Latest / SHOW ME HOW GOOD IT CAN GET Podcast / How I Reprogrammed My Mind: Subconscious Beliefs & Transformation

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How I Reprogrammed My Mind: Subconscious Beliefs & Transformation · SHOW ME HOW GOOD IT CAN GET Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: We went for a walk after that and I was sharing stories about my life, struggle and newfound transformation, and she stopped and said, You should really write a book.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I laughed and said, You're about the seventeenth person that who's told me that.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then she looked me dead in the eyes and said, Then why don't you listen?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And there were moments throughout this whole journey that completely shattered my understanding of reality.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was completely skinned, and one day I was short on rent.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: And my landlord had told me if I didn't pay by the end of the day, I was out.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I heard in my head, go to the window.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being like startled, like, what?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I look outside the window, and now my hand's on my heart.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I swear on my life.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Floating outside in the wind was a Welcome back to the Show Me How Good It Can Get podcast.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's smile, breathe, and feel love.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is your anchor, and your only requirement to best experience this transmission.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I invite you to tune in and tap out.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love you.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Slow your breath down, relax those shoulders, soften your jaw, your eyes, relax those shoulders even more.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Come back to yourself right here and right now.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: This episode, although I'm gonna share you my story, it really isn't about me.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about possibility.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what you can become.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's about what can become possible when you start questioning the limits you've accepted about yourself, your life, and what you're capable of creating.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: When you finally stop constantly looking outside of yourself for the next answer and start pulling the thread.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you listen in episode one, I asked you a question: Are you willing to accept that you are a co-creator of your experience of reality?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can hold on, you can let go, you can rewire, you can choose again.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately you can start asking life to show you how good it can get, how great it can get, how amazing it can get.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: This episode is what happened when I started doing exactly that.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because you're listening right now and you've done the work, you've read the books, maybe hundreds of them.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know I fucking did.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I found Audible and listened to hundreds.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's pretty funny considering at one point in my life I could barely read.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't read.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've watched and listened to all the podcasts.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard them too.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: You've invested time, you've invested energy, effort, money into yourself, and part of you s still has felt like you haven't got that missing puzzle piece.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or you feel like you do, and you're standing three feet from gold.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know that feeling deeply.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling that there's more to the story of your life, that something else is possible, and maybe you spent years looking for that thing that will finally make everything just click and come together.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well then this episode is for you, my friend.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't need another piece of the puzzle today.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's time to start following the pieces that have been sitting in front of you your entire life.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first thing you experienced when you entered this world, and it will be the last thing you experience.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Breathe slowly and deeply into your being.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you a little story.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: One of my earliest memories was being around five years old, standing in line at school, thinking about infinity.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I was thinking about this.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: We could have had like maybe a lesson about space.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've no idea, I can't remember.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But something happened.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I had this overwhelming feeling that I was connected to everything.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was a part of everything.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone and reality was endless.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I experienced what infinity was just infinite, boundless, and it felt euphoric but also terrifying at the same time.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the feeling only lasted, I mean, it could have only been a couple of moments, but it stayed with me forever, and I felt like that was my first cosmic tickle.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: That moment planted a seed, and even though I didn't have the language for it yet, I could barely say my own name.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the only reason why you don't know me as Alexander is because four syllables was too many.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, you know what?
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's give this kid a break.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Let's call him Ali.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Beyond the lack of cognitive skills, some part of me already knew.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I knew there was more to this show of life.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like I was remembering something, wink wink, nudge, nudge, on a deeper level.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm, there's more going on here.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: My curiosity was born.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: My second childhood, what the fuck moment, I didn't understand until I was around 30.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I'd fall asleep at night, sometimes I used to experience something I could never explain to anyone.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: As I was drifting off, I often felt like I was being like compressed between gigantic 3D foam blocks, almost like pressure squashing me from both sides.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it was always blissful.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I used to say in my mind, ah the blocks.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I just used to go, oh, it's the blocks, and go, ah, the blocks.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I just imagined being squashed by these big foam blocks, and I would surrender and let go into sleep.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I always felt it always felt scary, but always safe.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: And on one level, it terrified me because I thought something was most probably wrong.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow, my throat, wow, my throat went then.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was interesting.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: It terrified me because it felt like something was probably wrong with me.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's on top of daytime Allie, who's already has plenty of things wrong with him, not nighttime Ally 2.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, nighttime alley, there's something wrong with nighttime alley.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it kept happening.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And years later, when I eventually discovered meditation and deeper meditative states, I realized that feeling of transcending the mind and body was already so familiar.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: That sensation of expansion and detachment, I'd already been playing with that experience naturally since I was a kid, over and over and over, getting familiar, as Joe Dispenser says, with the unfamiliar.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Which explained why when I learned a deep meditation practice, I could get from zero to bliss so quickly.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It excited me and it freaked me out.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: A theme was occurring: pulling the thread, fear, surrender, bliss, expansion.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: That state didn't feel unknown.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: It felt familiar, like a path I'd walked 10,000 times.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: It felt more like remembering.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And around the same age, that curiosity led me to electrocute myself.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had this globe lamp next to my bed, and I remember trying to figure out where the wire actually went.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just about to go to sleep, and I was like, hang on, where does this wire go?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I went behind my bed, but I could only see one plug, and that's at the other side of the room.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So naturally, of course, I started pulling up the carpet, of course, following the wire.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's attached with thick tape, it's childproof, you could say, and I noticed, oh, what is this tape?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it was connecting two wires to make the wire really, really long to reach the plug.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, I started to unravel that tape while the globe, the electric globe lamp was on.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to untape it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what else was left to do?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: It had to be done.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly the wire stuck to my finger like a snake fighting to the death.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: It like startled me for a few seconds before I ripped it off and threw the wire on the ground as the other wire started burning a hole in the carpet.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember calmly going downstairs to freak my dad out.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I put my hand out, he was washing up, and I remember just putting my hand there and I said, Uh, I think I've just electrocuted myself.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he thought I meant some like, you know, little zap.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he went, Oh yeah, blah blah blah blah blah.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, no, no, look.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, he thought I just got like a friction zap.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I said it again and I showed him this horrendous open wound in my finger.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: He just went, oh my god.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we went straight to the hospital.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the scar in my hand is still a reminder that unconscious curiosity really can kill the cat every time I look at it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, that moment symbolized my whole life in some way.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: I've always needed to look beneath the surface to question reality, to pull the carpet up and see what's underneath, even if it shocks me.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: School had become incredibly difficult after that.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia very young and spent most of my school years feeling behind and misunderstood and not very intelligent.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I couldn't read, I couldn't say my own name very well.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: My birthday was right on the border, and after missing exams because of the hospital checkups, they said, you know, let's do this kid a favor, let's give him a chance, and let's put him back a year.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be the oldest and it'll give him more of a chance.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, it didn't.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even in special needs classes, I was no better than anyone else.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else seemed to know how to do life.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't there.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was constantly trying to catch up.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: This happened all the way through school, all the way through college, and after 15 years of this, you stop thinking, oh, I just learned differently, and you start believing there's definitely something wrong with me.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I could have been five years behind and it wouldn't have made a difference.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't there.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't happening.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say I struggled, I mean I struggled.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was a point where I could barely read.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching people read and I couldn't do it.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it makes it so fucking hilarious that years later I would become obsessed with reading book after book after book, trying to understand consciousness, psychology, spirituality, quantum science, the mind, and why the hell we're all here.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I went on a rampage when it all started aligning and working.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: But back then I just felt constantly behind for my whole life.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: My first panic attack happened around six years old.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: Talk of going to the big boys' school, knowing that meant danger.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I was thinking about bullying, but failing and freaking out, you know, who knows what, just fear.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: And fear became my default setting.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do life.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Life equals fear.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: A deep feeling of sadness was brewing, which would later morph into anger towards myself, the system, the world, and become very cynical.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And over the years, that fear manifested into anxiety and panic attacks and depression, addiction, and alcoholism.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely dreaded the future.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And worst of all, eventually I became the one unconsciously attacking myself.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where most people are that are not ready to work on themselves.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: They're unconsciously attacking themselves.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like throwing little kind of darts, like little those little kind of darts at themselves.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, I got another one.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, trying to pull them out constantly, but you're the one firing them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So at around 14, during peak anxiety before the self-medication got really intense, I wrote one word on my bedroom ceiling that eventually would change my life forever.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote smile right above my bed.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Every night before I'd sleep, and every morning when I woke up, that was the first thing I saw, smile.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then looking back now, before I even knew what subconscious reprogramming was, I was already repeatedly pointing myself somewhere.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was giving myself a GPS.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was what was missing.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: There was no GPS.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I was guiding myself towards the light, towards growth, towards expansion, towards relief, towards remembering some parts of me already new.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then at 15, whilst visiting my dad in London, my dad gave me three books: two Ramdas books, Be Here Now and Doing Your Own Being, and Ticknat Hand's The Miracle of Mindfulness.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I still remember kneeling on the carpet, spreading those books out in front of me, and something shifted when I opened Be Here Now and I saw Neem Karoli Barber's grainy face.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember thinking, who's that guy?
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is this book?
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like the hippie Bible, it was a square book.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it said, Be here now and remember, remember, remember, remember around the sides.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I say a square book, it's like no book you've ever seen before.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a big slab.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Most of it went completely over my head at the time, but something in me responded to it.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: There was this exchange in one of Ram Das's lectures that stayed with me forever.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: The idea was essentially there's no invention, only discovery.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't find something new, you remember it.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that word remember.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: So from there I started meditating, I started breathing, consistently pulling the thread.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: But despite those spiritual seeds being planted, my external life was unraveling and became chaotic.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: And fear was overwhelming, and I was constantly seeking relief.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, a little weed and alcohol, then, whatever drugs were going around, uppers, downers, psychedelics, I had multiple groups of friends who did different stuff, and the other groups didn't really know about the other friends or hang out with them.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I was kind of essentially just jumping from party to party to party from a very early age.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it was awesome.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, it came with its consequences.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had so many friends with so much access to anything, everything.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I used to drink vodka all the time and was building up a collection down the side of my bed I had no idea about.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the bottles rattling and thinking, like, uh, that sounds like a little bit of a problem.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I need this for my what I didn't yet know was anxiety.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a problem?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: There was a point when I knew internally something was wrong.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I was blacking out.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had horrific pains in my stomach that would take me out.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, I would shut down and fall down.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'd lose the feeling in my legs sometimes for brief moments.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: I remember lying in bed and I was the only one in the house and I couldn't move my legs.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then when I got my legs back, it's like, oh okay, back, just go to work and forget that it never happened.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, these kept on stacking up, and I knew something bad was happening.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I had this opportunity to move out with my friends in town.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: I pulled the bed back and I noticed all these bottles were stacked up, there were so many, and I couldn't believe it because I was completely unaware, I was completely unconscious to the extent of my alcoholism at this point.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got this call that we're, you know, we could all move out and move out into Leeds, the city, I knew deep down that that was where I was gonna die.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, that'd be better than being at home.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe this is this is it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is like, let's go out, let's set this up, let's have an amazing time, and let's just go out in a blaze of glory.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided I was just gonna get as fucked up as possible, just go hard.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I went full on.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Morning drinks, drugs at work.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was cleaning up the bar that I worked in from the night before, and I find little bits of speed or or pills, and you know, chomp them down at 9, 10 in the morning.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, but touring the world also with my heavy metal band.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, what's the problem?
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you're meant to do.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Externally, you know, it might have looked really exciting to some people.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Internally, I was suffering deeply.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And there were times I couldn't leave the house without drinking first.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was mixing coffee and whiskey at one point and really giving it my best go, and I was normalizing chaos, and all of my friends were too, we're all in it, just had different, different problems.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I played the clown, and I reveled in when things felt unhinged or my mind glitched.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'd lean into it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I liked it, it excited me because I I was on a mission, I I was already tapped out in my mind.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was just taking time, but it was only a matter of time, and underneath all that, there was still this internal knowing there's another outcome to this story, there's another potential timeline, something else is possible.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't have access to it, although it was inherent, it was innate, but I couldn't see it or feel it, and it wasn't in my experience.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there were moments throughout this whole journey that completely shattered my understanding of reality.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: When I was around 23, I was completely skinned, and one day I was short on rent.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: I was exactly 10 pounds short on rent, and my landlord had told me if I didn't pay by the end of the day, I was out.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I counted the cash 10 pounds short, no credit on my phone, nobody to ask, nobody in the house.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew in that moment I'd I'd messed up big time.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: I completely gave up.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember feeling like, oh, you're the biggest loser.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: You this is it.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: You you you even mess this up.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: I laid on my bed and I surrendered into the state of dude, you fucked up big time, it's over, you're done, sinking into that feeling.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly I heard in my head go to the window.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember being like startled, like, what?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked over.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, and I'm under my desk, I'm looking at the desk and the the money with the£10 short, and I look outside the window, and now my hand's on my heart, I swear on my life floating outside in the wind was a£10 no.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: The exact amount.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I ran down those stairs screaming like a crazy person.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I ran outside and I was stamping on it.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was literally going down the street, stamping on it, and as I touched it, something just shifted, like that was it.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: My world was different because what the fuck?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: What what are the chances of that happening?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: My housemate who was inside, I didn't even know, came out and was like, What's going on?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh it was just hysterical, it was just unbelievable.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Another time while my band was touring, I was asleep in our van at the front, and suddenly I heard wake up, wake up, and then it screamed, wake up.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And seconds later, um we realized the driver had fallen asleep and we were about to crash into the car in front of us, you know, bombing it down the road.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: I eventually stopped needing to label every single experience, and I just kept pulling the thread.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, I'm working and living in Leeds and playing in the band, and I'm travelling down to London every week.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I did this for a few years to see Hannah and also work down there too.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine who had a well-paid corporate job in London asked me, What's your dream life then?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I said, to live abroad, skip the winters, and come back home to visit family.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before I'd even finished it, he burst out laughing and he said, Good luck with that, hand on the shoulder.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember in that moment thinking, Oh, if he thinks that's impossible, then I am deluded.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's no chance for me.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or as my Irish bar fly friend used say, no chance for me.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're a nice guy, but you're not a finisher.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: That moment really stayed with me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I allowed that limiting belief to stick to me.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, literally stick to me.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ah fuck.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And years later, when I eventually did create that exact life, I realized something.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: We can inherit other people's limits.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: We can let other people's bullshit stick to us and become our identity, our beliefs.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: What the fuck?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: No more.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: What looks impossible from one person's perspective can completely be normal for another.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: People can only speak from the level of possibility they can currently see for themselves.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that planted another seed.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: What if more is possible than I've allowed myself to believe?
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: At this point, my health wasn't good.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: My nervous system was all whacked out.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: My sense of self was really blurry.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then one day I don't remember the argument or the situation, but eventually everything collapsed in on itself.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: My incredible girlfriend, coach, guide, healer, preacher, therapist, now my wife of over 20 years, said, if you don't sort this out, and I remember her just like pointing at me because I was just obviously a mess.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I'm leaving.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And something inside just clicked, clicked into place.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: I woke up.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because despite my, you know, my subscription to my addictions and my all of my bullshit, despite the fear, despite the inner and outer chaos I had created, I knew there was more in me.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew it.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I knew it.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I had a friend that said, you're not as good as you think you are.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it turned my world around.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: It both squashed me and eventually it made me go, you know what?
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll fucking show you what I think I am.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it became a healing tool.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the perspective shift that helps you go, hang on a second, the worst things that people say, or the worst traumas, or the worst of the worst, can be the catalyst for something incredible.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I knew there was more in me.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I surrendered completely.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Alan Watts has this line: when you get the message, hang up the phone.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, I've tried all the drugs I need.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just need to stick with weed and booze now.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: Then you know that's me done.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Little did I know the readily available and much encouraged naughty water could have detrimental effects too.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: But that line kept echoing in my head.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's time.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's time.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's time.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I decided to completely jump ship and start actually doing everything I knew about, but hadn't embodied.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I became the experiment.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing was off the table.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation, healing, breath work, scripting, yoga, qigong, consciousness, subconscious reprogramming, ancient wisdom, modern neuroscience, blah blah blah.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I became obsessed with understanding how real transformation happened.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I need results now.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So my world really started anew around 2012.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: By then I'd spent more than a decade seeking, experimenting, getting fucked up, trying to understand myself and constantly pulling at these threads.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And my heavy metal band broke up following years of you know touring and including a couple of tours of China, and suddenly this enormous part of my identity just disappeared.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just so we moved to Australia for a year, change of scenery, a chance for me to figure out who the fuck I actually was.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I completely cleaned myself up.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no meat, no dairy, stripped it all right back.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll say this because it matters.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Coming off substances after years of heavy use can be dangerous and should be done with appropriate professional support always.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: I learned that the hard way.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I had my last joint at the airport and I had my last beer at the airport, and I was like, that's it.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: When I get to the other side, there's nothing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not the way you do it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm walking down the road and I'm looking at a leaf floating towards the ground, and it turned into a bird and flew off.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I went, oh shit, no, no, no.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: What was that?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was completely exhausted, mentally drained, burnt out.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I went to a naturopath at the time who helped me with my diet and my lifestyle.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: While I gradually recovered.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's all in the diet, the lifestyle.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of it's in there anyway.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: I barely lived as a sober person since I was 13, 14.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Committing to this new path was really scary because I'd never experienced life as an adult sober.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get me wrong, I wasn't like plastered all the time.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was just, there was always something every day.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was always inebriated every day and making silly decisions and not being my true self every day because I was unconsciously under the influence.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I was committed to the past, but it was scary, but it was also thrilling.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the most extreme thing I'd ever done.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like forget drugs and touring the world, and you know, being completely sober and living in a completely different country and having to get a job and start again, and like just new people was like, oh my god.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew deep down it was for the greater good of everyone in my life, not just me.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And just to bring that part of the story completely up to date, I don't have that relationship with alcoholism and addiction anymore.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really drink these days, maybe you know, once a month or it's when there's an occasion, sometimes less.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no rule around it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I wanted.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want any rules.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's no battle, there's no identity attached to it.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can take it or leave it.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I've done both and I've enjoyed both.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that for me is freedom.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: When you are not owned by something, you are not under the spell of it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you liberate the mind, nothing controls you.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for the first time, I was genuinely beginning to ask, how good could my life get?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Never really dived into that because it was all survival.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: So when I started to be able to breathe, imagine like you're finally breathing above water.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you feel safe breathing above water in your own body, in your own skin.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: How good could my life get?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, life got weird.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then it got really weird.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: In the best possible way.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: The more sober, the more present and aligned I became, the more synchronistic reality seemed to become.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: At one point I felt like I was living inside my own version of the Celestine prophecy, and synchronicities seemed to happen constantly.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I met powerful healers and guides, multimillionaires who gave me life-changing advice exactly when I needed it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Meditation teachers who were creating incredible change in the world, lifelong friends.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was sat looking for a job and I heard a voice in my head say, go to the sauna.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: I went, What?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Go to the sauna.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: And put the laptop down, told Hannah I was going to the sauna, walked along this most epically beautiful path from Bronte to Sydney, uh to Bondi in Australia, and I got to the gym and sat in the sauna, closed my eyes and meditated.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when I opened my eyes, there was a guy sat there.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Were you meditating?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yeah, but I don't I don't really know what I'm doing.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I know lots of different meditations, but I just need I don't, you know, I'm all over the place.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we started talking, and through that interaction, you know, he became my meditation teacher who changed my life.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Coincidence?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Voice in the head though?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, synchronicity, intuition, something else, you decide it doesn't matter.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I eventually stopped needing to label every single experience, and I just kept pulling the thread.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember listening to music in the car and feeling like the radio had suddenly come alive.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: I could almost feel the vibrations of the songs.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I started noticing sensations between my hands during energy practices.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I felt activated around some people and completely drained around others.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I became incredibly sensitive to my body, food, environments, and people.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm telling you how I experienced it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not asking you to believe what I believe or interpret any of it the way I did.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I just kept having experiences that made me more curious.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I kept pulling the thread.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And something else was happening.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Life stopped feeling like the same crazy shit.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Chaos, drama, reaction, reaction, reaction.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: It felt conscious.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I felt responsive rather than reactionary.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like life was happening through me and for me.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: I felt aligned and in flow of life.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I felt truly alive, excited, joyful simply to be alive.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: And for someone who had spent years dreading the future, that alone was fucking miraculous.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just miraculous.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: Around this time, I also started diving deeply into consciousness research, heart math, the gateway process, declassified material discussing altered states of consciousness, and like parapsychology, meditation, psychology, quantum theory, ancient spiritual traditions.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of it was established science, some of it was experimental, some was theory, some was deeply spiritual.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need all of it to agree.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was just fascinated by one enormous question.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: What are we actually capable of?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_00: I kept pulling the thread.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then came one of the biggest threads of all.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: One night I was listening to Coast to Coast AM.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: This radio show was for everything out there and everything that was just bizarro.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Everything you'd never normally hear in the mainstream, let's put it like that.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember hearing this woman sharing a story about how she transformed her entire life using a Fisher Price tape recorder.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: She recorded the life she wanted, the identity she wanted, the emotions she wanted, the future she wanted, and she listened to it over and over and over and over again.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And something inside just clicked for me.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just like a house of cards, all of my wanting, my needing, seeking to figure out how to make my brain right, just crumbled, just dissolved.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I surrendered to the potential of what I just heard.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fucking jackpot.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I heard.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I got it.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've sorry, uh sorry to swear all the time, but it's just it's just coming out.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: I fucking got it.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: I fucking got it.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: I realized I didn't need to keep trying everything anymore.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was jumping from thing to thing, course to course, everything.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just constantly in this like loop.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: This this seeking cycle.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need endless seeking.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't need to constantly search outside of myself for something to come and save me.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: I could consciously choose what I repeatedly put in my own mind.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Just like the smile on my ceiling had done years earlier, I smiled all the time.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean I did as it as a younger kid too, and maybe I knew the value in it.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I knew on some level that underneath all of this seeking, this smiling thing makes me feel good.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: So double down on that.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know that that works.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's all it was.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just like that smile on my ceiling had done years earlier, that began a practice.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've continued in different forms ever since.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Auto suggestion, repetition, intention, consciously reinforcing the story, the identity, and the direction I wanted to move towards instead of endlessly rehearsing the one I wanted to leave behind.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, things changed.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, dude, it wasn't overnight.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: It took years, it took years.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: I became completely fascinated by our ability to learn, change, adapt, and reinforce different patterns through repeated thought, repeated behavior, repeated attention and experience.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, repetition became one of my biggest allies, one of the biggest keys.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Healing myself was number one.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: I completely changed my lifestyle.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, this is mostly my wife, my girlfriend at the time.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this all came from her.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was following what I was following, but she was the one that made me do it, that made me actually do these things.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: And without her, just no way.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just no way.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the knowledge, I didn't have anyone backing me.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have anyone saying, do this and this will work, or at least try this.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is better, you know, this is better than what you're doing.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: So complete credit, most of the credit to Hannah, my rock, my beautiful, amazing wife.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I dove deep into meditation, into yoga, into breath work, into the food I was eating, the things I was thinking, what I was putting into my being, movement, auto-suggestion, intention, sobriety, balance, spiritual practice, boundaries.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: I went through a period of rigorous juicing and cleansing, which at the time was helping me remove heavy metals from my body.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wink wink, nudge, nudge.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was throwing everything I had at changing my life.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: This took years.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not presenting my path as a prescription for anyone else.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was my path.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was just committed, and failing simply wasn't an outcome I was willing to accept.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: It just wasn't.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: I knew what I didn't want, and and that wasn't it just wasn't gonna happen.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: So eventually, inevitably, of course, something profound happened.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Love, joy, peace, happiness, abundance, gratitude, appreciation for myself, and life itself started becoming increasingly familiar.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: I realized I stopped fighting myself.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: The tipping point had finally tipped.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: The negative energy that I was holding had been transmuted into a positive ball of energy.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time in my life, I felt liberated.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then another moment came that changed everything.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: A friend told me about this crystal shop in London where they did psychic readings, and apparently you had to go in and ask for an interview.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my friend had had tried it and got thrown out immediately.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, his energy wasn't welcome.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: He had that kind of bull in a china shop kind of vibe, and I felt bad for him.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, when he said, You should go and see if you get any further than I did, well, I was fascinated, so I went.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Two normal-looking older women were sitting at the till chatting away, and I politely asked for an interview.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: One of them suddenly stopped, looked at me with curiosity, her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she started channeling.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'd never experienced this.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then she came around and she said, Apparently your guides are very protective, but we've got the green light.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so she led me downstairs.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: This was like real-life Harry Potter stuff.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was dimly lit basement, strange atmosphere, channeling old ladies.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: What is this?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for about 10 minutes she talked about all sorts of crazy that completely went over my head.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly she stopped and she put her head down and she asked, What is your question?
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't prepared, I didn't have one.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So in the moment I just blurted out, How do I heal?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: And she sniggered, and then she like grunted, and she slowly lifted her head, and she had shape shifted into a Native American.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in this very deep intentional voice, she said, Become the healer yourself.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that moment changed me forever.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: So years later in Australia, I'm in a cafe with my wife talking to a Reiki master friend who's currently leading me on that path.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I always knew Reiki was something I wanted to explore, and I was always asking her to explain what it actually was, and she paused and she said, I'll show you.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: The cafe sounded like a busy cafe, machines, cutlery, chatter, and she started looking around the room intently, and for a moment everything seemed to go incredibly quiet.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: We both felt this rush of sensation come up through us, and she just smiled as the room came back to life.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm in.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly ten years later, you know, I'm studying with her.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Still pulling that thread.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we went for a walk after that, and I was sharing stories about my life, struggle, and newfound transformation, and she stopped and said, You should really write a book.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I laughed and said, You're about the seventeenth person that who's told me that.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then she looked me dead in the eyes and said, Then why don't you listen?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: About an hour later, we met with my new meditation teacher and friend.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: He pulled out a piece of paper and started mapping something out.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I asked him, What is this?
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: And without looking up, still jotting notes, he said, It's what you need for the arc of your book, and carried on writing.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even astounded.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_00: It just felt normal at this point.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: He had absolutely no idea about the conversation I'd just had.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: We barely he barely knew me.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Life just kept seeming to confirm the same message over and over again.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Stop doubting yourself, stop seeking permission, become and be what you already are.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Trust, accept, allow.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, all the dots felt like they had connected.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: My struggles became gifts, my curiosity became useful, my experiences became useful.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: I could see patterns in people that they couldn't always see themselves.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: I started helping people at first with meditation, then transformation work, then subconscious rewiring, then energy work.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And over the following decade that became my work.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: I watched people completely change their relationship with themselves, their businesses, their relationships, creativity, money, purpose, and what they believed was even possible.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually I realized something that changed the way I approached all of this.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: People do not need fixing.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is already perfect, whole, and complete, exactly where they are.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: My work became less about trying to help everyone and more about helping people remember who and what they truly are.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because a huge part of my work now is actually helping people stop endlessly seeking.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Stop the spiritual consumerism.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritual consumerism is real.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: We can spend years working on ourselves, years working on a trauma.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: You can spend years working on yourself without ever fully stepping in and embodying what you already know.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Another book, another podcast, another coach, another course, another method, another answer, including this.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually you have to live.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why today I primarily work with heart-led entrepreneurs, high performers, creators who already have something moving, people who know there's more, people who know they're so close, people who are already, you know, have the vision, people who've already done so much of the work, people who can feel how much more is available to them, more impact, more abundance, more freedom, more love, more creativity, more aliveness.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere underneath all of that, there's a question waiting.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: How good am I actually willing to let this get?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because eventually you have to stop waiting for the future version of yourself and become them now.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the beautiful thing I came to realize the full circle.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that dream?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Live abroad, skip the winters, come home to see family.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: The dream someone laughed at.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I eventually created the exact life I once thought was impossible.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: We lived in Australia, Costa Rica, Thailand, South Africa.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: We traveled to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: We skipped the winters and we came home to see family and friends for Christmas.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: The life I'd once allowed someone else to convince me was impossible became my normal life.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: For someone who felt like my time was up in my early 20s and feared the future every single day for years, this felt miraculous.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there really is only one way I can describe that feeling now.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: Show me how good it can get.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then life, how shall I say, invited me deeper again.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: Just as I was about to scale my business, launch my podcast, finish my book, and really go for it, I lost my dad.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Then my stepmother.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: All within the space of just a few months, we realized we needed to pause the dream life we created to help care for my mother-in-law with dementia.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Everything changed incredibly quick, and I quickly realized something.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: Presence and liberation aren't reserved for retreats and beaches.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're for the hospitals, the grief, the exhaustion, the family, the responsibility, the uncertainty.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_00: Life keeps moving, things change.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: People arrive, people leave.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_00: Dreams happen, plans change.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: And show me how good it can get doesn't mean pretending difficult things don't happen.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's okay.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it means meeting the life that is actually here.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Being here.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Returning to the breath.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Returning to love.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: Returning to yourself again and again and again and again.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: So because you're listening right now, here's what I want you to take away from my story.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pull your thread.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your own life.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: What has kept showing up?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: What have you always been fascinated by?
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: What have you survived?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: What have you survived that you can share with the world?
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: What have you created that you once thought was impossible?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do you keep being pulled towards?
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: What have you dismissed because it didn't make sense yet?
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: What keeps tapping you on the shoulder?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_00: What are those cosmic nudges?
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: What if your life has been leaving breadcrumbs the entire fucking time?
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to figure all of it out today.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the next one, then the next, and then the next.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: Follow what keeps calling you.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Follow what makes you feel alive.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: Follow the cleaning feel alive.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just collect what I know.