percentages were. I got to see what the taxes were, and I was able to check. I remember one time there was a wrong amount on my check, and I was savvy enough at 14 to be like, Hey, this isn't the right amount. They're like, Oh, yeah, you're right. I'm saying, again, it is easy to feel guilty to be like, Why have I had it so good in the general scheme of things? I really couldn't tell you why.

But I think I'm coming to terms of the fact that even on this road to self-discovery, I do have to say I've known myself pretty well. And so I'm realizing that some of this is the result of having known myself and continuing to learn myself.

Yeah, it sounds like your parents have been an amazing foundation for you for knowing yourself, being yourself, empowering you to step into yourself.

They let me be so quirky. It's amazing. It did not cross my mind.

It's interesting that the first thing we talked about, I don't know if it was when we were rolling or right before, you mentioned how you want to learn how to build mental fortitude and how to overcome challenges. Yeah. Because it sounds like from your perspective, what I'm hearing is that you haven't had a lot of challenges in your life. It's come pretty easily. I'm sure you've had to work 18-hour days and fly back and forth from Harvard to LA and do like work at a high level, but not a lot of extreme adversities is what I'm hearing. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, I think part of it- Like intense work and effort, but not extreme adversities. Yeah. I think for me, there are two things I realized. One, I think I minimize maybe some of the challenges I do face.

We're also dealing with a lot of pressures from just being in the industry and all these different things. It's a child star.

It's funny. I think some of it is that because I've moved through it, eventually, sometimes I think my ability to look back with the rose-colored lenses, I'm like, No challenges. Yeah, wasn't that hard? Mind you, while we were in it, deeply challenging. Some of it is that I do know I'm minimizing past challenges, and I'm trying to come to terms with just being more honest with that. But I think some of it, too, is just knowing, again, coming back to the cause and effect thing, so many things happen to good people. Yeah, so many things you can't account for. It has nothing to do with how morally upstanding you are. It has nothing to with how many resources you have, what you have, what you don't have. I think maybe it's hitting my quarter life crisis a couple of months early. But I think I hear stories of what people go through, whether it's family members passing, certain things like that. I go, Would I be not able to overcome, willing to overcome? I think I have the capacity to do things, but I'm like, Do I have the willingness to see a challenge and push through it.

Part of it comes from just my genuine amazement of the courage that people muster in times that feel almost impossible, at least outside looking in. Maybe some of it, it comes from that space of I'm truly amazed. I can't wrap my mind around it when I hear other people's stories of what made you double down and push through these hard moments. Again, part of why we started the podcast was being like, I want to hear. What did make you go through It's been really clarifying to me because I think it almost felt like there's some magical alchemy that I couldn't name that's happening versus like, no, it's a mixture of human perseverance and the fact that, hopefully, God willing, the traits that you need come to you when you need them. The qualities that you need come to you when you need them. That's helping me make sense of it. But I think for me, I'm like, what is the mental fortitude regimen that helps us as young people just continue to build a sense of not even just discipline in terms of schedule, but discipline in terms of being like, I know what my mind is doing.

I'm aware of it. That's interesting. I'm able to move through this. I'm able to move through the inevitable losses we're going to deal with, challenges we're going to deal with, the things I can't account for.

Yeah, that's really insightful, though.

It's been top of mind, but I don't know how helpful it is to be thinking about it too much.

I think it's interesting because I think if If you're not willing to invest in doing hard things now, you're going to experience a lot of pain later, and it's going to be a lot harder to manage them mentally, emotionally. Learning how to navigate your own minds at this age and investing in... I'm going to Which I don't think people should say, I'm just going to experience pain all day so that I'm prepared for pain later and it doesn't hurt me as much. Because I really do believe life should be about creativity and flow and joy and love and fun. I believe that's what we should be focusing on intending to create every day if we can. How can we bring joy and love and service to this moment? How can I be my creative, authentic, honest self like you talked about, which is alignment. When we're in alignment, things flow to us easily. We can see and discern things like you talked about. But I do believe there is a level of time every day where there's discipline, where I'm going to say no to temptations or no to the coke all day or no to the alcohol all day or no to partying every day all all night or to only fun extreme things.

Because if you're not fortifying your mind, it will be hard to face adversity later when it will come. It will hit you hard. It'll be unexpected and it will hit you. If you're not preparing little by little, it's going to be daunting.

I think that's the thought that keeps me up, which is what should I be doing? Do you feel like you've always been disciplined?

No. I mean, as a kid, I was confused and scared and rebellious.

But even as a college athlete, that's something even when I was flying back and forth and doing all that, my friends that were waking up at 5 AM every day, I was like...

No, I learned it at a In high school, I learned how to be disciplined because then I had a goal of sports. It was 5 AM. I was waking up at 5 AM and doing study hall and reading the Bible in the morning. I went to a private boarding school when I was 13, so it was very strict in terms of you study at From 6:00 to 8:00, you go to bed, you get up, you work out, all these things. In college, when it was like, you didn't have the house parents in the dorm telling you what to do, you had to create your schedule. But I was so clear on my vision and my dream that I was willing to sacrifice anything. So I would give up all of the fun of life. I would have fun, but I wanted to do the things that people said were fun, drinking and going out and do these things. I was like, That's not fun to me.

That's a great way of naming it because I think that's something I've struggled to name. It's not that I'm sacrificing these things. It's not a sacrifice. I wasn't interested.

I wasn't interested, yeah. Learning that skill set of disciplining my mind to say no and to be okay with people not understanding me. That was the scary thing because I wanted to have friends because I felt alone as a kid. I wanted friends, but then they didn't understand me because I was going off chasing a dream and I was getting up at 5 or going to bed at 10 whatever it was because I was committed to something. Maybe people didn't understand you. Oh, you're on set 18 hours a day. Just come hang out with us after school. We're just going to go hang out and run down LA or whatever. But you're like, No, this is fun to be me, and this is part of a dream and a curiosity that I'm leaning into. It's providing financial abundance and opportunities that are going to set me up for my future. It's just making a decision. Do you think a lot of your peers, in terms of people your age struggle with discipline, and they just chase fun and hours of social media distraction that isn't supporting their vision?

I'd have to say it's 50/50. I'm pretty lucky to feel surrounded by people that are chasing a dream, and all of it looks very different. Some of them I don't even understand, but I see the passion. I think just by the nature of maybe just who I've ended up in community with, I'm surrounded by people where I feel like, generationally, there are a lot of people that are moved by, whether it's their art or their career. I think I saw that both in the creative landscape. I saw that at Harvard.

But you've been in communities of people at the top of the top. These are people that are working full-time that are in the acting world or the production world or Harvard, which is a very elite level of commitment.

But I think even in the creative space, what was a good example is I'm like, all my friends are at the top of the top now, but they didn't start that way. So many of them really interesting non-traditional ways of getting into their respective field, which require just a lot of belief in self, not necessarily traditional schooling to be a musician, traditional this to be that. In that regard, I see a lot of discipline there. I think what's funny is I hang out with people that all have bedtimes that are like, Well, I'm cool tapping out. Also people that are very sure about what is fun to them and participate in like, Oh, this is what's fun to me. It's different for each of us, but it's cool to be like, Oh, yeah, people are only showing up because this is enjoyable to them, and they have felt freed of showing up for the sake of showing up.

But that's a lot of people that are, again, who are striving to be at the top, that are very creatively talented, that are in elite rooms. But I wouldn't say that's most 20-year-olds or 24-year-olds or people in their late teens right now in America, right? Yeah.

I think it's a mix. When I see somebody like my little brother, 16, we're technically same generation. It feels like a world of difference. What generation is that?

What is it? Gen Z.

It's technically Gen Z still. He's someone that's also very creatively inspired. But I think the difference that I see is that even having... Instagram didn't come about till I was 13. Even though that was young, it was enough time for my brain to have had a life before social media. It was, sorry, it was years before it became a regular part of my life. It was years before we were using that to compare. I just feel like I had more mental tools about how to deal with it. Still hard, still on my phone way too much. I turn on grayscale at random times to be like, Let me... I don't know, does it disrupt the serotonin? I don't know the science behind it, but on the grayscale. But I think the thing that I see is like, Oh, their world is so busy. All all the time. That I can't even blame the feeling of distraction because I'm like, between all the news that's being intaken and between the fact that I feel like when I was growing up, I was only preoccupied with the life that I was living because there was no-You were watching everything online.

There was no Every problem in the world all at once.

Yeah. There was also no way of seeing the life that even my friends were living, except for the handful of times we were having a play date.. Yeah. I'm like, there was just no way of checking in on that.

They could see everything all at once.

I think even creatively, I've had the privilege of being in all these luxury fashion spaces, but that was all tied to work. I did not find myself in any of those stores prior to working with these brands because it just wasn't on my radar. The way my brother has friends where it's like, Oh, they know all of it all the time. They're tracking Fashion Week. Really? I was like, I think I learned what Fashion Week was when I got an invite to attend because I was working in this space. Again, all these worlds I was checking in on that didn't have anything to do with me right now. I do feel like there's a particular challenge, and I have a lot of empathy for just generationally that feeling of, what are we going to do with this information overload where it's even hard to parse apart what do I need to intake? I'm a severe over-news listener, and I think my has been listening to a little less news because it's like, there's only so much you can do about it. It pushes, at least for me, I think it pushes me into a space of feeling very overwhelmed versus feeling activated.

I've been trying to be like, okay, what amount of news makes me feel activated but not overwhelmed?

Yeah, one of the things... Early on, I was just taught never to watch news and entertainment. Just get updates because you can easily, emotionally, especially if you're empathetic, you can be like, 10,000 people died today in this other part of the world. What is wrong with it? That can take over your whole life. One person died in my town and there was a shooting. That could take over your whole life. If you're seeing it sensationalized, if you're entertained through the visual expression, sound, audio, video, making it like a movie, for me, it's exhausting. I can't watch I can read it and be informed and educated and be like, Okay. But the entertainment of it or the clips of it just constantly, I don't think it's good for the brain. I think building mental fortitude is learning how to block out that and say, How can I not going to be educated and updated, but not entertained by fear.

Yeah. It's a great point because some of it was that I've always been an audiophile. We grew up in a house where we didn't watch TV except for Saturdays for an hour, which I love. But it makes me It meant that I love audio. That is my form of entertainment. You're absolutely right. There was a time, even though I don't know if I would call it that while I was listening, that it was more so like, Oh, I'm listening to NPR. Yeah, it's different. You're listening to NPR so much that they're sending you free merch. That may be a cue. That may be a cue that you're listening to too much NPR. Because I was like, I have the app on my phone. I'm not even waiting till I'm in the car. I'm listening all the time. I'm waiting for the midday update. I'm waiting for the end of the day update. I'm cycling through local news. I'm typing in local stations. I think changing that because then I was listening to political podcasts at night. I was falling asleep to them. I was like, Oh, bedtime. Time to turn on.

Every news channel and every political podcast has their bias and their opinion. They're going to be spreading opinions one way or another. But when you read it and you just read the updates, usually you're just saying, Okay, this is what happened. You can form your own opinion. That's what I've learned.

I love NPR because I'm like, It is pretty straightforward, but I think for me, the amount I was consuming of every podcast available, again, was fulfilling more of an entertainment side. It's been nice to literally reintroduce. I have those moments where I'm like, Okay, time to get updated here. Yeah, that's good. I'm on twice a day. Maybe I'll get to a once a day person. I'm a twice a day person, but in between, I'm back to listening to old-time radio shows. Johnny Dollar is my favorite insurance investigator, played by Bob Bailey. I'm like, Oh, if this is fulfilling the need to be listening to something, what else can we Can I be listening to? Back to this American life, back to just like-Feed your soul. Yeah.

Feed your soul. This has been awesome. I want to ask you a couple of final questions. Please. That's cool. One of the things, I got to meet your mom, lovely lady, and just seems super wise and fun at the same time. So congrats on calling in your mom as a child and entering this world with your parents. But I read that you grew up with your parents either teaching you or showing you how to live a life of service. Living a life of service was important and how can we add value and contribute to whatever it might be, friends, family, society. I'm curious, what are your thoughts about service and what have you What have you learned through being of service, being a giver, finding ways to add value? What have you learned about how giving allows you to receive as well?

Yeah, well, like you said, I from two really wonderful, thoughtful parents, Afshin and Kari, who I call Baba and mommy, but really wonderful people that have their own global background. My Baba moved to the States from Iran when he was eight, comes from a very global, service-minded family. My mama comes from a family where it's like my papa and nana, my papa in particular was really involved in the civil rights movement. So that very direct idea of what it is to be of service, to sacrifice your own comfort for the greater good. So much of the dialog around being of service just happened at the dinner table, happened in a very natural way where I don't think I even realized, Oh, I'm having these heady conversations. Hear me. I think there were also things that they did that were very supportive of that, of going to schools that had volunteer requirements, whether that was the Montessori or the public school or the Catholic school I went to. They all had volunteer requirements. I think it was also being modeled for me in every environment I was of not just how money is a resource, but how your time is a resource.

The idea of giving as being just a part of the fabric of life and not as something that you wait to do once you have made it, even when they were giving me and my brothers just allowance. Again, having really thoughtful parents, what mommy had done was we'd put all of the money that we made from acting right into savings, but they'd give us an allowance for being on set. From that allowance, from those 10 bucks or however much we decided, they had the save, spend, and donate bucket. We got to choose how much are we donating, how much are we saving, how much are we spending. Again, I say this all as a foundation of saying, I had a great foundation of ways in which being of service can be integrated into our day-to-day life. I think even still, having Lami as a business partner, one trade I think I admire most that many people can attest to. I was in a room she wasn't in. I'm talking about something random, and literally somebody else, another actress paused to be like, Can we talk about Kerry Shahidi? Because what she is is so deeply tapped into the world around her and so deeply curious that I think she is constantly of service by giving her mind as a resource.

We will see someone at the airport who says, randomly, Oh, I really want to start this shirt company. She's like, Oh, that's interesting. I've cataloged, Oh, I met this one entrepreneur that makes shirts that I would love to connect you. She's connected authors with lawyers for their multi-million plus book deal and not realizing that's what it was for, but just being like, Oh, you're an interesting person. This is another person that's interesting. You guys should be connected. That's cool. But it comes from just being so deeply attuned and paying attention in spaces that we're in the same rooms, and she's picking up on things where I'm like, Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess that did happen. But I say that to say I feel like it's an example of what it means to be attuned towards service, and it's not even necessarily, Oh, I'm working with this organization or this foundation. It's truly, I I'm operating from an anchoring place of how can I be of value to you, even if it has nothing to do with me. Most of these things never circle back. It's a thank you that you may get. But to answer even your question on being of service and then receiving, I think I've had a lot of examples of how things, time, resources that I've given have come back around in ways that I could never expect.

I wasn't expecting it when I gave. I think even in our starting our production company, we were both astounded by how many people wanted to work with us when we were just opening our doors, had yet to prove ourselves as producers because they knew what it was like to be in a relationship with us. The things that we'd give generally without saying, Hey, we're going to circle back around in a couple of years when we have our own offices. I think a lot of what I've received has been the result of giving. I think I've learned so many lessons about how that happens. My papa has this great term, he uses relationship equity, which is, one, just logistically, especially for us 20-year-olds, call between needing things, especially from the people around you. It's okay if you need things and you need to call people, but call between. See how they're doing. Check in.

Not when you need that calling.

Not just when... Not, Hey, how are you, by the way? Yes. But more than just calling between needing things. I was raised on relationship equity, which is the priority in this world is building relationships with the people around you. It's not building networks, it's not building contacts, it's building relationships.

I love that. That's been my whole life has been about relationships. That's how I built everything. In an interview business, too, it's like you got to build relationships to be trustworthy.

I was going to say it's so much about trust of both who you let in in building something, but also people coming to you and having a trust. Yeah, I'd have to say I think trust is the resource that is given when you give. That's great.

What's the thing you love the most about both your mom and your dad?

That's a good question. I think I said some of it for mommy, but just to double down, I really am so moved by how moved she is by the world, by how much she cares about the people around her, what she it's the people in this room will never be in again, whether it's the people that have been in our lives forever. She has a want to be a value add to somebody's life. It could be in a very in a very big way, but I think I don't even know. It feels almost subconscious. There's an ease in which she does it. It's not like, Oh, she's thinking about, Oh, what can I do to be a benefit? But it's really inspiring how naturally that comes because I think it's something that reminds me, too, of the power of being present, of what I was missing out on when I was so in my head, or all the things that can happen when you're right here with somebody in a room. I think from my bubba, I feel like... I mean, there's a lot. One of my Not only is he the reason that I'm a foodie and have a very wide-ranging taste in music, but I think he's also one of the first people that modeled the idea that being a family and being creative can really go hand in hand because He was the first one in our family.

He was a Prince's photographer for 10 years. I think that was always such a family-oriented environment in which we were on tour with him and would hop in and out, not the whole time, but we'd hop in and out of tour stops. We'd go to his house when he was dropping off film. I think in many ways, he helped set up the model by which we run our family, which is like, there's a way to maintain being a high-level creative and pursuing your career, but also being so invested in and concerned about our family as the main unit. Because I think it reflects the fact that my brothers and I, whenever any of us had a job, we were always on set for the other person, just to be there, just to be like, I'm so excited for you. I I think it's those little things that have made the experience so enjoyable, generally, was like, Oh, I never had to sacrifice a distance from family or this feeling that this was a solo journey in order to be doing this. I think that's something he modeled very early on. That's cool.

I've got a couple of final questions for you, but I want to make sure people check out your new podcast with you and your mom. Yeah. It's called The Optimist Project. It's on everywhere, right? Yeah, it's on everywhere. Are you doing video, too, or mostly it's audio?

It's audio primarily, but there will be a video component that we're launching, which we're excited about. But yeah, it's with SiriusXM, but you can find it everywhere.

Yes, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and where I'm listening. Awesome. Tell me a little bit about it. What is it going to be? Is it an interview? Is it just you and your mom? Is it going to bring you on different experts?

What's the main thing? I think true to our business relationship, we've really co-conceptualized it behind the scenes. I'm hosting it. We're both in the room, but I'm hosting and interviewing. I think it's some of what we teased and talked about throughout this conversation. It started from the conversations that her and I would have of, one, these more existential conversations of where we're both at in our lives and what are the questions that wanted to be answered. But also a lot of it was both of us being very lucky to be in these exclusive rooms, finding ourselves just the nature of our community to be like, We're at a small get together with every major politician and every major collected artist, or we're at the TED conference, which has a barrier to entry of X amount thousand to get a ticket. So many times, the conversations that were really insightful to us were happening in these exclusive rooms. It was really a matter of accessibility. There were so many questions we got answered, not even realizing that that's what was going to happen, just the nature of having conversations with people. For us, we curated a guest list of the people many people that we've already talked to privately and personally of being like, No, let's make this official.

There's so many gems and how they've shared their stories. I think there's so many messages of optimism just through people's journeys of them sharing how they've overcome certain challenges, what their current takeaways are. It's been a very exciting process because we do a lot of brainwork behind the scenes, and then by the time I get out here to ask questions, the conversation always flows in very interesting ways. But luckily, it has served its initial purpose, which was for us to be able to have really fulfilling conversations with people and realize many times I was always the youngest person in this room, and sometimes that can be mistaken for being the only young person interested, which is far from true. I understand I could be an anomaly in a certain way, but I think I come from a deeply curious generation, and I think there's so many things that we seek out in terms of information, and that's part of why it was inspiring to me to know, Oh, yeah, I just I happened to have been in the room while this conversation was happening, but I know so many people that would learn from that.

So many of my conversations with my peers are about us asking each other these questions.

That's cool. Well, people can get it. It's out November 20th, correct? Yes. It's called The Optimist Project. Go search for it online. Follow, subscribe, check it out, listen, all the things. You'll be posted about it. I'm assuming on social media as well. You're actually heady.

We'll be able to escape it.

Yeah, exactly. Follow you on Instagram. That's your main platform where you post content, check that out. This question I want to ask you, it's these two final questions. Before I ask them, I want to acknowledge you, Yara, for the journey you're on. I think it's really cool that you have been able to live a life of your dreams up until '24, and now you're still saying, How can I learn? How can I grow? How can I evolve? How can I master other things? You're not just saying, Oh, I've been successful. I'm going to keep doing the same thing. But how can I continue to step into trusting myself, knowing myself, and being of service of myself to the world in all the different ways you want to be.Thank you.I want to acknowledge you for what you've created, where you're at now, and also where you're going, and that you're doing it with your family and you're able to do it in a purposeful, peaceful place. I really am excited to watch your journey. I hopefully will stay connected afterwards.

I'm also excited to watch.

Yeah, it's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. Speaking of your journey, there is a great I love the Matthew McConaher acceptance speech for his Oscar many years ago where he talked about he's chasing his self in the future 10 years out. He's like, I'm always chasing myself in the future, the person I want to be 10 years in the future. If you could think at 34, that you are 34. You're 34 yourself, has lived the next decade of life with all the visions, plans, dreams that you're thinking about All the things that you're not thinking about that are going to come to you, the challenges, the adversities, everything that's going to happen over the next 10 years, you're 34, and you're sitting right in front of you right now. What three pieces of wisdom or advice would you Does your 34-year-old self need to tell you now that you need to hear?

I think what would 34-year-old Yara have a clue in on? Well, I think to our conversation on mental fortitude, to be reassured that I'll continue to show up for myself. Well, it would be nice to hear from 34-year-old Yara that there's no point in stressing about future challenges. Maybe not there's no point, but that we move through them and that we are capable of moving through them. I think 34-year-old Yara, I'm excited for her to give me intel on what happens when we follow our curiosities. I think I've been able to do that, and I'm at a point in my career where there is always going to be a bit of strategy. There is always going to be a bit of business, and I like that part of what we do. But it'll be reaffirming to be like, Well, what blossomed from the curiosity? What's the thing that I didn't expect we were going to do? Because I feel like even though I feel like I've been a very consistent person in my life in terms of core values, who I was at 16 is not a far stretch from who I am now. I also could never imagine what I was dreaming about now at 16.

I would love to know what 34-year-old Yara is dreaming about. That's interesting.

That's cool.

Is that two things?

What else you think she would tell you? One more lesson she would give you.

What would she tell me? I think I'm excited for whatever wisdom on her and trusting herself and her instincts. I feel grateful to be of service, and I know a part of my journey in being authentic to myself is trusting myself because oftentimes I think I defer to the people wanting to be of service to the people around me, care for the people around me, that it's more so a new mental challenge to be like, Wait, how am I feeling about this? What am I thinking about this? Because it's just how my brain works at this point. I want wisdom from her about that. That's good.

Okay.

Yeah.

I love that. I'll let you think about it more after our conversation.

I also want to know what interest rates are.

Yeah, what stock you're investing in. Final question for Yara. This has been powerful. Thanks for being here. Thank youThank you so much. Yeah, of course. Final question, what's your definition of greatness?

I think my definition of greatness, it could be a synonym for authenticity. When I look at people that I consider great, it's because I think they have tapped into themselves in a way where they feel irreplicable. No one could even try to do what you do. Not because other people don't have the skills, but no one could be you right now. I think it's the people that are so authentically themselves and that feel like, Oh, you've tapped into a greatness that could only exist within you.

Snap it up. I like that. I like that. It's awesome. Thank you. Thanks for being here. I appreciate it.

This has been so fulfilling for me. I have a lot to journal about.

I want you to. I want you to come away with reflecting on stuff.

No, I am. That was powerful.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple podcast. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple podcast as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.