At the end of the day, the task I have is just like anyone else, to prove myself through my product or work. I've really found this to be true, the name advantage is a zero sum gain.

I think the macho mystique was far more a guiding principle in our Dad's generation than ours, the 'strong silent type' was much more common.

When you introduce these tools into the community, they can be adopted and implemented at the local level - and the results have been powerful. We have to ask the questions, how do people survive in poverty and other challenges of traumatic childhoods? And, until we fix this underlying problems, how do we help people in the meantime?

In documentary films, being able to be a storytelling and embrace film as an art form - while being very clearly connected in trying to help make the world a better place - is really important to me.

The word 'resilience,' in our American culture is closely aligned with 'grit,' and that word implies a certain moral fiber that says you can survive and thrive in any adversity, because you are strong - but that message of strength is both disqualifying and problematic.

It's also important that I, or [Producer] Karen Pritzker, also say that this film [ "Resilience: The Biology of Stress & the Science of Hope"] is not going to singlehandedly solve crime and poverty, or make big changes.

I'm in full support of that technique [meditation] , and what David Lynch is doing. It's very important.