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Pat Croce: Finding Presence, Losing Ego · The Conscious Classroom

0:04
Amy: Welcome to the Conscious Classroom.
0:06
Amy: My name is Amy Edelstein, your host, and I'm here with a dear friend, co-conspirator, and someone who can't be categorized or put in a box, the inimitable Pat Croce.
0:22
Amy: Pat, welcome.
0:24
Amy: So nice to have you.
0:25
Pat: Amy, I am psyched to be on your show.
0:27
Pat: Thank you.
0:29
Amy: So we're here to talk about Pat's new book, Enjoy Yourself Now.
0:35
Amy: Now, Pat Crocey, if you don't happen to know who he is, he's the former president and co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, taking them from last to first.
0:46
Amy: And we'll see how he did that through his indomitable optimism and joy of life and enthusiasm.
0:57
Amy: He's a serial entrepreneur, a New York Times best-selling author, a pirate enthusiast, and a spiritual finder.
1:06
Amy: So in our far-ranging talk today, we're going to learn a little bit about what's in Pat's new book, what he's trying to share with everyone and why, and his own journey and how he got there.
1:25
Amy: Pat, welcome.
1:28
Amy: You've had so many journeys in your life, from growing up in Philadelphia to establishing your sports and physical therapy chain to running an MBA team, to diving for wrecked pirate ships, and now to sharing the discovery of presence and self and a way of being that brings fulfillment.
1:58
Amy: Can you describe a little bit about what your world, what the world looked like through Pat Croce's eyes before?
2:07
Amy: And after you I will.
2:10
Pat: However, I'd like to just start by where you ended.
2:14
Pat: I found the most beautiful treasure most recently.
2:19
Pat: It's truly amazing that after all those achievements and attaining and striving and efforting, that it would come in such a unique way.
2:29
Pat: So, yes, I was a physical therapist, athletic trainer by trade, by schooling.
2:33
Pat: I merged both fields, athletic training, and I had a certification and licensing in physical therapy because they were like sheep and wolves.
2:41
Pat: They never got along.
2:42
Pat: One was in hospitals and nursing homes, one was in training rooms and professional sports arenas.
2:49
Pat: And I wanted both.
2:51
Pat: I wanted to be able to have the knowledge of a physical therapy, but the hand taping and athletic training and physical training of a trainer.
3:00
Pat: And so I was lucky at the right place at the right time and everything.
3:04
Pat: You know this, Amy, I'm not telling you anything new.
3:06
Pat: The past has served its purpose perfectly.
3:09
Pat: And I see that everything that I went through, every different adventure, bold and daring adventure to every entrepreneurial venture, whether it was positive or negative, whether I won or lost, whatever you would scale it, brought me to write this place.
3:25
Pat: Now, we know that all the paths are different.
3:28
Pat: We're all striving for that ultimate peace and happiness, our true self, our divine self.
3:35
Pat: However, my path isn't the normal path.
3:38
Pat: And I wasn't like some people who get hit by that enlightening bolt.
3:43
Pat: I didn't have, I didn't think I suffered.
3:46
Pat: And I wasn't on my deathbed.
3:47
Pat: I wasn't addicted to any substance, or maybe I was to thinking.
3:52
Pat: However, I didn't realize that until after the fact.
3:56
Pat: So I think my way was just people would say, well, you were a success.
4:01
Pat: What do you care?
4:02
Pat: That's how you define success.
4:05
Pat: If in fact I still needed another standing ovation, I needed another book, I needed another win, I needed another, more, better, different, then why is that successful?
4:18
Pat: Like what do you talk?
4:20
Pat: That's really what I came to realize that I was going in the wrong direction.
4:29
Amy: It's amazing because very few people achieve that much and are able to look back and see I'm lusting after that high again.
4:42
Amy: And I want that sense of accomplishment again.
4:48
Amy: And even though I've had it, even though I've had even big wins, very few people stop and realize that that's an endless loop.
5:01
Amy: It's it's never, it can never be satiated.
5:04
Amy: So what was it that got you to slow down and see that?
5:10
Pat: One, I was very fortunate.
5:12
Pat: I was going after more in a way.
5:15
Pat: Let me put it in context for you and your followers.
5:18
Pat: It's November of 2014, and I'm pitching a book project with a friend of mine, Larry Platt, who's an author, and we're going to his agent, David Black in New York, big-time agent.
5:28
Pat: And I'm pitching just another motivational book.
5:31
Pat: I hadn't written one in a while, and I was retiring from my hospitality business at the end of that year, and I didn't know what I wanted to do.
5:40
Pat: However, we pitched this book, and it was just failure way to success.
5:44
Pat: It was like a Norman Vincent Peel all over again.
5:47
Pat: And it was, it was, it was bullshit.
5:51
Pat: That's what it was.
5:52
Pat: It was egoic.
5:53
Pat: It was just to get on the Speaker's Bureau all over again, get the pats on the back.
5:57
Pat: However, this Mr.
5:58
Pat: David Black, he was holding up our manuscript like this, and he goes, Pat, you've already had a New York Times best-selling motivational talk.
6:08
Pat: This, it's the same old, same old.
6:11
Pat: He said, if you want to do something that will resonate with people, it must be transformative.
6:17
Pat: Amy, I'm thinking to myself, UTF, what is he talking about?
6:22
Pat: However, knowing as a salesman that I am, to sell you must listen to the person you're selling to.
6:29
Pat: What do they want?
6:30
Pat: And then he went on to say that the success of his client, Mitch Album, he goes, the success of Tuesdays with Maury was not because of the wisdom imparted by Maury every Tuesday to his student, Mitch, but because Mitch, and these are in his words, Amy, because Mitch transformed from an arrogant asshole to a caring individual.
6:57
Pat: And I went like this and went, whoa.
7:00
Pat: Now Larry all of a sudden said, wait, wait, wait, no.
7:03
Pat: And he's still trying to pitch.
7:04
Pat: And I put my hand down on him and said, wait, calm down.
7:08
Pat: And I didn't know anything about glimpses or Ken shos or Satoris, but there was a ping.
7:14
Pat: Something made me sit up a little straighter and think, what is this transformational?
7:19
Pat: I knew all about transactional, but transformational, this was something totally new.
7:25
Pat: I couldn't even spell the word.
7:26
Pat: And then he went on.
7:28
Pat: He went on.
7:29
Pat: And so we leave, and it was of rejection, the best, the best rejection.
7:34
Pat: I think it was Grace camouflaged as David Black.
7:38
Pat: And we left and we're thinking, like, what could we do to create that narrative?
7:42
Pat: Like I wrote I Feel Great, which was a Rags to Riches story in 2000.
7:46
Pat: I didn't want to do that again.
7:48
Pat: How can the back end of this become transformative?
7:53
Pat: That was it.
7:54
Pat: So we leave.
7:55
Pat: Now I'm on an airplane.
7:56
Pat: It's January 20th.
7:57
Pat: I only know in retrospect because I bought a journal on January 21st to start recording this.
8:03
Pat: And I pick up a magazine, an American Airlines magazine, and there's this author, Pico Iyer.
8:09
Pat: Never even heard of him.
8:11
Pat: And I see this one quote, Amy, I know you're smiling because you know him.
8:15
Pat: And it's he said, Most of our life occurs in our head, memory, imagination, speculation, interpretation.
8:23
Pat: So if you want to change your mind, if you want to change your world, you best begin by changing your mind.
8:29
Pat: I went, whoa.
8:32
Pat: Can you change your mind?
8:35
Pat: I could change a body.
8:37
Pat: I was a physical therapist.
8:38
Pat: I trained pros, Olympians.
8:41
Pat: I changed my own.
8:42
Pat: I could change a body, and I know I can change my opinion, but can I change my mind?
8:47
Pat: Then I thought, Amy, here's the ego kicking in.
8:50
Pat: The habit energy, the karma's just kicking right in.
8:53
Pat: Wow.
8:54
Pat: If I could figure out this change your mind trick, that would be a great narrative for the back of the book.
9:00
Pat: That was it.
9:00
Pat: That was the only thing that hooked me.
9:03
Pat: So I went on to a TED talk by this Pico IR, and he's talking about stillness.
9:08
Pat: Stillness.
9:09
Pat: Yeah, stillness.
9:10
Pat: I didn't even know how to sit still.
9:12
Pat: Like, what is stillness?
9:13
Pat: I didn't know what that meant.
9:15
Pat: That led me to a second TED Talk by Andy Potacomb on mindfulness, a new word for me.
9:21
Pat: Didn't know what it meant.
9:22
Pat: And he was found out to be the creator of the Headspace Meditation app, which I immediately downloaded.
9:30
Pat: One more TED Talk.
9:31
Pat: I got hooked just by these interesting characters.
9:35
Pat: Guaranteed, a day before this, or prior to November, these guys wouldn't cross my radar.
9:41
Pat: Matthew Ricard on happiness.
9:43
Pat: Well, I thought I knew happiness.
9:45
Pat: However, he was talking about my happiness, which he was defining as I found out by the Dalai Lama.
9:53
Pat: I was talking about pleasure.
9:55
Pat: I wasn't talking about true happiness.
9:57
Pat: I was talking about temporal pleasure.
10:00
Pat: So two years later, I dragged Diane up to the mountains of Bhutan to be with Matthew Ricard for a month because I fell in love with him.
10:08
Pat: However, I leave, I get to Key West, where we had some business interests, and I tried this meditation thing, sitting still, my eyes open.
10:17
Pat: I had no training.
10:18
Pat: I knew nothing.
10:19
Pat: And eight minutes didn't even work.
10:22
Pat: I couldn't even say eight minutes.
10:23
Pat: Second day I try it, like, what is this BS?
10:26
Pat: And then I go down to our Green Parrot Bar and I'm sitting there at we have a pretty free library there.
10:33
Pat: And a lady comes up and she drops off all these books to put in our Green Parrot Free Library.
10:40
Pat: And John, my partner, is there and he's stamping them.
10:43
Pat: Oh, these are great property of Green Parrot.
10:45
Pat: And I thanked her and she leaves.
10:46
Pat: I said, John, what kind of books did she bring?
10:49
Pat: Amy, no lie.
10:51
Pat: From that day on, serendipity was my favorite word.
10:55
Pat: He turns the book around, and all I see on the front is this maroon and yellow robe with the smiling face, the Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness.
11:07
Pat: I said, John, give me that.
11:09
Pat: Give me that book.
11:10
Pat: I took that book, I exit stage right, went down to the store, Best Memucho, and bought a journal.
11:16
Pat: I thought, I'm gonna read this and just start journaling things that I don't know why, I don't know how, but something feels different about this.
11:28
Pat: And then I went back and watched those three TED Talks and took all the notes.
11:32
Pat: And that I can't say when it happened.
11:36
Pat: It's like taking Tylenol for your headache.
11:38
Pat: You don't know when that headache goes away, but sometime in that year of 2015, that book project was smoke at the end of a cigar.
11:45
Pat: It just disappeared.
11:47
Pat: And I fell in love with seeking out the truth.
11:51
Pat: And my fab four that first year were Pema Chodron, Alan Watts, Ram Dass, and Eckertolle.
12:00
Pat: Now, Amy, Eckhart Tolle.
12:01
Pat: Diane, 10 years prior, was trying to get me to read, I guess it was Be Here Now.
12:06
Pat: No, no, no, The Power of Now.
12:08
Pat: And I skip that gobbledygoop.
12:10
Pat: That guy, what is he talking about?
12:12
Pat: It made no sense to me.
12:14
Pat: And now all of a sudden I fall in love with this guy.
12:16
Pat: And the next year I take Diane to the Omega Institute so we could be a week with Eckertolle.
12:21
Pat: That's how I got hooked.
12:23
Pat: All because Grace knew how to hook this egoic, capitalistic, entrepreneurial mind.
12:29
Pat: Prior to this, I gave no mind to my mind.
12:32
Pat: I had no idea that I was ruled, as tough as I am, fourth degree black belt competitor, tough in business.
12:41
Pat: I could be pushed like that with a button by anyone because they knew my karmic bang habit energy.
12:49
Pat: I had no clue, Amy.
12:50
Pat: No clue.
12:51
Pat: No clue.
12:54
Amy: It's a beautiful story because, like you described, you were ensnared seemingly by your egoic desire to prove that guy wrong or to hear what he said and one up him with a powerful story of transformation that you were going to do, which you did actually do.
13:18
Amy: And yet, all along, I would say there was probably something in you that would come through in your optimism.
13:30
Amy: You were incredibly encouraging.
13:32
Amy: You worked with some really difficult players and coaches and famously got people to work together and talk to each other and didn't take no for an answer.
13:42
Amy: So you had that sense that it's possible to make things work.
13:49
Amy: It's possible to get to the other side.
13:52
Amy: And so maybe you made this like 3,000 degree turn and went from an egoic, purely egoic or self-aggrandizement motive to seeking more.
14:07
Amy: But I bet on the underlying thread of that desire to always prove that it's possible was also that sense that we could really live in in harmony, not slaves to a negative voice in the head.
14:28
Pat: So well said.
14:28
Pat: And I did love being a physical therapist and seeing the smile on people when you could get them walking again or returning to activities that they're living, or an athlete back on the playing field.
14:39
Pat: And when I ran the Sixers, I really loved being able to have the power and the mental fortitude to make sure that each player picked a community initiative and they could get involved because that's such power to make people smile, these pro-athletes, and I don't think they even knew it.
14:59
Pat: So the love was there.
15:01
Pat: I loved, obviously, my family.
15:03
Pat: I loved my friends, but I and I loved the fans.
15:06
Pat: And however, it wasn't the love where I realized later that there's the absence of otherness.
15:15
Pat: It was a kind of an energetic passion.
15:18
Pat: I didn't know the true nature that we all share.
15:22
Pat: It didn't know that.
15:24
Pat: However, you're right.
15:25
Pat: There were seeds in there that just needed a little more fertilizer and a little more opening so that the light could shine through the veils of these conditioned belief and behavior patterns that were ingrained in me and had worked for me, that they had worked for me in some instances.
15:45
Pat: At other times, and Amy, this makes a point.
15:48
Pat: The Buddha's first noble truth, there is suffering, there's human existence.
15:53
Pat: I didn't know I suffered.
15:54
Pat: How about that?
15:55
Pat: So unless you realize that you suffer, I thought the step onto this spiritual path for me was once I recognized the voice in the head wasn't me.
16:05
Pat: The thoughts aren't true, the thoughts aren't you, so let them flow through.
16:08
Pat: However, when I told Diane that, she said, No, Pat, I think first you have to recognize that something is missing in you, about you, not for you, but you're that you're suffering or causing suffering.
16:24
Pat: That dukkha, I love that word, dukkha, that you suffer when you think you're in the right.
16:31
Pat: Truly, when I got angry, I would think it's righteous indignation.
16:35
Pat: I should be angry.
16:36
Pat: What are you talking about?
16:38
Pat: I didn't know that anger is not normal.
16:41
Pat: Like angst, worries, nothing.
16:43
Pat: These are not normal attributes of yourself.
16:46
Pat: This is all mind game that you're conditioned to playing.
16:49
Pat: And yes, you would say, well, it worked for me.
16:51
Pat: Yeah, what the hell did it work for you?
16:53
Pat: Yeah, you might have gotten what you were after because you were angry and you were pushing so hard, but then afterward you were apologizing.
17:01
Pat: You know, you're you're coming back with regret and like, oh my goodness.
17:05
Pat: So it's like double duca.
17:06
Pat: First you're angry, then you're regretting that you're angry.
17:09
Pat: Right.
17:10
Pat: It was such a great learning experience.
17:12
Pat: And yeah, I could go back to my first six decades and say, wow, what a colorful character.
17:18
Pat: He had so much to learn.
17:19
Pat: But again, I just thank, thank the God of our understanding that she allowed me to go through that entire path with all those experiences and all those people to come to this path with you and others like you, where I just I love talking to you.
17:39
Pat: Like I just love talking to lovers of the truth.
17:43
Pat: It just feels so comfortable.
17:49
Amy: Yeah.
17:50
Amy: Beautiful.
17:51
Amy: I wanted to pick up on what you were talking about about the voice in the head.
17:56
Amy: And I think that's one of the threads that comes through your book is really getting people to see that they can be ordinary and they can still pursue this, that they don't have to like be able to sit like a pretzel and go off to Mount Kailash.
18:14
Amy: And at inner strength, when we work with the kids, we talk about the voice in the head.
18:21
Amy: We talk about do you hear that voice?
18:23
Amy: What's your self-talk?
18:24
Amy: Is the tone of that voice different when you make a mistake than when you're encouraging a friend?
18:30
Amy: And why?
18:31
Amy: And so then they start hearing themselves attacking themselves in their head without even, and then they learn that I don't have to pay attention to that.
18:43
Amy: And in fact, if I stop paying attention to that, I can even change the quality of that voice.
18:51
Amy: And the mind is the mind that's going to generate thought.
18:56
Amy: But we can, we do have habits of thinking that are self-destructive and destructive to others.
19:04
Amy: You know, if we think we're we're righteous and being angry, we'll be angry with everyone.
19:09
Amy: And that does have a karmic effect.
19:11
Amy: People get upset that they don't like it so much.
19:14
Amy: So tell me a little bit more about how you help people and how your book helps people identify that voice in the head and recognize that it doesn't have to be their self-identity.
19:29
Pat: I think it's a little bit about reverse engineering.
19:31
Pat: As soon as you feel some irritation, some frustration, some worry, worry is a great one.
19:38
Pat: Like Diane, my wife, she used to worry and now she doesn't.
19:42
Pat: If you see that this feeling, this is just natural, normal bodily sensation, has an uncomfortable feeling, a sweat, a tightness in the chest, a clenching of the hands, a furring of the brow, and you reverse engineer it, there's a thought, some fear-based thought that you're identifying with the movie of me that becomes a belief and it becomes this feeling.
20:08
Pat: So if in fact you can shift, and that's where the 66 sacred shifts to awaken the presence within all of us, if you can not if, but if you just realize I have this uncomfortable feeling right now, whatever caused it, but no, it's not natural.
20:30
Pat: As you said, you can change the way you think.
20:33
Pat: All I'm asking you to do is shift.
20:36
Pat: Use a variety of different tools, sadnas, techniques, to shift to that which is aware of this fear-based thought, this worrisome thought that's projecting into the future.
20:49
Pat: Because it's not real, it's not true, it's not yours, it's not you.
20:54
Pat: That's a really important fact.
20:56
Pat: So once you can shift to it, whether you use a three-word mantra or you take a six-second sacred pause and wait before you respond in your old karmic ways of what?
21:08
Pat: Just, whoa, give it a little chill factor.
21:12
Pat: Whatever it takes, there's so many techniques that I've been taught and that you and I have shared with others in Sangha that you see they work.
21:21
Pat: Like that's the beauty.
21:22
Pat: Nothing I say is true.
21:24
Pat: Nothing I say is absolutely true.
21:27
Pat: I can give you one sentence that's true.
21:29
Pat: I am.
21:30
Pat: Other than that, there is nothing I say is true.
21:33
Pat: All I ask you to do is be open to the possibility.
21:37
Pat: Be open to the possibility, B O P.
21:40
Pat: Pop yourself in the head.
21:42
Pat: That one of these techniques might help change your world.
21:47
Pat: That's all it is.
21:48
Pat: It's your personal experience.
21:50
Pat: As they say in Zen, try it on.
21:54
Amy: It's exactly what the Buddha said.
21:55
Amy: He doesn't say, Don't believe me, figure it out.
21:58
Amy: Seek out your own salvation with diligence and see what happens.
22:03
Pat: And that's so that's something really important.
22:05
Pat: Diligence and vigilance.
22:07
Pat: It's really important for anyone, myself included.
22:11
Pat: Luckily, I had the gifts of diligence and discipline and drive and vigilance.
22:17
Pat: So I wouldn't just give up beginning when I couldn't meditate or I didn't think I knew how to meditate.
22:22
Pat: I was going to figure out a way.
22:24
Pat: Luckily I have this energy of curiosity to find out something that I don't know.
22:30
Pat: Like someone else is doing it.
22:32
Pat: Well if this Eckhartoli's doing it and this Andy Potokom's doing it and Pema Chodrin's doing it, like something must be there.
22:40
Pat: But I got to tell you, Amy, there was a point somewhere in those first several months where I start doubting myself.
22:47
Pat: Like what the frick am I doing?
22:50
Pat: I was brought up a Catholic.
22:51
Pat: Like what is some of the like I'm not sure like my buddies were saying what are you doing?
22:56
Pat: What are you talking about the now and like present moment?
22:59
Pat: But I had this one thought I know it sounds a little strange, but well Oprah's doing it.
23:06
Pat: I was Oprah's got this super soul Sunday.
23:09
Pat: She's got all these soulful spiritual there's got to be something to this just because I'm not aware of it doesn't mean it's not right.
23:16
Pat: Doesn't mean it's not true.
23:17
Pat: It doesn't mean it doesn't work.
23:19
Pat: There's something here and that diligence you talked about I think it's really important that when you fall down just get back up.
23:30
Pat: There's a Japanese proverb fall down seven times get up eight right now I think we all need to be touched by grace somehow capital G grace for that intention to awaken to evolve to see through the other side there's got to be something got to be available for this touch that says like Pico Ire quote there's got to be something that because I can't choose it like who am I to choose?
24:00
Pat: I realize now like who am I to choose?
24:03
Pat: But at the time you're thinking it's all about me until you realize it's all about me.
24:10
Amy: Right.
24:10
Amy: Right.
24:11
Amy: You've brought up so many different threads that I want to follow all of them at once.
24:17
Amy: One of the things that you just said which is we need to be touched by capital G grace so and be available to hear that.
24:28
Amy: And in my experience I basically assume that everyone has been that's good.
24:36
Amy: And I assume that everyone's been touched by grace they just forgot, didn't realize it dismissed it.
24:44
Amy: I I I try to make it in the way that you're doing with your Sangha Sunday which we'll talk about a little bit and with the book you're making this accessible to every person to the suburban person who's been caught up with chauffeuring the kids to soccer and after school things to the inner city college age student who is struggling to the athlete who's mortified when they screw up the game shot to everyone can relate somewhere to that book.
25:20
Amy: And I think that's one of your gifts is is being both extra extraordinary or extra energetic in ways that most people aren't.
25:31
Amy: For my listeners Pat went to Mount Kailash and went to Everest Base camp in the recent couple years.
25:39
Amy: Let's just say he doesn't really stop at half measures.
25:42
Amy: At the same time you're not asking people to be like you or need to be as extreme as you to benefit.
25:51
Amy: And that's that's very much the reason why I I've tried to expose younger people in regular public schools in a boring math class or a boring chemistry class to the possibility of getting space from the mind.
26:12
Amy: Because it is our birthright if we choose it if we choose yeah tell me a little bit more about how you want your book to open people up to this possibility.
26:29
Pat: Well and I just want to go back you said about Grace you have to be available.
26:35
Pat: You're right I may have been touched and wasn't ready.
26:39
Pat: I may have been touched wasn't available and may have been touched and I just shunned it off or forgot it because I was at a different wavelength.
26:46
Pat: I was playing in AM and Grace was coming at XM.
26:49
Pat: So I wasn't ready for the resonance I did or I was just malarkey.
26:55
Pat: It just kind of pushed it off.
26:56
Pat: However I do feel that when someone recognizes they're touched and it it touches their heart it becomes a joyful intention because I do think that the Upanishads that ancient book of Hindu wisdom as is your desire so is your intention as is your intention so is your will as is your will so is your deed as is your deed so is your destiny.
27:23
Pat: So we can't change anyone's deed unless they change their intention, their desire, their deepest desire.
27:31
Pat: So I know because I've tried and I've learned the hard way over the past 12 years that just because I fell in love with the truth and I want to figure out ways in which to tailor the understandings to everyone else's understanding because there's no one way there's no right way it's all about how how we invest our being in the doing in the present moment is what's unleashed as that peace, love and happiness that we find is available all the time.
28:05
Pat: And so I don't remember what your initial question was I just wanted to make sure that I do feel that that joyful intention is something that every one of your listeners has to recognize that yes, I really care.
28:18
Pat: Now once that became an intention on my of me, well then forget about it.
28:23
Pat: Everything else I was retired now at the age of 60 and I I got and I read something in the Art of Happiness that the Dalai Lama said and I've seen people later in life become realized or enlightened.
28:36
Pat: I thought wow that's going to be me I I'm see I was still ego then I'm going to do what the Dalai Lama said that'll Yeah good luck with that.
28:47
Amy: That's great.
28:48
Pat: That's really great if you could look into the future with the momentum from what you're sharing what are you trying to set in motion okay like any writer and you're a writer you want people to learn something new from your books I want something more than that.
29:19
Pat: I want the readers to be someone new not to just learn something new but to be someone new that capital S, that something divine to recognize the divinity within your humanity and it's there.
29:36
Pat: It's no different than the most blessed saint that ever lived and you are available and it's for you it's for it's our responsibility you said it our birthright assume your birthright grasp your birthright embrace your birthright and allow it to blossom.
29:54
Pat: So to answer your question I will if I could be a catalyst for people to awaken to their true self and then to take that new understanding and align it with their thinking perceiving feeling acting in everything they do in a celebratory role.
30:18
Pat: So once I say the purpose of life is twofold one to recognize your true self your divine self happiness the absence of lack or unease and then once you recognize this infinite nature of awareness to then take it out back don't you can hide in a cave that's okay.
30:37
Pat: However go out and celebrate in your own creative expressions in your passionate pursuits in communication in art in music in calligraphy over the past dozen years I didn't even know I could draw.
30:52
Pat: I didn't know anything about calligraphy.
30:54
Pat: Now I do Japanese and Tibetan calligraphy I got into woodworking I got into things that never ever crossed my radar and I don't even know where they came from.
31:05
Pat: However this beautiful path we're all on and we're all on it we're all on it I like to say as a sidebar being a martial artist that when you strive for a black belt or a fourth degree black belt a master level which I happen to have did have you go from white orange green red black step by step by step and there's stripes in there and there's tests to pass and you realize progress along the way every one of your viewers right now is a spiritual black belt.
31:43
Pat: Right now it's not this linear path you have to go all we have to do now is excavate uncover all these conditioned beliefs and tendencies and propensities to act in a certain way a conditioned way and slowly but surely you realize that the divine self in you has this gorgeous black belt on like yeah with a red stripe going through it master level that's you that is the power you have I love it.
32:12
Amy: I love it.
32:13
Amy: And I I do want to underscore that you really mean that you you're not you really mean that everyone listening who is is postponing that time when they're going to be ready when they're going to be spiritually mature when they're going to be awake for some point after lifetimes or decades of austerities and practice you really speaking to that postponement.
32:42
Amy: And frankly that's what the Buddha did he did all these austerities you know he almost killed himself by not eating and then one night he went sat under the Bodhi tree he took his finger he touched the earth he said as the earth is my witness I will not move until I awaken to the nature of the way things are and he had a terrible night but morning came and there he was how beautiful see how Amy is talking right now.
33:11
Pat: Well in Sangha meditational sangha on Sundays she comes on and just gives a nugget that everyone it's like the EF Hutton commercial everyone stops.
33:21
Pat: What'd she say?
33:22
Pat: What'd she say?
33:23
Pat: And then you go whew like it kind of washes over you yes say it girl it's like wonderful it's it's so true.
33:31
Pat: It's really and I do I don't I don't believe it belief is a thought you believe to be true and it could be disbelief tomorrow.
33:39
Pat: I know it if I can transform my way of thinking let's put it that way or how I relate to the thought of the world then so can everyone else that's the difference.
33:57
Pat: It's not there's no it's not like I'm awakened or enlightened there's you realize that there's not this the body mind is this beautiful agency for the divine to enjoy and create and share the service and love throughout this world.
34:15
Pat: And that's our that's our role but if you don't love yourself and I'm not sure I did Amy I wouldn't say I didn't but I never thought of it but I knew I had a hole in myself that could never be filled.
34:26
Pat: That's what I realized after the fact that I needed more.
34:30
Pat: I needed one more and that wanting energy it may have been dispersed after the last standing ovation at a motivational talk and then yeah you walk out of there and you walk back to the airport and people are giving you high fives.
34:45
Pat: But slowly but surely that wanting energy as it was dispersed the light of your true self happiness came through.
34:52
Pat: However, I never recognize it I assumed the happiness was the standing ovation I would always project it on an object as opposed to didn't know this wanting energy would come right back, cover me up, cover that beautiful essence of who we truly are and I would want something more.
35:11
Amy: I would want another standing ovation and a little bit longer please it's a hard lesson in the in the eastern traditions they say that the human birth is the best birth to take because there's enough discomfort that you want you you want to find a way out.
35:33
Amy: Whereas the God realm which is what a lot of people or some people on this earth experience when they have a lot of wealth and a lot of fame it's a very difficult realm to wake up in because there's so much enjoyment and there's so much ego satisfaction that you're not really motivated to move out.
35:52
Amy: You don't really recognize that more of the same is not going to fill that hole.
35:59
Pat: They don't see and I know for a fact I speak from personal experience the sinusoidal curve of your feeling of success failure win loss and there's there's the times when oh for the most part yeah with a positive mental attitude I could overcome any deficit.
36:19
Pat: However some of it was fake and you realize like yeah I can do this but I gotta I gotta get it together because something's not right here.
36:29
Pat: However now everything is right to accept what is to truly let me put it a different way as I say in this one of the chapters is and they're all small chapters two to five pages.
36:41
Pat: You've read it it's it welcome what is for if you can welcome what is wow you're so far ahead of the game to welcome what is that doesn't mean a capitulation or a reticence or a passivity.
36:56
Pat: It just means it is and it can't be otherwise so why resist it you welcome it and then from that point on okay how is this manifesting for me?
37:08
Pat: That drop the why question not why is this happening to me but if you just shift that energy that perspective the focus the emphasis from the why to how is this for me?
37:20
Pat: Or another good one is people have these problems the victimhood of problems.
37:26
Pat: One of them is to reboot problem to challenge just for your listeners' benefit just imagine you have a problem right now right there you lower your vibrational frequency as this human body mind and you project into the future this problem and all the consequences however if you just make a simple subtle shift okay what is my challenge right now all of a sudden the energy comes up it resonates further you emit and pull back more high vibration energy and you accept this challenge on on your to-do list what must I do right now?
38:08
Pat: And then with that check mark yeah you get that feeling of success because it's the how you do what you do wherever you do it in the now that creates the wow.
38:21
Amy: And a million micro wows in this life can only bring beautiful life I think what you're saying is so very important especially in these times where we have a lot of challenges quite real challenges and we want to keep our sights on the possible not that it'll be easy not that we may find solutions in our lifetime but if they're a challenge it's going to pull out the best of us to work towards that.
38:50
Amy: So it's it's so important.
38:52
Amy: I mean spiritual experience and realization and the profound shift in the identification of self it's it's not it's not for those people who want to leave the world it's for it's so we can actually be in the world in a way that brings that lightness of being and joy and effervescence and possibility and love into the world.
39:22
Pat: So Amy, you're talking a language that I didn't know a dozen years ago but this this light of being when it shines this loving infinite being and to be in the world as a warrior the bodhisattva like you can be a spiritual warrior.
39:40
Pat: You don't have to sit back and be passive.
39:42
Pat: You can however you can also come back in this world and make subtle changes that have enormous impact for so many.
39:52
Pat: And I always love that being an athlete and be a competitor and some of the people we speak to Amy realize that sometimes surrender is a scary word for them.
40:02
Pat: So why not welcome and then arm yourself with this backpack of love, peace and happiness and freedom and then go out and be the bodhisattva to help others attain this wisdom.
40:17
Pat: I just think it's a powerful route to take for certain people but as you're saying you don't have to just sit back and and do nothing with it.
40:28
Pat: I think that once I don't want to think and everyone's different when you recognize the divinity in yourself that vulnerability then comes forth I I was totally against vulnerability.
40:43
Pat: I didn't recognize I didn't even spell the word vulnerability I I there's no way you're leather jacket, karate fight there's no way I was going to be vulnerable.
40:52
Pat: No then I realized that once you open up and you have this freedom from without that bondage of the voice in the head that this vulnerability is invincibility.
41:05
Pat: You can't touch me what are you how are you going to hurt me?
41:08
Amy: Here I am fully vulnerable I just love that yes it's challenging for sure for most people but once you discover it like you said you feel like I'm here and and that's what you see you that's what you see in people like the Dalai Lama where he has no armor around him you know that his life is often in danger quite literally and he's carrying so many challenges but you do you feel that in that vulnerability of self is love is kindness is presence is availability and it makes everyone around him feel life is going to be okay.
42:00
Amy: Life is good we are good it it it allows defenses to come down.
42:08
Pat: Because he knows right you know when someone knows I would say that to everyone Amy knows listen to her you know and what you speak when you speak it's coming from love and truth.
42:21
Pat: And when it comes from love and truth it might be expressed as wisdom and compassion in this realm of form.
42:27
Pat: However you know that you know it feels right because it's hitting in you the same place it's coming from you.
42:36
Pat: There's something about like once someone asks a question that question is coming from our sacred shared space and then when you give an answer and the answer goes to that person, well obviously they knew it already it came from the same space how would they know it's the right answer if they didn't already know it.
42:54
Pat: That's that shared reality that most people think we're separate and distinctly limited from each other.
43:01
Amy: Yeah absolutely I wanted to bring it down to the next generation.
43:08
Amy: Sure.
43:08
Amy: And where I spend a lot of my time there have the last 10 years and will for the foreseeable future at least and I know that you recently spoke to a group of middle schoolers I think tell me what do you because what we're speaking about it's very you know the adults listening are say well this is very esoteric.
43:31
Amy: What do you feel is most important for young people to know about themselves and their minds?
43:39
Amy: And what do you think they want when you were standing in front of them, what did you what did you sense from them that they were hungry for that that maybe the adults in their lives weren't giving them enough of the Well let me share with you the four mantras I called it for them.
44:00
Pat: That uh I said, you know what a mantra is?
44:02
Pat: And I gave it to him.
44:03
Pat: I said, It's a word or a phrase.
44:05
Pat: However, I use it as a motivator.
44:07
Pat: So I used four different ones because middle school, I don't, I don't do school speeches, but my grandson in eighth grade, it was his birthday, the first day of Malvern, and my son asked me, who graduated from there, and his oldest son's a senior there.
44:21
Pat: I said, okay, okay.
44:23
Pat: Now I have to speak to.
44:25
Pat: Now it wasn't self-help, it was self-realization, but what it was was one, I wanted to entertain them.
44:31
Pat: And so you have to talk about deep-sea diving after Sir Francis Drake's ship and climbing Mount Everest and things that are going to tickle them, but at the same time, give them what I wish I would have heard when I was sitting in their seat.
44:47
Pat: And the first one was, and it probably made no sense, I said, three-word mantra.
44:53
Pat: Relationships determine results.
44:56
Pat: Now I know you're saying, Pat Croce, what does that mean?
45:00
Pat: And then I said, friendships help open doors.
45:05
Pat: The friendships you make right here, those people sitting right next to you later on in life will help you to achieve your lifelong dreams and goals.
45:14
Pat: And I talked about how Matt Di Polo was the physic was the physical therapist for the Flyers who hired me to teach players karate in 1980, and he had died, and I became the first physical conditioning coach for the Flyers.
45:26
Pat: And that kind of was like the ripple effect of the Sixers and everything else.
45:31
Pat: But it was a relationship.
45:32
Pat: It was a friendship, a really good friendship, not trying to use someone, but really care about someone and you shared your intentions.
45:43
Pat: That was one.
45:44
Pat: Another one was follow your enthusiasm, which is a whole chapter in this book because enthusiasm, which is uh from the Greek word enthusiasmos, means blessed by the gods.
45:57
Pat: So if you can follow that which in you, the love that God, God's divine love within you, follow that enthusiasm, life will be so joyful, so happy.
46:11
Pat: Yeah, there's going to be times when you have to do things that you don't necessarily want to do.
46:16
Pat: However, when you have enthusiasm, joy, and enthusiasm in it, it will change.
46:22
Pat: It will shift to that which feels comfortable.
46:26
Pat: A third one was be curious.
46:28
Pat: Ask questions.
46:30
Pat: I think that energy of curiosity, when it bubbles up, and I said, don't be afraid to ask questions.
46:37
Pat: As I think it was Carl Sagan, the astrophysicist, said, the only dumb question is the one you don't ask.
46:42
Pat: So don't be a dummy.
46:44
Pat: Ask questions and then question the answers.
46:47
Pat: And I said, Harold Katz, the former owner of the Sixers, I'm at a lunch with him after I sold my sports medicine center.
46:55
Pat: And I don't know why.
46:56
Pat: He was complaining how that fans didn't like him and the team was so bad.
46:59
Pat: I have no idea.
47:01
Pat: But I asked him, well, why don't you sell me 10% of the team?
47:04
Pat: I said, that's Amy, that's what I said.
47:06
Pat: I don't even know where it came from.
47:07
Pat: And he laughed at me, he said, nah, when I sell it will be all or nothing.
47:11
Pat: Well, Amy, I didn't hear all or nothing.
47:14
Pat: I mean, I didn't hear no, I just heard all or nothing.
47:16
Pat: So then I did whatever I do best and figure out a way through my curiosity and investigation to figure out how this could be done.
47:25
Pat: So it was relationship-determined results, follow your enthusiasm, be curious, do your very best.
47:33
Pat: Do your very best.
47:36
Pat: How you do anything is how you do everything, that Zen proverb.
47:40
Pat: Do your very best.
47:42
Pat: Whatever you do, I don't care if it's sweep the floors, wash the dishes, be a barback in the summertime, whatever you might be doing at work and school.
47:54
Pat: Just do your very best.
47:57
Pat: Invest your full being in your doing, and then allow.
48:01
Pat: Allow the divine to take care of the rest.
48:04
Pat: However, I said my own motto was this is one I did, even if I didn't think I was spiritual, I would say, I'm gonna do my very best and God will take care of the rest.
48:16
Pat: That was really something I always lived by.
48:19
Pat: So they're right, as you said earlier, there was a thread.
48:22
Pat: Just do your very best.
48:24
Pat: I didn't really know about the investing, the being and the doing, and you know, the doer will take care of the rest.
48:29
Pat: However, I said that, however, if I cheat it or I coasted it, or I did something outside my very best, well then all bets are off.
48:43
Amy: Yeah.
48:43
Pat: Because that bad habit energy is going to eventually have its effect on you.
48:48
Pat: So just you have the power.
48:50
Pat: Everyone has the power to choose to do their very best.
48:56
Amy: Beautiful.
48:58
Pat: Now, I that's what I said to the middle schoolers.
49:00
Pat: And it it was only like 20 minutes and there was a quick QA.
49:03
Pat: However, I I wanted to be able to connect with them in a way that that someone else might not have done it.
49:10
Pat: And then again, from the Sixers and Flyers and Mount Everest, it gives you some cred, some street cred.
49:16
Pat: So they they're gonna listen, but now you have to take advantage of that availability, right?
49:22
Pat: It's that, okay, they're available.
49:24
Pat: And I forgot.
49:25
Pat: At the end, I brought up four parents, four stools, because the next day was the one-year anniversary from a boy who died in the school.
49:36
Pat: A deer went through his window.
49:38
Pat: The next day, one of the Malburn students was having his leg, major surgery from cancer.
49:44
Pat: Two months earlier, one of the students lost his father.
49:49
Pat: The wife was there.
49:52
Pat: So I had four adults there, and then I brought my Tibetan singing bowl.
49:56
Pat: And I said, now, okay, gentlemen, it's all boys in this school, a packed auditorium, and there was teachers and parents on the side.
50:06
Pat: I said, uh in the East they call it meditation.
50:10
Pat: In the West, they call it prayer.
50:12
Pat: But all I'm gonna ask you to do is pay attention.
50:16
Pat: So I want you to do.
50:17
Pat: Now I'm gonna hit this bowl and it's gonna sing.
50:21
Pat: And all I want you to do is when I say close your eyes, listen to the song.
50:26
Pat: Just listen to it, and then I'll say open your eyes.
50:29
Pat: I did that one.
50:30
Pat: Second one, I said, I'm gonna ring the bowl, let it sing, but I want you this time to listen for the silence.
50:39
Pat: I dare you, I challenge you, listen for the silence at the end.
50:43
Pat: I did it with silence.
50:45
Pat: Open your eyes.
50:47
Amy: Third time.
50:48
Amy: Okay, this time ringing silence.
50:53
Pat: I said, but I want you to imagine the feeling of someone you love.
50:58
Pat: Your mother, father, sister, brother, friend, pet, whatever it is, feel love.
51:04
Pat: You know that feeling of love, you can't wait to hug them.
51:08
Pat: So when the silence comes, I want you to insert the love.
51:11
Pat: And then we did that, and then I said, open your eyes.
51:15
Pat: And the last time I said, now this time we're gonna do this.
51:20
Pat: Listening, silence, insert the love.
51:23
Pat: But now I want you, you have the power to spread the love to these parents behind me and the children out there, and the children gone, and everyone in this auditorium, spread that love that we share.
51:37
Pat: Because it's not, you don't own it.
51:39
Pat: We all share this one love, and they all did it.
51:42
Pat: And it was, it was pretty remarkable that for sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth graders to have this entire auditorium, and now I was told this afterward, to be quiet for so long that not a hiccup, not a cough, not a move.
51:58
Pat: It was really remarkable that I didn't do it.
52:04
Pat: It was done through me, obviously.
52:05
Pat: I didn't even have the never even I created that meditation, four-part meditation the night before.
52:12
Pat: I I asked my son Michael, who asked me to do this, said, Mike, I got this idea, but I I get carried away when I'm gonna talk.
52:18
Pat: I don't want to go overboard.
52:19
Pat: He goes, No, dad, do it, please do it.
52:21
Pat: He said afterward, he was crying during the first one, the first part.
52:25
Pat: So I was taking a page out of your book.
52:32
Amy: Beautiful.
52:32
Amy: So he can see that this sense of love and presence is available if we make the space.
52:40
Amy: We just create a little container.
52:43
Amy: A little bit of permission, a little bit of permission to allow ourselves to let that presence, the calm, the interest, the curiosity, and the love, that deep care to extend out.
53:00
Amy: And there it is.
53:02
Pat: And you see them in this Shoshin, these beginner minds, that they're so malleable and so receptive, and as you said, available for something that wasn't brought across my radar until well, it might have been, but I wasn't ready for it.
53:20
Pat: But what you're doing for these inner city schools and teachers and forget about the 5,000 teachers and 35,000 kids.
53:29
Pat: Look at the ripple effect that they're having.
53:32
Pat: That one pebble that hits one teacher.
53:34
Pat: I know what you do with meditation hosanga on Sundays when you say something so profound, but so simple that you go, whoa, that little Oprah Zaha moment.
53:47
Pat: Then you know the mind afterward is never the same.
53:51
Pat: Never.
53:52
Pat: Just change that little bit, that little crack, as Leonard Cohen said, that's where the light comes in.
53:57
Pat: All we need is a little more light shining and boom.
54:02
Amy: Absolutely.
54:03
Amy: Well, Pat, thank you so much.
54:07
Amy: I can't wait until everyone gets their hands on your book with that fabulous title, Enjoy Yourself Now exclamation mark.
54:18
Pat: You know, I took it, I used the title, and it never was, I didn't research titles, I didn't ask anyone else.
54:24
Pat: I liked Be Here Now by Ram Dass, and I like Romana Moharshi's Be As You Are.
54:30
Pat: So I wanted to use the now and the be and be as you are, be the self you are, or be here now.
54:37
Pat: But I thought instead of be, let's kick it up a notch.
54:42
Pat: Enjoy.
54:43
Pat: And the self is be your be you be as you are, you, be you now.
54:50
Pat: Like I so I kind of played with those two and enjoy yourself.
54:54
Pat: And it's used as an exclamation mark.
54:57
Pat: So it's it's kind of like that, even if you had nothing to do with spirituality, everyone would like to know how you enjoy yourself now a little more, right?
55:05
Pat: So it's kind of like a little hook, however, with an exclamation mark.
55:09
Pat: And it was really just a way to realize that you can, that you really can enjoy yourself now and reveal, not veil, but reveal your true self.
55:22
Pat: And that enjoyment can go a lifetime.
55:25
Amy: Absolutely.
55:26
Amy: Absolutely.
55:27
Amy: And coming from you, who's had a lot of enjoyment in your life, I think it's a perfect message for people.
55:36
Amy: We're not talking about go on the arduous path towards self-awakening, but actually come into the fullness of what life could be without the angst, without the worry, without the hatred, without the fear, without the greed, without the emptiness, that life can really be effulgent and shining, and that that isn't equated with material pleasure and enjoyment, and that the enjoyment that you can discover in the self is something that is infinite and meant to be realized by as many as possible.
56:25
Amy: So I think it's beautiful.
56:29
Pat: I love you, Amy.
56:30
Amy: I love you too, Pat.
56:32
Amy: Thank you so much.
56:33
Amy: To be continued.
56:34
Amy: Thanks for joining me on the Conscious Classroom.
56:40
Amy: If this resonated with you, please like, subscribe, and leave a review.
56:44
Amy: It really helps other people like you find the show.
56:47
Amy: And thank you so much for caring about the inner lives of young people and the future of education.
56:53
Amy: I'm your host, Amy Edelstein, and I look forward to seeing you next time.