Kute Blackson - CEO of Blackson Group | The Magic of Surrender

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott DeClaire. The success story podcast is part of the blue wire podcast network as well as the HubSpot podcast network. Now the HubSpot podcast network has other incredible podcasts like the salesman podcast hosted by Will Barron. Now if you work in sales or you want to learn how to sell or peek at the latest in sales news, check out the salesman podcast where host Will Barron helped sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business in effective and ethical ways. Now, if some of these topics resonate with you, you're going to love the salesman podcast. The psychology of the perfect cold call successful cold email trends for 2022, the four step process to influencing buying decisions or the digital sales room, the future of B2B sales. These topics at home, you're going to love the salesman podcast. Listen to the salesman podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Today my guest is Koot Blackson. Koot is a transformational speaker and national best selling author. He's written the book, you are the one, as well as his new book, The Magic of Surrender. He's been featured on the Larry King now show as well as Dr. Drew and PR, Fox and friends, Mind Body and Green and many more. He speaks at countless events he organizes around the world as well as that outside events, including A Fest, YPO or Young President's Organization and EO, Entrepreneurs Organization. He's a member of the Transformational Leadership Council, which is a select group of 100 of the world's foremost authorities in the personal development industry. He's a winner of the 2019 Unity New Thought Walden Award and he is widely considered to be a next generational leader in personal development. His mission is very simple to awaken and to inspire people across the planet to access inner freedom, live authentically and fulfill their true life's purpose. So what we did in this podcast is we try to help people understand where they're spending their time, where they're spending their attention in the following steps. First we spoke about deprogramming. We have to deprogram what we know to be true in terms of what success is, what happiness is, where we put our time, what job you want to do, and he's going to show you how to do that. And once we deprogram, then he's going to show you how to find clarity, clarity in what you actually should be doing and how you can take actionable steps to get there. After you find clarity and you figure out your vision and where you want to go in your life and your personal and professional sphere, then you have to operate at your highest level and you have to not get in your own way. And he's going to teach you how to do that as well. And then lastly, a little bit more bit, but it's important why embracing your own mortality and your own death is key to accomplishing all of these steps. So hopefully after this, you will understand what is actually important to you, what isn't. You'll be able to use his podcast as a podcast that will force you to self reflect a little bit, maybe increase that self awareness. And then hopefully it'll allow you to understand where you want to put your time, attention, energy to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve in your life and you'll understand that once you go through the teachings and some of the steps that he teaches over. So let's jump right into it. This is Koot Blackson. He is a transformational speaker as well as national best selling author. Yeah, look, I was born in Ghana, West Africa. My father's from Ghana, my mother's Japanese. I grew up in London, now live in the US. So I feel like I'm a citizen of the world, but for me as a young boy, I was a very empathetic kid and I always felt people's feelings. I felt people suffering very deeply and there was a part of me as a six-year-old, a seven-year-old and eight-year-old that I wanted to alleviate their suffering in some way. I didn't exactly know what I would look like. So there was a deep empathy and feeling in me. I felt people's pain. I would see people, this is in London. I'd see people just on the tube, on the train, on the bus, and they were just on this hamster wheel, like they were living in the matrix and they just felt so lifeless. They won a live and I just felt them. I didn't really have full comprehension of what the hell was going on. I just knew people were in pain and so I didn't know how to alleviate their suffering. For me, what also impacted my life was my father and the upbringing. A lot of people called it a different, unusual, strange, mystical upbringing for me. It felt very normal. In other words, I remember being age 7, age 8, being a chubby kid, lost in the crowd and one of my first memories was seeing a crippled woman crawling on the floor and she picks up the sand that this man walks on, my father wipes it on her face by the way. He doesn't know. He's just walking, thousands of people following him. He picks up the sand. This man walks on, wipes it on her face and stands up, call it a miracle. And so week after week, I grew up seeing blind people see and deaf people, yeah, miracles, literally. The type of miracles that you think, come on, is that shit real? Is that real? Are they faking it? But I grew up seeing it with my own eyes day after day, blind people seeing deaf people hearing. My father would look at a woman in the wheelchair and say, why in this wheelchair? You're not sick, stand up. She will stand up. My father would look at someone who came to him in crutches and he would say, why do you have these crutches? Do you believe? If you really believe, if you really believe, believe with me, throw the crutches away and start walking. And so my father was considered like his nickname was the miracle man of Africa, very spiritual mystical guy, the spiritual teacher to presidents in Africa, kings in Africa, heads of state. He built 300 churches in Ghana, West Africa, hundreds of thousands of sort of devotees so to speak. He had a huge church in London, three to four thousand people every Sunday. So I grew up in this environment. For me, I didn't think anything unusual about it. I didn't think anything. I think that was one of the blessings is I didn't think anything strange about it. It just seemed normal. And because of that, I grew up with a sense of no limits, limitlessness. There were no limits, blind people seeing deaf people, hearing people standing up out of world cheers. Everything is possible. And so everything is possible and it's just normal that it's possible. And I think I was, I didn't realize at the time it was a blessing to be that open. And so when I was age eight, my speaking career began because my father just threw me in front of the audience one day and said, speak, my son's going to speak. And no idea what I was going to say. I wasn't interested in speaking. I was more interested in playing soccer outside, but they put me in the front row and I remember being on stage and words started to come out of my mouth and I just started speaking. And that began a journey with communication and speaking for me that was really profound. At 14, I was designated to be the successor for my father's ministry. My father announced once again, unbeknownst to me that I was going to be taking over. We didn't have a conversation about that. He just announced it and I guess I should have been excited, but my heart sank because in that moment, I knew that this was not my path. I knew that this was not my trajectory. I knew that this was not my purpose. This was not my destiny, that my entire life was being mapped out for me by everyone else and my father, everyone else but me. And so when he announced to the congregation, my son's taking over, I felt terror, I felt anger, I felt all of these emotions, but I was too afraid to tell my father the truth. My fear was if I spoke my truth to my father, my fear was if I really did to be who I was and shared myself that I would not be loved, I would lose his love, I'd be outcast, I'd be alone, I'd be abandoned. So for four years, I went along with it, dealt with a lot of turmoil and conflict and frustration and questioning and thought 14 to 18, I was ordained and spoke in the church and served the people and I just knew that something wasn't quite right and when I was 18, I had some decisions to make. I looked into my future and I decided that I wasn't going to take over my father's ministry for sure that I didn't want to go to university, that if I wanted to help people with life, that I had to live life. So I felt this calling to come to the US, I felt this calling to come to America, I felt this calling to come to Southern California, specifically because from a young age two, I started reading all of the books on my father's bookshelf, I began an obsession with personal growth from the age of eight, the age of nine. And so from that, that young age, I began reading everything from Eastern, Eastern mystics, people like Ramana Maharishi, Maharishi Maharshi Yogi, Krishna Murthy, to the Western mystics, Blavatsky, Theosathy, to the Western self-help guru's Wayne Daya, Luis Hay, V. Peck Chopra. For me, this became my obsession, just trying to understand who we are and why we're here and what the purpose of life is and also in my father's church. A lot of the people that came to my father's church in London, they didn't have a lot of money, they weren't that educated, they had very little, but they were truly generous and happy people. They had every reason to not be happy, but were happy. And for a couple of years, I've got a scholarship to a very prestigious school called Dullich College. It's where a lot of politician's sons, multibillionaire's kids, president's sons, prime minister's sons went. So here I am, surrounded by a group of people that have every reason to be happy, but they weren't. And so this also began another level of questioning. And so as I read these books, for me, the quest was just trying to understand life and the purpose of life and the nature of life and like, is the purpose of life just to wake up, go to work, wake up, go to work, make money, buy a car, go on vacation and then die. Like surely there has to be more. To the nature of existence and why we're here than that and if so, what is it? And so as I started reading these self-help books, Tony Robbins, Deepak Chopra, Mary and Williamson, Luis Hey, I was obsessed just trying to figure life out. And when I turned 18, I looked into my future, the path that was carved out, I projected 20, age 30, age 40, age 50, age 60, as I projected into the future. I felt such a deep pain inside because I saw that I could be successful by everyone else's standards. I could be successful by my father's standards and the world standards, but if I didn't have myself, if I didn't have my own integrity, if I didn't have my own soul, if I didn't have my own truth, what kind of success is that? And it became very clear to me that I can't be truly fulfilled and happy being someone that I'm not. I can't be truly fulfilled and happy living someone else's life. And in that moment, painfully, I knew what to do painfully because I knew that following my soul, and I think sometimes what your soul, what your true inner guidance guides you to do, isn't always safe, is not always convenient, doesn't always make sense to your mind, and I felt this calling to come to the US. And I knew that I had to leave my father's ministry, I had to leave everything I knew behind. And I knew that would break my father's heart. And for me, it was terrifying. You know, there's often a lot of talk about being fearless, ridding yourself of fear. And when you find your purpose, everything unfolds, and it's easy, I think sometimes when you find your true purpose in calling in life, it's terrifying, it's scary because it forces you to expand outside of your comfort zone, it forces you to go beyond who you were before. So for me, it was terrifying. I knew I had to confront my father, and a huge, let's say, shift in my life, to get really began when at 18, I had the conversation with my father, the very scary conversation of telling him I wasn't going to take over his churches. I was going to leave. He only said, was he sure? I said, yes, we didn't speak for two years. That was really hard. But something happened, I really believe that when you follow your soul, and you choose not to compromise your authentic truth, your authentic self, and you honor that deep impulse inside, you will always end up in the right place at the right time, even if the route that you take isn't the one you most expect. And so after having this conversation with my father, I was in this sort of abyss. I felt like I was free-falling in darkness in the middle of nowhere, where I had this calling, yet I had no means to get there, no means to fulfill it, no college degree, no money, no father support, no nothing, you know one in the U.S. and I said a prayer one day. I was sitting in the library of my school, I said, universe, like if the dream that I have is real, if the dream that I have is authentic, I need a sign. I need a sign now. I feel this calling to come to America. And I think so many of us, we give up right before the breakthrough, we're in the moment of darkness and we begin to question, are we crazy, am I wanting too much? Why can't I just settle for being happy where I'm at? But I think that if you have a dream, that dream is put into your soul for a reason and inside of that dream is also encoded, the seed for its fulfillment. And I believe that the dream doesn't belong to you, it belongs to life. And our job is to say yes to it. So here I am, said yes to this dream, no freaking idea how it was going to happen. And I'm saying this prayer to the universe, like don't leave me in the middle of the ocean right now. And I said, look I've read hundreds of self-help books, leap and the net will appear, all of this stuff. And I said universe, I need to know this shit works right now. I need to know this stuff works. And I kid you not within, I don't know, an hour or two hours someone, a kid hands me a magazine called The Economist. I feel a strange feeling and I follow clues, I look in the back of the magazine, there's an ad, a commercial, an ad, it says the American government is giving away 55,000 green cards in the green card lottery, the DV1 green card lottery. I feel chills, I have this feeling I'm going to win, it's crazy as it sounds, I apply through this law firm, I was told that unless you heard, this was April, I was told that unless you heard by September the 18th, just move on with your life, you won't get a notification. Every day I'm visualizing, I'm seeing myself in America, I cut out a piece of paper, colored degree and I'm visualizing, I think Bill Clinton or whoever at the time, shake my hand, coming to America, I held these visions, every day nothing, September the 18th comes along, nothing, I'm disappointed, I'm giving up, I'm mad at the universe, I decide I'm going to go to America, I'm going to pack my bags, go to America, I'm not coming back. That night, pack my bags, tell my mother I'm going in the next week, I'm going to buy a ticket, I'm going to go green card visa or not, I go to sleep, I get a phone call, from the law firm that I applied through, American voice on the other line, it says, is this Mr. Blackson, I suggest, he said, this is the law firm you applied for the green card for four, he says, you want a green card, we just got noticed today, we can't believe it, you've won, and here I am, I start celebrating, I'm freaking out, and I hear this very gentle voice inside that says, why do you seem so surprised, like, you knew, did you lose faith, did you not trust, and so that's how it came to the US, you know, two suitcases, one suitcase full of books, and self-help books, one suitcase full of clothes, $800 came to the US as an 18 year old kid, in pursuit of a dream, in pursuit of a calling, and that calling was to go into this field of personal development and inspire people and help, help remind people of who they really were, and so I came to the US and I found mentors, you know, I went and found the Deepak Chopra's and the Jack Canfield's and the Martha Hansons of the world, and studied with some of them, learned from some of them a few years later, what really shifted my life, and I would say my career in my entire evolution was, I began to travel, I got to a place where I felt stuck, and I decided that I was going to shave my head, put everything in storage, break up with my girlfriend, and travel until I found certain answers, I wanted to find certain truths and answers for myself, I was tired of looking outside, I was tired of reading about it, and so, I was looking for happiness, I was looking for my true purpose, I was looking for myself, I was looking, look, at that time, you know, I wanted to be the next Oprah, and I was chasing success, and I was chasing fame, and I wanted to make an impact, but I think maybe I got caught up in the sort of egocentric Hollywood game of like, I want to be Oprah, and I want to change the world, which is great, but I think I got so attached, and I got so rejected, and so attached that, I think I just got to the place of feeling like I was looking for success and validation in the world, and nothing was really bringing me fulfillment and happiness, you know, I got a radio show, I wasn't happy, I had a beautiful girlfriend, I wasn't happy, and I thought, what is this life? This isn't what I came to America for, I came for a different reason, and so, shaved my head, put everything in storage, let go of everything, sold everything, travel, went to work, the Camino in northern Spain, went to Thailand, study with monks, went to Israel, and all roads for me ended up leading to India, where most mystical spiritual seekers end up, and I end up in India, I wanted to find happiness, real happiness, and in LA, I saw a lot of people were chasing dreams, but they weren't happy, and they weren't fulfilled, and so that really, that was a wake-up call for me, because I saw all of these people obsessively chasing a dream, and I saw people that were at the beginning of that journey, I also saw people that were, you know, in the 40s and 50s and 60s, at the end of that journey, somehow had achieved, and somehow had achieved, and I didn't see a lot of people that were truly happy and fulfilled, and so, as I went on this quest that I ended up in India, and had some really profound awakening reality experiences in India that broke and cracked me open, and it was out of that that I came back to LA months later, and felt like I had no money, no status, no bank, nothing, but I felt such a sense of inner freedom and inner joy, and in the happiness that I wanted people to feel what I felt, and that's when I started working with people one-on-one, and one person showed up, and another person showed up, and this was before coaching was a flame, and one person showed up, and other person showed up, before you knew it, more and more people started showing up, and my coaching practice grew, and then over the years, it expanded into speaking, and, you know, seminars and traveling, and speaking around the world, and feeling hotel rooms, the dreams I had as a kid, and then writing books, and all that, so that's a bit of the short version of my journey. It's a good, no, it's a good version, it's incredible, some of the things that I've noticed that you pointed out, which were very interesting, and I'd love to unpack it, because you were drawn into the same environment that everybody else was drawn into when they're part of the U.S., and they're part of the rat race, and they're trying to figure out what success looks like, and they're hustling, and they're working hard, and they never really live, and you left your dad's congregation, and then you came to the U.S., and you're almost drawn into it, so you actually, with high self-awareness, you understood that, you left the U.S. again, and you almost did like a quick, like, deprogram of everything that was drawing you into the U.S., all the things that people get stuck into their whole life, and then you came back, and you taught now how to sort of deprogram and remove yourself away from all the negatives. So I think, and it ties back to another point you made, it was very interesting how people that don't have a lot are extremely happy, and people that do have almost anything you could ever ask for, and then some are not happy. And how do we, how do we do what you did? How do we do what you did? How do you teach people to deprogram, and to understand what's meaningful, so that they don't look back when they're 70 or 80 or 90, and then say, like, I wasted my life trying to figure out something that doesn't even, doesn't even actually mean anything when I'm on my deathbed. Yeah, I think, so I think I'd be my best to explain it in two parts. The first part is just, because you mentioned an important word, programmed, right? How do you deprogram? The fact is, first and foremost, we are programmed, and we don't know we're programmed. So part of the challenge is, we don't think we're programmed, we think that who we are is who we really are, but we don't realize that who we are is a process of being conditioned by society, by parents, by ancestors, by society, by media, by religion, by education, by media, by television. I mean, the list goes up, the matrix of life conditions are, so we end up this product thinking this is who we are, not having the awareness that we are programmed. So the first step to breaking out of the programming is to become aware that you're actually programmed, and we have to start questioning, and so as an example, and I'll share a few questions that one can start asking, we're born as children with these free beings. You look into a child's eyes, the child isn't touched with their essence, a child who's not so programmed, a child doesn't know, like a baby, a kid doesn't know what's right, what's wrong, who's right, who's black, white, racism, this, that, it's just in touch with life. A child, a baby will stand on the table and sing, it doesn't care if it doesn't sound like Bruno Mars or Celine Dion, it doesn't have that self-consciousness, oh, what are people thinking that they like me, it's just being itself, it's being being. What happens, we lose touch with that, a child will stand naked, it doesn't care, look at my fat, what, just being is radiant, it's like I'm beautiful, just being. What happens to that being is, see, as children were born whole, perfect, complete, in touch with our true essence, in touch with that infinite spark, divine spark, our true essential self, what happens is we incarnate, and we meet our parents, our parents, they're just doing the best that they can do, based on their programming, and often they don't know that their program, they're just being what they've been taught to be, but we meet our parents, and we're born into a preset framework of conditioning, and there's pain, and there's hurt, and there's dysfunction, and there's trauma, maybe dad's an alcoholic, maybe mum is an alcoholic, maybe there's abuse, mental emotional, physical sexual, maybe there's divorce, maybe there's abandonment, you know, maybe, maybe our parents were great people, but they just didn't know how to be present for us, they didn't know how to meet our emotional needs, and so the process of conditioning that is often unconscious begins at a very, very, very young age, begins almost from the beginning of time, the beginning moments of when we incarnate, the first thing is, as a young being, we learn to shut down disconnect, we're in this environment, stuff is going on, it's painful, so we learn to shut down disconnect and not feel, we learn to develop all sorts of defense mechanisms, shut down disconnect, not feel the fact that mum is not there, not feel the fact that they're screaming and fighting all the time, and it's too painful, so we start shutting down disconnecting, not feeling suppressing those emotions, suppressing those emotions, suppressing those emotions, we start developing all sorts of defense mechanisms as a coping mechanism to deal with the craziness, to deal with the fighting, to deal with the uncertainty, to deal with the pain around us, shut down disconnect, not feel all of those feelings that we don't feel, we don't process, we suppress, begin to develop layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers and layers, and before you know it, our true light, our true freedom, our true essence, our real self kind of gets hidden underneath all of the unfelt, suppressed emotions and feelings, and then we start contorting ourselves into a way of being to not deal with that pain, we become tough, we start not giving a shit, I don't care, these are all defense mechanisms to not feel the pain because we're so sensitive and deep down unconsciously, we develop these defense mechanisms that start disconnecting us from who we really are as a way so that we never feel that level of pain again, so now we start controlling and then we go into our life and then we do relationships, imagine we learn the mechanism that we learn at age five, now we're still doing at age 25 and age 30 so that we don't feel that level of pain again and we wonder why are my relationships not working? So often we're still stuck inside of these defense mechanisms unconsciously thinking that's who we are. Now I'm just that way, I just I'm not an attached person, I'm just independent not realizing that sometimes our independence is a defense mechanism for not getting needs met or being hurt okay and then we start developing, so we avoid pain, then we start developing all sorts of roles, masks and personas and we start contorting ourselves into a sudden shape in order to get love validation and approval from those around us, who do I need to be in order for dad to love me, who do I need to be in order to be loved by the world, love validation approval, approval for me unconsciously I learned that I needed to be the good boy, I needed to be the good son, I needed to be perfect, get all laced, be appropriate, take care of everyone else's needs but mine and if I do that wow cool you're so good you're amazing and that got reinforced and so now I started to develop a role, it wasn't who I really was because in doing that unconsciously we start betraying ourselves, we start lying to ourselves, we start betraying our authentic expression in order to get love validation approval, avoid pain, love validation approval, it's a survival mechanism, before you know know it we get locked into a certain shape, a certain pattern of being, of conditioning and we think that the pattern that we have become, right, Scott, like koot is a certain pattern, Scott is a certain pattern, right and the pattern that we've become we actually believe that that pattern is who we are, we have been programmed into that pattern so first I just want people to know you are not your programming, you are not the pattern, you are not who you think like it's who you are who you think you are or is it who you've been conditioned to be because the degree to which we've been conditioned is the degree to which we are not truly free, we don't have free will, we're just reacting to the past, we're reacting to our parents, we're reacting to not feeling that pain again, we're reacting unconsciously thinking we're free and we're making choices that way and so we really have to first, the one be aware that we're programmed in that way, so what roles, what masks, what personas are you living inside of that you want even aware, sometimes we say oh I'm just independent, I'm just shy, no it's programming, what roles, what masks, what personas have you learned to develop in order to function survive code and get love, start becoming aware of those masks and those limitations because that will show you where more freedom is, the other thing I will also say is in order to begin the process of having a breakthrough, the process of being free, freedom isn't free, freedom will require that you let go of an idea, freedom will require that you let go of who you were and one of the things that tends to keep us stuck in a certain way of being stuck in the prison of our own conditioning are all the ways that we lie to ourselves in so many ways unconsciously for the reasons I shared we lie to ourselves about who we are, about what we feel, about what we want and we don't even know that we lie to ourselves we think that's what we really feel so without truly questioning it's hard to break free and so one of the places we can start is we stay in relationships that we know aren't right we work jobs that we know we betray ourselves and we know this is not the purpose for why I was born and life ticks on and life goes on a decade two decades passes by and we end up wasting so much time and we're filled with so much regret and pain and wonder why do I feel so much pain and so one of the places we have to start if we want to begin the process of freedom begin the process of opening and transforming is asking ourselves two or three simple questions number one what lies am I telling myself sound simple but not always easy there is no truth there is no transformation without truth what lies am I telling myself feel that what lies am I telling myself acknowledge that the more honest we're willing to be the more we're going to move in a direction of freedom well lies am I telling myself to we have to really want the truth more than we want what we have we have to want to be free more than we want what we want and the challenging thing is if we're really honest no judgment if we're really honest as human beings most of the time we want our safety we want our comfort rather than freedom and so question I ask people is what do you want more than anything else what sounds like a simple question what do you want more than anything else because if you want to be truly free more than anything else nothing will stop the thing is most of us we don't want to be free more than anything else because we're kind of holding on and attached to what we're going to have to give up and so we're often afraid of feeling the truth speaking the truth living the truth telling the truth because we're afraid of the consequence of what will happen for me I was afraid of the consequence of if I really speak my truth I'm going to lose my father forever if I really speak my truth I'm going to be alone if I really dare to be who I am and speak my truth nobody's going to love me my life is over and so we often let fear hijack us from speaking our truth and sharing our gift and going through it in life out of that fear what otherwise I'm telling myself to me truth is real spiritual practice truth is real transformation truth is real yoga truth is real prayer like so many of the things we're frustrated about and we pray about and we want support about if we started speaking the truth would begin to fall away so what lies am I telling myself to be ruthlessly compassionately honest with oneself the other thing I'll say is take the pressure off of yourself from having to take action sometimes that pressure of having to take action starts making us afraid and so what we then do is we start playing this game of confusion and we start confusing ourselves and clouding the truth like I'm confused I don't know I'm not sure I don't know if this relationship is right for me Scott I don't know what my purpose is I'm confused when deep down we know we know we know what we're here to do we know the truth I think there's a part of us at the deepest level that knows everything because at that deepest level we have a sense at the deepest level we have a wisdom at the deepest level we're connected to everything but because of the fear of the consequence we're often afraid and so confusion is a defense mechanism from owning our truth at a fear of the consequence and so I just invite people when you take the need to take action and and the the pressure to take any action off of yourself then you can just start owning the truth you know what I hate my job you don't have to leave you don't have to do anything just own the truth I hate my job not like well maybe no no no the truth is I hate my job the truth is I'm no longer and I'm not in love I haven't been in love for four years you don't have to divorce but just feel the truth and just let that marinate for that feeling will begin to burn and often in a moment you'll start feeling some things you'll start feeling some pain you'll start feeling some emotion and allow that process to happen so well lies in my telling myself what am I pretending to not know and what is the what is the lie that I'm telling myself what is it costing me the lies that we have been telling ourselves cost tremendously what is it costing me it is painful when we lie to ourselves it's meant to be painful to me the pain is a signal the pain is a blessing the pain is feedback the pain is showing us those parts of ourselves that we're not in touch with the pain is showing us those parts of ourselves that we're not being honest about the pain is actually a sign that we're healthy because if we lie to ourselves and we feel great to me something would be off and so the fact that we for pain is a blessing that the issue is not the pain is what we do with that pain as human beings we've been conditioned to to not feel the pain numb the pain drink it away sex it away drug it away poured it away social media it away you know work it away shop it away whatever is don't feel the pain and as a result we suppress it and we keep ourselves stuck pain is a blessing and so ask yourself the pain that I'm feeling if it's a messenger if it's a messenger it has a signal it has a sign it has a message from me what is the pain telling me what is the pain trying to show me that I'm feeling what is the pain trying to reveal to me that I'm feeling within myself and use the pain as a portal to get in touch with a deeper truth and it's that truth that will set you free the way to start deprogramming and unconditioning yourself is to tell yourself the truth it's number one so first be aware of your program tell yourself the truth radically ruthlessly honestly and then begin feeling the feelings begin feeling those feelings that often we've learned to control and suppress and not feel and not feeling it is keeping us in a sudden stuckness to me that that is part of the flow of beginning the programming the deprogramming process and so truth if all you did we started to tell the real authentic truth to yourself about who you are what you want what you felt and you live that life would transform radically that's my promise you might lose some people but likely whatever you lose in your life was no longer truly authentic with who you really are it was just a match for who you were pretending to be and most of us we feel off we feel pain in our lives because we're living a lie I just want to take a second and make the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now pies taking candy from babies both things that are theoretically easy but anyone who's made a pie from scratch or attempted to pry a lollipop from a screaming toddler knows these things are in fact very difficult but you know what is easy integrating automating and scaling your business with HubSpot now the HubSpot CRM platform seamlessly transfers customer data into usable insights like what's the average time it takes us to respond to a customer service request or how can we get better at it the HubSpot service hub brings all your data and support channels in one place so your team can spend less time hunting for information and more time delighting customers plus seamless connectivity with marketing and sales hubs means every person on your team has a crystal clear picture of your customer easy as HubSpot learn how HubSpot can make it easier for your business to grow at HubSpot.com and then following that path how do we find so now we've accepted we've we've accepted that we're telling ourselves lies we're coming to terms with these how do you find clarity on that thing that one thing you're meant to do because that is if I even start to think about it if I even start to say oh I don't like my job or you know I don't like my relationship that's fine I can understand that and I could be realistic with myself about that but then I think about the the massive amount of things that I could do in instead of the job or okay all of that that's so vast yeah you're talking a bit about the the the theme around purpose now you know in terms of well now you have to find your purpose you can't leave people here they're going to be stressed out they're going to be like don't leave me in the in the free fall yeah okay so so I have a perspective around this so I'm going to start okay I'm going to start a bit from the macro and then I'm going to get very very very specific for people that will give them actionable things to what in terms of what to do so I'm going to start saying first off stop seeking your purpose stop seeking your purpose the drive to find your purpose is actually taking you further away from trying to find your purpose and many times the ego who we think ourselves to be our perceived sense of self and condition self that we attach to the ego the ego's job is to reinforce its existence and so one of the ways that ego reinforces its existence is to seek and seek and seek and seek and seek and seek and seek and seek and find my purpose and never find and so there's a part inside of us that really doesn't want to find our purpose because if I don't find my purpose I don't have to live my purpose and the seeking the process of seeking continues and so I say stop trying to find your purpose on a spiritual level number one recognize that you are a soul you were a soul that incarnates into the human experience your soul has incarnated in your soul having a human experience you've heard that before you're soul having a human experience and in the human experience you incarnate into the human experience in order to learn to grow to evolve so to me start seeing life life itself is a school life is an evolutionary school for the growth and evolution of your soul life is a school for the evolution of your soul and as a result then every situation every experience, every relationship. Everything you go through is part of the curriculum for your soul's evolution so that you can realize more of who you really are and so that you can learn those lessons and grow and come into your most authentic self. And if you start seeing yourself as a soul and understanding that are, if I'm a soul and I'm here to grow, then the real purpose, the real ultimate purpose of life is to learn the lessons, to grow, to evolve and become your authentic self and remember who you truly are beyond your programmed condition self, to remember your essence, to remember your divinity, to remember that infinite spark, to remember your true potential and power, if that's the purpose of life. Then your purpose isn't what you do, your purpose is the degree to which you are learning and growing, no matter what you're doing. You can be living your ultimate purpose, whether your trash collector, a Formula One race car driver, a podcaster, a stay-at-home mom, an author, an engineer, an electrician, a barista working in Starbucks. That's what you do, you are not what you do, your purpose on a deep spiritual level is about evolution. In any moment, regardless of what you do, any moment, you can be living your purpose so long as you're growing and evolving and learning and asking yourself, what is my soul seeking to learn it in this experience? What is my soul seeking to understand in this situation? What is my soul attract this situation? What is my soul attract this boss? What is the classroom that I'm in right now in this experience? And I think when we do that, we are growing, when we do that, we are living the true purpose and when we do that, we begin to, when we learn those lessons, we begin to transcend the experience and we start attracting new experiences to us. So your purpose can be live every moment that you're growing, learning and evolving. That's the bigger level. Now, on a human level, which is connected to your question, but I want to say the bigger context to connect it to because I think we live on different levels as souls and human beings. On a human level, stop seeking your purpose. Instead, so now, what the hell do I do? Okay, you can sit there and just try and figure out your purpose from the sidelines, but life doesn't work that way. That is another can be another strategy of the ego to avoid. Instead, move in the direction. If you look, I don't know, okay, fair enough, but don't just sit there, move in the direction of what lights you up. Move in the direction of what turns you on. Move in the direction of what sets your soul on fire. Move in the direction of what brings you joy. Just move in the direction. You don't have to know where it's going to end up. You don't have to know where you're going to get to exactly where you need to be because there's an intelligence inside of your soul that knows it knows. So just go in the direction of like, I feel joy here. I feel the liveliness here. I don't know where this is going to lead me. I don't even know how I'm going to make money here, but at least start navigate rather than just sitting and going, I don't know, and then 10 years go by, go in the direction. Stop moving in the direction. You start moving in the direction of what makes you most alive. Aliveness is a sign. Aliveness is a navigation. Aliveness is a radar that pulls you. So as you start going in the direction, take a step. You take a step, then what you'll find is life reveals to you another step. You take another step. You lean in, life reveals to you another step. You lean in, life reveals to you another step. And often your purpose gets reviewed to you in the process of taking a step and living life itself. What will often happen is 10 years from now, 20 years from now, five years from now, three years from now. You look around and you're like, Holy moly, I'm living my, I lived into my purpose. I could not have planned this purpose, but I lived into it, but you lived into it because you went on the sideline trying to figure it out, because the journey that you go on, you take a step, the journey that you go wanting in that big step, as you take the step you grow, as you take the step you evolve, as you take the step you expand, as you take the step you're conscious in the shift, and as you learn, grow and evolve, you become more ripened, you become more ready for the next step. Stop trying to figure out your purpose from the sidelines. You take the step and then I would say question number one, okay. What do I love? What turns me on? What brings me joy? Moving that direction. For me as a kid, we lived behind my father's church. We didn't have a lot of money. We lived behind my father's church. My bedroom was so small, you could barely put a one single person bed in it and walk in the room. I had all of these big dreams. So as a kid, I would sneak inside my father's church in the middle of the night, 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 10 p.m., and every day, I often don't talk about this, but every day, imagine this kid, 11, 12 year old kid, I would speak, Scott, I would speak to the empty chairs. I would give seminars for two hours a night, an hour a night, I would give seminars to the empty chairs, imagining, imagining I was inspiring people from around the world. I was inspiring people in the US for free. That's what lit me up. That's what turned me on. That's what brought me joy. I would do that for free. I've done it for free. I get paid now, but it didn't matter. So when you find that joy going that direction, you don't have to know the hell. So what turns me on what sets me on fire? What do I love? Number two, but that's not enough. You have to ask yourself, let's make it more practical. What specific skills do I have? What specific technique? I love Formula One racing. This is one of, I love it, but I'm never going to be Lewis Hamilton in this lifetime. I'm not going to, it's not going to happen. The dude has been doing that for he's 37 years old since he was like three, okay? And so it takes a level of actual competence and skill to be able to perform. That's a reality. But if we look in our lives, I so many people say to me, I don't know what skills I have. Just look at your life. Look at every shitty job you've been through. Sometimes the jobs that you have that you need to work in. Sometimes the jobs that present themselves to you, they're not your purpose. But sometimes you put there because there's a necessary skill that you're meant to learn in that job. And you're going to need that piece of the puzzle, that skill to be able to to be the person who's able to then fully fulfill your purpose. And I always tell people when you're working a job, even if you hate it, do it with ultimate excellence. When you do that job with excellence, then you're able to extract the skill you've become more, but you're able to extract the skill that gives you part of the ingredient to prepare you for your purpose. So look at all of the jobs, all of the situations, all of the experiences, all of the traumas, all of the breakups, all of the failures that you've been through. And look at what specific tangible skills that you learn. Those skills are going to be a part of your purpose and can point you in the direction of perhaps what you're meant to do lies. Number three, what unique gifts do you have that you're able to solve a unique problem? Another way of asking that is, what is the unique problem that you're able to solve? I always tell people don't, when you think of what to do, don't simply focus on how do I make the most money. You might make money, but often you'll be miserable, and if you're miserable, you'll sabotage it. If you're miserable, it won't sustain. I work with so many people, one on one in groups, small groups, large groups, building theirs that have made so much money, but they don't feel any purpose, don't feel any connection, and they end up sabotaging what they've created, or they end up not having a motivation to continue. So I always tell people don't focus on money. Instead, realize that money is a byproduct of adding value. And when you add value, you add value by solving someone's pain, someone's problem, or someone's challenge. And so when you're able to denounce yourself in question number three, what is the pain problem or challenge that I'm uniquely able to solve based on my gifts, based on my skills? Because when you saw someone pain problem or challenge, you're being of true service and money is just the byproduct of being of service. Number four, I will invite people to really think about on a practical level, which group of people do I feel a connection to? Which group of people do I feel an affinity to? Maybe you feel a connection to the teenage pregnant girls, maybe feel a connection to the physically challenged, maybe you feel a connection to the elderly, maybe you feel a connection to fill in the whales, maybe whoever you feel a connection to, the group of souls people, but you feel a connection to will often also make might it might point you in the direction of where your service and where your purpose or what you're meant to do and where you're meant to share your gifts where that lies. You don't have to know where you're going to end up, but that can start giving you a directional navigation in terms of where to go and don't wait. Look at Oprah. There's no way Oprah could have planned her life. Yeah, I'm going to plan at this age, this is going to happen. And by the time I'm 30, 40, 50, 50, 50 years old, 60 years old, I'm going to be the most powerful media mogul woman in the world. You can't plan, billionaires. You can't plan that, but she loved communication. She loved communication. She didn't sit on the sideline until she was a billionaire. She loved communication. So she became a newscaster. As she became a newscaster, she had too much compassion. So she would cry while reading the news. This wasn't a good a good thing to do. And so they fired her. They gave her a job. I think it was on a on a talk show in Baltimore. It might not be Baltimore, but I think it was Baltimore on a single station. Now her compassion and her sensitivity was able to be married with her love for communication. And the most compassionate she was for people, the most successful I showed you came, boom, syndication, boom. Number one show, boom, 25 years later, Oprah. Look at Obama. I mean, how does Obama love him or hate him? Is it relevant to me? But look at Obama. How does this guy age 19 go? Yeah, I'm going to be president of the United States. But he started somewhere, and that led him. And so I really believe that if you follow your soul, follow the nudging, follow the nudging, it doesn't always have to make sense. If you follow that nudging of your soul, your soul has an intelligence. It will guide you. And that's when you will often end up where you will often end up when you allow your soul to guide you will be beyond what your mind can manufacture and create on its own. Talk to me about once you go down this path. Talk to me about mindset, courage, getting out of your own way so that you can do your best work and not let you get in the way of you. Because if you listen to the instructions, you've just given over. Now you have the playbook and the guide for deep programming and finding clarity and finding purpose. And now you want to go forward. So what do I do so that I don't always fall back into my old habits? You know, I think there's a couple of things. We'll start with the basic first, they think incredible. By the way, thank you for going into all this. I appreciate it. So surround yourself on a basic level, surround yourself with a group of people with a community of people. Because sometimes the eyeball doesn't see itself and sometimes we convince ourselves about certain things. That's just complete BS and we believe it on BS. And so when you surround yourself with people that can hold you accountable and reflect to you who you are that can hold you accountable. Number one, so when they see you going down a path, they're like, hey, hey, Scott, Scott, Scott, come on, come on. What are you doing here? Or when you forget who you are, you forget your truth, you forget your power, you have a moment, a human moment, they'll look at you as a, hey, hey, Scott, remember, come on. I know who you are. I see who you are. And so when you surround yourself with that group of that tribe of people that can remind you of your own magnificence, hold you accountable, remind you of your magnificence even when you forget that's a very important container. I think in our world today, we lack that, we miss that, we haven't prioritized that. So find a tribe, surround yourself with those people, hold each other accountable and remind them of who they are. That's super important in terms of keeping your minds at high in a world and environment where we're constantly being bombarded by the news and so much, so much nonsense, you know. I always say the news and the media have no investment in you being free because the moment you're free, the moment you know who you are, the moment you know that you want infinite power for being, you can no longer live in fear, you can no longer be controlled and manipulated and now you become truly dangerous and powerful to impact humanity. The other thing I would say is that's your question. Sounds simple, but I would say, yeah, surrender. Practice surrender. Practicing to being in flow is practicing surrender. We are constantly, for the reasons I've shared, you know, that the mechanism of our programming and our egos and how we hold on to avoid pain to not feel certain things, we're constantly resisting life, constantly resisting the flow, but I think the more we can surrender, the more life flows. Life is already flowing, we just put the brakes on and the more we can surrender, the more we can live in harmony with life, we start seeing that life has a rhythm and life has a flow. Well, don't take it from me. Take it from Bruce Lee and if you think that surrender, oh, surrender, what do you mean? So if you think surrender was weak, look at Bruce Lee, man, this guy was a monster. This guy was amazing. This guy was incredible. This guy can kick anyone's ass on the planet and he said, be like water. He didn't say be like a bull. He didn't say be like a lion. He didn't say be like a freaking beast. He said be like water. When you put water into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. When you put water into a cup, it becomes a cup. You have to flow, but because of our addiction to control, or the illusion of control, we stop flowing. So surrender. In our culture today, so I really believe that surrender is perhaps the most powerful thing that we can do. If you want to be a superchever, if you want to be truly great, I'm talking great like Jesus, Buddha, Mother Teresa, Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Gandhi, you know, okay, this is going to be a little controversial Elon Musk or Mandela. Like if you want to be truly great, great, really great, Jordan, Michael Jackson, great, you have to surrender. And that surrender is the password to freedom. Surrender is the key to greatness. Surrender is the key to the real secret to manifestation is in surrender. In our culture today, we have been taught mistakenly that surrender is weak. We have been taught mistakenly that surrender means giving up. It means waving the white flag. It means being a doormat. It means being a victim. That if you surrender, you're going to be taken advantage of. And that if you surrender, you won't manifest your goals, dreams, your desires, you'll be a monk and shave your head and, you know, go to the Himalayas and give everything up. But if who the hell wants to do that, right? If you surrender, then you're going to get less in life. And I want to reframe this whole concept because I think if there's something that people can practice and it's a practice, I'm not saying what happened all at once. But if there's something that people can begin practicing, as you start deprogramming yourself, is surrender. That if you surrender, what if you didn't get less? What if you got more? More than you could even have planned and imagined with your logic and your mind and your own ego's capacity to control. So surrender means letting go of control. Or I should say letting go of the control that you thought you had. If you look at the last couple of years of this pandemic, I think we're being reminded that perhaps we weren't in as much control as we thought as humanity. We weren't. I mean, we thought we were going down to trajectory 2020. Boom! Life exploded. The universe saying, hey, you thought you guys thought you were in control? Take a look. Quick reminder, quick reset. Surrender is to stop trying to force life, manipulating and forcing life to fit your limited idea of how you think it should look and how you think it should be. Because so often we think we know what we want and we try to force life to fit our idea. We try to force people to fit what we want them to be, but trying to force something to be or force someone to be doesn't make it so. Surrender is being open. Surrender is being available. Surrender is letting go of who you think you should be and how you think life should be so that you can be truly open, truly available, truly curious. When we surrender, you live open and you allow life to show you. You allow in life, you're co-creating with life. When you surrender, you take the limits off of life and you're open. Many of us, we don't realize in our forcing, it's got to be this. This person has to be the one. Life has to be this has to be my career. We don't realize we end up, we're freaking limiting life. We're putting limitations, we're choking life. We're putting limitations on life and sometimes we get so attached to what we think we want, that we go to life with the same life. I really want this peanut. We're not aware that life is seeking to give us a whole buffet, but we're attached to this peanut because that's all we can see. That's all our limited egos can see. But when you're open and you're available, you live in surrender and when you're in surrender, you are open to infinite possibilities and life is infinite. How many stars are there in the sky? How many grains of sand are there? Right now, you and I, we're breathing. You're breathing. I'm breathing. We're having this great conversation. We're not sitting here going, okay, we've got to force our breath, man. It's got breath, because if you don't breathe, if you don't breathe, we're going to die from this conversation. It's just happening. In spite of us, we're laughing, we're talking, we're connecting, we're sharing. Breath is happening. You wait, you know, I just had lunch earlier. You have breakfast this morning, maybe someone had a smoothie, a kale salad, a steak, a salmon, whatever you have your vegan, I'm sorry, but you have whatever you have. And how is it that your hand doesn't turn into a steak or a salmon or a smoothie? There's an intelligence and innate intelligence inside of you that knows exactly what to do. Cut your finger. You don't have to be a good person. You don't have to even pray or meditate. Healing happens. To me, this same intelligence that is functioning you and breathing you and breathing me is the same intelligence that's breathing all of existence. It's the same intelligence that is functioning the sun, the star, the moon. I mean, how one was the last time the sun didn't come out? There's an intelligence functioning life. And so how do we not trust this? How do we not trust life? Like how do you not trust life when every second life is showing us? But we just forget, so I just tell everyone, breathe, take a moment, get in touch with your breath, take a moment to slow down, connect with your body, feel this intelligence in your body, meditate in your body, get into relationship with your body, and you start feeling your body, you start getting back into wow, there is something breathing you, there is something breathing you, there is something functioning me. Okay, spend time in nature. Slow down, spend time in nature. As human beings, we've become so disconnected from nature that we have forgotten that we are a part of nature. When you spend time in nature and you see the rhythms and cycles and the seasons and the sun and the moon, it's like, wait a second. Something is functioning existence that we are a part of this existence, then it starts reminding us, oh, maybe I don't have to like control everything. I don't have to control everything and everyone, oh, okay, can relax and observe and allow, it's the allowing that helps us kind of get out of the way. If you look at peak performers, if you look at them, take it from me, because you might say, this cute guy, you know, is a nice, no, take it from Michael Jordan. Okay, everybody wants to be like Mike. When he would play, he would always talk about being in his own. He would always talk about he would dissolve. He was gone when he was in that zone. Michael Jackson, when the greatest dancers in the world, would talk about when he was dancing, there was no more him dancing. There was just the dance happening, getting out of the way. And I think when we dare to get out of the way, and realize we're not doing life. Life is doing us. Life has been around for billions of years. That's when we transcend ourselves. That's when we transcend our ego's limited capacity to make shit happen. And then we tap into another dimension of life. And then then I have found the power of life and the full energy of begins, life begins to manifest through you. See, the old paradigm that we've been conditioned, and I read a hell of a lot of books as a kid covering up, it's all about know what you want, get what you want, know what you want, get what you want, how to get what you want, how to get what you want, how to get what you want. No, but we never question, who is this eye that is programming the condition? And so many times you get what you thought you wanted, then you end up realizing, oh, maybe what I thought I wanted is not what I really wanted, because I'm not really happy. Maybe what I thought I wanted is not what I really wanted is just what I thought I wanted based on who I thought I was. But if I'm not in touch with who I really am, then what I thought I wanted is just going to be an illusion or a projection of something that's not a true authentic desire, maybe as a child that wasn't enough, and that wasn't there. And I thought, if I can get that Lamborghini, if I can get that girl, I get that house, get that thing, then I'm going to be worthy and valuable. So many times we don't realize that what we want our goals aren't always authentic, they're coming from wounds, they're coming from projections. And so you can manifest life by getting in the way. People have done it. You can't, I'm not going to say you can't live a good life and create lots of people do it. But it won't be a great life. Mandela lived a great life. He could, Mandela could not have imagined. He could not have sat down and scripted and imagined that kind of life. Yeah, I'm going to spend 26 years in prison and then I'm going to come out and I'm going to be known as the Mandela. That's not a life you can imagine, but he did surrender himself to his calling. He did surrender himself to the deep calling of his soul. For him, it would look different for you and I, but for him that led into 26 years in prison. Should he have not spent 26 years in prison? What would have happened if he didn't spend 26 years in prison? Would he have become the Nelson Mandela that we know? Maybe that 26 years in prison was a necessary marination, the necessary preparation for his soul to develop the mental emotional, spiritual, psychological empathy, forgiveness, soul force, so that he could come out and be the Mandela, that even when he's dead now, he's still inspiring people to this day. So should it not have happened? And so for me, the question that we need to start asking ourselves in the new paradigm is not what do I want because sometimes what we think we want is not what we really want. The real question to ask is slightly different question. What is it that life wants to express soon? What is the deepest, and I want everyone to just try it, just try it. What is the deepest impulse, the deepest impulse of my soul? What is my soul want to express? What is the most authentic, deepest impulse of my being? What is, what does God want to express? What is the infinite one expressed? What is the universe want to express? What is my soul want to express me? Whatever you want to label it call, it doesn't matter to me. What is the deepest most authentic expression of my being want to do? Feel that? Be still, be silent, feel that. We know we have a sense in moving that direction. When you move in that direction, then you're going going in a life, you're going in an authentic path, you're living in alignment, then you can align your goals, your intentions, your actions with what's true, and then you go into action, you give 100%, you give everything. It might mean you were harder than you've ever worked. It might mean you worked 20 hours a day for the cause that's true. It might mean you quit your job, it might mean you go protest for something you believe that you've been afraid to believe, but it's in your soul, but you let go of the attachment to the outcome. It's the attachment to the outcomes that create suffering. Can you talk on one more thing that I thought was very interesting? The last, the last main point that I wanted to pull out of you, there's, you, you could go, I have like 20 things and we could do like five of these. And if you ever do want to see Formula One, it's coming to Miami, so you should come to Miami and then we should do an in person because it would be incredible. But you let me know. Anyway, we can organize, but the last thing that I really wanted to touch on at least for today, I wanted to touch on the importance of death, embracing death, understanding your own mortality, understanding that life is temporary because I think that that can be, we talk about fear and we talk about pain and we talk about understanding the things that will allow us to embark on this journey that we've been speaking about for the past hour. I think that I think that understanding what death is is one of the most important things that can be that catalyst for us taking action because it puts a time limit on what we can do. And I thought it was just a nice sort of bow to finish off this thought. So we've gone through this journey of deprogramming, finding clarity, finding purpose and getting out of your own way when you do find that purpose. But let's, let's put some urgency on it. Yeah, look, the urgency is, well, because you can see them there, so I would just tell everyone you are going to die. You're going to die. Feel that. Let me say that again. You're going to die. If that's not the greatest motivational speech ever, I mean, you are going to die. Feel that. So often the issue is so many of us we're avoiding death. We're, we're distracting ourselves from death. We're distracting ourselves with frivolous entertainment. Nothing wrong with it. But we weigh so much of our time on stuff that's not important. And we waste and we try to avoid death. But if you can just do one thing, hold death close. Hold it close. Keep it near. Feel your death daily, not as a morbid thing or a sad thing. But that's just a real sobering reality of life. When you feel death close, to me, if you can't feel an embrace of death, you will never truly be able to feel and embrace and live lifefully. The degree to which you can embrace death, you will get in touch with the sacredness and preciousness of this moment. The reality of this moment, that this moment is the only guarantee tomorrow is not a right. When my mother passed away in 2017 due to stomach cancer, I thought I had time. There were so many things God I wanted to do with my mom. There were so many plans I wanted to make and I thought I had time. I thought I had time. I thought we can do it tomorrow. I didn't prioritize so much things. So many things. The only regret I have in my life and I've done a lot of stuff. Not spending more time with my mom. And so I want you all to feel your death. Jesus died, Buddha died, Bruce Lee died, Muhammad Ali died, Muhammad died, Lawatsu died, Socrates died. But if these great ones are going to die, you and I are going to die as guaranteed as the only guarantee. The body will die. What makes us afraid is we think and we've been conditioned and programmed by culture, society, media to believe that we are just this limited ego structure. Because if we can believe that we're just this limited ego structure, we can be manipulated and controlled with fear. You're going to die. You're going to die all shit. But when you know that you know just this body, when you know that you are a soul, your soul is beyond birth and beyond death. This body is the vehicle that carries your soul in this lifetime. It connects you to a different reality, a different freedom, a different knowing. And so ask yourself, who am I? And what am I? To me, this is the purpose of life to realize that who am I? And what am I? Am I just this body? This body is constantly changing. This is not the same body you had when you were five. This is not the same body you had five years ago. It's not the same body you had three years ago. In fact, every seven years it said that your body physically changes. So who am I? Are you just this body? When you realize and know that you're not just this body, you start to realize that what you are can never die. That's a freedom that opens up in the knowing that you're infinite. But this body will die. This version of you as you will dissolve. And when you can embrace that because you embrace your true immortality and you embrace your physical mortality, the people in 9-11 or any disaster had no idea that they weren't going to come home that night and look at the loved ones in the eyes and say, hey, I'm sorry or I love you, forgive me. They thought they had time and we don't. And when you die and you meet your maker, you can't go to God and say, God, can I get a refund on those two years I wasted in that relationship? Those five years I wasted in that job. When the time is gone, it's gone and it's gone forever. So if death came today, some of you might feel why you've been so dramatic. But I promise you, the people that died today, most of them didn't think they were dying today. It just happened in that correction. It just happened in that moment. And so if death came today, would you be ready? And if not, why not? What would you need to say? What would you need to do? What would you need to communicate? Well, who would you need to forgive? I'm saying, do it now. So that if death came, you could throw your arms open and die with no regrets. To me, that is to be fully alive. So live life fully. We have one opportunity at this life, at least as this version of ourselves, we have one opportunity and so live life fully. Life is short, life is sweet, life is precious, it's not perfect and it's perfect in so many ways. That's what makes it beautiful. If you were going to look back at all the work that you've done and then the things that you've completed with your time on earth, what do you want your legacy to be? What do you want to have had accomplished? You know, just to have, I think it's simple now, you know, I want to have inspired people to remember who they really are and to love more fully, because I think everything else from there will take care of itself. Let's do, to finish this off, I wanted to wrap it five, but most importantly, before we pivot, let's go into all the links where people connect with you or people can learn more, people can get your book, all of that. Cool. Thank you very much. Yeah, depending on people listen to the conversation, the book, the magic of surrender is coming at paperback on May the 3rd, so go to Amazon, you can pre-order the book and get a bunch of free gifts, so go to Amazon, pre-order the book, and then on May the 7th, again, depending on timing, May the 7th, I'm doing a very special online virtual live event. It's called Reinvent Live, two to three hours. I'm going to dive deep how to reinvent yourself, connect to your authentic power and share your gifts with the world. When you get the book on Amazon, go to www.cuteblackson.com forward slash re-invent seminar, that's k-u-t-e-blackson.com forward slash re-invent seminar, and then just enter your name, email, and your receipt info from the paperback from Amazon, and then you get access to the free event, you get access to a whole bunch of gifts there. I'm on Instagram, Coop Blackson, say hi, Facebook Coop Blackson, my website Coop Blackson. If anyone feels moved by today's conversation and you want to go for some deep dive transformation, my favorite thing to do is I do a 12-day event in Bali twice a year. The next one is July the 25th, and then also December the 5th, sorry, 12 days in Bali if you're ready for your next level, and you want to share your gifts with the world, www.boundlessblissbali.com. Beautiful, okay. Let's do a couple rapid-fire to close this out, so you've had quite a life, an incredible career, but what keeps you up at night now? What keeps me up at night? Honestly, nothing really keeps me up at night. I sleep like a log. I just love people, ultimately. I love human beings, I love humanity, and so just reaching more people, inspiring more people and wanting to help people transform. Biggest challenge you've overcome in your personal life. What was it? Had you overcome it? What did you learn from it? There's been so many. I'll pick one because there's a meaningful one. Maybe the others are more difficult, but it's healing the relationship with my father. We weren't very close growing up. There was at least for me a tremendous sort of resentment towards info, not feeling supported, and in the last years, especially since my mother passed away, even more at a whole other level, I have really healed the relationship with my father, and I call him every day as a duty, as a love, as an offering to him, and it's really transformed that relationship in a big way. I gave up every expectation of him being anything and just decided that I was going to love him, and that I'm very proud of that, to be honest. This may be the same answer or not, but the question is, she had to pick one person. She said a major impact on your life. There's obviously been many, but who would one person be, and what did you learn from them? I picked my mother. I mean, she loved me completely unconditionally, and was one of the most selfless, humble human beings. I've ever met in my entire life, and when she passed away, in those last moments, I realized that she wasn't affecting the light and being, and I never knew it, because she was fearless, and she didn't have to tell anyone. She didn't have to promote it to anyone. She didn't need fame. She didn't need fortune. She just knew who she was. She was not afraid to die, because she knew. She looked at me in the eyes. She says, I'm not this body. I'm a soul. She's a very special being, and so she gives me a lot of courage from the other side. If you had to pick one book, podcast, one source that has inspired you, that somebody should go check out. Ramana Maharishi, an old, enlightened Indian mystic. It's good. Very good. If you had to tell your 20-year-old self one thing, what would it be? Many things, but one thing I would say, be both. Take those risks. It's not investing your freaking money right now, so it can compound interest. That's good advice. Good advice. No, it's good. Last question. What does success mean to you? Success true successful means just knowing who I am and being free to be that and live that each moment. It's pretty simple. Knowing my true, when I say knowing who I am, is knowing who I truly am as a spiritual being. That's true success for me.