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Debra Poneman: Plant Seeds of Success (Effortlessly) With TM · The Inner Well Podcast

• The Inner Well Podcast: We all contain a space within that when enlivened and nourished will support us with unwavering stability, expansion, and peace of mind. Join us each week as we dive into honest, grounded conversations about transcendental meditation, consciousness, and growth, and what it means to live an integrated life supported by a foundation of creativity and calm. This is the inner world. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Inner Well Podcast. I'm Emily, and I'm so excited to be speaking with Deborah Poneman today. For over four decades, Deborah Poneman, best-selling author and founder of Yes to Success and Ageless Seminars, has shared transformational systems that have helped hundreds of thousands around the world create not only success and abundance, but deep happiness and profound self-love and radiant health. Deborah's clients have gone on to become mega successful entrepreneurs, renowned transformational leaders, New York Times bestselling authors, millionaires, billionaires, even household names. Her corporate clients have included Mattel Toys, the Xerox Management Group, and Enterprise Bank, among others. And she's appeared in media outlets worldwide, including ABC, NBC Fox, and CNN. When asked about her greatest accomplishments, Deborah says without hesitation, First, raising two deeply compassionate children who care profoundly about the world and future of our world. And second, not only helping people create lives beyond their dreams, but helping them awaken to the greatness they truly are. Deborah, I'm so happy that you're here. I was so excited when you invited me. I w I watched the Interwell and I love you and I love Danielle and I love Megan. I love your guests, and now I'm one of them. And now you're one of them. Well, thank you for your support. I'm I'm really excited to talk to you. We're gonna cover a number of things today, but I wanna start with sort of the origin of how all of this came to be for you, because it's a brilliant, incredible career that you've had. So I know that you became a TM teacher when you were only 19 years old, and the director of the Chicago TM Center for years in the early 70s, and then the director of admissions at Mahreshi International University in 1975. I want to know about your journey. How did you go from there to creating this incredible international company and yes to success? So tell me about your origin story. I have to tell you something really funny, which is h why I started TM. You know, most people they start meditating because maybe they have some anxiety or maybe they're just. mean not happy or maybe they they are, but they just want their life to be even more glorious. I started meditating when I was at the University of Illinois, I was eighteen, and I started because I thought that I would be cool. Because that was right, that was nineteen seventy, and it was cool to be a meditator. And it was like, wow, now I could be a cool meditator. So I learned TM and besides being very cool, the first thing that I noticed was that I used to fall asleep in class all the time. And all of a sudden I noticed I was not falling asleep in class. You know, college students do not get a lot of sleep. And and I was the Queen of getting no sleep. And all of a sudden I realized this is interesting because I knew we were supposed to have more energy, but I didn't know how it was going to manifest. And then, very funny story, later that year, it's in 1970, my brother was at Harvard and I went out to meet to be with him. I think it was actually during the summer, and I met this guy, this his name was Butch, and I just completely fell in love, head over heels. And it was like one of those summer loves. And we were so in love. And he worked at the local macrobiotic restaurant. And, you know, it was just just a match made a habit. Anyway, every day after work, I I I'll I confess I worked at Taco Lay, the taco restaurant. Every day after work, I would go over to the macrobiotic restaurant Sinai and wait for him to get off of work. One day after this had been going on for months, I go over to pick him up. And and I had been meditating regularly because I learned in October of nineteen seventy. So it's gonna be fifty-six years, fifty-six years early morning and evening. But anyway, so I go over to the restaurant to meet my love of my life, butch, and all of his friends there who I was now friends with too, they look at me with a strange look. I'm like, What? And they go, He didn't tell you? I said, No. And they said his girlfriend came back from the Peace Corps today. And what was so interesting is that I didn't fall apart. It wa it was like a complete you know, we all have our heart broke hearts broken in high school and college. And in my mind it was like, Okay, I know where this is going, fall apart, feel like I can't breathe, can't get out of bed. And it wasn't that at all. And then I remembered One of my teachers saying that your nervous system begins to function differently. And instead of being like, you know, like a line on stone, when those things happen, it's more like a line on water. You experience it, but it doesn't leave that impression. And every time you think about it, you don't fall apart again. And I was the living example because, yeah, I was bummed, but All of those things that used to happen when I had a huge disappointment did not happen. And I realized that my nervous sick system was functioning differently. And at that point, one thing happened after the other that led me to the first round of teacher training, which was in 1971. And of course, the rest is history. But so that's just the beginning of the story. So I went to teacher training at the ripe old age of 19, although I did turn twenty during teacher training, and I remember it distinctly because Al Jardine and Mike Love of the Beach Boys sang me happy birthday in harmony. And then when I came back from teacher training, boom, next thing I know, I'm the chairman of the Chicago Center. So I'm chairing the center for Several years, and that was when Maharishi International University moved to Fairfield, Iowa, as did I, because I wanted to be in this glorious community of meditators. And before I knew it, I was the director of admissions. And it was a glorious time. We were so happy being together in this community of meditators. But I realized that I needed to make a little money because I saw the big three O on the horizon. So I thought, well, I'm gonna go make a lot of money and so I could come back and do what I love to do, which is work at the university or teach tan full time. So I thought, where do people make a lot of money? I thought, Los Angeles. Everybody's wealthy there. I mean, I watch the Beverly Hill Billy, so like everybody struck oil or whatever the heck they did. So I moved to LA. And what do I do? I start selling investments. And I was a dismal failure. As a matter of fact, after a year I sold one investment, and that was to my father who felt sorry for me. So he bought an investment. But you know that expression, we make plans and God laughs. God had a big laugh. But one night, some friends of mine invited me to an event at the learning annex. And it was about money and investments, I thought, I'm gonna go there and it's gonna help me be better at this job. And so I go to Learning Annex and it was more of the new age crowd. And the gentleman was talking about how our mind creates a reality. He was talking about the power of our mind and what we put our attention on growing in our lives, which is something that Maurishi always told us what we put our attention on grow stronger in our lives. And the guy was giving scientific research for it. And I'm like, my goodness, I know why I came to LA. That's what I'm supposed to be teaching. I'm supposed to be teaching these principles of success. You know, it was a new system of goal setting. It was the power of the mind. It was prosperity principles. I started studying like Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich, and Wallace Waddles, who wrote The Science of Getting Rich. And I took several months and I put together this incredible course. And I'm telling you, out of the gate, I was a huge success, but I'll tell you why. My seminars became an international phenomenon. Incredible. Because I had something that those other teachers didn't have. And I believe it's the holy grail of success. And that is transcendental meditation. Because you can go out and use all of these principles, which I taught and I still teach in my yes to success seminar. But then I always tell people without fail, but if you really want true success, you have to put a foundation under the building. If you build a skyscraper, you if it doesn't have a deep foundation, the first Hurricane or earthquake or whatever happens, tornado is gonna knock that building down. But when you have a deep foundation for that building, the hurricanes and the earthquakes can come and go, and that building will still be standing. It's the same thing with building a life filled with success. When you have that silent basis to success, you're gonna have some failures. You're gonna have some things that are not gonna work out. You're gonna have some people who, you know, crazy things happen. People steal your content. People, you know, like with TM, they pretend they're teaching TM and there's nothing to do with TM, right? Those things happen. But when you have that foundation of silence, those things could happen. But again, it's like a line on water. And it also increases your brainwave coherence. So you more clearly can see the solution to every problem. So like I say, I had the secret weapon and I told people, if you really want a life of success, yes, use everything that I teach, but make sure that you have that basis to success, which is that inner silence. And that's my story. I and I love everything that you said. And you know, going back to that. nervous system regulation, how that was even one of the very first things that you noticed when you practiced TM. And then that continued to be the foundation for everything that you're now putting out into the world. And I think it just shows how much you allowed that all possibility mentality that you now had brought forth as a result of your transcendental meditation to really shine and grow. I mean, you were an international success. Almost right away. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about some of these incredible concepts and the concept of manifesting. This was all very brand new when you started this in the 1970s. It absolutely was. As a matter of fact, it was it was kind of the domain of like church or religious science and and also these guys who lived in the nineteen thirties, like Napoleon Hill. And Wallace Waddles and Florence Goldshin and Catherine Ponder, you know, she Florence Goldwalshin wrote, Your word is your wand. But the truth is, especially when you're a meditator, because you have that power, you have that inner silence, you have that mental clarity. When your words that you speak become even more powerful, do you see? You know, I mean, one of the basic tenets. To creating a successful life, I actually learned when I went to the learning annex that night. And the gentleman said, he said, we're vibrational beings. And you think of a tuning fork. If a tuning fork is vibrating in an E flat and or E sharp, I guess it would be, and a B flat comes towards it, it's not in harmony with that B flat. It actually repels the B flat. But if an E sharp comes towards it, it augments that sound. And we're vibrational beings too. And if we're gonna go around in our lives like, I'll never get out of debt, I'll never be wealthy, every investment I make just goes south. No, I I was telling somebody just the other day that I used to always say, I am so terrible with tech, I am so terrible with tech. And then every time I touch something that was technological, I was terrible with tech. And then somebody gave me a taste of my own medicine. One of the people who work who works for me says, Deborah would you stop saying I'm so terrible with tech? And isn't that what you teach people? And I went, Yeah, it is. So I s yeah, I have that one too. I I was just as you're talking, I'm like, What I do that with certain things and I just have that refrain and I can't you know, and then of course It's so self-evident and we know better, but sometimes it's hard to get away from that line of thinking. So, but I did, and I started saying, okay, I'm a fast learner. And so if there is something to learn, and I have a great memory, all that I attribute to TM. And I and I have a great memory. And I'm also, as you know, I'm gonna be turning 75. And usually by the time you're seventy-five, your mind star starts to go, but it certainly doesn't when people do actually there's even research that I that I want to cite because in my ageless course I always talk about the scientific research behind mental clarity. But the one study that I love was done at by a Harvard neuroscience named Susan Lazar, and her research concluded. That the average cortical thickness of a 40 of 40 to 50 year old meditators was equivalent to that of 20 to 30 year old non-meditators. And as you may or may not know, cortical thickness is the thickness of the cerebral cortex, the brain's outer layer, responsible for higher order thinking, memory, attention. And many other aspects of perception. It's a key biomarker of brain health and it's closely tied to aging. And there have been so many other studies. You know, Eileen Luters at UCLA, she did research, and the preliminary data suggests that meditation may slow, stall, or even reverse age-related brain degeneration. And right, while brain degeneration may be predictable by adopting lifestyle choices. We if like meditation, we can push back any decline in cogni cognitive functioning that would impact our quality of life well into our seventies, eighties, nineties, and beyond. And although there are many excellent meditations available, those studies were done on transcendental meditation. And what I find interesting is that oftentimes people cite those studies about their form of meditation. And I want to go, no. No studies were done on TM. 100%. I love looking at the research. I I think that's actually what's so great about transcendental meditation is that it lends itself to be researched because it is a systematic technique and it's physiological. You know, we started this conversation talking about the nervous system. I'd love to hear a little bit more about how TM affects the mind and body and aging from your perspective. I wanna step back because a lot of people listening. Practice TM. And a lot of people also might be hearing about TM for the first time or maybe curious about it or sort of wonder, like, well, what is the difference between this meditation and anything else? And you know, I always like to say it's a, it's a physiological technique in the sense that it settles down the mind, the body follows the mind. We have this incredible reset. So when you're citing these studies about cortical thickness, it's not we're not, we're not. Thinking our way into something, right? It's a physiological response that is the byproduct of practicing this technique. And everything that you're talking about, it's coming as a byproduct of this powerful technique of reconnecting with that source. Yeah. And and like you say, it is so fortunate that we have the scientific research. It's not just Emily and Deborah's idea about how life gets better. We have volumes of scientific research. So I teach this course called Ageless and I teach it with Ronnie Newman. There are a lot of ways that we could reduce stress. We could do breathing techniques. We could do, but I think that TM is one of the most research or the most research. Now people say, I do TM when what they're doing is a visualization technique. Visualizing, you know, I'm a golden light and I'm floating above and whatever. It's beautiful. I mean, th those are precious techniques, but you're not transcending and you're not contacting that that underlying field of peace, that underlying field of all possibilities, and bringing that those all possibilities out into your daily life. Other people they do concentration techniques. They'll concentrate like on a candle or something, which truthfully actually breaks down the mind-body coordination. See, when we do TM, we go our mind spontaneously goes to the field of greater pleasure, of of of expanded awareness, that field again of all possibilities. We don't try, we don't force it to go there, but by learning the technique, the mind. Automatically goes to that field of greater pleasure, that field of greater awareness, like a field of greater satisfaction, and that field of infinite silence. And we bring that silence out into our daily lives. One of the research, I mean, it's it wasn't just done once, it was replicated over and over. Is that when we're stressed and we're anxious, our brains produce what's called corticotrophin releasing hormone. Say that three times. We'll call it CRH for now. But CRH is a chemical that actually floods the brain when we're feeling nervous, right? And it causes our axons and dendrites, you know. There's the neuron, the brain cell, and then those finger-like protrusions called axons and dendrites. And when that corticotropotrophin releasing hormones releases in the brain during moments of stress, these axon and dendrites and this is how our brains commute our brain cells communicate. Here's the neuron that travels down the axon. There's just this infinitesimal little gap and then it goes to the next brain cell and then the next one goes to the next and that's how we think. But what happens is when we're when the corticotrophan releasing hormone releases, our brain cells retract and then we can't remember what we were going to say. You could be yeah on the stage, you could be in a job interview, you could be giving an annual report to the board of directors. And what happens is that you can't remember because the space between the neurons has become and if we're continually bombarded with stress, what happens is that these brain cells can begin to die. And if you look up the literature, it has been you know, dementia and even Alzheimer's has been attributed in many cases to excess stress. Also diet, you know, lots of lifestyle changes and lack of exercise, but stress is at the top of the list. Now, what happens is when you leave that stressful situation, the corticotrophon releasing hormone drains from the brain, and then most often the brain cells will connect. That's why We in the speaking industry say there is always three speeches. One that we write, one that we give on the stage, and the then one that we give in our head on the way home in the car, like, why didn't I say that? I forgot to say that. I missed my best point. Because of corticotrovin releasing hormone. Now the research shows that when we do a technique like transcendental meditation, we don't have as as many experiences. of those brain cells retracting. And again, if I could share the screen, which I can't, there's actual imaging of our brain cells and how meditation affects them and allows them to remain without retracting. That is so brilliant, Deb. I I feel like I didn't I had never heard about this kind of contracting feature in the brain. And I think everyone Has had that experience, the brain fog. I teach a lot of people TM, women in certain times of life, to be perimenopause and menopause, where they're feeling like my brain isn't working. I am so highly stressed. I'm trying to do all these things. I mean, I'm sure you have had this experience working with women and men, but a lot over the years of meeting people in these highly stress, they're they're successful, they're they're reaching, they're going, and they're completely overwhelmed and overshadowed. How have you seen When you talk to people and coach people and provide these trainings, what changes have you seen in them in that regard of not being so overshadowed by stress? Well, all I can say is that I have had tens of thousands of people come through my programs, maybe hundreds of thousands by this at this point, but you know, who's counting? But I have to say, in absolute honesty, I was talking about, you know, like the the tuning for that we're vibrational beings. And there are ways that we could become more high vibration. We could stop, we could cancel the negative thoughts and say something of a more high vibration thought instead of I'll never find my soulmate. I'm 70 years old and you know, and I'm just gonna be single the rest of my my my life. Well What you're doing is you're vibrating, as you're never going to have that. So the love of your life could be coming towards you, but you're not vibrating with the vibration that is going to track that vibration. But what I found is my students who begin practicing meditation, they first of all, it's easier. To have a positive attitude. You know, jar our our darling John Haglin, who's president of MIU for many years, and what the bleep do we know? And you watch the scientific research behind our thoughts actually affecting matter. It's incredible. Yeah, it's absolutely incredible. And so what thoughts do you want to have affecting matter? Do you want, I'll never get out of debt, I'll never find friends. I'm never not good at tech, I'll never be good at tech. Would do you want that to be your vibration that you're attracting into your life? And I also say to people that if I had to give up everything, everything I do, including thinking more positively, including my system of goal setting, including my abundance principles that I've been teaching for now the last 46 years, include And only keep one thing to make my life better. If God came down and said you can only keep one thing, Dad, gotta give up everything else, it would absolutely be my meditation practice beyond a doubt. And I tell everybody that because I see my clients are all ages and and all genders, right? But I do have to be honest, the majority are women between the ages of like 50 and 80. After they learn the meditation, I look at them and they look like they they're they de-aged by 10, 20 years. And it's so simple to learn. So I've seen it with my own eyes. I mean, everything I teach shifts people's lives. But again, nothing more than this simple technique that is so automatic, people wonder, I can't concentrate. I can't sit still. You don't have to. It concentrates you. There's no concentration. I love that you said that. I feel the same way. I I feel like I almost don't know a meditator of TM who who who doesn't feel like this was the best thing I did for myself. It was the best thing I did for my family. It's something I would never want to give up. And what we're talking about too is just that recognition of actually a technique that brings you home to yourself. That's why it feels so special and powerful because it. Empowers you. It allows you to access that power that you already have. And the result is that life becomes more fulfilling, more enriching. Exactly. And all of these other things that we know will improve your life, like the power of gratitude, like the power of caring. We know a good book by that. Like all of those things, the ability to focus more, the ability to live from your heart. All of those things are so I mean, but some of the things that I teach in yes to success is how to create a win-win situation. So it's not I win, you lose, too bad. No, let's figure out a way that we both can win. Or I teach about building relationship capital, which is really the most important capital that you can have, which is building relationships by the power of caring, by the power of giving, by treating people as the most important person in the world. But the truth is, once again, that if you're highly stressed, you get angry more quickly. You don't live from your heart more effortlessly. But once you learn this technique and you rid the nervous system, you know, in Sanskrit, they're called samskaras. Samsaras are these deposits on your nervous system from the time you were born or even when you're in the womb. And you already have these some scars, these impressions on your nervous system. And along comes this technique that without analyzing them, yes, well, that must have been when my mother and father got divorced when I was seven. Let's analyze that. No, you're just putting your attention on it. And but what we do in this meditation is that we gain a deep state of profound rest effortlessly. That then allows these samskaras, you all learned a new word, to effortlessly re release from the nervous system. Then there's, you know, there's mindfulness, like be in the present moment, be in the present moment. Bless everybody who does mindfulness. I mean, you know, and there's some good in every form of meditation. However, what happens when you learn TM mindfulness is being in the present moment. What you have find spontaneously. And I guess I'm an expert because next month it'll be 56 years that I've been meditating. What I find is that I don't ruminate about the past. I don't worry about the future. I spontaneously live without thinking. I spontaneous l spontaneously live in the present moment. I don't have to try. I don't have to, in the middle of my day, think, okay, I'm gonna be present in this moment. I'm gonna be present in this moment. Because again, I don't I kinda don't understand how you could be present in the moment while you're in the middle of giving a talk or while you're in the middle of listening to someone else give a talk. You have to be you have to be present to what's happening, not thinking about being in the present moment. I know. I often say this when I'm teaching. it's like transcendental meditation delivers the result that mindfulness is wanting to achieve. And again, I love mindfulness, I love all the butt you know, we don't have to then kind of right, remember, I I'm washing the rice and I'm here with the rice. And right, I'm I'm walking and my feet are going. We don't have to do that. We naturally and spontaneously, effortlessly find ourselves in the moment, completely present, completely expanded. And it's that point of effortlessness. And I I I know you you've often said even yes to success. It's the effortless path. To success and happiness, right? There's this theme in the world that life is suffering and hard work, there's a struggle, and your whole messaging is not at all. It's absolutely effortless when we know how to get there, right? Yes, and that's the truth. Nothing that I teach is difficult. Because if it's difficult, people are not going to do it. And again, I'll go back to that's why. I love TM because I had said before, you know, people worry that they can't concentrate. You don't have to concentrate. You don't have to be able to sit still. You start this technique, and within a few moments, you just don't want to get up because it feels so good. And the effortlessness, the lack of trying is is why it works so well. But yeah, and you know, and the thing is is that when I what I teach in in ageless is that physiological aging of course one day you're sixty and the next day you have a birthday and you're sixty one. But that's chronological aging. But physiological aging is all about lifestyle choices. And you don't have to take my word for it. There's overwhelming scientific evidence that when you eat certain foods like High glycemic foods or foods that are rich in refined carbohydrates or sugars or processed meats with nitrates, they're going to generate what's called free radicals that age our cells. So it's just easy. Stop eating copious amounts of sugar. Stop eating meat with nitrates. It's not a big deal. Just look at the labels and buy something different. And by the way, and Exercising, just get your rear end off the couch and walk for 20 minutes because there is overwhelming scientific evidence that exercise is going to slow, stop, and reverse aging of the brain. And so there are so many different things that we could do. But again, one of the things that we could do is change our mindset. Ellen Langer was one of the people who did the original research, her team that was on the cover of Newsweek where it says, Have we found the fountain of youth? Well, my friend Ronnie, who I teach ACLess with, was actually the director of that research. She was on Dr. Langer's team at Harvard. And you know about that that study, it was so adorable. She recruited a group of eight men in their 70s for a five-day stay at a retreat center in New Hampshire. And the men were not in exceptionally bad health, but they weren't specimens of perfection. They were what was considered age appropriate for you know, they were s in their seventies, they had the usual aches and pains, they were easily fatigued. And the retreat center is the men discovered when they arrived was a former monastery made to look like their world would have looked like in 1959 when they were in their 50s. So yes, vintage. Programs were running on the vintage TV like Lassie and My Three Sons and Fifties music was playing on the Tlock radios. You don't remember them, but I had one. Mine was pink. And more importantly, the men were treated as they would have been back then. No one offered to help them with their bags or get them a blanket. They were instructed to keep their conversations to topics they would have been talking about in nineteen fifty-nine with Eisenhower in the White House and The Dodgers and the White Sox in the World Series, and the mirrors were covered, so they couldn't see themselves. And at the beginning of these five days, Dr. Langer administers of administered a series of physical and cognitive aptitude tests, and the result was as expected. Unfortunately, every single metric, the men's performance dramatically improved from the beginning of their stake to the end. And in many cases, by the end, the men's physical and cognitive acuity was back to what it would have been expected from men to decades younger. So that study, it obviously speaks volumes to the potential we have to change our health. And I love that study for many reasons. One is you don't want to sit around and complain with your friends about your aches and pains. But talk about what's exciting in your life. That's a really interesting study. I had not heard about that. It's incredible to see those changes. And the other thing I just want to say about Dr. Alan Langer is that she was one of for decades and decades, one of the greatest advocates for the TM program because she also saw that when they did those studies that were in that were printed on the cover of Newsweek, but she didn't see the the results from the other forms of meditation that she saw with TM. So even though she she showed all of this research on mindset, she always went back to recommending TM. It's beautiful. It it really is one of kind. And I always like to remind people, this is not a new thing. This is an ancient, ancient technology. It's an authentic way human beings are designed to transcend this as a technique to allow us to get there. Well, Deb, we always like to end our sessions, and I could talk to you for hours. I feel like there's so many things that we could cover. and we have to have you back. That's that's a no-brainer. But we always like to ask our guests, because this is the Inner Well podcast. What does the inner well mean to you? It's such a beautiful name. I remember when I heard that that you ladies were doing the inner well. And it's it's so perfect for what you're talking about because it's an inner well that will never want run dry. It will never run dry because you could learn the TAM technique and go to that source. Go to that transcendent. And it's not like a physical well that maybe one day you go and there's no water left. There will never be a time where that inner well isn't filled with silence, filled with creativity, filled with unbounded awareness, filled with consciousness that you, whether you learn meditation when you're 15 or you're 105, that inner well will Always be there for you to draw from and bring it out and drink from in your daily life. So beautiful. Deb, thank you for joining us. I just think you're absolutely remarkable and inspiring, and you are the epitome of just energy and vivaciousness. I want to take all your programs. we're gonna include some information about your programs in the in the show notes, but Can you tell listeners how to find out about what you're offering, where to find you, where to go to maybe take your programs and meet you themselves? Yeah, and then they'll see that I'm telling the truth. That I always say the basis to success, the basis to longevity, the basis to anti-aging, we know what it is. It's contacting that infinite unbounded awareness, going beyond and transcending and bringing it out into our daily life. Like inner well. And the place that they can find me is Deborah Poneman.com. And it will take you to my website where you can get free books. I have a free success ebook, I have a free anti-aging ebook. So they're all there. And you'll see many familiar faces talking about my programs. There's so many people who have taken my courses who also agree that. The basis to success is our meditation. Thank you so much, Deborah, and we'll talk to you again very soon. I look forward to it and thank you for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.