By revisiting each age of his 40 years, man discovers unconventional path to self compassion and sets out to help others discover the same.
What if Netflix’s new film about time travel wasn’t just fiction? Mike Iskandar, the founder of a North Carolina-based program called Time Travel Journeys, shows it’s possible and emotionally enriching. Featured in a recent TEDx Talk, “My Other Car is a Time Machine”, the program’s classes, workshops, speaking engagements, and camps enable people to “time travel” back into their past as a way to re-envision who they are today and who they want to become in their future.
Inside a middle school classroom in Durham, NC, Mike Iskandar leads of a group of students on a Time Travel Journey to explore the best of who they were in their past, who they want to become in their future, and how those discoveries can expand their sense of self and uplift who they are today. 
Time Traveler Mike Iskandar interviews 4-year-old Davey on the path to interviewing 40 people from ages 1 to 40 in the year leading up to his 40th birthday. When Iskandar asked Davey, “What advice do you have for me?”, the 4-year-old looked at him and said, “I like you.” On a quest for self compassion, Davey’s words were exactly what Iskandar needed to hear from a younger version of himself.
The program’s core themes mirror those in “The Adam Project,” the new Netflix movie starring Ryan Reynolds as a middle-aged fighter pilot who time-travels to his 12-year-old self to save the world. With the film’s teenage and middle-age co-stars interacting as two versions of the same person, “The Adam Project” offers a compelling scenario: what would it be like to travel back in time to a younger version of yourself?
“The idea of, if you could go back and actually meet your inner child, actually meet the self you used to be, what would that be like for you, what would that be like for that kid?” Director Shawn Levy asked in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning.
Iskandar and his program actually answer that question. Like the fictional “Adam Project”, Iskandar experienced a real-life version of confronting his younger self. In the midst of a midlife crisis months before his 40th birthday, he reflected on the struggles of his 12-year-old self and felt a calling to travel back in time. Without an actual time machine, he brought his vision to life by conducting 40 interviews with 40 people, aged 1 to 40, as a way to reconnect to who he was at each age of his life.
“Each interview was like having a conversation with a younger version of myself,” Iskandar remarked. “It enabled me to awaken valuable qualities like imagination, curiosity, and playfulness while healing old wounds I had been carrying for decades.”
From this experience, Iskandar created Time Travel Journeys as a way for others to explore who they were, who they are, who they want to become, and how those discoveries can uplift their present self.
Recently featured on the stage of TEDxNCSU, Iskandar and his Time Travel Journeys program make a Hollywood fantasy accessible for anyone to experience and grow from.
For more information, visit www.TimeTravelJourneys.com
SOURCE Mike Iskandar
Rod Washington: Rod is a blogger, writer, filmmaker, photographer, daydreamer who likes to cook. Rod produces and directs the web series, CUPIC: Diary of an Investigator. He also produces news and documentary video projects. Check out his podcast StoriesThisMoment at https://m3e.d71.myftpupload.com/stm-tncn-podcasts/
