David Green | Embracing Depression, Using the Lows of Life to Reach the High Places, & Learning to Taste the Tea

Going to the Grammys at 18, being an inventor that sells your inventions, having a brain tumor, moving to Israel, using depression as a springboard for greatness. All this and more in the episode of the podcast you’re about to listen to.

Hello, my Remarkable friends. Welcome to this week’s episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the David Green story. Before I tell you about David, and we get into his episode, I want to first thank you [00:01:00] for being here. Whether you are a longtime listener or whether you’re a first time guest, we. Awesomely excited, super puncture here, and can’t wait till you get into the show.

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Repeated each day so you can have a great life in this world, and most of all, an nity to come. So when you are ready, we’re going to get to the episode. Before we do, just a couple things of housekeeping. You know what’s better than listening to the Remarkable People Podcast for some of you reading the book.

That’s right. We have Remarkable people, volume one that’s live. You can check it out on. [00:02:00] You can find links to it through our website, Remarkable People Podcast dot com. And what we did is we took 12 of the guests from our show. They authored 12 chapters of the book. They wrote laser focused on their area of expertise.

So now you have a book with 12 short chapters, 12 amazing authors, 12 topics that can change your. and then at the end there’s a way you can reach the author and continue the conversation if you’re ready. And hopefully it’s just a catalyst to turn your life upside down in a good way and help you to free that inner hero inside you that God put in.

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Subscribe to the channel again. It’ll notify you when new episodes come out. And then the book. Buy it for yourself, buy it for your friends. 100% of all profits go right back to the podcast ministry. And the whole purpose is to glorify God and help people grow. And speaking of growth at this time, our guest today is an author.

He’s an entrepreneur, he is a musician, he’s a songwriter. He has a bunch of credentials. You’re going to hear about. But he also has a Remarkable story. He talks about growing up in Canada, always kind of on the low key, struggling with depression, even though he had a great upbringing, had brothers and sisters, and mom and daddy loved.

Ends up going to not even college. He went right off into the music industry, was at the Grammys at age 18, and then he, his mom [00:04:00] talked to him and he saw something, and it was a catalyst, a paradigm shift in his life where he is like, this is not what I want outta life. He moves to Israel and I’m jumping around.

We talk about brain tumors, we talk about oppression, we talk about the Old Testament and all of it. Not only is it a great. But it’s stuff you and me can apply to our lives and better our situation and be happier, healthier people. So ladies and gentlemen, at this time, get out your pen and paper. Welcome to the David Green Story.

David Green  Embracing Depression, Using the Lows of Life to Reach the High Places, & Learning to Taste the Tea

Hey, David, how are you today, brother? I’m doing great, David. How you doing? Good. I’m doing fantastic. I was just telling our listeners about what a great and patient man you are, what amazing episode we had, what a Remarkable story and how you’re just about to share it with us. So they’re super pumped. But just once again, thank you, David’s in Israel.

Were [00:05:00] zooming this conference while in my condo, a fire alarm keeps going off and God’s protecting us. We’re can’t even hear it. So we’re going to continue to roll, hear David’s Remarkable story and all the insight and wisdom he has to share with us. And David, before we get started, we have new first time listeners today.

We have listeners that have been with us for three years, but for everyone listening. They’re going to walk away with a lot of gold nuggets and how to improve their life. But if there was one lesson you want them to walk away with when this interview’s done, what would that be? I think the most important lesson is that God created every soul as a precious gem, and every precious gem is different from every other gem.

So just as your, there are no two fingerprints that are the same. There are no two souls that are the same, and for a person to be happy, ultimately they should [00:06:00] discover what makes them unique and and enable them to be able to make life choices based on how they were designed. God designed them to achieve certain things in this world, but there’s nothing more pleasurable than to know that you’re actually doing what you’re here, what you were created to do in this world.

Amen to that. So let’s get started then. Let’s talk about your life, David. We’re going to go from birth through today. Then we’ll transition to where’s David today? You just helped us for an hour. How can we help you now with your next goal, you know, your next mission, where you’re headed. But at this time, let’s talk about your birth and your childhood and your upbringing.

Cuz good, bad, or ugly. Everything you experienced and I experienced our listeners experience makes us the people we are today. So what was your life like in the early years, David? Well, I grew up in Toronto in a native Canadian into a, a Jewish family in [00:07:00] in an area where you know, there were a lot of woods and ravines and places just to run around and have fun.

We, we didn’t have phones and. I didn’t, I wasn’t a big television watcher, but I spent a lot of time outside and with friends and I just remember having a, a happy upbringing, but also very contemplative at a very young age. I was looking at the world and. And just wondering what it’s made out of. I didn’t come from a religious background, so I was very inquisitive about like, what, you know, what makes things work.

One of my favorite books as a kid was this book called The Way Things Work, and it would explain to you how, what was at the time modern technology, like a toaster, like how the, how, how the, the toast knew when to pop, you know, and I would study, you know, [00:08:00] bimetallic strips and how that would cause things to happen.

I would sit on the floor playing with three puzzles. Thank God I’m a d h D. So I had a lot of creativity to be able to express, but my mother would say to me, why don’t you put one puzzle away before you put work on the next? No, I couldn’t work on one puzzle. I had to work on a lot of puzzles at the same time cuz I got too bored working on one.

And that, that was the seed of a of the way my mind actually. Works now still and, and worked throughout my life at a, at a very early age. I started getting into music and I wrote music at a very young age. And music became my dream. It became what I was running to be able to, to, to achieve in my music as a composer.

Being a composer is very similar to putting together puzzles. You have all these [00:09:00] different parts. You want to put ’em together, you want to make them flow properly, but at the same time, you want to express something that’s real genuine at the same time. And so I, I was soul searching my way, but using music as my navigator for soul searching.

And I you know, I always. Few friends, close friends, but very few of them. And we partied together. We played sports together. I skied a lot, snow skied and raced, and I was into tennis and but, but there was a side of me that was lonely at the same time. You know, I had girlfriends growing up, but I was, there was this, this sort of a, a lonely side.

I, one of my songs is is called Revival of the Living. Which is all, all about going through life and feeling like you’re [00:10:00] missing a, a whole dimension to it and, and wanting to lift yourself up into a place that’s much more spiritually aware. And it’s only looking back after several years of the, you know, having become religious myself over the years that I look back and I see myself as a child trying to make more sense of this world.

And I, I guess I was more mature than, than most of the kids my age. And then by the time I was 16, I had recorded some music with a friend of mine who was lyricist and uh, I was very disconnected from myself. All I wanted to do was be successful in the music. . And what happened was by the time I was 18, I was recording an album in LA with some of the top musicians in, in the world that were on this album.

And it was in the r and b field. And I was working with a incredible producer, [00:11:00] arranger named Gene Page, and he had won numerous Grammy awards in the past and he was nominated again. But he couldn’t go to get his award should he had won. And he asked me if I would accept his award. At 18 years old, I had this invitation to do basically what you do in the music and in the entertainment business.

You basically pretend you’re successful. You rub soldiers with people who are successful and they, they think that, you know, you’re suitable for a gig to do something. You know, it’s like, you know, so, so there I was with my own v i p tickets to the Grammys and his limousine picked me up. I had rented a tuxedo and I was heading down to the Grammys to accept.

By the time I was in the car, it was of course my award, not his. I, you know, delusively convinced myself that I was going to get my award that with the help of a little something that somebody gave me to relax me. [00:12:00] So this girl I met out there gave me some pills to relax me, , and, and I I I, I took one of the pills and I was like, very relaxed.

But the other one was, the ha was a, was a red pill where the, the dye of the pills started dripping down my fingers, the red dye. And I had nowhere to put it. If I put it in my pocket, it would look like it got shot, you know, because I’d have this red coming on me. So I took the second one and I was like, you know, , I was really out of it, heading down the highway to accept my award, but, but it started to wear off.

And at that point, I think it was the first time I prayed to God where I said, God, please make him lose. I d it’s not worth it for me to go up there in front of thousands of people in the room and millions of people watching from on television all over the world and watching me go up there and forgetting his name, you know, Jean, something asked me to accept this award.

I just so scared. I had so much an anxiety [00:13:00] and thank God he did not win. But because I had a v I P pass, I was invited to go to this major celebration afterwards with all these people in the industry. And I was, I was so disconnected from who I really was, and all I wanted to be was this, like this r and b musician who was a really good jazz musician, but was breaking into the pop market.

And there was a musician that I saw there from who was the head of one of my favorite bands. He was like, my idol. Like he was like, everything I was running towards, he was the personification of that. Like I wanted to be him. And at one point I saw, I looked at his face and he looked to me like a very miserable, unhappy person.

and that was a transition in my life. Suddenly something went [00:14:00] off in my head and said, why am I running so fast to be this person if this person is not happy? Shouldn’t I be running after happiness and then let my music be an expression of that? And that was a very, you know, I can describe the logic of that whole process, but in my head it was just a little flash that I got that I feel very blessed to have got that completely turned my life around.

I decided to leave the music business, go to college. I went to Bloomington, Indiana where they have a very good music school and I studied music composition and I just wanted to be a kid again. I wanted to be not running after Hollywood, but running, you know, or slowing down and living my life. and in music school, I thought, I felt there, I was actually experienced a lot of loneliness.

I was not like the other people in the [00:15:00] school. I had one or two good friends also again there. But I really felt like I wasn’t experiencing my life. I was doing the music school thing, music composition. Everybody had to be artsy. You had to be different. You had to be expressing something that no one else expressed.

And often being unique, you know, expressing that artsiness is not you. It’s not me. It wasn’t, it wasn’t, it wasn’t coming from a sincere place. It was more coming from a place of trying to be cool, trying to be artsy, trying to be avant. , right? And all that was, was to me very, very superficial. I, I’d rather write a simple melody that was sincere and let that be my music, but that’s not what they wanted from me in music school.

They wanted me to be innovative and everything. And that’s, to me, that’s not what music’s about. It’s about expressing something from, from deep inside that’s much more sincere. So after about three years of being [00:16:00] there I felt, you know, I, I really have to resolve within myself a lot of this hypocrisy that I felt about my, my identity as, as a Jew, as a religious person, I felt.

Like, I did not think of myself as being religious at all, but there were certain things that I, I didn’t want to let go of. Like when I went to the, the Yom Kipper services, which is like the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, I went to the services on campus and they didn’t follow it the way I was brought up that they, they, they had a cello playing on the stage and the cello was like a violation of the actual day.

And I felt, how could they do this? And how, you know, meanwhile, I hardly was practicing anything myself. So like, why am I getting upset by what they’re doing when I’m myself not doing anything either? And I decided, you know what? I have to [00:17:00] get up and go somewhere where I can hear my own inner voice. And I decided that the, the best place for me to go would be to Israel.

So it was in my early twenties that I, I, I got up and I went to Israel and I went to the Western wall and I was invited to go to what’s called the Yeshiva. And the yeshiva is a place of Torah study of, of Jewish studies where I was there with about 30 other guys that were all non. And they were asking the rabbis questions that were very, very challenging and trying to prove Judaism to be wrong, that there’s no God in the world.

That, that the, you know, that, that, that the big bang is this explanation of, of the creation and all these types of things, you know? And what happened is that the, the rabbi started like basically destroying [00:18:00] every question we had to a point where like, you know, we didn’t have anything to say. It was like they were very, very smart.

They knew their stuff. Even one of my friends that I met there had just done a thesis. There is no. And he was there to try to save his brother from being brainwashed, you know into being religious. So he was one of the first guys to also become religious because he had all the arguments from his thesis being destroyed by these rabbis there.

And so I found myself not only being affected by the philosophical debates that were going on, but I found myself in a place where my soul connected to the land. My soul. If, if you, if it’s almost like an amplifier to the soul, that being in Israel for me was a place. All this inner self [00:19:00] that was trying to come out earlier with just naturally pouring out of me, I felt a connection to something very, very real in me.

And what started to happen is I started to write music there. I got hold of a baby grand piano in the old city of Jerusalem where I was living. And I just started writing music. And the music became. So much more beautiful than anything I ever written had written in the past, because it was all just coming from a place of spiritual identity and discovery of something much deeper inside and a much more pure.

And I said goodbye to the artsy world and said hello to myself and experienced something much more sincere. And it turned out I ended up getting all kinds of jobs. I had a jazz band that I used to perform once a week. I got jobs doing movie, movie soundtracks you know, playing on [00:20:00] different albums as a piano player and, and like, so it became like everything I was running after in Hollywood, I actually found in a, in a real way when I, when I finally came to Israel, maybe that’s why it’s called Israel

Cause it was very, it was very real. That’s what happened is I woke up to the, to who I really was and But I, I was bothered by the fact that in, in, in Jewish practice, there’s so many laws that everybody keeps, and I was afraid that, well, if I do that, I’m going to lose my individuality. And as an artist, you know, individuality was always such an important thing.

And, and the more I studied, the more I actually found primarily from Hasidic source sources that the, the last thing God wants of you is to be like everyone else. What God wants you to do is discover who you really are, what makes you unique. What’s, what’s, [00:21:00] what’s, how can I harness the gifts that he gave me and do what I’m here to do in this world?

And that became somewhat of a, a project of mine, which I now call Real You Project, which is my website Real You project.com. And I you know, years later, after, after I got married and I, I have eight kids now. I have 16 grandkids. Life has certainly changed a lot since, since Hollywood. But I wrote a book called A Book About You, and that’s all about individuality and spiritual awareness.

And you know, it’s a, it’s in, in the process I, that took me, I, I’d say about three years to write, but really the content of it was developed over about 25 years of teaching in various schools here in Israel. [00:22:00] And I teach people who come from very little religious background. And my, my whole approach with them is to say, well, what are these people struggling with in life?

Let me, instead of trying to convince them that they should embrace Judaism, what I should do is try to speak to what the struggles are they’re going through and just. Jewish philosophy as my source to address those issues, what we call the Torah, the Bible, the Old Testament deals with so many of the types of issues that people struggle with.

For example, loneliness. So many people are lonely. People don’t have self-esteem. You know, people are struggling with not able to make decisions in life. So my, my classes became more and more about those types of issues and I felt [00:23:00] myself like really enjoying, helping people with the types of problems that they’re struggling through.

And so this book, a book about you. Helps people discover what their unique personalities are based on the three forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the capitalistic spirit, the the capitalistic divine attributes that they each personified. And we all have those within us, but we’re all primarily one of the three.

And by discovering which one you are, it helps you say, well, now I know why I have these strengths, and now I know why I have these weaknesses. And it allows you to accept yourself and it allows you to accept other people and admire. Wow, that’s a different personality. That’s. They have a certain strength that I don’t have, but that’s fine.

I don’t have to be jealous of them. I should appreciate them that God gave them that gift and God gave me a [00:24:00] different gift and they have weaknesses that I don’t have and I shouldn’t get down on them cuz that’s part of the package that they’ve been given. And therefore it, it really develops the ability to have a, a loving marriage much better relationship with friends.

And, and that self-awareness became very key. And then what happened is I started really getting into a book called a Tanya, which is like the the main book of the Habad Hasidic movement which really discusses what is a soul. So I I, after a year of, of studying that every. I put out a book called Pictures of Your Soul, and the what happens is in the book, you start actually seeing pictures of like the anatomy of the soul and also stunning photographs by a photographer [00:25:00] here named Mosha sls, who took pictures of people in on fire in prayer.

And when you look at their faces, you can actually see their soul shining through. It’s such, it’s, there’s such powerful images. So this book came out and thank God it’s been getting great reviews. And that’s, that’s really what my focus has been. And I, I have two albums out also, and all the songs are interwoven into these books.

There’s actually QR codes in the book where you can scan and it’ll start to play the music. That’s, that’s the, you know, where the lyrics are quoted in the book. It, it sounds, sounds like, you know, an exciting journey, but I’ve been through hell and back, you know, suffering from, from depression, which is something which many artists unfortunately have to go through.

Thank God it’s very well monitored now, but I’ve been in, in very, very painful parts of my [00:26:00] life as well. So I don’t. Paint the picture as if, you know, like, here’s this guy who was this Hollywood guy and, you know, went to college, went to Jerusalem, discovered himself, and he’s a free man now. And now, like, life isn’t that simple.

You know, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of pain. I have a very loving wife who’s with me every step of the way. And but there were times where I was in such a state where I couldn’t, I couldn’t even hold my kids. It was just like, just, I was just too in this painful world that I, I had been in.

And that, that, that. That started about 25 years ago. And I’ve had a few serious episodes of depression, which were triggered actually by, the worst one was from when there was a terrorist attack here in Israel where there was a a terrorist who went into a yeshiva, one [00:27:00] of these study halls where, and just started shooting everybody.

And, and, and I kept watching the footage of it on television of the blood, and it was just, and it, it, it put me into this shock St. And I had gone off my medicine. So, so I was vulnerable and it put me into the worst depression that I had, that lasted for several months. But I feel a, a lot of my sensitivity to other people comes from having been in a very low place.

I wouldn’t, it’s not a morally low place, but it’s a. It’s an experientially very low place. And it’s, it’s very hard to connect to God when you’re in that place. But one of, one of the things I’ve done, you know, in this book that I wrote, talks about how to use the lows in life as a springboard to actually reach to a much higher place than you would could ever imagine.

And [00:28:00] I feel, you know, like, although I would never want to anyone else to have to suffer like that, I feel I got so much out of it. as well because it put me in touch with real life. And and I can never look at a person and, and judge them in a negative way. It’s like you don’t know what other people are going through.

And I then no one knew what I was going through. I publicizing my depression, but I’m sure people wonder like, why isn’t he being social wise and well, he, you know, coming out and being part of the community more. So, so I know, I know what it’s like to be there and it’s, it helps me. I, I, I, I actually started an organization here to help family suffering from, from mental health crisis.

And I feel I can give this back to, to others who have gone or who are going through the type [00:29:00] of pain that I’ve experienced myself. Let’s do this. We’ve covered a lot of ground and a lot of important things. I’m writing notes on my phone as we’re talking. Yeah. So let’s back up a little bit, David, I’ll try to go chronologically through the life and we’ll not only talk about what you were able to overachieve, but how you did in the practical steps we can too, as the listeners.

So let’s start off with, in your childhood, first off, were you an only child? Did you have brothers and sisters? What was your Yeah, I, I, I, I grew up, I have a, an older brother. Okay. Was a very big, big role. He was a role model for me than, than a a, an older sister, and then me and then a younger sister. And we, we, we grew up in, we had a certain type of demand on us.

And my, and my parents were, they were very, very successful in the building business in [00:30:00] Canada. and there was a sort of art, art like demand of being very cultured. And I think that’s what got us into all of us in some sort of form of art. My sister was a dancer. She from, she studied a Juilliard, my brother did very avantgarde music.

And I got more into the pop scene. And my, my older sister, she actually became religious at a younger age, so she was like the weird one in the family. You know, why, why would she do such a thing, you know? Which, which turns out now that three out of the four of us have all become religious

So, and we live here together in Israel. Three of us. My older brother didn’t, he lived in Canada still. Okay. Yeah. You know. Is your older brother still alive? Yeah. Thank God. Yeah. So it’s not too late. You never know, right? It’s not how you started, didn’t finish. [00:31:00] The message has been said this now is for him to take it and digest it.

Yes. Yes. And you know so when you were a child, especially for those of us who suffer with depression, who grew up and you just felt the loneliness, you couldn’t explain why. It sounds like you had a good home life, good family structure, but even in your childhood with your siblings, you felt that disconnect, or was that Not until after high school and college.

I, I think till I was in at first everything was about like, just exploring and nothing was going to stop me. Like, I remember running down this hill in my backyard that was like a forest that was very steep, and I, I would just run down it really fast and I was not afraid. My foot would catch something and cause me to trip and break my leg.

Like that’s the [00:32:00] way I lived my life back then. It was like nothing was going to stop me from whatever dreams I had. And it was, it was later when my closest friend who was my lyricist started acting very strange. He started getting into heavy drugs. And then eventually he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

That’s when I decided to go to co to college. You know, I said this is enough. I don’t want to live in this fantasy world and think everything’s okay. And I felt the loneliness during those years. Even though I was around other people I felt lonely in the crowd. Like there was something that made me different, something that made me more serious about life where a party was there.[00:33:00]

I, I just wasn’t into going to party and just getting stoned and just acting out, you know, like everybody else. I, I did. But you know, I would, you know, I always was like that guy in the corner analyzing everybody unless there was a, a piano there. Once there was a piano there, then I would be the center of attention playing piano which was in a way, a distraction for me.

It was sort of an escape from, from the pain of being there and not really enjoying it the way everyone else did. I, I, and one of my songs that I mentioned before, revival of the Living, it’s it, it’s, it all questions Tell me why I feel alone when there’s so much love around me. I’m living on my own with the ones who mean the most to me.

It’s all, it’s all that feeling of like, everything should be fine. So what, what, what’s bothering me? Why am I, [00:34:00] why am I feeling like there’s something missing? And when you don’t know that you’re, you’re lonely for God, you blame it on other things. And that’s one of the, one of the classes I teach about, it’s called Sick of Being Alone.

Where so many people are looking for relationships as if that’s going to solve their loneliness. And it’s often in a, in a relationship with somebody, they may even be very intimate with their, their, they’re lacking a certain. Quality of a relationship, which is something that, that they can, that’s ultimately a relationship with God.

The, the, it’s, it’s someone to, to who is born into a family, a dysfunctional home, and they don’t have a relationship with their parents. There’s a obvious reason why they should feel a sense of loneliness. Well, To, to not have a relationship [00:35:00] with our father in heaven is, is as almost as absurd as not having a relationship with your own parents.

He brought you into the world and there should be a feeling of something empty inside if you don’t have that relationship. And I didn’t even know to think about that. I was, I, I was longing for a spiritual life and, and I didn’t know that that’s what I was longing for. So I can tell you now what I was going through, but, but that, back then, I was just feeling the pain of many nights, you know, listening to jazz music and wishing I had something better to do with people that I cared about more.

So my close friends, you know, we got together, but. But there was still this overriding sense of the undercurrent of loneliness that I felt even like from 16 and then through college. But when I moved to Israel, that [00:36:00] disappeared. That loneliness disappeared because I was with a number of people who were very sincere about finding our way through life.

And we shared philosophical ideas and stayed up late PCI philosophizing about really, really thi things that really mattered, that were changing our lives. So th those were like the, the happiest times there was, there were such a transition. And there was no need for any booze or weed to, to make us enjoy it.

It was, we were high on life. And, and that was, it was just so obvious to me that I, that’s what I wanted to do, was stay there and, and learn more and, Learning Torah biblical studies is something I now do every day. It’s like the, my morning is, is every day is, is studying deeper ideas. It’s not the basic philosophical questions, but it, it, it’s [00:37:00] connecting to that spiritual source which is such a fulfilling part of what I, who I am and what I am.

So yeah, there was definitely that loneliness through my childhood and through, through my, when, you know, my late teens. And until about 21 years old when, when things shifted around. And it wasn’t until a number of years later that, that that changed. And during that time, you’re pursuing the career in Hollywood, you meet a gentleman named Gene.

So, as one of our talking points, you know, this isn’t a major talking point, but you saw opportunity. and you seize that opportunity with Gene, and then you gut, thankfully to the moment of realization where you’re that epiphany or paradigm shift where it’s like, wow, this isn’t really what I want. Right. So I remember watching the Johnny Depp, I didn’t watch all the trial, but him and Amber [00:38:00] heard, and he’s one of the most famous actors in the entire world right now.

And his personal life was miserable and he was drugged out and depressed. And I felt bad for the guy. I mean, the dude does all the money and drugs in women and everything he could possibly want on earth, but he seems like he has a really crappy life. So when you are 18 and you’re still pursuing that dream, what opportunity did you see and how did you.

Well, when I became, I became a staff writer for a record company that was very popular at the time, called a and m Records. They don’t exist anymore, but a lot of the big artists were on a and m. So I was a staff writer. So that was like an achievement for me that felt fulfilling, that was based in, in Canada.

But I, my, my sense of success was, was always a moving target. I, as I described that boy running down the hill in the forest that nothing could [00:39:00] stop me. Well, no, nothing could stop me until I finally saw the ultimate role model looking miserable. I, but I, I remember during that period of time, like when.

Around 18. There I was in Toronto and my mother, who was a very wise woman she saw that there was something wrong. She saw me running so fast somewhere that I didn’t even know where it was, you know, that I was reaching for. And she sat me down one day and she said to me, David, I want you to just sit down.

Which for me was hard enough to do because my A D H D and passion for getting out there and making my, my, my, my music big sitting down was a tough thing to do. And then she walks the other side of the room and she plugs in the kettle and turns on the hot water, [00:40:00] boils up some water and takes out some herbal tea, like camomile tea.

And she put it into the cup for just a minute. Pulled out the tea, brought it over to me and said David, I want you to taste the tea and like I didn’t know, like where is she coming from? What do you mean taste the tea? First of all, chamomile tea has hardly any flavor to it, and I am a person in a rush and I don’t want to sit here waiting for the hot tea to cool down.

But what she was doing was she was tuning Mimi into the moment and wanting me to experience my life. Now stop thinking about what it’s going to be like later. You’re living an important part of your life right now, and you have to experience the life that you’re living. So that was a very powerful lesson for me.

And I [00:41:00] tried to do. You know, once I, once I went to college, I tried to experience things more from day to day as opposed to what the, you know, the fame and fortune was going to bring. I was much more focused on trying to experience the, my, my life, you know, in the moment. But that’s why, that’s why, is that your mom saw that and called you out on and slowed you down.

That’s, that’s great. You had a mom like that to not only observe it, but to stop. So, what was your mom’s name? Give her a shout out. Joyce. Joyce. My mother passed away about five years ago. She was a wonderful woman and very wise woman. And she, she, she was as very intuitive to be able to see within me that, that.

this was what was missing. This, this, you know, and, and she, she, she, she was a person who I often, you know, I would call and if she heard in my [00:42:00] voice that I wasn’t feeling good, she’d go, right. What’s wrong? Right away. She, she spotted it in my voice. Like, so but, but that, that idea of living in the moment, you can try to live in the moment, but if the moment isn’t providing you with a sense of meaning and happiness, so living in the moment isn’t going to necessarily make you feel much better.

I, I, I didn’t have the maturity to say, wow, look, I can breathe. You know, wow. I can eat, I can do my basic functionality. And some people don’t have the privilege to do that. You know, I, my head wasn’t there yet, wasn’t in a point where I could really evaluate the beauty of every moment and the beauty of everything in creation.

I wasn’t there. I was. , I was too intertwined in the, the, the world that was spinning around me. And so I would, I would get up sometimes. There was a, a park down the [00:43:00] street from where I lived on campus. I, I actually lived off campus in a house with some roommates there. And I, there was a park that had a ditch in it, and I used to go and lie in the ditch.

And I felt almost like I was filling in the space of the ground, like, in other words, almost like being buried in, in a, in the ground and felt totally one with, with the world. And I, again that’s not how I interpreted then. Oh, and I just like to do it. I just like to feel myself as being part of a much bigger world and let all.

Artsy artsy, showy you know, creative world. Let, let go of it and just be part of, part of the world that really is still un underneath it all. And, and that was a meditative process that I would [00:44:00] go through. And I, it wasn’t some sort of formal meditation, although I highly recommend it to people to go and just lie down in the ground in a ditch and just be like a piece of the earth cuz we’re created from the earth and we will return to the dust of the earth.

So a person is, is a, created as from the, from the ak, which is in Hebrew, that means earth, but in AAM means a. , that’s what a, as a person essentially comes from the earth and returns to the earth. And therefore, I, I intuitively felt that. And therefore, by lying down in the dirt in the ditch, I felt something very connecting.

By disconnecting to, from all the superficiality around me, I connected to something much bigger. And at the time, I didn’t know what it was, but it set def, it definitely tuned my heart and my soul into [00:45:00] a more spiritual awareness that became alive when I eventually did come to Israel. Yeah, and it’s interesting you said because there’s people who are listening from all nations around the world, different worldviews.

No matter where you’re coming from, balance is the key. You know, one of the keys of life. And if you’re all like hyper, touchy-feely, spiritual, you’re out of balance. If you’re super mega conservative, no room for the Holy Ghost, you’re, you’re too tight. You know, we need that balance. Right. And what you’re talking about, David reminds me, it’s you know, some things we don’t understand, but it’s just real.

Like you said, lying in that ditch made you just feel that connection, right. And then when you said you got to Israel, you were never at more peace and happier. And I know that even just visiting, I went to visit Italy to see my father. And when I was out there, I never [00:46:00] slept better, felt better, ate better.

And it was just something how God put inside of me from that ancestry, D n A code, it tied Toley. Right? And you’re tied to Israel. And I have other friends who are tied to He was a soldier. He was deployed for two years in an area, remote area. And he was adopted as a child. Never knew his parents, never knew his real origins, but while he was out there, he lived his best life, right?

Mm-hmm. , 20 years later, he comes and finds his adopted mother, his real mother, sorry, biological mother. And he was four miles away from where his family was from, really? So there’s definitely something that God put in us, in that d n that we don’t want to discard cuz we don’t understand it, right? But as you’re feeling this and as you’re learning and you get to Israel, now you’re starting to have some bouts of depression, but you’re actually feeling peace.

How did that, cuz you’re feeling more peace, your felt, but then at [00:47:00] the same time the depression starts creeping in. So go bring us through that balance and then we’ll get to the point of how you found healing and relief and to process it so we can help our listeners. Okay. Well, what happened was After a few years of studying, and that was very happy times for me with all the music and everything going on around me as well.

I started running a, a program that was for a American college students who were coming to Israel for six weeks and touring the country and studying Judaism. And I’m, I’m, I, I became so immersed in the organization of that program. It was all my responsibility and the scheduling, the the organizing, all, all the things that were.

Really not my personality. My personality is what’s called a tifert personality, which is much [00:48:00] more the creative mind personality with, with a good blend of what’s called , which is love and connection. And the organization part is not me. It’s not, it’s was extremely difficult for me. And I started cre building a lot of anxiety while I was doing that.

And anxiety and depression are very closely related. And I didn’t even know that I was suffering from a depression, but I had such tremendous amount of anxiety that at one point when I went back to Toronto, I was living there for a short amount of time and I, and I went to a doctor and he said, it looks like you’re suffering from a depression.

I said, what do you mean a depression? I don’t, I don’t, I don’t feel sad. I, I feel anxious. Well, he said, well, it’s the, it’s the same thing. You know, the same medications work for them. And I started seeing somebody for therapy and, and [00:49:00] and so, so I, I found that what really triggered the, the depression was me living a life that was not me.

It was, I, I, I went back into that Hollywood space, sort of, sort of, but in, in Jewish education, I was, I was becoming an organizer and doing something that what my personality, my soul was not brought down here to do. And being disconnected from what I was really here to do was a very, very bad formula that led to depression.

Had I been more involved in teaching more involved in a creative process than I would probably. Not have fallen into that first depression, who knows what would’ve caused a depression at a later stage. But being disconnected from, from my own talents there, there’s nothing more different than a [00:50:00] musician and someone who is scheduling what time the buses show up and that everybody should be on the bus at this time.

And that ki that’s, that’s not me. And and, but I had to do it in order to make sure the program got, you know, carried out properly. So unfortunately I was in a, in entangled, in a, in a mismatch between my personality and the job that I, I was I had taken on at the time. No, let me ask you a question.

I always understood depression is kind of looking at and living and being like held back by the pain of the past. And anxiety is being tormented by the. Potential of the future? Is that a correct way to look at it or am I looking improperly? Excuse me. I, I think, I think I, I don’t think of depression as being looking in the past and therefore, and getting, like, bummed out by the fact that I didn’t achieve this or achieve that or feeling regret.

That [00:51:00] can often trigger an underlying depression that’s already there. But depression is something that if you have a chemical depression, some people’s depressions are more based on a behavioral depression. If you have chemical depression, then that means you are prone to depression, to feeling sadness and anxiety, and it, it doesn’t have to be related to what’s really going on in your life.

The anxiety can be triggered much more easily by what’s going on in your life. , but it, it’s not, it’s not explainable that, that I had any reason to feel sad. I was doing what I thought was meaningful. I was, I had room in my life for my music. I had good friends. You know, I, I, I have been married for a few years when this ha ha happened [00:52:00] already.

And thank God I have a beautiful marriage. It’s, it’s, it’s very hard to explain by looking at the various circumstances that were going on in my life to say, therefore I was depressed. No, there was no, therefore, a person can feel I have tremendous circumstances that would paint a beautiful picture of life.

And yet for some reason, God wants them to go through a depression and then, then their attitude in, in. in managing that depression, that’s where your attitude plays a much more active role. Mm-hmm. , because your attitude about the fact that you’re depressed can make you more depressed. It, it can make you, you, it’s almost like a decision to take the depression and make it your whole life.

You have to decide and, and know that the depression is just like some people have other type of [00:53:00] illnesses that they didn’t choose to have. So you, you didn’t choose to be depressed. Some people, again, that’s behaviorally, some people do choose a negative way of, of living and it’s often because they were programmed from abusive parents that knocked them down all the time.

I’m, I’m talking about emotional abuse or whatever struggle they may have had in school or socially that made them label themselves in a negative way. And therefore that type of repeated repetition of like, I’m such a jerk. I’m such a jerk, that kind of. You know, negative thinking and can pull a person into a depressed state, but a person can, can go in a depressed state, and it can be affected by the food that we eat, by the lack of exercise.

Just living a, a healthy, balanced life it will, will trigger that chemical depression much faster than, [00:54:00] you know, as somebody who is, is living, you know, a like a healthy, balanced life. Mm-hmm. . So yeah, there, there are external things that affect it as well, but at the same time it’s, it’s, it’s important to recognize that, that if you have a chemical depression that was given to you by God and, and God loves you and, and he wants you, To use that struggle as a way of coming closer as as as as in the, in the Bible it says that Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers.

And so he went from the pit, which was, it says there was no water, but the commentaries tells us that we’re actually scorpions in the pit where, so the, he was close to his death in that pit, and then he was sold and, and only within a short amount of time, he became one of the most powerful people in the world because he was the right hand man to Parro [00:55:00] and he was in charge of all the finances of Egypt, which is the most powerful con country in the world.

What we see is that he went from the very, very low place to a very high place, and it was only from being in that low place that he got to the very high place. And so too in our own lives if, if we. Embrace the depression. I know it sounds strange, but you can actually embrace your depression and say, this is the gift that I’ve been given, and now what I’m like going to do with this gift.

This is a gift that’s going to help me and take me to a much higher awareness. What am I running away from in my life that this depression’s going to wake me up to? What do I have to leave behind in order to be healthy? Maybe I’m running too fast to try to do too many things, and by slowing down, I’m going to [00:56:00] get in touch with life.

Am I going to in touch with my soul? I’m going to get in touch with God and only through the depression was I. to be able to get to that point of, of heightening the sincere relationship with God, where a lot of people are, quote, religious and they believe in things, but it doesn’t really affect the way they, they, they talk, the way they relate to other people, the way they live their lives in a, in a, in a sincere, genuine way.

It’s, it’s, it’s very, it’s more by rote. They, they, they decided, I’m this kind of religion, so I’m going to follow this. Depression can actually wake you up to where you really are holding in your relationship with God, where you really are, what you are feeling in your relationship with other people. And it can, it can actually spring you forward into a much healthier place [00:57:00] if you recognize where it came from and what it’s there to teach you.

Yeah. That’s so well said. When depression is affecting you and you get to the point where it was affecting you, it’s hard to have that positive mindset. But then once we get that right view, that right mindset, everything really does get better fast. What do you recommend to our listeners that if they’re struggling with depression, they’re about to go in a low, they’re in a low, or they’re trying to get out of the low, what do you recommend are some practical steps for helping them get out of the hole of depression?

One thing is just from a more of a medical, biological level. if a person’s serotonin isn’t flowing properly. So there’s certain things they can do to help it flow [00:58:00] properly. There’s medications that we take to help boost the serotonin flow, which makes you less depressed. So but before you go get medicated first ask yourself, am I exercising enough?

I, I, I know you’re looking for more of a psychological answer, but No, no, no, no, no, no. Where, what did you experience in your life? That work? Okay. Sorry, listeners can too. So if a person is feeling depression, they first should ask themselves, what are my eating habits and what are my exercise habits? That’s one.

Those are major, major things. If you’re eating a lot of carbs, a lot of heavy food, greasy food, it can weigh you down and weighing you down. This doesn’t mean just like making you feel tired, but it actually can trigger more, more depression because you’re eating in, in an unhealthy way. And when you [00:59:00] exercise, it’s not just a matter of burning calories.

If you, if you have a regular exercise program, you, that’s like taking medication that is a level of boosting the, the serotonin hormones in your body and it will help you lift yourself up. And it’s extremely important to have who to talk to if you have somebody. I, I mean, you have to be careful who to talk to.

I mean I spoke to my wife a lot, but I didn’t want her to be my psychologist because I, I don’t, I don’t want, I want the, the, the love in our relationship to be based. More on the, the healthy side rather than on the depressed side and what it, it can become a burden and sort of change the roles in the relationship when one is acting more as a therapist as opposed to a spouse.

So to go get help [01:00:00] professional help is, I highly encourage whether it’s, you know, initial stage should def definitely be some sort of therapy. And, and if that’s not doing enough, then it can be supplemented with medication. And there’s some people who are very against medication and I, I don’t knock them.

In my case, the severity of the depression was so bad that. I wasn’t going to wait around for some natural form of healing that was going to solve the problem. But many people do that and they’re fine with it. My, my sister is an energy healer and she uses energy by rubbing her hands without touching the body of her patients.

And she’s able to heal them from all kinds of even psychological issues. So it’s not that I don’t believe in it, but for me the severity of the depression was so deep that I needed something, you know? So I wouldn’t need shock treatment, you know one, one of the things that [01:01:00] happened to me also when this was about 22 years ago, is one morning I woke up or didn’t wake up, I had a seizure and.

I was taken to the hospital and a good friend of mine, like one of my closest friends actually as a psychiatrist who, who told me that what I just had was like shock treatment. I, a seizure is like shock treatment and, and is actually can be very healing. But what what happened was the, after a few weeks I got a call from the doctor that they found the tumor in my brain and that changed my life again.

Where and how old were you at that point? I must have been my mid forties. Mid forties. Okay. And were they thinking [01:02:00] easy peasy removal or were they thinking this is life threatening? No. Well, they didn’t know and so I was walking around. Wondering if I had much time to live. And what, as a result of that, every moment became very precious to me.

So we talked about living in the moment before, like, you know, living in the ditch, you know, li lying in the ditch living in, in the moment became something that became very natural to me because I didn’t know if how many moments I had left to live. And so I kept taking MRIs and they would study to see if there was any change in the, in, in the growth of this tumor.

And thank God, after years of taking MRIs, they said that it was benign. And but I have to be on a medication that’s for, for seizure. That also happens to be a, a [01:03:00] a mood stabilizer. But this medication I have no choice but to take because of the risk of having a seizure while driving a car, and then God forbid having an accident.

So I have to remain on this medication for the rest of my life, which is something which makes me tired. So I live with that. I, I say, okay, that’s part of the formula that God gave me. So I have to make sure I take naps, you know, I have to make sure that I exercise enough and the, these are like basic functionality issues that, you know, are so far away from that 18 year old kid who is running after Hollywood.

But what’s interesting is that I think that helps me a lot in, in achieving bigger things. Like, for example, the two books that I wrote, the albums that I write, the teaching that I do, . These are all things that I aspire to, to be successful. And thank God I have, [01:04:00] I’m I’m also an inventor, so I, I, I invent technology.

And just before moving to Israel with my family I sold a, a video immersive type of technology. I had worked on it for 11 years and was ready to give up, and then somebody offered me a very large amount of money for it. And that money is what enabled me to move to Israel my family and build my home here and, and, and work on my next project, which is a type of insole that I develop, which is out on the market now as well.

So I, I haven’t thrown away the, the, the think big, but I, I have embraced the live. That’s, that to me is much more important than any of the success that I could be, you know, striving for in various business things. I, I do and, and, and with my book, you know, if my book doesn’t sell so [01:05:00] well, you know, it’s okay.

I, I’ll live with it, you know? It’s not my life. It’s, it’s something I do, but it’s not who I am. Who I am is expressing that, but it’s not who I am. And that is the same lesson that I had to learn when I was 18, and I saw that musician that, you know, looked unhappy. I, there’s one hand I have to have the, the, the the creative energy of my individuality, of what my soul is here to achieve and feel excited about life and be able to be driving myself to do things that are truly meaningful.

But at the same time, like you said, there’s a balance of having that. That momentum of, of high energy you know, enthusiasm. But at the same time, knowing that wherever it is, I’m running at whatever it is I’m running after that’s not [01:06:00] who I am, that’s what I’m producing and therefore who I am. I always have to make sure that I am keeping my eye on who I am and making sure that that soul is getting the spiritual nu nutrients that it needs to be fulfilled.

And I’m not just saying not depressed. I’m ta saying to feel happy as a person, happy as a soul, happy in my relationship with the people I love and happy in my relationship with God. Beautiful. So just to recap, for those of us struggling with depression, seriously eat right exercise. Get your, you know, checkups to make sure, like David had a brain tumor when I was 18.

I actually had a tumor in my head too. And that was all affecting, everything works together, gets out of balance. And then what you’re talking about, Dave, is [01:07:00] if you need to be medicated, you know, if you don’t have to be, don’t be. But if you need to be, there’s some chemical situations where you’re lacking that serotonin or the flow of serotonin.

So speak with a licensed professional, what other things, or, or are there any other things that you did that, like, Dave, this really was a game changer for me. This really helped. Well, my, my I, I believe that if a person is spiritually fulfilled, then that somehow lifts a person out of their depression.

Mm-hmm. . And when I say spiritually fulfilled, I don’t, I don’t mean that they have to be walking around saying, God, I love you. I love you. I love you. I don’t, I I think they should feel that and feel the appreciation for that. In, in Judaism we have, we say a prayer over everything we eat, you know, and, and even after using the bathroom, we say a prayer thanking God for the [01:08:00] complex body that we have, that every little thing, one little thing goes off, then it could, it can destroy a person.

We, we, we try to appreciate every single little thing, which is, which is, you know, I try to be very aware when I say those prayers because they tune me into just appreciating life. But, but there’s also, by discovering what it is within you that makes your soul come alive the more you can give that nutrient to your soul, then it actually can elevate you above the depression.

So for me, . I’m very project oriented, so I was working on my first book and it took me a, a few years to write, but because I had that project to do, then I found that while I was experiencing depression, if I would just go work on the book, it would elevate me [01:09:00] above the depression, the, the highest level I get of that kind of spiritual high.

Other than, you know, going to the western wall and praying, you know, with while feeling the, the sanctity of Jerusalem where, you know, I was living right across from, from there for a long time. But I, I go to Tel Avi. To a recording studio with my producer there and he gets the best musicians in Israel and we, we work in the studio and I, I’m working with people of different backgrounds and they’re all putting their, all their souls into my music.

So a, a song that I write when I see it come alive in the recording studio, and I’m feeling this incredible boost of the type of creativity that my soul somehow. Was brought into this world to be connected to. So then [01:10:00] that, that’s, that’s such a central part of who I am that’s being expressed in, in such an ultimate way that there’s just no room for depression.

It doesn’t come in the door there. And therefore, I, I highly recommend people to, to, to discover for themselves if they haven’t yet or at least make room in their lives to invest in what really makes their individual soul come alive. Perhaps that will, this explains more why before I explain the importance of individuality.

I’m not just talking about like, it’s good to be who you are. I’m saying capture what. Really turns you on on a spiritual level. Discover what that is, get to know it and find room in your life [01:11:00] for more and more of it, as much as you can, so that you will be living on a, on a, on a much higher plane of spiritual fulfillment.

It, it’s, it’s something that you have to make sure you have enough dose in your life of, of spiritual fulfillment. And that to me is you know, as powerful or more powerful than medication, you know? Mm-hmm. , it’s so, so people should really try to, like my first book, the, the, in one of the first sections of it quotes a passage from, from a section in the, in the Bible where Abraham has spoken to for the very first time.

And God says to him, . Go to yourself. Go. Why say go The go is remove yourself from the environment that you’re in that’s shaping your [01:12:00] ideology, that is creating a lot of static from your phone, from movies you watch from the Starbucks where you hang out with your friends. All those things that are your daily surroundings of what you’re running after and being where your mind is filled with all that stuff.

Leave it, go away from it, right? You went to Italy. Part of the turn on of going to Italy was not just the fact that it was Italy, it was the fact that it wasn’t Florida. That the fact that you left where you were from and went somewhere different, allows you to hear the inner voice much louder. It turns up the volume of that inner voice.

But then the second words to yourself means there’s a self-discovery of what. Really, really makes you unique and what makes you what? Your soul is thirsty for. People like different flavors, and your soul likes a certain flavor. And if [01:13:00] you can add that flavor into your life more so then it will naturally bring you into a higher place.

And depression is a lower place, even though you can utilize depression, but it’s still a lower place spiritually. And therefore, if you can give yourself the nutrition, the spiritual nutrition, then you’re naturally going to rise above the level of depression and hopefully be able to stay far away from it as possible.

All right. I think that’s amazingly well said. Now, when everything came crashing down on you, you said your really bad episode, what happened? What were the circumstances that brought you to that point? Was it purely. Chemical or was it circumstances led to that? And then how did you get through that? Well I, I had been doing extremely well and [01:14:00] I really enjoy teaching and I was teaching at a school in Jerusalem where I would go in there and I was just like inspiring people so much.

And they liked my humor, they liked the way I presented ideas. I sometimes use multimedia using my music. And I was in a high where like I was enjoying what I was doing so much that I felt, you know what, maybe I don’t need this medication anymore. And I went off my medication and that was probably the biggest mistake I’m ever made.

Because And did you just cut it cold Turkey or did you gradually Yeah, I cut it till I didn’t consult with a doctor. Gotcha. And what happened was then I then that terrorist attack took place where I described before. And it, it was so horrifying to see, and without the medication into me to [01:15:00] stabilize me, then that’s when I crashed to the lowest I’ve ever been.

And what, what the doctors did was they saw I was in so much pain that they put first put me on a medication just to make me sleep as much as possible because I couldn’t bear it. And then gradually other medications kicked in and were able to you know, keep me in a, in a po in a more positive state.

But it took a long time for that. Transition to take place. Where I was doing well, I was, after about three, four months of being out of commission, they begged me to come back and teach. And when I taught, I felt so inspired that in a way that ended the most severe part of my depression because I was able to push myself into an [01:16:00] environment where I was spiritually fulfilled and creatively fulfilled.

And that helped me get out of this, like I’m going through a terrible depression to actually seeing myself being functional. So even though when somebody, somebody listening out there, if you are at a, at a very low place and suffering from a deep depression It’s important not to label yourself as being somebody who’s deeply depressed and therefore can’t get up and do things that are good for you.

What depression does, it makes you lazy. It makes you not do the very things that you will feel better if you do get up and exercise. Start with just walking, you know, for 20 minutes at a good pace. [01:17:00] You don’t have to work out and sweat. Just get up and go out, breathe air, eat properly, drink enough water during the day.

All these basic things that when you’re depressed you, you tend to put aside and say, now I’m going through depression. I’m out of commission. There’s no such thing. You have to be on the job and do your job. and it may be very little things that make the a big difference. But the worst thing is to label yourself as being in a deep, depressed place that you can’t get up from.

You can get up from it, but you can get up slowly and then a little bit more, and a little bit more. And eventually when you start tapping into your creative energy and start doing things that you truly love, then you’ll be able to accelerate your way out and build yourself back up to be at a higher place than you were before you fell.[01:18:00]

Yeah. Again, well said. And I’m with you. I come at everything from a Christian worldview and I believe, you know, my belief system. Your belief system, we both believe the Bible is the word of God, the Old Testament, and it’s completely accurate without flaw is. Is that correct? Yes. Yeah. So when you were talking about Joseph, I love the story of Joseph.

It’s one of the most encouraging stories because if you are struggling with depression or you’ve had a lot of betrayal and hardship in your life, Joseph is probably the most Christlike figure in the Bible. And he was betrayed by his own family, left for dead, sold. Soon as things start getting better, he gets, you know, kind of forgive the term, it’s screwed over again.

Then he is like working for Podifer and ER’s wife hits on him. He says, no, I’m not going to sleep with you. Have an affair. That’s your husband. I work for your husband. I respect your husband. You’re a married woman. So then she lies about him and says he tried to sleep with her and then he gets thrown prison [01:19:00] again.

And then finally, like David was saying, he becomes like the second most powerful man in the nation. And Egypt at that time was the powerhouse and he’s number two. And then God used him to save his people and to restore good, forgive his brothers and move on. But I don’t know what the years were, David. I don’t know if you do, but I was always under the impression it was like a 30 year journey.

how long was that Joseph journey, do you know? Yeah, it was, it was about a 30 year journey. I think it was 37. But the journey itself Yeah. Started, you know, it was like when he was 17. Yeah, so, so when Dave and I are talking and when we talk about Lowe’s and highs and valleys and, you know, peaks, some seasons are long and right, but God always works it out.

And when we follow him, it, it does. And I can attest, and Dave can attest firsthand, that when we get out of bed and we force ourselves to push through it, and we’re finding [01:20:00] that peace and that purpose and fulfilling what God has for us, the depression starts just melting away. I mean, is that how you explain it, right?

Yeah. But I think also what, what people have to do is they what I ex described before was the positive steps that you take to lift yourself above depression. You should also. Learn what causes you to fall. So, and, and with the example with Joseph even though that Pote far wife took his garment to use, to claim that that sh that he was trying to rape her he didn’t go back to get it because he knew that if he goes back to get it, he’s vulnerable to falling to her right and being seduced by her.

So he was willing to be thrown in jail rather than take the risk of falling. When we, I, I have a, a, a class called Spiritual [01:21:00] Self-Defense, which takes that principle and shows you that look and see what’s made you fall into depression in the past. There’s a lot of things that you do that will trigger depression.

and if you learn what those things are, then you have to have the spiritual self-defense. You have to say, I recognize that as something that will, will pull me down. For example, if you’re feeling depressed and you go into a big crowd of people and people are expecting of you to perform a certain way, then you’re asking for.

Set up yourself with smaller crowds of people who love you and care for you, and preferably people who know what you’re going through. And it alleviates the pressure of having to put a mask on and pretend that everything’s okay. Other types of [01:22:00] behavior that are below your dignity. If you do things that are below your moral dignity, wherever that may be, whatever it is, if you watch yourself do something that you don’t want to be doing, then it is very easy to then label yourself.

You see, I’m a low life. I did something low, and that drives the depression. The voice of depression louder and louder. And so you have to take responsibility also, not only to find what makes your soul sing and, and, and thrive, but also to make sure that you don’t. Grab onto things that are poisonous and cause yourself to fall into a deeper place.

So we’ve gone through the story of your life up until today, and we’ve talked about so many hard but great topics and needed topics. We [01:23:00] started the episode where you were discussing how God loves us each and we’re unique and we need to know our own special gifts and enjoy ’em and not try to be somebody else.

Your words were much better than mine, but that’s my summary at this point, right? Yeah. Is there anything, David, we missed between your birth and today before we wrap up, that very important message about God’s love for us, and then we transition to where you’re headed next and how we can help you get there?

Well, For me, I don’t know how other people can translate this unless they’re Jewish. But Jewish studying Jewish philosophy and biblical studies plays such a central role in my spiritual nutrition. [01:24:00] It’s not just so that I feel good, it’s part of what I’m here to achieve in my life. It’s, it’s so central to who I am is my studying of what is called Torah.

Torah is the Old Testament, along with the oral law, which is the Talmudic studies, which, you know, it takes, if you pa learn one page a day, it’ll take seven years to finish. And many people spend a year on a few pages. So it’s very, very deep and it’s connected to our souls. And so the positive.

Proactive religious lifestyle is a very, mu has played a very central role in my life. And so I encourage people of whatever background they’re from to ask the questions and be able to incorporate their relationship with God as a central thing, not just as a, a nice [01:25:00] thing once a week to do, but actually develop a, a beautiful, loving relationship as a parent with a child.

That’s a very central part of my life. Nice. Now, where is David today and where are you heading? What’s next for you and how can we help you get there? Right now in my life, I am cutting back on a lot of the overactive. Side of what I do, I, I’m in some involved with some startup companies here. I promote my books.

I write music. But I just bought an apartment overlooking the ocean in, in northern part of Israel, on the coast where I plan to go. When, when, when it’s ready to move into, we, my wife and I plan to go and spend time [01:26:00] together overlooking the ocean. I’ll probably write some music there, but we’ll be together and we’re going to share our time together.

And when we come back, then we have all our grandkids and we have, we have relationship with, you know, a lot of people that are in our life. But you know that, that is a big thing for me is to get away and have time alone with my wife. Look at the waves, feel the wind. Beau, the beauty of the cliffs and the water splashing against the rocks and just make that more a part of my life.

It doesn’t have to be some grand destination that I am looking for someone to help me, you know, get there. It’s, it’s there for me already, and it’s a matter of making time and space within my own heart and, and within my mind [01:27:00] to, to be able to experience those types of things at this stage of my life as I, I just turned 64 and the Beatles told me that I’m old when they told me, when they wrote the song, when I’m 64.

So , I, I, I, I just reached that age. And and, you know, thank God I have so much to look forward to, but it’s a very different way of looking at the world than, than when I was younger. Each stage of life. The Tumu tells us has a different type of wisdom that’s connected to it. When you reach 60, there’s a certain type of wisdom where it’s, it, you’ve, you’ve learned a lot from life and can see life through the eyes of your experiences.

And I know that like even the success that I’m striving for financially with different inventions I [01:28:00] have tho that that’s going to my kids. That’s not going to me, that’s to for my kids one day to have, because thank God I live comfortable life where I don’t need a job and I’ve made it enough money from my previous inventions and investments that, that you know, I’m not doing it for the success of it anymore.

I’m doing it just to try to give. To my children, you know, I hope by then, by the time I 120, I’ll have, you know, my, my, my mother had 22 grandkids and many great grandkids. So, you know, there’s, I hope to build that and, and and be there for them. Be be there for my grandkids, you know, that’s a whole world in, in itself.

Spend, spend private time with them. Take ’em now for ice cream and play with them. That does not sound like that 18 year old in Hollywood. So a lot has changed, [01:29:00] and I just, if, if it could help me in any way to tune my mind into that aspect of life. So by all means, so what would you tell your, what would your 64 year old self tell your 18 year old self?

I’d say to the 18 year old, slow down. Make sure that when you run really fast, that you’re running towards a target that you really want, and take the time out to evaluate if that’s what you really want. And if it’s what you really want, then run as fast as you can. But if it’s not what you really want, so readjust and find the target you really want.

And then run as fast as you can for that, and later you’ll slow down and you’ll [01:30:00] choose other things in life at the right times. What a lot of celebrities do is they get stuck in their. Time of success and they don’t ha know how to bear living life outside of that. And that’s not just the, you know, Hollywood celebrities.

It’s any people who experienced success at a young age, it’s very hard to step out of the realm of whatever they did that made them feel successful. But life is about moving on and each stage has precious gems to cash in on. And therefore it’s important to know what each stage of life you’re trying to achieve and live that to the fullest.

Beautiful. Well, David, is there anything else you want to share with our listeners about God’s love for them, how they’re special? Any way, any final thoughts? Anything you want to share [01:31:00] without sounding overly promotional? I, I have shared so much of the wisdom that I’ve learned through my books and my music.

So if you go to real you project.com there’s links to my books. There’s actually an online university program that you can take of one of my courses. It’s free. It’s, there’s a link to it from the page. There’s a personality test that can tell you which is your primary personality and what that entails.

And especially my new book, pictures of Your Soul is something that will help people. Just the more you know about your soul, the easier it is to connect to it. Just like the no more you know about other people, the more you connect to a friend, the more you communicate with them, the closer that relationship becomes.

So too, the more you develop a relationship with your inner self. By knowing about what that is, like, [01:32:00] how the soul works, and how a spiritual soul stays within a physical body and all these ver deep questions, then it, it’s much easier to connect to that, which you’re familiar with. And so I highly encourage people to read that, look at the pictures and try to be uplifted through that.

And, you know my other works that are on all available from that website, absolutely. We’ll put a link in the show notes to your website into how to contact you. and is the best way to contact you through your website or is there another means you prefer it? It’s david@realuproject.com which is accessible from the website as well.

butDavid@realuproject.com. Anyone has any questions? We need help to guide them in a certain direction just to share what they’re going through. I’m, I’m here and happy and have made time in my life to, to do [01:33:00] that. Beautiful, my friend. Well, it’s been a pleasure sharing life with you today, David. I really sincerely appreciate your time, and again, I don’t want to keep beating a dead horse.

I don’t think we’re missing anything, but this is an opportunity to share your life and story to encourage our community. Is there anything else that you can think of you want to share before we close this episode? Just don’t believe what you see in the news about Israel. Israel is a democracy. It’s a beautiful place.

It’s our historical homeland for 3000 years. And there’s, there’s people from all backgrounds who utilize all the resources here. And people should come and see it and experience it, and feel it. And every soul in the world is ultimately connected to Jerusalem and should feel that connection. So I highly encourage people to be spiritually inspired by coming to Israel and experiencing it.[01:34:00]

I’ve never been there, but I want to go and I couldn’t agree more. So hopefully if our listeners get out there, they can look you up and you guys can, you know, get an espresso or whatever is customary out there for your, what is, if you get together, you coffee, espresso. It’s the, the cappuccino. Cappuccino it’s called here, which means flipped upside down where the, the milk is more than the coffee, which is a cappuccino.

So Nice, nice. And I got a serious machine, so . All right. All right. That sounds good. I’m, I’ve always been an espresso guy, but I’m not, I’m down to try anything as long as I’m not allergic. Right. So, cool, cool. Well, it’s been a pleasure, David, and to our listeners, hopefully this episode’s not only helped you, but inspired you to act on what you’ve heard.

Like our slogan says, don’t just listen to great content from David, but do it. Repeat it each day so you can have a great life in this world. [01:35:00] And most importantly, an attorney to come. So I’m David Pasqualone. This was our friend David Green, and we both wish you only the best. And until the next episode, have a great day.

Go love God yourself and others, and share the word ciao.