Hey there, I'm Tals Lotnitsky from Ignite IT Consulting.
You know me from the Braving Business podcast, but when I'm not behind the mic, I'm helping
tech startups and established companies ignite their full potential.
I also help entrepreneurs and businesses in distress reset for success.
With over three decades of entrepreneurial success, I bring hands-on experience to drive
growth, navigate turnarounds, raise capital, and lead to innovation.
Whether it's executive coaching or strategic transformation, I'm here to turn your business
challenges into success stories.
Visit igniteitconsulting.com and let's spark that change together.
That's igniteitconsulting.com.
Your journey to business brilliance starts now.
And one last quick thing.
If you enjoyed this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the Braving
Business podcast and other great episodes for you to discover.
And now, let's get the show started.
Well hello there.
Hey handsome.
Hey gorgeous.
How are you, man?
I'm well.
You're looking really good today.
Thank you.
I love the fact that you got the memo.
Bare skinned.
We're both wearing blue.
That's good.
Yes, indeed.
I'm more handsome than yours, but that's okay.
That's okay.
Yours looks a little faded.
I washed my shirt.
Do you wash your clothes?
I mean, sometimes if you wash your clothes in hot water, the blue becomes.
Yeah.
I try to wash my clothes because I never shower myself.
So if the clothes are clean, it's always good.
Yeah, I hear you.
Yeah.
You know, the French, I don't know why I'm going there, but the French invented deodorant
because I guess back in the day, they didn't shower a whole lot.
Yeah.
But it kept the smells inside instead of out.
Is that right?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
But you know what?
You know what doesn't stink?
What does not stink?
Our guest today.
Our guest is wonderful.
What a great segue.
That was well done.
Thank you.
I was going to say it stinks for her that it's midnight where she is, whereas it is the
middle of the afternoon for us.
I know.
Out in Lebanon, and that's not Lebanon, Ohio.
That's Lebanon, Lebanon, out in the Middle East.
She is graciously joining our podcast and spending some time with us to talk about her
wonderful self and her fantastic history.
And let's just dive into it.
Why don't we dive into it, DJ?
All right.
Well, our guest today is Nadine Shamas, the founder of the Life Director and a pioneering
social impact strategist, a life mentor, a motivational speaker, an award winning singer
and entrepreneur.
Born in Lebanon and now based in Dubai, even though she's in Lebanon right now, Nadine's
journey includes having produced more than 250 theater plays and opened an academy for
performing arts and the first ever edutainment center in Dubai.
She has created innovative programs like drama therapy and hosted counseling sessions on
Al Arabia.
I'm going to mess it up.
Al Al Arabia.
Wow.
Al Arabia.
There you go.
It's not that hard.
Sorry.
Geez.
Totally like three syllable.
I need coffee.
She is also the first certified female stage hypnotist in the Middle East.
Don't let her get her hooks on you.
And a singer whose music-
I want to hear all about that.
That's wild.
I know.
And a singer whose music has received millions of downloads on YouTube.
As with all of our guests, Nadine has been tested by life.
She ended up having to close the edutainment center, which was a gut punch that she said,
felt like the erasure of all of her efforts and achievements.
Later that same year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and was forced to stop and focus
on her healing journey.
We are so grateful that you're here with us today, Nadine.
We have both, Tal and I have personal histories in this.
We know the journey.
We're so glad that you made it.
More recently, she is the author of The Stage Is Yours, a book for which she has received
outstanding visionary award at the Education 2.0 conference and which, by the way, some
guy named Stephen Covey, whoever he is, has praised.
Of course, we all know who Stephen Covey is.
Nadine performs the book interactively with live audiences and it revolves around the
idea that each of us is the director of the stage of our own life.
It includes themes like resetting our stage, examining our backstage crew, recasting our
supporting actors and rewriting our life scenarios.
And Nadine, by the way, since I'm based in Chicago, when I rewrite my life history, I'm
either going to be Oprah Winfrey or Al Capone.
But anyway, let's just keep that between us.
I see it was Oprah Winfrey too.
Yeah, that's a talk we're going to have offline.
Anyway, Nadine, thank you so much for joining us today on the Braving Business Podcast.
Thank you so much for hosting me.
And it's been a long time.
We've waited and we rescheduled many times, but now I'm very happy that I'm here with
you.
And thank you again for hosting me.
And yes, the stage is yours now.
Well, that's great.
Nadine, thank you.
Since life is a stage, we'll be talking about that later on.
It's great to have you on.
And you have had quite a journey.
You started in Lebanon, you moved to Dubai at a young age and had a whole lot of interesting
experiences that led to you being innovative and breaking ground in lots of different ways.
Share what motivated you to make such a significant move.
I don't know if it was within your control or maybe your family moved and also how it
ultimately influenced the path that you've chosen in life.
It was an opportunity for me to move to Dubai because I got the opportunity to be singing
in a restaurant that was owned by a Lebanese guy who was in Lebanon as well.
I was singing at his restaurant.
And he told me, why don't you come to Dubai and sing for us?
And it's actually a Lebanese restaurant.
So I said, why not?
Why not to try this?
How old were you?
I was like 21.
And at the same time, there was a contest in the university to write a script for the
festival in Dubai, the summer festival for kids.
And I wrote a script that was always accepted.
So I had two opportunities at the same time happening at the same time.
And this is how I moved to Dubai.
Got you.
So you were 21 years old.
How did your family feel about you moving?
Were they supportive?
My family at that moment, my father and mother were dead.
So it was a year of transformation.
It was a year of taking decisions.
And maybe that was what made me say yes, because I wanted to have a change.
And I want to start it all over after I lost my father and mother.
And I said, why not go and see what Dubai will offer me?
Wow.
Well, first of all, sorry that you went through that.
That's terrible.
But clearly it was a fantastic move for you.
Doing two things at once, being able to delight people, not only in Lebanon, but also out
in Dubai.
And then also to have this writing contest that you entered and you got to win.
So through your bio, we've learned that you've worn many hats throughout your career.
You've done so many, many things from theater director to advocate for social change to
an award-winning singer.
And now you're an author and a life coach.
So how did these early experiences, things with your family, you moving to Dubai, you
taking advantage of opportunities that were given to you and that presented to yourself
or presented to you, you were able to take advantage of them.
How did those early experiences in the arts shape your approach to business and to personal
development?
You know, when you're an artist, we know something that you are a creative person.
So I put all my creative talents in everything that I was doing.
And whatever I was doing, I tried to bring the best out of me as an artist.
So in Dubai, I created many concepts.
I've been an entrepreneur.
I've done many things.
But the one thing that I didn't lose is my identity as an artist.
So everything that I've been doing was fueled by that artistic background that I was born
with.
So I think that being an artist shaped a lot of my life and made me overcome many things
in life and see them as a theater play.
So for me, I was always an actor in all the stories that I was living.
So that was giving me that motivation and the feeling that I can do that.
Yes, as an actor, I can do this.
I can do that.
So I think that this is what gave me a credit in what I'm doing now in life.
Wow.
So you are an actor.
Basically, I love that actually, that you're an actor in your own life, right?
This is what you do and this is the part that you play.
Yeah.
Well, we'll talk more about it when we talk about our book.
But what's really interesting about that, I have long used the term stage manage to
describe how I felt at different moments in my life where I felt that getting the outcomes
I wanted required me to be very, very mindful of the staging of a situation.
And it's actually a skill.
So I look forward to hearing.
I would imagine it's actually part of the stage is yours concept.
So we'll save it for that.
I want to talk about the experience of, as we've heard, staging over 250 theater plays
and opening the first edutainment center in Dubai.
Those are incredible achievements.
They would be incredible achievements even if you were in North America, let alone in
Dubai.
I imagine there were some obstacles that are common to all cultures, just being young and
trying to break ground and probably some that were unique to the culture that you were in.
What were some key challenges that you faced in bringing these projects to life?
What are you most proud of overcoming?
I'm most proud of being me.
The first time that I went to the festival manager and I was young, I didn't have a business
card as well.
So I told him, Hi, my name is Nadine Shamas.
I am a theater director and I'm here to offer you a theater place in Arabic.
And he was looking at me.
I'm looking like young and what is he talking about?
And he told me, okay, so what do you do?
He said, I'm a theater director.
I'm a script writer and I can make a theater place for you in Arabic.
All the audience will engage and it would be so nice.
He told me, okay, that's all great.
Do you have any play that you have done?
I didn't do anything.
It was just an idea.
I said, yes.
He said, okay, show me.
Back then in 2000, we didn't have any digital platforms to do anything.
So I went back to Lebanon and I put on a show and we filmed it and we produced it.
And I went back to Dubai and showed him a theater play.
I was playing like a hundred roles.
I was playing the witch.
I was playing the little girl.
I was playing all those roles.
And he said, you know what?
I want to give you a chance.
So let's do that.
So and it all happened.
You know, I believe that when you are passionate about something and you see it in your mind
and you visualize it, you can do it.
It's all about not feeling those blockages of who I am and who they are.
It's just talking from the heart.
And I think that my passion made me do that.
That's so there's so much to unpack there.
And you know, as PJ knows, I when I hear something that I think is has got a ton to teach people
and and frankly, I learn I try to unpack it.
So I'm going to unpack it.
I loved your answer.
I would have never considered, you know, someone had asked me that question.
I don't think I would have said being me, but that is such an important thing.
It's being the true version of yourself at all times is is something to be incredibly
proud of, particularly when being your true self, my arguably when you're young, when
you haven't necessarily proven yourself, come with the risk of being rejected.
So obviously you took risks.
So first you were you were authentic.
Second, you took a risk.
you went there to someone who could have easily said no to you.
A lot of people out of fear,
avoid putting themselves in situations where they can get a yes, uh,
thinking that they're going to get a no. Um, and then you were
truthful, right? So when he asked you, what have you done? You know,
there are people out there that would have lied or would have embellished,
embellished her story. You didn't. Um,
but something about you and I can see what it is.
It's pretty evident just sitting here and looking at you on a screen.
There's something about you that's extraordinarily charismatic and charisma.
While it's not something you can learn, if it's something you have,
it is incredibly powerful.
People will give you opportunities that you might not otherwise based on your
resume, based on what you've accomplished.
You might not otherwise get those opportunities, but between being authentic,
courageous and charismatic, incredible opportunities present themselves.
And I think that what you just shared with us is the culmination of those three
characteristics coming together.
Well, also I just want to add that the fact that the comment was,
you know, I'm me, right? I think that even though, um,
you know, Nadine has mentioned us being an actor, right?
Playing different roles in our own life.
There is that confidence that I think being an actor, if you,
if you kind of take it like, Oh, well, you know, I'm just,
I'm just dad today or I'm just business owner today or whatever the case may be.
It allows you a little bit of separation,
a little bit of the whole fake it till you make it kind of thing.
But then when, when Nadine is sitting there saying, Hey, I'm just me,
then that's it. What else do you have to lose?
You're not going to lose anything. So I think there's that,
it also provides a foundation of confidence, right?
There there's courageousness, which you mentioned,
but there's also confidence. And I think that's a, that's awesome.
It's wonderful.
Yeah, I agree. Well, let's talk about some setbacks, right?
You mentioned the disappointment of,
of having to close the edutainment center. So you reach, you reach great success.
You bring your sisters from Lebanon and then things go, things go south.
Uh, you know, there's a recession,
the economy's not doing well and you end up having to close the edutainment
center and then you get a breast cancer.
Diagnosis. What was going through your mind during these dark moments?
You know, um, at this moment, uh,
there was a lot of things going on and actually I was not aware of them.
Um, uh, you know, we are,
we learned to like, you want to hide what is going on really in your life.
You will always want to feel that you're, uh,
you are strong and you want to show the world that you are always strong.
But at some point in your life,
life will put you in a place where you need to deal with your own struggles and
you have to be vulnerable enough and you have to say that, listen,
I'm not okay. Now I need help.
And, um,
I think that it was an accumulation of many emotional, uh,
things that was going on in my life.
That made me sit and realize that now it's time for me to heal.
And, uh, it was all when I was diagnosed with cancer.
So I said, you know what? Life is important.
Life is a gift and, uh, all my life I was like running,
doing, uh, I want to be, do that, uh, do something else.
But now it's time for me to sit with myself and heal my, uh,
my wounds because I was hurt and I was,
uh, I was feeling homesick.
I was, uh, going through a grief and I didn't know how to deal with it.
So I think that, uh,
that was the time for me to sit in the director's chair and observe my life and
analyze what was going wrong, what was going right.
And what do I want to do with my next chapter?
I love this. I love this compartmentalization.
Right. I mean, it's, well, I mean, it's good because, you know,
as I mentioned, Tal, um, he has,
he's had some definite personal experience with breast cancer.
My gorgeous wife, uh,
is on the end of her treatments for, um, for breast cancer.
Thank God everything's coming out. Okay. But it's a talk about, you know,
in America, we talk about curve balls, right?
Which is a baseball term where something comes kind of unexpectedly.
It's not what you, what you expect to be thrown at you. And, um,
you know, breast cancer is, is it a, is a terrible curve ball.
But I also love the fact that you kind of went with it.
You assess everything.
You're, you're able to take a seat back and give yourself a little bit of space
so that you can take a look at what's going on, what's important,
what needs to be done and what doesn't need to be done. And, and that,
a little bit of that compartmentalization I think is, is really healthy in a lot
of ways.
Yeah. Life will, will put you in that place.
You know, if you don't give time to yourself,
life will force you to sit and assess your life so you can move forward.
So true.
Yeah. So, so then you transition, right? You, you,
you come out of this period and you start transitioning to life coaching and
and, and therapy is something you've told us you're really proud of.
During your healing journey,
you created a program that not only helped you,
but also inspired many women. Can you tell us about that program and,
and how it evolved over time?
At that time in my life,
I was so interested in the personal development program.
So I was taking NLP. I,
I was an NLP practitioner, master practitioner, hypnosis,
but I took all those for my own personal development.
But I took all those for myself because I wanted to heal on my own.
Also all the, you know, the, the, how we are raised,
we are raised to solve our own problems, never asked for help.
So I wanted to learn all those tools so I can help myself to,
to heal from the past, from the grief and stuff.
So when I started learning all those tools and I had cancer,
I said, you know what, now this is the time where I will sit in the client
and the coach chair. So,
and I started coaching myself and using all the techniques that I have learned.
And I said, if they are true, they need to be exactly true.
And I was, I, I, I did a program for myself every day.
It was a lifetime lifestyle program. Like every day I have,
I say I woke up in the morning, I do my meditation,
and I do my yoga and then I eat healthy. And then I journal.
I do all those exercises that I was, I, I,
I learned and after some period of time,
it was paying off. It was so doing so well.
People started seeing the changes in me and started asking me,
what are you doing? You're going into a cancer treatment and you look so happy.
And, and like grateful. And I told them, you know what,
I'm just applying what I have learned. I'm walking the talk. So,
and this is how I, I,
I was asked to do a program about how to cope with the journey of breast cancer.
And it took me a year to do that because during that year,
I was experiencing all those tools and I'm happy that,
that people get, got really inspired.
And I was asked to be a speaker in many of the breast cancer awareness
conferences. And I had a lot of women just to,
to get in touch with their,
themselves and ask themselves, where is in me?
Where is it in me? Why, what, what caused that to happen?
You know, every time we, we just heal, we heal on the surface,
but actually the wound is inside.
So if we ask ourselves, what is it there that caused that pain or
can cause that sickness, we can really not get to the answer,
but get to the awareness of it.
So living in the awareness is the key of moving forward.
I think that's great. Um, you know, one of the things that,
that you're really talking about, first of all, you know,
you mentioned waking up and doing your meditation,
which Tal is a huge proponent of. And then, um, you know, you do yoga.
I do yogurt, same thing. Um, but the, uh,
what I think is really important is that what you're,
what you're talking about, the journaling and all this,
this time that you block out for Nadine is super important for
you so that as you start out your day,
you're now able to take on the rest of the world,
because if you don't take care of yourself,
you can't take care of anything else. And so I think that, um, I think it's,
it's important for people to remember business and entrepreneurship and,
and the dedication that we have to bring to the table every single day in order
to strive for success. You cannot forget you.
You can't forget looking out after you. So I'm really happy you brought that up.
Sure.
Nate, I have a follow-up. I, I, I'm curious, you know, I, as,
as PJ said, I'm a huge proponent of everything you spoke of meditation,
journaling. These are things I do in my personal life.
I think they're critically important. I encourage my children to do them.
My children are adults now, so they don't really listen to me.
They listen to you when they were younger. How did you do that?
Not so much. So I want to understand, you know,
you come from a culture where I would not expect there to be a tremendous
amount of, uh, openness to, uh, uh,
self-reflection wellness practices that, that, you know,
of the kind you're talking about. So first of all, set me straight. First,
am I wrong? Is this, is this more prevalent than I would think in, in,
in Arab culture? And if not, how did you overcome the stigma or,
or even ridicule?
Uh, we, we, uh, we live in Lebanon.
Actually we live those things without knowing them.
And, uh, when you move far from your country and from your culture,
you start, uh, wanting to, to,
to find things that will reconnect you to who you are.
So in Lebanon, I used to live in the mountains.
I used to meditate without meditating because, uh,
there was nature all around me. I used to listen to the birds.
I was watching the stars all night, uh,
waiting for the sun to rise.
So I was living in that meditative state without
me forcing it to happen.
And when you move away from your, uh,
your country and you want to, to reconnect with yourself,
so you will find similar, uh, tools that will reconnect you.
And meditation, when I learned meditation, it was not, uh,
unnormal for me. It was familiar because I know the feeling.
I've known it before. So, uh,
uh, meditating, doing yoga, it was something that we,
uh, that was very helpful for me,
but it was always familiar where I used to live. Okay.
So, uh, so doing.
So it's familiar to you, but in the culture, how,
how common is it for people to even talk about meditation, uh,
or journaling or any of these, you know, um,
any of these normal daily practice very commonly used things in,
in, in the Western world, but are they, uh,
prevalent and if they are, if they're not prevalent,
how do you overcome any stigma that might be associated with it such as it's
weak or, you know, you know, uh, I mean, I grew up in,
I grew up in the middle East myself and I remember that, you know,
there was sort of a mockery of, of these kinds of concepts.
Yes. Yes. You know, uh, I think because I, uh,
uh, in the university, I, I learned acting and directing.
So those were the things that we, we,
we had to learn how to journal, how to write a script, how to visualize.
So I think also, uh,
my degree helped me a lot to connect to these tools.
Uh, and also, uh,
we've learned from many movements in Lebanon, uh,
let's say the scout, we used to go in the nature.
So we used to like, uh,
contemplate and listen to the nature.
So I think these things were random yet when,
when I started studying them were more specific.
So I understood that, uh, the impact of them,
maybe we had them, but we didn't realize that they really matter.
Hmm. Very cool. So let's,
let's talk a little bit more about, uh, theater and the arts.
So your book, very powerful book, the stage is yours. Uh,
so we provided a little bit of glimpse about what this book is about,
but if you could please help our audience understand like the main themes and
what you hope the readers will take away from it.
The stage is yours.
Uh, is the book that I started directing, uh,
in 2014 or 15,
2015, I started writing my story and,
uh, I sat in the director's chair and I said, listen,
I was talking to myself if I was the director of my life and my life was just a
story, what was the, the, the, what is it about?
Why did I create all this?
If I am responsible of everything that happened to me in my life,
what was the learning and the stage is yours is,
uh,
the book that I reveal who I am and I encourage people to be who they are,
say they true self,
talk their own truth and really make their life the greatest show on earth.
Because from me, this is how I, I understand life from me as an artist, all my life was on stage.
I was performing, singing, or giving talks.
So everything for me has to,
to go with the audience, what I'm giving to the audience.
So finding who you are and inspiring others is the main,
uh, key insights that you take from the book.
It's all about finding who you are and reveal it to the world.
So, so I, I, I, it's going to sound like I'm challenging you,
although I actually, I love the concept.
I think it's a, it's a great concept,
but I'm going to challenge you a little bit because I,
I, I hope and assume that you'll be able to handle this question well.
And if not, then it'll be entertaining.
Um, some people might say, well, look, you know what?
No, we're, we're not acting.
This is real life.
We need to be authentic.
What are you, you know, what, what you're promoting here,
what you're encouraging people to do here is be fake.
Be, you know, when you're on a stage, you're not necessarily your true self.
Tell me why that isn't what you're proposing people do.
Uh, actually, uh, this is who we are not in life.
We are taking roles that some other people told us to do.
We are giving scripts that are not written by us.
And we've been directed in scenes that we didn't give any of our
okay to them.
So in life, uh, when you realize that when you sit in the director's chair
and you see exactly what's going on, you will find out that many times in
your life, you were not playing your authentic self.
If you're playing someone else's role, or you will play a support role for
someone else story.
So by realizing that we, we, we find out that we want to be authentic.
We want to be the star of our show.
So I want to be the lead character in my story.
And I want to direct it the way I see it, right.
For me, that is the aligned with my life purpose.
So the first question that you ask, what is my life purpose?
And after that, we can start writing the script of our future with awareness
and with the wisdom of the past that of all our experiences.
I like it. I like it. Right.
I mean, I like the fact that, uh, being in the director's chair allows
you the license to kind of be a little bit more forthright about your own
life, right?
I think a lot of people tend to feel like things happen to them and Lord
knows they do right.
Like you, you and my wife and, and Tal's, uh, Tal's ex-wife battling
breast cancer.
These are no one signed up for that.
No one wants that. Um, but you know, it comes and then how you deal with
it is, is, is what's going to determine your outcome.
And the fact that you came in and, you know, people were lauding you
about your attitude and about, you know, you're smiling while going
into therapy.
My, my wife and I, uh, we made videos and we laughed and we cracked
jokes, you know, the whole time going to therapy, which is, uh,
how we handled it, right?
Like you gotta have fun.
You gotta live your life.
And I love the fact that putting yourself, giving you the license in
the director's chair allows you to really be a lot more comfortable
with how you handle things.
And I think it's great.
And you know what it it's, uh, we, we just recently had, uh, Matthew
Knowles, uh, Beyonce's, uh, father and, uh, and, and he also obviously
has a, has a daughter who's a doctor.
Who's coming from the art and one of the interests, what he had a little
bit, uh, two, as a matter of fact, uh, Solange as well, two, two
extremely talented daughters.
And one of the interesting things that I got from that interview that I
think really resonates with this, uh, concept of the stage is yours, uh,
is that if you believe you empower yourself, uh, if, if you start your
your journey or, or make the decision to dare to go for things that you
really want to go for, uh, your odds of living the life you want to live
and accomplishing the things you want to accomplish rise exponentially.
It's manifestation.
When you manifest it, your odds of accomplishing anything are
exponentially more.
That's when life is not happening to you.
It's happening to you.
Um, let's talk about, you know, this method, the life director.
So I think this is a, you know, a great segue to, to this topic, your
method, the life director, it combines drama therapy, hypnotherapy,
which I still want to talk about how you became the first hypnotherapist
in the middle East.
That's really interesting and other tools.
Tell how did, you know, how did you develop this method and what do you
think makes it unique, uh, in the field?
The life director method was developed throughout the years, and it was,
um, like my own experiences with my clients, with my friends, with my
family and with myself.
And this is the most important thing.
I, I always try everything on myself before talking about it.
And, uh, you know, coming from a background of acting, you know,
I'm not a professional, but I'm a professional.
And, uh, you know, coming from a background of acting and, uh, everything
that was said in the personal development work, like you are the
director of your life.
You are responsible of everything that happens in your life.
You are the creator.
And then I said, you know what, sometimes we, I got offended.
It's not always like that.
We are responsible of our healing and our healing journey.
And sometimes it happens and some things happens in life and we have to
agree that this is part of our journey yet we don't like it, but at the
same time, it is very essential to help us know what was missing in our
life so we can move forward and be aligned with our life purpose.
So, uh, the life director method, when I wrote my book, the stage is yours,
but the month of releasing the book, I deleted it all because I did the
workshop, I deleted it.
Yes.
It was like, I said, you know what, this is not really authentic.
This is not exactly what I want to say.
I want people not only to get inspired by my story.
I want to give them tools.
I want them to help them to, to, to say how I did it.
So I started analyzing and putting a strategy and structuring everything
that I have done into formulas.
So everyone can help themselves and they can learn how to really engage
in those tools.
And I did very engaging exercises because I'm someone that look at life
as a play.
I want to have fun.
Life is enjoyable and life is, there's a lot to be grateful for and be happy.
So everything that all the exercises that I have created are fun and
engaging.
And also they are based on hypnotherapy and life coaching and NLP and
neurolinguistic programming and many other modalities in the spirituality.
It's all about dissociating from the event, seeing your life from 360
degree, seeing it from different positions.
And in each position, you can have a different insight on what is going on
and get the learning and move forward.
You know, it's a, it's a couple of things.
If I could say something about that, then I have a question.
It's really, I mean, the concept that you're talking about here, which,
you know, the 360 concepts, a really interesting concept that I,
I often talk about it to people when,
when I'm helping them work their way through conflict.
So I do coaching and a common thread is someone is able to vividly see their
point of view because it's their lived experience.
They really struggle to see another point of view.
And this practice you're talking about,
being able to look at yourself in a 360 way also helps you be able to handle
conflict better because you naturally start being able to see that there are
multiple sides to an issue.
So I think it's a great skill that you're teaching.
I want to ask you, you talked about fun and I think that's great, you know,
and it's, it's evident from your personality, you have a vivacious personality,
but you're also an advocate for social change,
which advocacy for social change comes with risk.
It's serious business.
Tell me how you've balanced.
I don't know what you advocate for.
I'd love to hear more about the things you're passionate about,
but how do you balance the joy,
the V V Ray that I see all over you with this sense that you are also here and
you have a purpose of making the world a better place for people who may not be
able to advocate for themselves.
I told you, as I said before, for me, that was what I'm doing now is not a career.
It's a calling.
Mike, Mike, I was born a singer.
All I know in my life is that I'm a singer and I'm an actress,
but the world of therapy, it was a calling.
I was called to, to create that method and believe me, many times in my life,
I wanted to say, you know what, what am I doing?
All this. It's not my career.
It's not my field.
And then I was like pushed more and forced more to continue doing what I was doing.
I, when I had the idea to write the stage is yours or the live director method,
I said it was just an idea.
But then a nine years like hunting ideas all the time.
I cannot sleep.
And I felt that there's was a calling from the inside and aligned with my life purpose.
And that's when I accepted that.
Then I started to talk about it more, to share more and to be confident and to put joy.
You know, I've been through therapy a lot and I've seen a lot of clients coming to me.
And the idea of coming to a therapist is like they are already in a state of mind
that they are sick and they need to be fixed.
And for me, all I want to give them is hope.
And when you create hope in people, you give them solutions and you give them action
and plans and you give them motivation and a sense that life is precious and you are precious
and you are unique and the world needs you.
The world needs each one of us and each one of us can contribute to do great things in this world.
So and also one thing that you want to tell the people that I am like you, I am also struggling.
Even though I'm a healer or I'm a coach or I'm a mentor, I also need help sometimes.
And we are all vulnerable.
We are all going through the same things in life.
So if we can join force, we can do more things better and we can make the world a better place.
That's awesome.
So I do have a real quick question for you.
So let's get into the hypnotist thing because I'm fascinated.
So how did you get into that?
And doesn't someone have to want to be hypnotized in order to be hypnotized?
You can't just make someone pretend like they're an animal if they don't want to do that.
That's awesome if you could though, right?
I don't know. Can you? What's the truth?
Have you made someone think they're a farm animal? Tell us the truth.
Yes, I did. I did just to challenge my knowledge.
OK, so the first time I watched the Sage Hypnosis show, it was in Vegas.
I was like, this is not true and this is not real.
Everything is Sage and this is not reality. It cannot be. It cannot happen like that.
So and for me, I like to question and learn.
So I went and I started watching and learning hypnosis just to understand if this is true.
If you can really make someone hypnotized and make them believe that they are someone else or they can behave in a different way that they know.
So I would like you to make PJ think he's Donald Trump.
Can you do that? I was going to ask if Nadine can hypnotize you.
Gee, I'm unhypnotizable.
I would pay money. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
I just couldn't. I couldn't help myself. Carry on.
So I will tell you this story.
So I was taking the NLP master practitioner and the master practitioner.
It has hypnosis also, and they tell you if you put your mind in something, the universe will do everything you want to make it happen.
I said, you know what? I want to be a stage hypnotist.
Let me see how the universe would work for me right now.
So I started Googling Sage Hypnosis diploma, Sage Oplonis certificate.
I didn't find anything, but I was consistent.
And one day I saw that for the first time in history, Katherine Hickland and Don Spencer are revealing the secret of Sage Hypnosis.
Join us for this secret diploma in Las Vegas. I was in Dubai.
I clicked yes. I booked and then my husband called me and Nadine, are you going to Vegas because the credit card goes to him?
So I told him yes. I told him yes, I'm going and I'm going to be a Sage Hypnotist.
And he started laughing. He told me now this. I said yes, you know, because we watched the show together and told him no, this is not real.
He told me, oh my God. OK, so I went there to Vegas and then Don Spencer asks in the audience.
We were like 25 only. Who is Nadine Shaman?
I said, it's me. And he told me the minute we posted that video, you were the first one to click on it.
And so imagine when you put your mind in something, actually, it proved to me that the universe really understand and listens to you if you really want to do something.
So I traveled there and I learned the Sage Hypnosis. I learned hypnotherapy. I learned transformation and hypnotherapy.
I went nine times to Vegas just to learn the hypnotherapy all the way.
Everything, everything that has to do with the subconscious mind and how to reprogram your life.
And it was a very amazing journey.
And what I want to share from the Sage Hypnosis show is that you sometime under a hypnotic state of mind, you accept suggestions that are not yours.
So all I want to know that be aware of who you are believing and ask yourself, is it true?
Is it me? Before accepting someone else's opinion about you.
And this is how I started doing this in Dubai to bring an awareness. I do the Sage Hypnosis show.
It's a comedy, of course, but at the same time, all I wanted to show the audience that the subconscious mind is very powerful and he can take everything personal.
So please be aware of what you are accepting in your life and ask yourself all the time.
Is it me? Is it true? Before you believe it.
Wow. So and usually it's PJ that says, wow, I don't think I've said, wow, you don't say, wow, three seasons of the show.
But Shamash, it's you're incredible. Thank you.
In your life story, what you're doing, the way you're doing it, the book that you wrote, the stage is yours.
I recommend to our audience to go pick up that book. You do workshops, but I think you do them in the Middle East.
Do you ever come to North America? Do you ever do any workshops here?
I came to Vegas in March. I was at the education at the Point O conference.
And I've got an award. You want an award there? Yeah, I've done a talk about the director method.
I shared it and it was really welcome. And now I'm going in October to Michigan also.
And I will be I will have like a tour to with workshops and shows.
I will be performing my book. I did in Lebanon a performance of my book, one hour of just performing the whole book on stage.
And I was acting and singing and taking the audience into the journey of the healing and the motivation and inspiration behind the live director method.
Amazing. Well, if you're in the in the United States, I would love to come see you perform.
And we'd love to have you back on the show to tell people where they can where they can come see you.
People can find you on your website. The website is Nadine Shamas. And that's spelled C-H-A-M-M-A-S. Nadine is spelled N-A-D-I-N-E.
We will have that in the show notes. If you want to access Nadine, you could do that also on Instagram.
That information will also be in the show notes. Nadine, it's been a true honor and a pleasure to have you on.
It's after 1 a.m. where you are. You need to get some sleep. I don't know how you look.
This vivacious at one in the morning. If you saw me in one in the morning, you wouldn't recognize me. You think it's a ghost.
So congratulations on being able to look this good at 1 a.m. It's been a great honor.
Thank you so much for spending time with us in our audience today. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Nadine.
And that's a wrap, folks. Like what you heard? Want to support the show?
Please follow our page on LinkedIn and Facebook. Visit us on YouTube.
And please like and rate us on all of your favorite podcast streaming services.
You can also see exclusive content, subscribe for free to our weekly blog, support our sponsors and soon buy our merchandise at www.bravingbusiness.com.
Thanks for being a part of our production and we'll see you next time on the Braving Business Podcast.