#066: Pam Grout on a Series of Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing.

Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there and thank you for joining me for episode 66 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find details show notes of this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 66. You know, I've always believed that there is a magnificent force out there playing a very active role in our lives. And when I went solo back in 2006, I became even more convinced that we can all tap into into the source and call it God, call it the universe, whatever you want to call it, and we can tap into the source to help us manifest amazing things. And I've started feeling this way strongly when I went out on my own because things started happening to me that I never thought possible. And in fact, I really believe that if we want to accomplish anything out of the ordinary, we have to employ the help of this force. We can't do it alone. And when you're self employed and you're truly putting yourself out there, you need all the help you can get. There's no safety net, there's no right. No weekly paycheck, no sick leave, no vacation time, no stock options. And you know, we talked about this extensively last December in episodes 33 and 34, which discussed in length the spiritual side of freelancing. Where I deviate from many of the teachings on this subject is that my belief on this universal force is not based purely on faith. There are too many instances in my life where I saw undeniable proof that God, or the universe, whatever you feel comfortable calling it, is present in every aspect of my life, helping me accomplish great things that I couldn't accomplish entirely on my own. I've studied the science behind these ideas and learned that there's a whole branch of science called quantum physics that explains why this craziness happens. And the interesting thing is we're just now beginning to understand from a scientific standpoint what I've just described. We're now beginning to understand that this is not new age woo woo garbage. There's real science behind it. And I think it's going to transform our thinking here in the next couple of decades and we're going to be living in a very, very different world. But anyway, a little over a year ago, I Ran across Pam Grout's book called E Squared. And when I read it, I was fascinated by it, first of all. And as I read it and started to try the experiments that she talks about and she gives you to do yourself at home, I began to see this science in action. I love Pam's book so much that I recently invited her to the show and she gracefully accepted. And Pam is not just an international best selling author, she's also a freelance writer and has been a freelance writer for more than 25 years. So I thought, you know what? Who better to bring into the show to talk about the subject than someone who is in our shoes, someone who's been out there for a long time doing what you and I are doing. So in this episode, she goes through a series of very simple do it yourself experiments you can conduct on your own, at home, in your office that will prove to you that your thoughts do indeed create your reality. I think this is a very important discussion. I love it that, you know, we're talking about this again, this time right before the holidays in December, as we close out the year and as we start thinking about 2015. I hope you give it some time, some thought. I hope you keep an open mind through this. But you know what? Even the skeptics, even those of you who are really skeptical about this idea, I think you'll walk away with some very useful stuff and I think you'll be able to put some of these ideas into practice and see for yourself that there is something here, something that we really need to pay attention to. So anyway, with that, let's get right to the interview.

Hey, Pam, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you here.

Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me. I love talking to other freelancers.

Well, you're. You're one of us. And, you know, I'm just, I'm honored to have you on the show. You have a. An incredible message that you're sharing with the world right now through some of your books. And I tell you, it hit me, like, immediately, okay, I, I have to get Pam on the show because this is something that my audience really needs to hear. As you know, they're out there facing the typical obstacles that we all face as freelancers.

Right?

Yep. We're all in this boat together.

So why don't we start by telling us a little bit about your writing career. So tell us how you got started, what type of writing you've done, types of clients you've worked with, and so Forth that way folks have an idea of, you know, who you are and your background.

Okay, well, I've been a freelance writer for, gosh, I've lost track but a good 25 years and I've been completely on my own for at least 25 years. I know it's at least that long because my daughter is 21 and I know I was doing it before she was born, so. But anyway, so I have really covered the gamut when it comes to freelance writing. As I was just telling you, I've got 17 books out. So I've, you know, I've published books, but I've also written for many magazines. I do a lot of travel writing. So some of the magazines that I have published with Travel and Leisure, a lot of the in flight magazines. I write a lot these days for Huffington Post, Men's Journal, cnn. I just last weekend was doing a story for People magazine. So I write for a lot of big national magazines and then blog posts or websites I guess you'd call Huffington Post. So anyway, I have done a lot of that. I have over the years. You mentioned copywriting. I've also done a little bit of copywriting, although not for years and years and years. I once wrote a, what was it like a video series or something for somebody that was teaching business classes or something like that. So I mean, I guess one of the secrets to my success is I'm very versatile. You know, I've done a lot of different things and I love writing. I just absolutely think it's the most fun thing in the world. In fact, I often have to pinch myself like, wow, do I get paid to do this thing that I would do anyway even if I wasn't getting paid? I mean, I love what I do. I feel so blessed that, you know, that I've been able to, you know, make a good living doing something that is so much fun to me.

Wow. And so besides 17 books, it sounds like you're still pretty busy writing articles for a lot of different publications.

Yeah, yeah, I mean I stay for days. Lately I've been doing quite a bit of speaking just because, you know, when you have a bestselling book like E Squared, a lot of people think you also a speaker so they asked you to come and you know, give presentations. Tomorrow, for example, I'm heading up to British Columbia. I'm doing a day long presentation with a Canadian trainer who is, he's a trainer to like a lot of the Olympic athletes up in Canada. So maybe I will tell them to make sure the US Team wins right now. Yeah, you probably have freelancers from all over the world.

Oh my gosh, I got a lot of Canadians in my audience, so you got to be careful.

Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't do that. Anyway, we should all give our best at all times.

Absolutely.

That's exactly what we need to be doing.

So let's talk a little bit now about kind of that spiritual journey. Because one thing that was obviously apparent when I started reading E Squared was that you embarked on a spiritual journey pretty early in your career. At least that was my impression. So I'm curious, what led you down that path?

What was the spark?

Well, you know, it's interesting you asked that because a friend who lives in my town, we're both freelance writers and we often talk about how freelance writing is a very spiritual journey because A, you're sort of putting yourself out there, you're not exactly sure what's going to come back, you're taking a risk, you're not doing things the normal way. So it is a very spiritual thing. But as for me, I've always been on a spiritual path. I mean, from the time I was a little kid, my father was a Methodist minister, although I've strayed quite a bit from that particular path. But. And I also think I mentioned at E Squared that I appointed God, or some people call it the universe, I call it the field of infinite potentiality, the divine buzz. As the CEO of my career, of my free writing career from, you know, from the time I began, it's like it was pretty apparent to me that I wasn't going to be able to do this on my own and I needed a little help. So my CEO has always been the universe or, you know, this bigger, this bigger source that's out there. So. So yeah, and I think also another thing that's pretty interesting to me, people sometimes ask people, you know, you're a writer, you know, and I've done, you know, pretty traditional writing. I used to write for a newspaper. And, you know, how did you get into the spiritual stuff? As I said, I've always been spiritual. But I think what happens when you're a writer, you know, you can feel that thing when you get plugged into this higher source, it's almost like you're channeling. I mean, that sounds kind of woo, woo, but you know that what you're, you know, the words that are coming out of you are things that are important that people need to hear. And so it's almost like you're not writing, you're just like the secretary writing it down. And I think when you reach that state, and I mean some, you know, I think writers often do, they realize, wow, there's something bigger going on out here. So it's not that big of a leap, you know, to get into a spirit spiritual path or that, you know, think in terms of spirit, spirituality and creativity. In fact, one of my books is called Art and Soul, about creativity and spirituality. And to me, they're actually joined at the hip. They're. They're kind of the same thing.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I tell you, it's funny that you say that, because I did become a heck of a lot more spiritual when I went out of my own in 2006. I mean, it was night and day. And I. Now that you say that, I do. I do agree with you that I put myself out there, right. And took some huge risk, got way out of my comfort zone. And I really don't think it was all me. You know, it wasn't just me who made, who created the success.

Right.

It just, you feel it, you know it. And you know, what you said about the whole creativity thing reminds me of Elizabeth. Oh, what's her name? The, the lady who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

Oh, Elizabeth Gilbert.

Yeah, Gilbert. Yeah. With her TED Talk. Right. She, I mean, that was, that was her talk. If you've, if you've seen it or heard was. It was amazing. You're right. Is a writer, sometimes things come out of you. You go, I. I don't know where that came from, but that's really good.

So, yeah, that's where you're going to get all the good stuff. In fact, the harder we try to do it ourselves, the more messed up we get. I mean, the more we can surrender to this bigger thing. I believe we're all connected to this big giant force. You mean, some people call it gods, but, you know, this energy force and that it conforms to our beliefs and expectations. It constantly trying to bless us, to source us, to, you know, constantly trying to, you know, show us miracles. And so the less we do, the more we get out of the way and the more we let this higher intelligence, you know, take the floor. I mean, one of my things I say every morning is holy Spirit, have the floor. I call it the Holy Spirit. I'm a student of the course in miracles. And so the Holy Spirit would, you know, could also be called the field of infinite potentiality. I think we've gotten too bogged down with all these synonyms over the years. You know, it's caused a lot of division. The truth is it does. It doesn't really matter what you call it, but there is a force out there that has your best interest at heart and that will help you and guide you if you simply let it.

And I hope that listeners, and I know my audience is very open minded, but I hope that people don't take offense to any of this. I mean, you know, I think we all know what this is and we may call it by different names. And I agree with you. It's as long as we understand and we all agree that there is a greater power out there, that we're not in full control. I think that's the big, the big step. And what would you say to somebody, though, who I got friends and colleagues who are actually the opposite, at the opposite end of the spectrum who say they're very skeptical and they say, no, you know, if you're ever going to get something and achieve something, you have to try harder. I mean, it's, it's all on you. I mean, what would you say to that?

Oh, well, see, that's such a common belief. And in fact, my follow up with the E squared, which I think is the one you said you read, it's called eq, but it talks about the entire world is upside down. In fact, I asked my publisher to actually print it upside down. So when you open the front cover, it would be upside down. They wouldn't do that. They ended up letting me print one page upside down because I'm trying to make the point that most of what we're taught, you know, you've got to work really hard. You got to put your nose to the grindstone. You know, just that stuff you're talking about, that is how we're taught. That is the dominant paradigm. But the truth of it is this source that wants to bless us and, you know, wants us to be its spokesperson, it can be really easy. But again, we're trying so hard and we're working so hard and we're feeling so guilty and, you know, we're following these seven steps and we're doing all this stuff and it really blocks this incredible force that's always there. So it's really. Yeah, it's the thing. I mean, most of what we believe is upside down, most of what we're taught from the time we're little kids. In fact, I was just writing a blog post that I'm getting ready to post about how we're born. And then the minute we're born, we are measured how Long are we and how much do we weigh? So from the very moment we're born. We're taught to measure up to these standards. And then it just goes downhill from there. But the truth of history. Nobody tells us that if we follow our joy. That that's God talking to us. Or the sp or, you know, whatever you want to call it. That's the universe telling you. What do you love? What do you want to do? That's the universe guiding you people. Oh, nothing guides me. No, that's not true. We've just been taught that nothing guides us. And we've been taught that, you know, what we want to do isn't really right. We should be doing this. All the should, you know, we should stop shooting on ourselves, as the old saying goes.

Yeah, well. And I guess one of the things that I hear a lot from some skeptics is. Well, you can't prove it with science. You know, And I can prove this other thing with science. I mean, what do you say that. Because there is science behind this. I know this sounds a bit abstract, but there is real science behind it.

There's a lot of science. In fact, quantum physics is all about this. And in fact, in quantum physics, they know there's something called the observer effect. There's absolutely impossible to do pure science. Because every belief and expectation. That the scientists doing the research has. Is playing out in the experiment. The observer effect is everything that you're looking at, everything you're seeing is actually you're affecting it. We're in this constant dance with what we see. So the person doing the scientific experiment. Is affecting everything around them. One of the things about my book, I love the Skeptic because I can say to them, hey, okay, you want to be skeptical? Here's some experiments. Give this a try. And I don't want anybody to take anything on faith. Don't. Don't take my word for it. You know, who am I? Try it out for yourself. And that's what's kind of cool about these books. And even though they're not experiments. But I do have lab report sheets. I mean, they're not experiments like the kind you might, you know, that's being done at universities. Although some of them are. But they're just things to see. Hey, let's test it out in your own life. Let's try a little science experiment with your own life.

Well, let's talk about that. So let's talk about the experiments that you have in E Squared in eq, both your most recent books. First of all what's the premise of each book? And I assume it's very similar. Now, by the way, I think we talked offline. I've read E squared. I have not read E cubed yet. But what's the premise?

Yeah, well, the premise is that there is this force that wants to bless us. There is this force that will, that is going to guide us. I call it energy. That's where the E squared comes from. Energy squared, Energy cubed. But, and it's a little takeoff on Einstein's E equals MC squared, which of course was when we started changing the old Newtonian model that we have no effect. It's all this mechanical way. The world works in a mechanical way. We now know we have lots of evidence that it actually again, we're interacting a lot with our world and then our consciousness affects the world. Our beliefs and expectations are, you know, come back to us and animate what we see in our world. So that's sort of the idea behind it and that's kind of a leap for a lot of people. Even though we've known this, we've had, they've changed the entire way we look at science for the last hundred years. But these, these concepts are so different than the way we've been looking at the world that a lot of people aren't fully embracing them. I mean, we've used them to, you know, to blow up, you know, to create bombs and to, you know, microwaves, cell phones, technology. All this kind of stuff is using quantum physics. I mean, who'd have thought, you know, 100 years ago that you could, you know, what, turn on a television set, turn on a little box and you could watch somebody in another country, you know, I mean, it's just so many of these things. These are all princip using, but in our personal lives we're not necessarily using them. So what I've done is I've created nine little experiments in both of the books for people to try out. In the first book, they're 48 hour experiments for the most part. One of them I think is a little bit longer. But it's saying, don't take my word for it, go out and give it a try. The thing about it is you can talk about theories all you want, but if you don't put them into practice, if you don't actually see that they work, then what good are they? It's just a way of getting people to actually try this and, and see if maybe there is something out there that wants to bless them.

Would you mind.