E7 - Lauren Levine

Lauren Levine is host of the 'That Was Fun Show', an unscripted street-interview show. She is an actress, mother, and SAG-AFTRA member. 

Expect to experience how Lauren got into the film industry and her time at Miramax, how she rediscovered her own identity as a mother, what drew her to street-interviews, the role of anxiety in content creation, how different generations react to the same questions, depression-mitigation tactics she's learned over the years, finding power in doing what scares her, and so much more. 

Keep up with Lauren @thatwasfunshow
thatwasfunshow.com

If you've enjoyed this podcast, please like, subscribe, and comment. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

Host: Kurt Bruckmann
Co-Producer & Associate Director: Alex Fabio

Transcript

Hey, Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Core Energy Experience. I'm your host, Kurt Bruckmann. I hold my mastery in Core Energy Dynamics.

I'm a certified global coach. I write for Brainz Magazine, a senior contributor that reaches over 65 different countries. I am also an acclaimed internationally best selling author in an anthology, Ready, Connect, Grow. I'm here with my partner. He is our associate director and co producer, Alex Fabio.

Very fortunate to have him. We today have a very special guest. Her name is Lauren Levine. She is a host of 'That Was Fun Show', which she produces on the streets of Red Bank, New Jersey. Very fortunate to have her and we look forward to talking to her some more.

In the meantime, when you can, hit your buttons to like, subscribe, and comment. We appreciate your feedback very much. Hey, Lauren. How are you doing today? Good to see you.

I'm so happy to have you here. What's going on? It's good to see you too, Kurt. I was just thinking back to the time that we met, actually. Not sure if you were doing the same thing.

I loved the local it was a quick, impassioned exchange in Little Silver, New Jersey, And, it definitely opened up doors, which I think is kind of how you and I live. So it was it felt right. A %. That was so exciting. You know, it's just that passing moment at the health food store, and the right words are spoken to each one of us.

And then it was your guidance when you started, started out doing different things in the streets with your mic and whatnot. And you had me over, and I appreciate you doing that. That was so much fun. Thanks. The feeling is mutual.

Yeah. You definitely carry a light. Yeah. You're beautiful. And what you do out there is great.

So if you will, before we get into certain things, which we even hear we're leaning into, can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself, your past, what you're doing now, and where you might be headed in the future? It'd be great. Yeah. Absolutely. My name is Lauren Levine.

I'm local to Monmouth County. Not sure if your audience you you probably have a little bit of a mix there, but I was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, totally random. It was the closest hospital to Long Beach Island, which is where my parents were living at the time. And they migrated up to Monmouth County, and I have really been all over the world. I haven't seen quite the fire that I find in my, community members where I live in in Fair Haven, Red Bank, and Greater Monmouth County, and I wanted to capture that.

So I come from, a family of filmmakers, not my immediate family, but generations back who kind of put guerilla filmmaking on the map. And I took that to video, and their whole mantra was they started in Israel and brought it over to Hollywood. And, their whole mantra was a lot of people do the blah blah blah, meaning, like, talk about, talk about, we do the doing, which is what I do also. I know. Right on.

Right? It's funny because I only discovered that a couple months ago. I didn't even know they existed, felt that way, pioneered independent filmmaking, and it's definitely something I've been living by, even before I went to film school, but I did go to NYU, which is obviously very independent minded. And their, their push is you do the best you can with whatever you have in the moment and stop sitting around and saying I should've, I would've, I could've. If you have a broken camera and a friend, you go out and you make the gold.

So, that's what I do, and and I brought that back home to New Jersey. And so I kind of capture our area with a little bit of a New York edge is what I like to say, and I just go up to I have a show called That Was Fun Show. It started as Real Jersey Shore Show, and it morphed to to try to give it a little more of a a kind of, like, a general relatable feel, but it really is profiling the people in our area. It's has been on local cable. Right now, it's living on social media.

It's these sixty second clips of me bombarding strangers and trying to connect on a deep level and have fun with them. We never really know what's gonna happen. And it's been it it's my lifeblood. It really is. I don't feel right if I'm not creating, and people are really supportive of it.

Right now, it's we're working on a demo to shop around to networks. But, again, it lives on Instagram and TikTok, and, it's called That Was Fun Show. So it's just my love letter to the area and its video. And, yeah, in a time when we kind of can easily hide behind social media, I'm this big proponent of, like, let's get out there in real life and connect with each other if you take it back to social. Sure.

But we need the human exchange. I know you're I'm kind of, like, speaking your whole thing here, but Yes. I do feel better when I connect with people, so I try to put that out there. That is tremendous. You know, you have fabulous energy, for the audience.

I want you to know she's out and about. Lauren's out and about and very well received in the community, And it's all because of the energy. She will take people by surprise, which is a fabulous thing to do. Lauren and I were talking about just briefly, and it's, yeah, it's that sort of go time, you know, now. Let's do it now and and see how people react.

And it's the energy of all that, Lauren, that you, have very special techniques in bringing that out in people. Tell us a little bit about that. What drives you? What your core energy, what drives you to be able to to put all this into action? I think it's I'm kind of always very curious about people and their stories.

I believe everyone has a story to share. And I really do think it makes the world a smaller place when we can have this common ground and compassion. Certainly, obviously, you know, we don't all walk the same ethical lines, but I do hope that we can find some common ground. And I think especially when there's turmoil going on, if we can have that human touch, it does it ripples out. You know, they say in meditation, if you drop a pebble in a pond, the ripple outwards effect you hold the door for a stranger, that stranger holds the door for somebody else.

Maybe they were having a bad day and you flip the switch by just doing this really innocuous thing. I I try to do that with my series, hey. What are you up to? You know, I I I'm going up to strangers, and I'm trying to stop them in whatever they're doing. People are busy.

They're on their phones. They're carrying lunch. They're delivering something. They're late to a meeting. Hey.

Will you talk to me? And it's a mixed bag. You know? Not everyone will say yes. People come with their own set of fears.

What's she gonna do with it? What are we gonna do? And my, my content is unscripted, so I really never know where it's going to go. I'm much more comfortable without a safety net when I get a script, when I get because I've done a lot of scripted work. Also, when I'm handed a script, I actually clam up a little bit.

Will I deliver this the right way? Is this what the person wants? Am I being who they want me to be? When it's unscripted, all that goes. I'm just in the moment.

So I do really love that. But I think I kind of tangentially, or I diverge there. What drives me is that, I tend to be in my head a lot. And when I connect with someone, I've got to be present. I have to be there, and I have to be listening, and I have to be engaged.

It's like dance. I grew up dancing. You really can only dance in that moment. You know? You can't be thinking about dinner or whatever it was.

You've gotta just be doing the steps, and I do feel that way about doing the interview. I've gotta just be doing the interview. So for me, I feel better. Makes me feel better. And I can tell it makes the other people feel better too.

I cannot tell you the number of times a complete stranger has said to me afterwards two things, and that's why we changed the name of the show. The two things they say is that was fun, you know, like, they're shocked. And the second thing they say is I just told you something I've never told anyone before, which is pretty cool. Love it. It's that rawness that you bring in back to your point of being in the moment.

And as we know, you know, the action is always in the moment, and that's where we have to concentrate more and more to your point. And we become more authentic. Everything's more real. There is no, you know, past dreaming and thought. There is no future dreaming and thought about projection.

You capture it right there, and you're a pro at it. It's really fabulous what you do because you bring you bring all these things out that are part of our core energy, and people don't really realize this, but we all have there's four things we have in common that part of core energy, and you're speaking you're starting to speak all of it now. And that is we all have our own leadership, our performance, our well-being in our transition. So when we bring it into the moment to your point, all these four things happen, are coming together all at once. And it's fabulous to see you approach people unbeknownst to them how you might you're not sabotaging them.

You're not booby trapping them. You're just asking them to engage. And those that do, wow, what comes out to your point is really special. What let's go back a little bit. You mentioned dancing, and that's part of your your core, it sounds like.

What does the part of the dancing and being in the moment, do do that help you transition to what you do in the streets with people? Do you lean into that? What else helps you lean into how you work with everyone that you that comes up to you and you approach? I do think that helped me. My mom had me on a stage from age two on.

So, yeah, I think, inherently, I'm used to connecting with people instantane I've gotta engage them right away, and I I think I use the tools from coming up in dance. You've got a big audience in front of you. They're a little bit further away than what I'm doing. But this idea of I need to hook you in. You've gotta watch me.

I have to use my whole body, not just my words, and especially with dance, you're not talking. I do use my body as a tool when I'm on the street, especially when I'm approaching a stranger. I don't I need to convey trust and safety before I even open my mouth. Love it. So otherwise, if they feel affronted, even if they do say yes, it's going to be a terrible interview.

They need to feel safe, and they need to make sure they need to know before I even press play or record that they're not gonna be disrespected or misused in any way. So because they will frequently ask me, what are we gonna do? And I say, I have no idea. They have to trust me to go on the ride. And I'm being honest.

I have no idea what we're gonna do. So I do very much use dance. I also have done a ton of cognitive behavioral therapy, and I think it's helped me be more vulnerable. I have worked with anxiety a ton, my my own anxiety, but I also am sensitive to that in other people. And I really try to, give them my heart, like, crack open my rib cage and be raw and vulnerable with them so that they feel like no matter what they do, this other person is potentially going to be more raw and vulnerable than me.

I'm safe. You know, I really do think it's all about creating this safety if you're working with a stranger, even if you're not. So that helps me tremendously, and I have trained in acting. I mean, I just got invited into the union, into SAG. Oh, congratulations.

Feature over the summer with Shirley MacLaine. That was pretty amazing. Cool. Very cool. Yeah.

Thanks. That was pretty mind blowing. And, I don't know that I use the acting on the street, though. I would say dance, cognitive behavioral therapy, and, a little bit of improv. I'm starting to train in improv now because that was always the thing I hadn't done that scared me.

So I've been throwing myself into that lately, but probably the first two, which are maybe not what people would expect. Yeah. You know, there are a lot a lot in there to unpack a little bit, and one is trusting the process. That's extremely important for all of us to do. And when we work with the core energy, it it kinda works like this.

We start with the awareness, and that brings us into our acceptance. And then with the acceptance, we validate it. And with that, we're able to, open up opportunity. And then when the opportunity comes, we choose choice and we speak of a conscious note that not that knee jerk reaction choice. Right?

And with that, we have trust the process that brings us into our transition and then eventually into our transformation. So you can have the whole thing wound up in just seconds when you're out there, whether it's on the stage or are you out there on the streets or on dance. So it's really interesting that this is a part of you. And you talk about anxiety. Let's go there a little bit, about that, Lauren, and unpack that for us, if you will.

Sure. Yeah. I I would say I think, first of all, it's very common that people suffer from anxiety, and it can be caused from such a range of things. I had some early childhood trauma that went unresolved. And when I got into college, I started to have insomnia.

And it was really pretty pronounced to the extent that I was afraid I was afraid I was gonna fail out of school. I I really couldn't sleep. And I had worked so hard to get into NYU, so hard. I I took loans and grants and scholarships. I was doing work study.

My mom took out a loan. Wow. You know, we were, like, really stringing it together. I really wanted to be there. And I was worried I was gonna lose the whole thing because I I could not sleep.

And I would get to lecture, and I was falling asleep. And I started going to therapy, and that's when I realized I had anxiety from, my father and I were estranged at the time and and some other things too. But, for me, it was surfacing in insomnia, as I said, and panic attacks and just, yeah, an overall unease. So I would not say that I am totally free and clear of that. And I I like to be honest about that because people, while insomnia is not really an issue, I have definitely had panic attacks on auditions.

And it doesn't stop me. I say a couple things to people. I try not to let it stop me. So, I mean, I don't want it to mean I don't audition or I don't do what I love, but it is a part of my life. I do meditate.

I do do therapy. And the thing that's really important to me is I do do what I love. So, yeah, they are a part of my life. They're not keeping me imprisoned. And, I try to work with them in healthy ways as opposed to, like, avoidance or covering over.

It's a part of my life, and I do like to be honest about that because one of the things people say to me so frequently is, you seem inherently comfortable on camera. I am. I am. I'm not as comfortable in real life, interestingly. It's almost like it's flipped what it is for most people, but, you know, it it doesn't it's just there, and I I I'm aware of it, and I work with it as best I can.

I'd love to say you say to you, Kurt, I'm on Easy Street, and I everything you know, I never have that problem again in my life, but that's not true either. Well, there's no growth in that if we are. Right? If we pretend we're sort of on easy street, we have it all figured out, then where's the growth? And that's a large part of what we like to talk about when we talk about core energy is growth.

Everything's growth to us. You know, experiences, we like to define them as good or bad. Well, why bother? Because both of them are just completely about growth. So we start to learn how we talk to ourselves a little kinder.

Right? So you bring up something, you know, the performance. Performance, equals, potential minus interference. Right? You get that.

And that's a lot about what we have to put away. That's where we start working from, you know, within, work on ourselves there. And then there's also that change aspect you were talking about. Changes, equals awareness plus understanding. Right?

And that's when we get raw to ourselves. We start to figure it out. We're understanding. We're in constant change. Right?

That's part of the beauty of life. We're always in in in transition in some moment because time's matriculating, and we're gonna go with it. So when we talk about the anxiety and the fear, we like to, look at it a little bit differently in terms of, like, this, fear. Fear we all have. We don't wanna harbor as you know and you pointed out.

Fear is an alarm clock. It's really our friend because it's telling us something's coming. It's coming at us now, and we're not gonna be able to stop it. So instead of a force and all all those terminologies that, put us at bay from or if we think it's at bay, fear is just coming deeper and deeper. So the idea is to accept it.

Right? We went through that. Acknowledge it with the awareness. Work with it. And say, okay, fear.

I'm done with you now. You're going to leave. And then some people say, well, how does that work? Well, actually quite simply because what's time do? It changes.

Right? So time is our friend too. It's gonna take us out of it. We're gonna be in a different moment. The mind body energy connection is going to shift because we're always in that shift.

Back to your point, you know, we don't want to profess that we know everything because that's pretty much impossible. I mean, do you know anyone that knows everything? Tell me. You know? I guess they might, profess they do, but we leave that to the scholars, and they can have that vernacular.

You and I resonate more simply. We're, more to the core of the street. The street is, for me, all has been a a place of learning, whether it was in my athletic career or in my career in trading in the commodity pits or just on the street. This is why I relate to you so, so much and really enjoy what you do out there with people and the reactions that you get. So how did you come up with the idea?

Let's just go there for a minute for our audience. Educate them on what what it was. What what made you do it? I like what you said about the street too. That was I got hooked on that.

It is really kind of like this playground for creativity and just, openness. I love that. That's beautiful. I I think for me, it was two the convergence of two things. So I first started at Boston University.

That was the first college I went to. I had gone to Rumson Fair Haven. They were very Ivy League oriented when I was there. I was not an Ivy League candidate, though I did very well. It wasn't a fit for me, and I felt very lost.

And I went I just got I actually recently, just a month ago, went back to the school to talk, and I was honest about that. And I think it was helpful for the kids just because it's okay to feel lost. Definitely. You know, adults feel lost. That's part of finding your way, falling off, getting back on, all that stuff.

But anyway, I got to be you, and I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was still lost once I got to college. And friends said, hey, there's this TV station that BU runs content on. We think you'd really like it. Why don't you come to the studio one day and just volunteer and and check it out?

I had no idea what they were talking about. So I went, and, I stepped foot on the sound stage, and I knew I was home. And I worked a camera. I did some odds and ends things, and they asked me to try out for a co host. It was a street interview variety show.

So they brought camera crew on the street, interviewed strangers, did man on the street pieces. They would come back to the studio, have musical guests, skits, things like that. And Kurt the second, they threw me. I had no clue I would be what I would be doing. They said you're gonna shadow the host and see what he does.

And someone made the decision to throw me on camera. And, I didn't know it was coming. It was the best for me, best possible way this could have gone down. And years later, they told me that they said behind the scenes she could teach our current host a thing or two. And I just was in my element.

I was talking to strangers. I was interviewing them, making banter but natural, vulnerable, fun. And, they offered me the cohost job the next day. Wow. And so, I did that in college for local cable.

It was like a million homes, I think, was the audience, and I loved it. And then went to NYU, ended up working for Miramax, which was in its heyday at the time. Weinstein brothers learned a ton, went to Sundance, went to festivals, came back to New Jersey, worked in fashion for a little while, did advertising, got pregnant, decided I wanted to take some time off. That ended up being a mistake and a boon, because I really wasn't happy not working. But I kind of got in touch with what do I really wanna do.

And that's when I started my own show. And it was actually the invention is, mother whatever that saying is mother of necessity. My son was tiny, and I could strap him onto my body and go onto the street and interview people. I love it. Be a mom and feed my soul at the same time.

So it was kind of like, how do I bring New York edge, as I said before, and then what I did in Boston for local cable to Fair Haven in Red Bank, New Jersey with my own equipment in gorilla style? That's how my show began. And the first thing I ever did is, while my son was taking a nap, I sat down at the kitchen table, set up a web pan webcam, told a story to the webcam about seeing witnessing a parking lot fight at Target, just me talking to the camera. Very Jersey, the concept of the parking lot fight. And I put it on Facebook.

People loved it. Loved it. I didn't expect this. You know, I just needed to get my voice out there and I needed to be back in touch with production. I felt like I was losing myself being a mom.

You know, there's so much beauty, but I really was losing my identity at the same time. And I didn't feel okay with that. I thought I was a bad person for feeling that way. That's when I went back into therapy, when I realized it was okay to feel that way. What did I actually want?

Oh, maybe I can find a balance. I do have this voice. I have this unique perspective. So I told this story. It was such a classic parking lot flight, but, you know, I had to give everyone everything through meet my words because they weren't there.

And people ate it up. And that kind of launched. Then I started going on the street. I had local sponsors. I still have people asking me to sponsor today.

It's really not you know, it's great. The Grove follows the show. SeaStreak, again, your audience may or may not know who these people are. But Yeah. Yeah.

People just rally around it. It feels really good because it's just me. My daughter shoots right now. She's a teenager. So, that was it.

I I I know I went off a little bit there, but it was it was necessity. How do I honor my voice, my affinity for this guerilla style production, but also be here for my son? And that's how it came to be. Yeah. Beautiful.

And that's all about transition that we're talking about. Right? One of the main four concentrations that a lot people have. There's also a few other things in there that are quite interesting, Lauren, because you, brought out purpose. Now, you know, being a mom is very special as we well know.

You you women are fabulous in every sort of way. That being said, you know, we're multidimensional. So does it mean that we're stuck being a mom or a father or a brother or sister, whatever that might be? No. Because there's so much in us.

And for you, you're a perfect example of this. You have so much inside of you. So so many creative avenues you like to go. And in there, you mentioned earlier when we were talking about collaborating as part of the beauty of the street. You go out there and you're creating, and then next thing you know, you're you're collaborating with someone you don't know.

And then now you're co co creating. Right? And, you bring it all together, and that's, again, part of the beauty of that street. But back to the purpose. Challenging for you to say the least to figure that out and say, okay.

I'm gonna put my son on my back back and have him come along. I bet you the energy of having him along must have helped a lot too. Yeah. It was really special. And when he got older, he would be out on his bike.

Hey, mom. I just saw this story in the neighborhood. You might like to cover it. You know, he was, like, inherently involved. He pick up picked up a camera when he was so little, and he loves photography.

He made his own videos. And now my daughter shoots my show for me. She was 12 when she offered to start shooting for me because she heard me walking around. I could not keep a shooter. You know, I don't have a ton of work to offer a freelance person.

I shoot a couple times a week for an hour here, an hour there. And I kept losing shooters, and I couldn't quite do what I'm doing now without a shooter. You know, I can selfie a video here and there, but, really, if you wanna get an interview, you do need a shooter. And I wasn't gonna put down sticks, as they say at NYU, put down a tripod, because I am not gonna get a permit every time I go out in true guerrilla form. I you you steal the location, ask forgiveness later.

Right. And so I know. That's a great phrase. We don't get caught up in bureaucracy. There we go.

No politics involved. Right? Don't want any of that stuff. No. You know, I because you'll never get it done if you do that.

That's right. And then we lose, again, back what you and I really enjoy, and that's the authentic authenticity and being raw in the moment. That's where we should all always should concentrate on being more and more focused. And I think we're coming into it, you know, coming from the generations of, the analog and then tripping into that 2,000 YK ring is gonna go black. And then, you know, the the, digital world, came in stronger.

The pandemic hit. There's been so much that had been happening so quickly. Like, more and more people are identifying. You see it. You're out in the street.

You see more and more people coming out. More and more people making themselves available to speak to others. No more of this isolation. We don't succeed in isolation. So it's really important for us to understand that.

You know, come on. Take your chance. Call that calculated risk. Right? Take a calculated risk.

It's gonna happen one way or another. We're gonna be in motion one way or another, so why not be a little more aware and cognitive of it and to help push it along? So, oh, my gosh. You know, it's so fun having watched you launch pretty much to where you are now because people pine. I see when you go when you approach them and the mic's on, the camera's rolling, and, you know, people say, yeah.

I know you. You know? You're that woman. And, you know, they get it right away, and they're more than willing to engage from every age. And I wanna go there with you because there's a lot of things that you're doing other than just, being, entertaining people.

And I and you know all this, entertaining people on the street. You're drawing things out of them that are very important to understand what's going on in life. So let's go down that road a bit, Lauren, because you do speak to all generations. And I've been kind of trying to take inventory when I watch the shows. If it's an older generation, how they handle the the the question.

I'd like you to put that out there for us and the generational aspect of it. How is that? Yeah. It's really interesting because when I did this most recent launch with my daughter, we well, I was overwhelmed by the turnout of the teenage generation. I would say 85 to 90% of my audience is teens.

And I never expected that. I figured I'd be interviewing my contemporaries. I'm 49. So I figured it would be my age and up. Did not for a second think it would go younger.

They have rallied around the show, I think, one, because they're more comfortable with the medium, whereas your and my generation isn't as comfortable. And the other thing is that I am giving them a place where it's safe to be themselves. And I do take that very seriously. I think the, the message there is it's okay to be who you are. I feel really strongly about that.

I don't overtly say it, but I think I live it and show it. And I I do struggle with it myself, so it's not like it comes easy for me. But, we need it. You know, we're bombarded by social media showing us and telling us who and what we're supposed to be and where we're supposed to go and how we're supposed to look. And I don't know who fits that mold.

I think most people don't. And it can have such negative repercussions. So I'm out there on the street saying, you, as you are right now, whatever you're doing, I wanna know about it. And, I think they like that. So I would say, yeah, it's interesting to see the way you're in my age reacts to me versus the teenage way the teenagers tend to wait for me on the street and and come running and screaming up to me.

Whereas my age group, I have to chase down a little bit. That's okay. That's real life. You know, we don't want everyone to be the same. Much more trepidation, though, is with the older generations, which I didn't think would happen because I'm that generation.

So I figured they would be like, oh, okay. But no, not the case. Yeah. I never know what's gonna come down the pike. But I am continuously surprised.

On Instagram, my following is it's the area high schools, the kids, you know, my kids' contemporaries. But they are watching me out there and waiting for me. They like seeing their friends also. But I do think there's something to be said for, hey, they call me fun lady. There's fun lady.

She's working to be comfortable in her skin. You know, that that's for us. Awesome. Awesome. Right there.

I mean, what a it couldn't be a a more complimentary statement and say, hey, that's fun lady over there. And people wanna engage more and more in that these days. Right? They wanna keep it a little lighter. We see that the the the younger generation is pining for that.

And the older too, they're they're beginning to realize, well, in this stage of life, maybe I'm slowing down whatever way that is or maybe I'm gonna retire. I think less and less people are retiring. Personally, for me, retiring is our last breath. So I'm gonna be doing this forever, you know? And I have a funny feeling that I I have a partner out there and you will be doing the same thing because it's it's so entertaining to see how people are gonna handle the questions, how they're operating.

And more and more of us are realizing and enjoying the collaboration and making mistakes is okay. You know, that limiting belief that we've been handing down for generation is so dissipating. You know that your grandparents, how they taught your parents, how they should grow up and execute themselves and how you and I are teaching ours are very, very different from generation to generation. You know, that limiting belief, I think people are throwing away, and we're we're creating a whole a whole another, environment here. You know, the the quants, the quantitative theory, people are looking into it and say, well, how do we define this movement?

Right? It's like, is this a the post industrial revolution of a new age of tech? Or how is that? So they can't quite define it. And that's where I get a little anxious with them and say, well, listen, there's no silver bullet.

Right? We're multidimensional, and therefore, you know, we're gonna keep, keep, growing through it and becoming a little more understanding where that is. So, with that being said, Lauren, what what is your most favorite part when you're done with your interviews and your day? What what is it that makes you because success is in the moment. It's not just a final product and you you know all this.

What really turns you on? What's done it for you? I think it's the challenge of actually doing it. I've done thousands of interviews, and I'm still scared before I step onto the street. And even when I'm on the street, I'm scared.

But I really love the work, so I go forward. I am an inherent risk taker. I wouldn't say that comes easily either. I for my yearbook quote for high school for RFH was, this Erica Jong quote. And the thing of it is, if you never risk anything, you risk everything.

Ah, love it. Which I love. And so I would say the part that really turns me on, and we just started bringing this into the show because people were asking about it. I started showing the rejections. You know, I I can't show all of them because it kinda depends what we are comfortable.

You know, we don't we only wanna show what we feel comfortable. If someone's upset or we don't show any of that. But Yep. Not upset with me, but, you know, uncomfortable about themselves. We don't show that.

If there's a minor, we don't show that stuff unless they've given us permission. You do have permission to shoot in public if you're not monetizing it, which I'm not. But still, I will put a filter on that. So anyway, I started to show, me getting getting rejected because I also think that's a good message, especially for younger people to see, oh, she's on an easy street. Every time she goes out, she gets a no and has to work through that.

And I do. You know, sometimes I'll get 10 no's before I get one yes. I don't have a thick skin. I don't think anyone really has a thick skin. And that's a part of life.

We have to go through it to do what we love. When I did the, the feature over the summer with, Shirley MacLaine, it was her last film. And also Mercedes Ruehl was in it. I don't know if you know her Broadway Actress, really strong. Yes.

Mhmm. I sat in the makeup trailer next to her, and I started talking to her about working with anxiety. And she said to me, you know, the truth of the matter is, if you're not anxious or nervous, you really maybe shouldn't be in the room in the first place because you're wasting your time and everyone else's. So nerves are a good thing. They mean you feel really strongly.

And I think for me, that's what turns me on the most when I'm walking back to the car with my daughter, and I'm like, oh, my gosh. We did it. You know, we did it. We overcame the challenges. And, whatever happens with the content happens, it was really about going out into the arena and being real.

Yep. Just getting it going. Right? So that anxiety that we all have, that the butterflies of whether it's gonna be in the camera on stage, in a business meeting, or a social gathering or whatnot. We all again, this is why I point out, we all have fear.

It's there. We just don't wanna carry it. So so and and hold on to it. So to to your point is that, yes, we get get that anxiety, but what happens is, you know, all of a sudden you start working. Fear is a reaction.

Courage is a courage is just a decision. So there you have it in taking that decision and the courage to go forward. And look at the boy, you pointed out there a couple of things here. The ability to have, rejection, understand rejection, and then the resilience to keep moving forward, and that's a beautiful thing. There's our growth again.

You know, everything that you've you you you've talked about, Lauren, and you've been doing in your action and whatnot is growth. It really is. So, I'd like to go here a little bit because we have a little more time left. Talk to the audience about growth, how you view growth overall, how that comes to you, how it comes to other people, and how you see it developing, in time. I think, for me, it happens off camera as much as it does on camera.

I'm really trying to push myself to do what scares me. And that's what I'm asking people to do when they come on the show. So I you know, I talked to you about the improv. That is super uncomfortable for me. I'm not good at it at all.

I'm not being self deprecating. I'm just being I can tell you, I can say to you, Curt, I can get on out on the street, someone can hand me a microphone and start rolling, and I'll have no prep or anything. And I will be the strongest person imaginable. I can tell you that. As much as I can tell you, you put me on a stage and ask me to improv, I'm really not good at it.

So I do I've been forcing myself to do it. The teacher I work with just reached out to me and said, we're doing a six week series starting next week. Would you like to join? I was like, definitely not, but I'm going to, because I'm really bad at it. And they're really good.

And I know I have room to learn there. When I did the feature over the summer, and I knew it would, open doors for me. You know, it got me my my it got me, an equity card, and I would have done it without that. But That's great. Yeah.

It was an incredible production. I was terrified. I was terrified. I was so scared. I remember I auditioned twice, and I got offered it, and then they put it on hold.

And I was like, it's done. They gave it to someone else. You know, this happens all the time. They gave it to someone else. They didn't like me.

I have all these self doubt things, too. I went to Italy on this, I had to go to Italy, it was for a family thing. And I was like, okay, this stinks. I worked so hard. But you know what?

I'm gonna do this. I committed to doing this trip. And, the day before I was supposed to come home, they offered me the role. I had gotten sick while I was traveling and all these reasons to say no. And I was like, you say yes before you can fill your head with all the no's.

And so I flew home on the red eye, hadn't slept, drove down, did the production, sick. They all couldn't stop talking about what a good job I did. That was unsolicited. I didn't expect it. I was there to do a job.

I was kind of blown away, really, because I had so much to learn from everyone. I had so much to learn. So I guess I try to I did Toastmasters for a little while, you know, where you learn public speaking. I hate public speaking, hate it. I try to do these things that scare me, because I think it makes me I like being out of the comfort zone.

Like it? I don't know. I'm drawn to it. I take cold showers, do the polar plunges. I I do all these things that make me uncomfortable because, you know, we're not here to sit around.

And my grandma is a hundred and two. God bless. She volunteered every single day until she was 99. Wow. She said, I wasn't put here to sit around.

I'm here for a reason. Let me give back. So I'm not giving back in the same way, but I do think I'm doing a little bit of a community service, getting out there, talking to people, connecting. I'm trying to make the world a smaller place so I can do my part behind the scene and be off camera so that we all can get together on camera and do do do the same thing, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. Well, you're so beautiful about that in every way. Not easy to describe. And your rawness about it, Lauren, has really brought a lot of content to the viewers. 100% fabulous stuff.

And again, back to the fact that, you know, we we get nervous, we get anxious, we get fearful, but we'll just concentrate on the word fear. Again, you've shown and you've proven it to yourself and to everyone that you're in contact with. It's okay to have those anxieties. It's okay to, understand understand we're uncomfortable. And again, in the core energy, that's one thing we push a lot, is the understanding that it's best to be uncomfortable getting comfortable, not comfortable being uncomfortable.

Right? So you sum that up and all of that. And that's what help drives us. When we realize that we're okay, and you we're using the word safety early on. Yes.

When we understand that we're safe. And this all comes in a process of really doing our inner work, and you and you know this. And as we more and more that we, understand that we're capable of doing things because we're all sort of built in realizing, well, we're not good enough. Well, you know what? We're all better than we think we are.

That is a fact. And and the more and more we start to understand that, the more interested we are in taking those risks, even though we have the butterflies and whatnot. Remember, emotions are just energy in action. Right? That's really what it is.

So, when that happens and these emotions come into our life, what do we do? Get active. Do exactly what you have pointed out. And you are an example of it. And, gosh, everybody out there listening to this and watching, please, understand that Lauren has gone through her times of life where it had been ups and downs as she pointed out, but she's constantly referring to the high energy.

And this is something else I wanna talk about real quick is that there's anabolic energy, which is a high resonating building constructive energy. Then there's the which is dopamine driven a bit. The opposite is a catabolic. That's a draining energy. The the the breakdown of things and sort of wanting to be in one spot being uncomfortable.

That's a cortisol dump. So when you have these types of flows of energy, Lauren, if you will, and we have a little time left, describe how you how you work from the the cortisol and the the catabolic into that higher energy and how you keep it there. That's a really good question. So I have struggled with depression in my life. When we have emotions that go unmitigated, that's how they can surface as a sadness and a darkness.

Now I feel I have the proper tools to work with it. So what you're describing, that dump, to me feels like a depression. I will try to stretch, move, meditate, and, go for a walk, call a loved one and just check-in. You know, my grandma, I said, is 102, if I can send her a little love, or, I'll try I'll make content. I really feel at home making content.

You know, I try to say like, what drives me? How do I feel grounded? Let me get in touch with that stuff and try to like, poke holes in the darkness because I do get filled with self doubt, and it can be stifling. But I also think that's normal, especially for people that are, in the public light or making something, sometimes people are gonna be mean. And, you know, I try not to read stuff and all that, but I do make that mistake, and it does get me down.

Sometimes it's it's funny with that. It usually can roll off if it doesn't hit home. If it's hitting on a self doubt I already had, it stays with me. So that person almost did me a favor because then I have to look at that, you know? But anyway Yeah.

So I just try to use the tools that I've gleaned over life. And, yeah, I I think go out, walk, talk to someone, move. I I try to be outside a lot, go to the beach, and make content, be with family, friends, get in the community, all that good stuff. Whatever different things will speak to different people, but, yeah. But overall, you're you're right there.

Different things will resonate with different people. But overall, there's that one word, and it's so important for all of us to adopt in whatever we do in life, wherever we are, and that's action. Take your action. Trust your process. This is all what you've been doing and talking about.

Lauren has been fantastic content, and I'm so we're so happy and fortunate to have you on today. You've been a very special guest, And I would just like to ask one question before we sign off. If there's something that you could ask of the world, there's something that you could contribute more than what you're doing in the moment, what would that something of the world be and how would it look? I think this maybe seems so simple, but I think we're better off when we talk to each other. I just want everyone to, kind of come down to the same or up to the same level and try to I'm big on connection.

I I don't know if that's where you are going with that, but I'm not going anywhere with it. Is your is a question for you? Yeah. That's, I think, just, if we could table all our stuff and just try to, keep the electricity flowing between all parties, That that's what I would ask. I think it's just, changes lives.

Boy, I am with you a % because communication is, to me, so important. And I've found it and I've worked with it, studied it. Communicating when it's the most difficult is the best. And people shy away from that from all the reasons we know. Right?

Withdrawing, don't wanna hear they're right, the other one is wrong. But with the understanding to go into communication, when it's the most difficult, we all learn, who's ever engaged in it. We learn about the issue at hand. We learn about the other side. And as importantly, most importantly, we learn about ourselves.

So everyone, communicate. Keep on communicating. Keep trusting yourself. Trust your process. Stay in action.

Lauren has been wonderful in explaining all that in her beautiful life journey. And she Lauren, we wish you the best going forward, always and forever. We do have repeat, guests coming on, and I hope you'll be one of them. Now everyone out there, whatever platform you're on, and we are on LinkedIn as well as YouTube, Spotify, Apple, all the platforms, please press your button, like, subscribe, and comment if you will, and we'd appreciate it. So all out there, stay in action, trust your process, and stay empowered.

Thank you.