So let me ask you, when was the first time that you heard a Jewel song? I know for me it was who Will Save Your Soul? I was just knocked out by it. I remember thinking, Wow, this is a really, really great singer, songwriter and performer at being a songwriter myself. I'm so excited to be sitting down today with Jewel and we're going to find out about an organization that she's been involved with that's been helping kids with their physical, emotional, and mental health for over
twenty one years. And I know you're going to be inspired by this organization but also fascinated by this amazing woman and performer. So lean in. I'm really glad you heard Jewel. I'm so excited to have you on this podcast, so excited to see you. I feel like we've met before. I'm not quite sure where, but I can't imagine that our paths haven't crossed at some point.
I was thinking the same thing. Somebody was like, have you met him before? I like, we have to have, but yeah, wells apparently not making a ding in each other's memory.
So well, that's okay, that's okay. But I could tell you that we have this dumb you know thing that we like to start the podcast off, which is this silly game, the six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. That that so we do the research and figure out how we are connected in the entertainment universe. And I don't know if you're aware of this connection. It's not a very hard one, but I know you were in Walk Hard, the Dewey Cock story. Uh. And the fun connection is
is that Rance Howard, who is Ron's dad. Ron howard dad was in that and he was in Apollo thirteen, which I was in. So there's our six degrees connection. As silly as that is.
It's profound.
Where are you now?
I live in the Rockies in Colorada?
Nice?
Yeah, I love.
It, fantastic. How long have you lived there?
Gosh, I've been here maybe ten years.
Well, you know, I saw you on TV recently and I called up our people and said, this is the perfect person for this podcast, because the idea with this thing is that you know, you're a multi platinum artist, you're huge star, celebrity, all these kinds of things, and then people find out that in this podcast that there are things that you are super super passionate about that we're going to get to and also to introduce somebody that you work with and that you and that who
is an unsung hero doing good work out there on the ground, because I think a lot of times people, you know, you know, they think that the celebrities or rock stars whatever are just kind of overpaid buffoons and don't really give a shit about, you know, anything that's going on in the world, and so you are the opposite of that. So that's why I think you're the
perfect person to be talking about this. If I can just geek out a little, you know, your your music is just so fantastic and I'm such a fan, and I I wonder if I'm sure you've asked been asked this a million times, but I'd love to if you don't mind talk just a little bit about the songwriting, because it's just I fancy myself a songwriter and so I really am always interested to hear what somebody's process is around that.
Yeah, I started writing as a way of moving toward my mom left when I was eight. My dad and I became a bar act a duet, so we did five hour sets in bars in Alaska.
And what kind of music was that.
It was mostly covers, but my dad also was a songwriter, so he did originals as well, so it was a mixture. I sang harmony mostly. I'd been already on stage a lot. My mom and my dad had shows for tourists. It was a dinner show, so like the the cruise ship you know, would come in and Anchorage, Alaska, and they would this dinner show would happen, and that was my dad and my mom and me. I would get up in yodle wow. So then my mom left, my dad and I became a duet, and I was in a
lot of pain. You know, divorce was hard. My mom leaving was hard. My dad started drinking, began being abusive. So I was obviously in a lot of pain. And what I was realizing around me in these bars that people were in a lot of pain. And I was had this front row seat to watching people handle pain.
And there was drugs, there was PCP, there were biker gigs, there were you know, drunken fights, there was rage, there was relationships that were volatile, and I saw all these ways over the series of many years, and I realized, no, but I called it, you can't outrun pain, a real visuals So I remember it was like there was this original, you know, bit of pain, but instead of making pearls, everybody around me was just trying to cover it in more and more layers of more and more I guess
now what you would call coping mechanisms. I just saw like archaeological and so I realized, like, I have to deal with my pain as it comes. And then I learned that the buffalo was the only animal that would move directly into the heart of the storm because the quickest way was through. And I just loved that, and I remember writing that down the quickest way is through, and so to move toward my pain instead of trying to avoid it became like a life strategy for me.
Probably when I was ten and writing. I had noticed I always had written poems since that was little, and I always felt a little bit better even though I was dealing with a lot of pain and uncertainty. Writing always made me feel better and it's very therapeutic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, well that is I can certainly relate to that. I mean, I well, my brother in law like to say, something goes wrong, write a song, and
that is that is a really I'm fascinated. I did not know that about you and and so is it Are you able to make the connection between the specific moment or feeling that you're having, whether it be a specific I don't know, heartbreak or your dog dies or whatever it is, and the song that comes out, or is it more a way of just feeling all these overwhelming things and that kind of channeling them through somebody else's story or or a piece of poetry.
It had always been poetry, and it was usually pretty direct. The fascinating thing to me that was very comforting when I was young was that when I wrote, there were patterns I hadn't noticed I had noticed. I suddenly started seeing reasons or yeah, just patterns that I hadn't noticed when I was embroiled in living. It was until I wrote about it later that I noticed them. That was very comforting, and it made me really again want to rely on writing sort of as a tool of getting out.
I didn't write songs ti much later. I moved out at fifteen, which I knew was a very risky thing to do.
You were playing then, though you were playing with you or no, you are playing.
I mean, I didn't play guitar. I didn't write songs. I only sang lead on one or two songs in the five hour set. I was just singing harmony honestly.
Set By the way, a five hour set of covers, Oh my gosh, Wow, that's a lot to hold on through. That's like, that's like a Bruce Springsteen that showed plus two hours.
Wow.
Yeah, that's just how I was raised. You would, that's what you were paid for with these five hour sets. And so when I moved out, it meant also like my dad and I weren't going to be doing gigs together. I now had to support myself on my own without
singing with my dad. And I knew statistically kids like me end up repeating the cycle, and I didn't want to be a statistic And so again I went back to writing and reading, sort of as this ladder hopefully out looking at the idea of nature versus nurture, and what if my nurture was so bad, I would never get to know my nature. We had a rabbit that thought it was a chicken, and so it would like
peck at the food and it would waddle. It didn't quite hop normal, and it would lay on the nests and hatch eggs for the hens, and it really scared me when I moved out of fifteen, be cause I was like, what if that's me? What if I'm a bunny raised by chickens and I'll never know I'm a bunny? But how do you know your nature when your nurtures so bad? And so I looked at this idea of having an emotional inheritance, just like a genetic one, you know,
a genetic inheritance that might predispose me to diabetes. Had this emotional inheritance that would just predispose me to like abuse or addiction. And could I learn a new emotional language? And so I just doubled down on writing curiosity observation as instead of climbing up and out, I wanted to go down and in.
Now were your poems did they feel like songs? Were you're hearing melodies in your head? Did you pick up the guitar as a way to put the melody behind the words?
Now, writing poems just felt like medicine, trying to soothe myself. It wasn't until I went away to school. I got a scholarship to go to a private school in Michigan called Interlock In. You weren't allowed to stay on campus for the breaks, and I didn't have money to go home, and so I decided that I would hitchhike across the country and that I would make money by street singing. So I got a cheap guitar and I learned a minor CG and D in that order. I couldn't go
out of order because I didn't know how. And then I grew up improvising. My dad taught me to improvise in bars, like one of the best ways to have drunks listen was to start singing about the drunks not listening, huh. And so my huge plan was to street sing and just make up lyrics about people as they walked by, because I didn't know how to learn other people's songs or learn covers, and it was just a lot easier
to make stuff up. And on that first two week trip, I think I was sixteen, That's when I wrote whole Save Your Soul. That was my very first song, and I just was le song.
Hang on, you're kidding me?
That was it?
Wow? But how does that I mean? And that's not a that's not a super that's a pretty sophisticated melody. That's not like Mary had a little lamb. Did you have the guitar when you wrote that song? I mean, where you playing those changes that you knew and just around those changes that melody came to you. That really blows my mind.
It was very beating. It great because I came from such a poetic background. It was very wordy, like people live in their lives for you on TV, they say they're better than you and you agree. It was very like kind of like written spoken word, not so much of a melody, like people live in the last for you want to eve it's pretty monotonous. And then I couldn't change the chords for a chorus because I didn't know how to yet, And so that's where I just
changed the melody to create the chorus. But it wasn't off of a chord change. It was just off of trying to create a different sound melodically to make it sound like a chorus.
Well, maybe the chorus is, so it's I mean, it is a like I said that the chorus is definitely is a very strong hook, a very strong melody. I mean it's just I don't know that's really that's that is astounding to me. So you were probably then you were what's sixteen or seventeen when you wrote that song?
Yeah? Sixteen?
Wow? Now do you do you still write on the guitar? Do you write on the on the piano? Or or what's what's the do you do?
You do? You?
Are you one of those people that takes an hour every day? It sits there and you know, comes up with the hooks and or how do you do it?
So I'm writing now? Is really different for me. When I was young, it was just oozing out of every poor. When I became a mom, it's very different a single mom, you know. So now you're with your baby, You're up at all hours of the night trying to go to bed. So that free time, that random free time where you might just catch an idea and stay up till three am, doesn't really happen. And so I had to become more craftsman like about it, plan time to sit and write, which I didn't mind.
I feel like other people.
Yeah, I'll also write with other people, which is kind of nice. It's like having a workout partner.
Let me ask you about that though, Because I have just I always looked at writing as something that I would do alone, or I would maybe do with my brother. But that was that was part of the sort of thing about it to me was that it was personal alone and just in the last like it probably I don't know, five or six years, we started to have writing sessions. We were so honored and had so much fun and went and wrote with Desmond Child for instance, and you know, wrote a cool song. And it's if
you're not used to that. I don't know about you, but I found that I find it can be very like socially sort of frightening and you know, kind of awkward, and you know, you kind of sit down there and you go, okay, well, you know, here we are, and we're going to be sharing something because I find it. I find it so personal, you know. And then too, it's uh, as you said, you know, there's something therapeutic
about it. To me, it's like going into like a couple's therapy, but you never met the couple before.
You know, I call it sober sex with a stranger. It's just very awkward.
You're like, okay, let's get baked.
Yeah, yeah, it's super awkward, and you definitely just have to go in and suspend judgment of yourself. You just have to throw ideas out, and the quicker you can kind of just get to embracing the awkward, the better it.
Is judgment of yourself and also judgment of each other too.
Yeah, because it's vulnerable, you're going to throw out bad ideas. I mean, you're going to.
Throw up bad ideas exactly, and and and I have found I want to do more of it. But I've found that piece of it to be like challenging, but in a good way, because I'm not really used to like it. When I'm acting, there is an element where you know, you have to have the courage to try stuff and fail. But I also feel that I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the performance is going to be, what the character is going to be. So if it's if right off the bat somebody doesn't
like it, that's pretty vulnerable. But in the writing thing, you're just it's so immediate in the way that you're throwing things out. I found it to be a great hurdle to kind of get over in a way.
Yeah, I find co writing to be very different. When I'm alone, I won't start with an idea. I'll just catch a feeling, you know, you start playing guitar and you catch a vibe and that evolves and you don't know where it's going, and it's this just discovery process for co writing, you know, typically you'll come in with an idea or have an idea, or the co writer will have an idea or a hook or a sentence or a riv I don't find that when I co write,
I get is interesting of stuff. It's usually more commercial. And that's a fine line because just because it's more commercial doesn't actually make it very listenable either. So it's it's a it's a lot to balance, you know, when you're in your own singer songwriter. The thing I love is always learn something. They'll put chords together. I'm like, I wouldn't have thought of that. It's such a cool sound. Or just seeing how somebody else's brain works. It always makes you better.
Foolish games to me, is such a sad song, Like I just find that to be I don't know it just it's it's one of those songs just makes me sad when I when I it's a great song, but when I hear it, What do you have a song like that? It's like your kind of go to sad song.
It was Leonard Cohen's The Famous Blue rain Coat for me. Oh, I had heard it when I was in eighth grade, and well.
Pretty much anything Leonard Cohen, right, yeah, but that's but that one is uh yeah, yeah.
It's so just tragic and but nostalgic and you can tell she loved them. And it's why I wrote Foolish Games. I was trying to rip off the Famous Blue Raincoat, like I wanted to write something that gave you just like this intense, like visceral, emotional, but very visual kind of cinematic quality.
So that's interesting. So you do think sometimes in terms of visuals and as you said, something cinematic taking people to a world, taking them to a place, having them kind of disappear in the same way that we do when we're trying to create movies.
Yeah, I think writing is the lens. It's what you're going to show out of an entire immense world. It's like that narrow little scope you're going to show somebody of just this thing. It could be a huge, busy room, but then you narrow the camera in on one woman just sitting alone there with a fake smile, nodding, and that's the story. But nobody might have noticed that story if you didn't just tilt the camera and zoom into
her face. And so to me, when I'm writing, whether it's poetries or fiction or anything, it's yeah, I'm gonna help push the camera in. And how quickly is it like bam and it hits you in the face or is it kind of the slow push in and it gives you different you know, like it's funny just talking about it'll give my like hairs, different reactions on my skin.
But that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to elicit really intense personal stories, which is done through editing, limiting information, highlighting information to create yeah, something intense.
Wow, Wow, that is a really interesting way to look at it. Do you look at a lot of movies? Do you like movies? I mean do you like I mean, I know you've got a child now, so it's probably less and less time for that. But when you when you talk about that, I mean, I think that a lot of people films will wash over them, but they won't even necessarily be aware of that idea of pushing
in on something in order to tell the story. And you know that that's something that many people they know how they feel, but they don't know how we get there. But obviously you have an eye for that.
I always loved I didn't grow up watching movies, you know, in Alaska, we didn't have electricity, we didn't even listen to much music. But I read a lot, and I read a lot of playwrights, and I think that's probably what gave me a real innate sense of story. Like a lot of Chekhov, a lot of Flattering O'Connor, a lot of Steinbeck, and I just think they were naturally
very cinematic writers. And then poets like Pablo Naruda that were so visual you could to practically smell his poetry, the salt and the bread and the soil after the rain. You know, he wrote so viscerally that it made your mouth water practically reading his stuff. And I loved that, and so they really informed my writing style. Not to mention, you know, every writer I loved was glorifying very underserved communities.
You know, check off to Steinbeck. We're trying to shine a spotlight on you know, tortilla flats or sure migrant workers, or you know, the mass population of the everyday man in Russia. Uh, and so I just that that's why I write what I write. I think that's where folk music came from, was from those playwrights that chose to write that way.
You heard it here first, folks. Jewel was a massive Anton chekhov in. I mean that that I think would be Uh. I don't know why that would be surprising, but but it's it's it's surprising to me. It's it's it's it's actually surprising to me because I don't really think of anybody outside people in the theater of actually
reading plays, you know what I mean. It's like sometimes people get you know, forced to study Shakespeare in school or stuff like that or whatever Steinbeck, Ibsen or you know, but but to to but your lack of media growing up where you grew up, you had to that's so interesting. You had to actually read a play and in a way use the imagination to hear the voices of the of the characters speaking, right.
Yeah. And the study of psychology, I think, especially in the Russian writers, but the psychology in playwrights I thought were so clever, right, they were really trying to tell you about the psychology of a human and using these situations putting these characters in situations to really highlight that psychology. And to me, that's where like Tennessee Williams are the
great play rights, that's what they were doing. They were trying to figure out these squeezes where life would squeeze a character into these displays that were sometimes horrific but so human that it allowed us to kind of explore these darker aspects. And I just I loved.
That as having a child changed your perspective on kind of the business side of things. I'm assuming that. I mean, I don't know, are you touring with the kid at home?
You know, I was funny about my career. I was just covered when I was homeless. But I almost didn't sign the record deal because I knew that somebody with my emotional baggage, God forbid someone like me get famous. It's you know what every TV movie or movie's ever been about any musician. I didn't want to be a statistic and so I had to have a plan in place that meant that I wouldn't become a statistic And for me, that meant like what I called my north
Star decisions. My number one goal was to learn how to be happy. Was it a learnable skill, was it a teachable skill? And I'd have a plan around that, How did I know if it was working? Then my number two job was to learn how to be an artist, and then under that was my subcategory. I wanted to be an artist more than I wanted to be famous, So every decision I made on my career was just
very loyal to that. That's why I took two years at the height of my career after hands I quit, like my label was like, you know, mental health breaks weren't a thing, but I knew I was going to have a breakdown if I didn't figure out how to comprehend what my life had turned. And the level of fame I got was that, you know, you can't go to the bathroom without people following you, and it was awful. It felt like a prison, And so I had to give myself permission to be like, what do I want
to do something else? Would I rather be a photographer? And then for me realizing I didn't like fame that much, it didn't do it for me. I liked invention, I liked trying new things, and so just learning to build my career for solving for what actually made me happy and being willing to let go of the rest. And so it meant I always took big breaks. I switched genres, you know, always upsetting people, always starting over after my divorce,
taking seven years. It's unheard of, and it's terrible things to do for like momentum that the best thing for me is a human I want my life to be my best work of art. I don't want my songs to be my best work of art. And that means I have to approach mothering artfully. It means I have to approach, you know, hopefully all aspects as thoughtfully as I can. And a big part of that has been, yeah, mothering and taking the time to mother.
Wow, and you started this inspiring children foundation, but that was twenty one years ago, and just tell me the genesis of that. I mean that, like, twenty one years ago is not I don't know how old you are, but but I'm guessing that it's not the moment in most people's lives where they say, Okay, I've become an incredibly successful at my chosen career. Although I understand that you were having doubts about it. But now I want to just give back and do something that's outside of me.
I mean, what was the inspiration for that?
When I moved out at fifteen? You know, I just it was very depressing to think that what about kids like me? I don't have access to therapy, I don't have a support system, like do kids like me get to learn how to be happy? And what an equal opportunist misery is? It doesn't care if you're black or white, or rich or poor, or famous or homeless. If you
were raised in misery systems, it's perpetual. If you're going to learn how not to be miserable, if you're going to learn how to be happy, that means education, and
education is money in our country. And so I started developing these skills that really worked for myself, looking at nature versus nurture and habit loops and dilation and contraction, all these skills that I just was thinking about and teaching myself how to practice things, and I wanted to see if they would work for other people like me, kids without other options. And so we started inspiring children, and it turns out it works really well. We don't
use psychotherapy, not that I'm against it. I mean, if you got that and it works for you, I'm so for it, But what about the people that don't have access. There have to be systems that we can offer that work, that make real differences in your choice making and then your happiness, right is a side effect of choices. You can't just be happy. You have to make different choices that lead to different outcomes. And so it's a lot of fun. It's the most fun I've ever had is working with our kids.
That is amazing. That is amazing.
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I want to bring in Ryan Wolfington, who is the president of Inspiring Children. Hey, Ryan, welcome to the show Man. Hey doing Kevin, I'm doing great. I'm doing great. It's been really fun for me to be chatting with Jewel and and you know her story is obviously so inspirational, and the fact that she started this in a very very specific and direct way. How did you two meet and how long have you been with this organization?
So my twin brother worked with Mark Burnett, and I guess Mark and Jewel. They were at a dinner at his home and my twin said, Ryan, you really got to meet Jewels. She's your real twin because she still went to the emotional mental health stuff. I remember this is years, you know, a long time ago, but not a lot of people were talking about this. So he kept saying, you got to collaborate with her. She's really doing the same work, really a lot of the same healing that I did in my own life. She had
been doing her own life in parallel. And then when I met her the first time, she sat there and spoke to a young woman for like three hours. A young girl tried to end her life twice, and when she was in the hospital she was listening the Jewels song Hands on repeat to give her hope. And you know, we're Richard Branson's Island. All these people running around they want to meet Jewel, and it's a pretty good group
of people. But Jewel said, I want to sit here for three hours with this young girl and help her heal. And that's when I knew my twin brother really had nailed it. That that's when she loves.
More than any Wow. Wow. So can you describe to me the mission?
Well, I mean, Jewels probably better at words than I am. I'll let her take a crack to that, but I would just say, like, giving young people what I think we wish we had we were little.
And what are the ages?
You want to get children as young as you can get them, because the habits get formed early. But our really robust program is like twelve forever. It's like a forever program. It's not till they graduate high school. It's until they graduate colleges, kind of forever. And we have children that are first generations thirty five years all now.
And what about that Jewel, I mean, how would you describe the mission?
We wanted to create a holistic healing environment that wasn't based on like one hour of psychotherapy, but an entire three dimensional model where they were getting educated, where they were getting exercise, and where they were getting equipped with tools. There's something I called as a kid philanthropic paradoxical reflux.
It's this idea that you know, like I lived in the projects and Anchorage for a while and we'd be part of toy drives, right, people would come bring our neighborhood toys, which was so great and we were so appreciative. But I instantly felt as soon as like the thrill of getting the present wore off, I instantly felt really crappy about myself and it was so intolerable that I
resented the person who gave me the gift. It sounds so terrible, I know, but it's a very real thing because of just this kind of psychological reflex of you feel so bad about yourself and so you try to make yourself feel better by creating this otherness. And so with the Foundation, we really wanted to solve for that. So we don't actually give anything. We give skills, period, and kids earn their way up into kind of different programs within the foundation.
Building brick and mortar building.
Yeah, yeah, we're based in Las Vegas.
Why Las Vegas is just out of curiosity.
Ryan actually founded the foundation and he was in Las Vegas and the very first kid that he started mentoring just happened to be there. And then it evolved from that and.
How do the kids find you or do their parents find you or where's the how do you build your the group?
Well, it's overwhelming need. Sadly, it's all been through word of mouth. So we're a physical program. We focus on tennis, onrepreneurial skills, and then mental health skills. We have three homes so that if there are kids who aren't safe with their family or just can't be with their family for some reason, they can live with us in a safe place. Otherwise, we work with kids, you know, they are living at home, and we work with the whole family system and the kids are they with us about
six days a week. They do core curriculum maybe a couple of days a week, and then all the rest is project driven learning, so running the foundation, doing the video editing, the photography, running events, running fundraisers. So they just end up becoming incredibly capable. And then when somebody trauma triggers, or when something happens, we're able to deal with it right then and there and just a real group setting, because it's life that triggers us. You know,
it's not like Tuesday at two o'clock. It happens while you're with your therapist. And so we've found that this model of where it's just a living lifestyle change skill growth based model to be incredibly effective.
Ryan, let me ask you, have you seen or felt that given things like starting with yeah, nine to eleven school shootings, climate change, a global pandemic, there is a rising need for this kind of work.
Well, I mean twenty one years ago when it first started, we might have had ten percent of our children might suffer with suicide attaps, or maybe thirty percent depression, a lot more with more teenage addiction issues. Now, our last graduating class three years ago during COVID, half limit either attempted to end their life, were seriously harm themselves, and one hundred percent of the pad anxiety and a large portion of them had some form of depression and some
issues with the addiction. I think most children are being born into addiction to technology, being exposed to stimulation and distraction much sure than we were, and so we've watched it dramatically increase. It was a huge issue long before COVID. I remember Jewel did pressed the first week of COVID and she said the silent symptom of COVID is mental health.
Like right.
She just said, we knew right away this is gonna have a real serious impact. And what's interesting about you know, you know Jewel's involvement is you know, it's not like a typical celebrity that gets involved. I'm talking about fifty to sixty percent of her career is devoted to working and helping these children.
Her taught wow from.
Retreats at her house too. You know, in a few weeks we'll be taking a bunch of children up to stay and spend the holidays with her, over Christmas, to even just work things. She's devoted her whole business side of her life to mental health, and the children sense that sense of sincere. You know, they can call her up and be like, I'm having an emotional conflict right now. I know you were homeless, I know you had trouble with your dad. You know, how did you deal with it?
And the insight that she's able to give is so unique because of this situation she's been through as a person, and children are no no bs like they see not They can tell if you're for real or not. Yeah, they do you know something where I may not be to get through, she's able to do that.
Wow. Julee. That is that is really kind of incredible. I mean, what is the thing that you're the most proud of around around this this organization and the work that you do.
Just the kids. You know, our numbers are incredible because of the gauntlet the kids choose to pick up every day. You know, when when I see a kid, you know, willing to stop being mad at their environment, at their situation, at their family, and say, all right, but what am I willing to do about it? You know, I'm responsible for my own happiness. What am I willing to do about my choices? They are unstoppable. Like once once a kid like hooks onto that concept and it's just fun.
I mean, we became the number two tennis academy in the country. We didn't mean to be number one and number three are just tennis academies. They're recruiting tennis players. We're just helping kids, and we've become the number two tennis academy. All of our kids start their own businesses and they learn to put that hustle into a really great life affirming way into helping them make money and most importantly, learning these these skills. Our graduation rates are incredible.
But it's all just byproducts of these kids choosing happiness, and as you know, healings hard, it's very difficult, and so I just find it incredibly heroic that these kids just keep choosing it.
And how many kids have cycled through the program?
Just wondering that. Do you know from the beginning, Ryan.
It's it's thousands in person, but online, you know, Jewel helped bring a nationale platform, so it's millions online, but the leadership program, it's it's thousands in person. You know what's interesting is a lot of people this summer we took a bunch of the children on her tour, and I'm like, I forgot you're like a freaking unbelievable rock star because we get to see this other talent that
she has to heal a human being. And you know what's more worthy of celebrity somebody that can help a child go on to want to live again and then not only want to live again, but to just love life and become their best or the beautiful music. Now, luckily we don't get to choose. But the hidden talent that I think a lot of people don't know about her is as a clinician, as is somebody who can heal not only herself but other people. And it's profound.
That is really amazing. That is really amazing. Plus she's also has one name, which makes her even cooler. You know, people who have one name are very very cool. I once had the absolute joy of introducing ludicrous to Sting. It was it was a great moment in my life. Where how can people help out? What's where's the website and uh social media handles? I want to I want to make sure that anybody listening to this can can can reach out and and and support the good work that you guys are doing.
We're called Inspiring Children, so it would be Inspiring Children dot org and we're inspiring children on Instagram. I also have a mental health platform of the exercises I've been talking about, where we put them on a free mental health website. There's very practicable simple skills to kind of thanks to you know, uh, just neural wiring, starving old neural patterns and building new ones through behavior. And so people can find that at Jewelnever Broken dot com and tell.
Us about what the Not Alone Challenge was.
The Not Alone Challenge was an opportunity for us to bring together so many walks of life to talk about mental health. So we had celebrities, we had CEOs, we had business people, we had athletes all coming together to talk about the fact that everybody is a brain. So at some point or another, people are going to have an issue with anxiety or whatever it is, and that, you know, it's a tragedy that fifty percent of the people that need mental health tools don't have access to them.
I find that unacceptable and so the Not Alone Challenge was about raising awareness and then raising funds to be able to scale proven tools digitally. And so one of the first things we've been doing with that is we've started been you know, scaling up the tools that have been proven to work in our foundation that are skill based, as well as we founded a mental health app in
the metaverse. It's called Inner World, where we take a lot of these skills and created the three dimensional virtual reality for healing.
I'll tell you that Inner World. We showed it to some of our children. Jewel was putting it together for quite some time, but when she revealed it to them with the co founder with the founder of the Uneral, they started crying because they're like, geez, I can see exactly how that would have helped me when I was thirteen or I was fourteen. And it's like almost like a virtual healing center that people can go into no matter where they are. And people have asked Jewels for many,
many years, how do you scale this? How do you get this other places? And it was really cool for her to be able to team up with this gentleman from Vanderbilt to take the stuff that helped her and then put in on this metaverse where it feels so real.
Speaking of which have you have you all ever thought about expanding to different cities, starting other centers in other places on the is that the the in the future.
There's organizations that are now scaling pieces in twenty two cities pieces of what we do. And then right now the goal is Jewels put this not Lo challenge together to raise funds in order to curriculuatize our twenty one years and expertise and make you real simple for other organizations to plug play.
Yeah. I think what makes us special is our curriculum and the skill based tools, and we want to be able to start scaling that to other foundations that are doing the work or even other work like let's say it's an LGBTQ plus community center, and you want to be able to have a mental health toolkit. We want to be able to have that curricularized, so anybody in any foundation can start to get yeah, good results in mental health.
Well, you know, I just want to say I think you should both be very very proud of the work that you're doing. It's it's it's a beautiful thing. I love hearing all about it, and I'm so grateful that you were willing to come on and talk about it today and take a big chunk out of your day. Julie, I know you got to go pick up your kid, So thank you and thank you Ryan for being here. And I've really really enjoyed this.
Likewise, I've been such a fan of yours and I have been loved checking music out, and of course i've been a fan of your acting. So it's a treat to get to talk to you. And thanks for taking the time.
Hey, guys, thanks for listening. Can you believe that Who Will Save Your Soul was the first song that Jewele ever wrote? I mean, that's crazy. I was so interested to hear that.
So anyway, if you want to learn more, about the Inspiring Children Foundation and all the work great work that they are up to. Head to their website Inspiring Children dot org. You'll find the link in our show notes.
You can find six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on.
The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
See you next time.