Heroic Chat with Alan Cohen: Channeling Our Genius

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PM plus 1 times 3. Great to see you. Stephanie, Coach, Lanny, Adam, Kelly, Lisa, Megan, Mike, Adam, Frank, nice to see you. Madeline, Anthony, Kimmy, look at you and your books. OMG, that's a lot of books. Kelly, Andrea, Kyle, iPhone. I don't know your name yet. Aki, Josh, Gita, Jonathan, Gene, and Robin. On screen one, we have one of my dear friends today, Alan Cohen, who is one of my favorite human beings on the planet. We met. Alan, if you can say hi real quick just so I can see you on my screen, I'll give you a proper introduction and then we'll. Let's, let's hear your voice. So there we go. Bye.

Real quick. Happy to be with you guys.

Alan and I met after we were both in Finding Joe. Pat Solomon connected us and Alan, of course, if you've watched Finding Joe, you know, kicks off the documentary with his beautiful story goosebumps on the golden Buddha and is frankly my favorite person in the movie. So, Alan, it was so good to meet you there. We've, we've gotten to know each other over the years and I featured a number of his books including and I laughed out loud when I saw this first one, why your life sucks. Best title ever and what you can do about it. But wonderful book. Relax into wealth is another one. Enough already. Another fantastic book. A daily dose of sanity. We've covered and spirit means business. So five of his many books. We've got a ton of cool quotes in there. But Alan, as I was saying in the prelude when I was telling our community yesterday that we were going to be chatting today, I just felt into your presence, which I feel right now, and just your, your beautiful, humble, wise, grounded, inspiring, graceful presence literally shut out through me as we, as you came on the screen when we connected a few minutes ago. I feel it right now. I just love and appreciate you so much and I appreciate you taking the time to be with us here today.

Amen, brother. Wouldn't be any other place for this hour.

There it is. All right, so, Ellen, if you will, I like to begin these when I'm leading them with kind of a. A process through which we can connect to the best, most heroic version of ourselves. Committing to, to serving something bigger than ourselves and enjoying the process. If you could guide us in whatever you would like to do to help us connect to that. Great.

Sure. Okay. Let's all take a moment, close our eyes, take a deep breath or two. We leave everything else behind and show up here together. This is the most important thing we could be doing in our life at this moment. So we move from our head to our heart, from our mind to our spirit, from the particular to the universal. And we recognize that wherever we are on this planet, we are connected. I like to vision, visualize a golden web of light, like a string of light from each of our hearts to all of our hearts. And we recognize that our meeting is guided by spirit, that everything that we will say is guided. And our intention is that each person here receive precisely what will be most helpful to you on your spiritual and material journey. We know it's all set up and all is well, and we're deeply grateful for our time together. And so it is.

And so it is. Bless you. Tell us about you, Alan. What brought you here? A little bit about the origin story. Perhaps some dragons that were perhaps battled in the beginning and then tamed and then joyfully played with in the process. But would love to hear more about you and your story and what brought you to.

Well, thanks for asking, Brian. I've always been pretty spiritually oriented. I remember when I was about five or six years old, I said to a buddy, wouldn't it be weird if we're all dead and just dreaming we're alive? And since that time, I know we're not dead, but I believe that we're dreaming the life we've created by our mind. And so I've always explored spirituality at one way or another. When I was 13 years old, I took up Orthodox Judaism. I was very strict for about seven years. And then when Turning Point came, it was a fast day, very strict fast day in Judaism. And I was really hungry and it was nighttime, and I really wanted to eat. And I asked myself, why are you not eating? And the answer was, I was afraid God would punish me if I ate. And the voice came and asked me, is that really a good reason to do a religious act or live a life? And I made a decision that I would not let fear guide me. So I ate a piece of cake. And that was the end of Judaism. And I began my spiritual path. I went to every guru and ashram and Christian service and Zen monastery, and I became like a vacuum cleaner for truth. I just. I just could not get enough of healing and positive energy. I met Ram Dass, studied with him closely for a while, and. And then when I was 30, I woke up in morning and a voice said, sit up. Get up and write. I said, I don't want to do that. And the voice said, that wasn't one of the questions. So I just started Writing. And I thought I was writing some notes for a yoga class I was teaching and just kept downloading, downloading, downloading, downloading. And I realized I had a book. And after about nine months, I had a book called the Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore. Went on to become a bestseller. Changed my life and changed a lot of lives, and the rest is history. So those are a couple of the turning points, if you want to explore it more particularly. We can go there if you like.

I would. I would like to go wherever you would like to go.

Okay. Well, I discovered a course in miracles. Soon afterwards. I sent away for the books, and I opened it, and it was like Batman powing me, like, wow. And the sense of truth and aliveness and empowerment was anything unlike anything I'd ever seen. So I dove into the course. That was 40 years ago in 1980. And I keep going deeper and deeper and deeper with the course. Nothing like it. And it's all about forgiveness, all about relationships, all about connection to spirit. And I consider myself a slow learner. I'm still working on a lot of stuff, but I have tools now. When I get upset, I have a tool to come back to peace. When I get fearful, I have a tool to come back to love. And so my life is about practicing more and more, bringing spirit to daily life, whether it's waiting in the post office or feeding my dogs or writing, writing my books. I'm doing my best to keep spirit first and let everything else be in support of that.

Beautiful. Let's go back to your first book, the Dragon Doesn't Live Here Anymore. And I had that in my mind as I was describing your relationship to the dragon. I didn't remember the exact title as I was saying that, but I've been having fun talking about, yeah, maybe early on there's a battle going on, but at some point you realize that that's actually a really joy g. Wonderful opportunity to in my playful thing is let's. Let's tame it, let's befriend it, and let's just have fun together. Right? This dragon can take you far, but walk us through your evolution in your relationship to the metaphorical dragon and how that relates to how you see the hero's journey and how we may be able to reimagine our own heroic quests.

Well, great question. So, you know, someone said, what's in the way is the way. And so, you know, my biggest impediments have been fear and guilt, and I've overcome a lot of it, but it still comes up. And I recognize that the only thing that keeps me from being all that I am is my thoughts to the contrary. And so one of the course of miracles lesson is I could see peace instead of this. And so if I get upset with myself or someone else or afraid in that moment, I ask myself, do I really need to feel this upset? Or could I, in this moment, choose peace instead? And the moment, Brian, I realized that peace is an option, Then peace comes. It was only when I didn't realize I could have that. And so what I've been doing is training myself sooner and sooner and sooner to make that choice instead of waiting for days or weeks or months or years. And, you know, in the Finding of Joe film, we talked about that crucial scene in Star wars, the Empire Strikes Back, when Luke Skywalker finally confronts Darth Vader. And they go into this cave, which is a big piece of the hero's journey. And Luke, with his lightsaber, cuts off Darth Vader's head, and it rolls to Luke's feet, and the helmet opens up, and it's Luke's own face. So basically, he was fighting himself. There's no external nemesis. And the truth is that we only fight ourselves. That's not between me and you. It's between me and me. And when I get clear what's happening between me and me, then I can get very clear on what's happening between me and you. So it's all an internal journey. All of it's an internal. The. The external thing is just a template upon which we project our internal journey. But it's all inside.

Beautiful. And I loved that scene. I love your recap of that scene. What are some of the transformative tools that you have used to move from theory to practice to mastery in a relationship to fear and peace?

Well, my theory, my philosophy is that anything that makes me feel better brings me closer to truth. So I do yoga, I meditate, I play with my dogs, I watch funny movies, I walk in nature, I swim. And people often ask me, how do I find my life's purpose? And I'd say, what do you like to do? They say, I like to do my play guitar. I like to walk in the woods. I say, well, play guitar and walk in the woods. And if you can get in touch with your true joy on some of those little things, they're not so little, because then you build your joy muscle and you raise your vibration. And when you're at a higher frequency, you now have the power to attract everything that matches your Higher frequency. So a lot of it is about being true to myself, recognizing where my joy lives and having the guts to follow that joy. And even if it, it doesn't make sense and even if I have no idea where it's leading.

Brilliant. And two teachers come to mind. One Joseph Campbell, who called our joy bliss. Of course, when you find the bliss has left, your job is to recapture that, to find it. But what I, what I, obviously I'm, you know, ancient wisdom and modern science. So what makes me even more excited is the leading researcher on the science of behavioral change, conservative science, like super conservative scientists out of the University of Michigan. Her most recent book, I believe it's called the Joy Choice, in which she says, do, do what you just said, which is yeah, yeah, don't do the shoulds that you think you need to do. What gives you joy, find that, make that joy choice moment to moment to moment. So I love the complementary nature of, you know, the Campbellian, your wisdom and her scientific, you know, pragmatic perspective. Of course it all is pragmatic when, when applied. But what do you think about that?

It's all connected. I mean all paths to the mountaintop leads to the same place. And so each of us has to be true to our unique, our unique path. I've discovered too, Brian, that the greatest contribution I make to the planet is my own well being. And I coach so many people who are self sacrificial or they grew up in a religion that says, well, you can suffer your way to heaven. And I don't think that pain gets you to peace. I think that confronting pain and healing it gets you to peace. But I think, I think that honoring the light that wants to shine from us is the best way to help other people. And I don't, I don't think it's selfish to do what makes you happy. I think, I think when I'm happy, I bring the high, my highest self to everyone. And even if I never wrote another book or taught another workshop or coached anybody, I could just walk on a street and heal with my presence if I was lined up. And of course all that other stuff comes natural. We all want to do the fun stuff, but I think presence is a great healer.

Again, so many things we can talk about on that. One of the phrases that you introduced me to, I forget which book it was, but Alexander and I have talked about it a number of times. There is no private good. Yeah, and you told the story about the air conditioning and all. Can you, can you tell us about that? And then kind of, yeah, it's like.

Years ago, one of my teachers said, there is no private good. And it means that if something is really good for me is really right in alignment with my soul's purpose, then it has to be connected to everyone else's good. My good is never at the expense of anyone else's. So one afternoon, my partner D. And I went to a restaurant in Seattle. It was a hot summer day and they seated us under an air conditioner and we were kind of cold and we even had our appetizer. But we felt guilty about asking the waiter. But we said, could you please move us to another table? Fine. He was kind of nice about it. So he moves us to another table. And five minutes later, an elderly couple is seated at the table we vacated. And as soon as I sat down, the man says, ah, air conditioning. Just, just what I needed. And I realized that for us to stay at that table out of guilt was not helping anybody. Because when we claimed our good, we made way for that man to claim his good. So I like to think of everything. All of our good is totally connected. And the more good we claim for ourselves, the more good we claim for everyone else.

That's so good. And I feel the connection there as I shared the story that Alexander and I have shared many times. And I can tell that you liked that story too, you know, so it makes me think, like, what's another? Like, I really like that part of my book, you know, whether it was the, the wisdom that you shared, the way that you shared it, what arises for you.

Well, you know, I think that spirit makes us happy when we do what's. What's right. So I get turned on when I write. It's like I feel like, like spirit has given me great ideas. And I love my ideas. I love the idea. I don't, I don't really think I thought that up. I think they're given to me. So I think it's really valid for me to get excited about what I write because I'm learning as I'm teaching. And you know, years ago I read that some Korean cell phone company invented a phone where it would with a passion meter, we could tell how passionate the, the other person who was speaking to you as and could it would tell you if they're in love with you or not. And I had to laugh because we each have a built in passion meter. And when we're in the right place, with the right people, the right person purpose, we light up. You don't need a Cell phone to tell you if passion is happening or not. So I think it's really important for each of us to get in tune with our passion and be honest about where it lives and trust it and follow it. And because spirit is always acknowledging. You know, I've boiled the ten commandment. You know, Judaism has 613 commandments. Did you know that? And you know that? Yeah. So, no, no person could possibly ever do them all. And, you know, Catholics have a lot of rules too. But I boiled it down to two. Two commandments, two suggestions. Nobody wants commandments. Two suggestions, two ideas. One is do what brings you life, and two, quit doing what deadens you. And I think all religions, all spiritual paths, all consciousness training, somehow boil down to that. So if you remember nothing from this conversation, if you remember nothing from all of your spiritual trainings, just practice. Do what brings you life, quit doing what deadens you. And you're gonna. You're gonna get. You're gonna find your way home. That. That's the root home.

Beautiful. And the second commandment was. Say it one more time.

Quit doing what deadens you.

Deadens you. Okay, cool. Goosebumps. Wow. There's so many things I want to go on on that as well. So, Anthony, who I believe is here, I saw. There you are, Anthony. So, Anthony, beautiful member of our community, posted a quote from you in which you said, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never. I'm paraphrasing. Expect to make everyone happy. Yeah, I can look at my heroes on my wall, some of whom you can't see, including Jesus, who I believe was one of the guys you referenced. Didn't make everybody happy. Talk to us about that wisdom.

Well, nobody's ever made everybody happy. Jesus was strung up and Martin Luther King a good guy, and Gandhi's a good guy. And Kennedy, I know he has problems, but he's trying to help. And so it's just human nature that the negative mind comes up. In fact, the more people you piss off, probably the better you're doing, because fear cannot stand the light. This is why Gandhi and King and Jesus were shot, that were mowed down because they made such a strong stand for the light that the negative couldn't stand it. So they could have come up and get rid of them. I heard a Christian say, I don't mean to be religious here, but a Christian said, the more precious you are to God, the more precious you are to the devil. Which means that the closer you get to healing and light and aliveness and well being, the human ego, whether it's an individual one or a collective one, gets really threatened by that and they have to get rid of the light. So the very fact that you're pissing people off, the very fact that people don't agree with you, very fact that some people don't like what you're saying, it's a sign you must really get be getting somewhere. Someone said if you want to, it said, if you don't want any opposition, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. But if you're saying something, being something and doing something, somebody's going to disagree. I have people disagree with me. Well, I try it on for size. If it fits, I work with it. If not, I'll let it go. So I think anybody who's going on the hero's journey, anybody who's stepping forth to be a leader, as all of our people in this group are being trained to be, you just have to keep walking ahead no matter what. Let the naysayers say their nays and get on with your life. The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.

Beautiful. Let's go there for a moment longer. What other practices, specific tools can we use in those moments when we find ourselves facing that kind of opposition, if you will.

Well, I have a really simple prayer. It goes like this, show me. And I, I use this at every choice point where I don't know what to do. I say, spirit, just show me. So if someone criticizes me, I say, spirit, show me. If this is a valid criticism, let me use it and learn from it and grow. If it's not valid, let me let it go. And I, I can pretty much tell, you know, if I'm really honest, I'll try to emphasize it. If it's, I'll wear it, if not, I won't. So you just have to have more faith in yourself than fear in yourself. It's like, you know, I've heard that phrase, fear knocked at the door, faith answered and no one was there. So, and so now there's another piece. Brian, anybody who's upset with you must be in fear. Because all upset is fear based. Our natural state is love. Our natural state is confidence. Our natural state is well being. And anybody who is angry with you, you're poking at some fear in them. And so it's very important to discern when somebody's criticizing you, opposing you, where are they coming from? Are they coming from honesty and integrity and presence and aliveness, or are they coming from fear and upset? And if they're coming from fear and upset, I would not take them that seriously because they have their own homework to do before they can really criticize you with a whole heart.

Beautifully said. Goosebumps for the. I think about 13th, 20th time so far. I'm flipping open my book so I can see all my references, all my references to you. So pages 3516-066378-70933, and 969. We talk about you and your wisdom. The idea that I'm thinking about right now is you talk about being a weirdo. I forget again which book it is. But you know that Einstein used to pull over the side of the road, need crickets or something absurd like that. And you know, I think it was Adams. One of the Adams is that would, you know, swing, swim naked in the Potomac river and just all these Benjamin Franklin air baths. Talk to us about that. Talk, talk to us about the importance of being willing to be ourselves. Idiosyncratic, iconoclastic, etc.

Yeah, it's a great, great question. Ram Dass once told me that great spiritual masters are just as neurotic as the rest of us, but to them, their neuroses are irrelevant, which means that everybody's a human being. Everybody's in the body. Everybody has stuff. Everybody has a personality for worst. And the people who are truly great masters who move forward and change the world are not real concerned about fixing themselves. They're more concerned about making their contribution in spite of the neuroses. The three men I would like to meet would be Abraham Lincoln, Jesus, and Tesla. And, you know, Tesla was a pretty neurotic guy. He, you know, he. He wouldn't shake hands. He was allergic to pearls. He would walk around the block three times before he went into his hotel room, and he actually had a love affair with a pigeon. He had no women, he had no men. But there was this pigeon that used to sit on his. His hotel room balcony. And he was in, you know, romantic love with a pigeon. So he. He had to have some kind of intimate relationship. He wasn't into most people, so he got to be intimate with his animal. And we make fun of him, but we do with our dogs and our cats and our birds. So the more, the more there's a fine line between genius and insanity. And sometimes they overlap. So if you really, you know, if you're really intent on channeling your genius, you cannot let a quest for fixing yourself clog that pipeline. And you just gotta. You just gotta go ahead and do what you gotta do. And if people like it, they like it. If they don't, they don't. Of all my YouTube videos, the one that's been the most popular is quit working on yourself. And I don't mean that to be lazy because all we're all working on ourselves. But I think the idea that there's something wrong with me that I have to fix, there's some self improvement, there's some lack in me, there's some gap in me that I need to fill that debilitates us more than just moving ahead anyway. And so we are going to work on ourselves. It's going to happen anyway. But you want to keep your vision foremost and your sense of gap or not enoughness in the background. It's like one is the focus and the other is the blur.

Love it. Beautiful. And in this moment, follow that joy. Connect to that which gives you that sense of aliveness, purpose, and meaning. And Jesus and Lincoln. So why do you want to spend time with Lincoln? And what would you, what, what would the two of you discuss as you were spending that time together?

I think Lincoln was a very humble man. He actually was defeated, like in 10 or 12 elections, something like that, before he was elected president. You know, he. He generated the Emancipation Proclamation. And I think he was a very, you know, Obama used to quote him. And I think Lincoln said, I do not like that man. Let me get to know him. And so I think his greatness proceeded from his humility. That that's what I respect about Lincoln.

Beautiful.

And Jesus, what could we say, my brother? You know, Jesus, they said in the New Testament that Jesus was different because he spoke with authority, that he was connected to a source that hardly anyone else ever was. And I can't get enough of Jesus. I'm not a Jesus freak and I'm not a Christian even. But you know, when after I gave up Judaism and I traveled around taking drugs and studying with various gurus, I took a fair amount of psychedelics. And one day someone gave me a Christian Bible and I opened it up and all the words of Christ were in red. I'd never seen it before. And I said, this guy must have done a lot of acid because he knows all the stuff. And of course, he never did acid, but he knows all this stuff that I saw when I had my transcendental mystical experiences. He already knew that. And so his. His words in red went into my heart like an hour. I said this. This man knows how it is. And that was 40 or 50 years ago for me. And to this day, I have more and more respect for him as a master who. Who came to Earth to bring. To bring truth to a world that was not quite ready for it. And that's pretty much still the case. But he's my man. He's my sad guru.

So good. I've been. I've been asking different people I admire who their favorite heroes are and everyone in our community who their favorite heroes are and seeing the expression of the individual's heroes through them. So for, you know, as I. As I feel Jesus at the center for you, and then the humility and the leadership of a Lincoln and then the idiosyncratic, iconoclastic eccentricism of the Tesla, you know, it's just a really fun blender. My friend Mark Divine, a former Navy SEAL commander, six, four, two, whatever he is, his two heroes were King Leonidas and Jesus. And if there was ever a man that was the blend of those two archetypal warriors, you know, it was just a beautiful expression. So to feel that from you is just. Is just wonderful. You mentioned the Course in Miracles, and it's interesting, too, because I've got John Mackey as one of just two of the living heroes on my wall, along with my coach, Phil Stotts, and then my. My kids and Alexandra, et cetera. Alan got Emerson a star, by the way, when he was born. That was Alan's gift to Emerson when he was born was. He named his star after him. Bless you. How sweet of you. Is that? But John Mackey, the former CEO of Whole Foods, his number one book is A Course in Miracles. He speaks of that book the same exact way you speak of it.

I didn't know that.

Oh, my goodness. Goosebumps. Yeah. He also speaks of his trips of enlightenment as a young man and how they informed him. He's got a new autobiography coming out, too, the whole story, in which he's going to tell some of those stories. But so love that you shared that. Any other formative. And you mentioned Ram Dass, but any other formative guides or books that have really helped shape your thinking?

Well, Lao Tzu, Dao Te Ching. I also met a mystic master in New York when I was in my early 20s. Her name was Hilda Charlton, and she was an American woman who went to India and became a sadhu. And she came back in the 1960s and she found there'd been a huge transformation in America. So she brought a lot of wisdom from the east. And I studied with her for 14 years, and she was a master of integrity and channeling and prayer and healing. Healing and she gave me a foundation that has lasted me my whole life. So I remain very humbly grateful to these spiritual masters who, who paved the way for me to follow them and, you know, make my own service in their, in their footsteps.

Beautiful. What was it that she taught you the most?

I've never met anybody, anybody with so much integrity. She, she would channel, she would wake up at 3am and various saints and gurus and guides and masters would dictate to her and she would write the lessons and give them to our class. So. And she was friends with these invisibles. I mean, like you and I are talking now. She talked to St. Teresa and Jesus and Mother Mary. However, she was extremely grounded and she wasn't airy fairy. She, she had her head in the clouds and her feet on the ground. And so I live with her in a group in upstate New York. And she would watch to make sure that the doors were locked at night and if people overspent some money on a washing machine that they didn't have to spend, she would, you know, she would criticize them. So she was universally available, but she was materially meticulous and that usually people are one or the other. But she had this amazing blend of spirituality and being grounded on the earth. I tend to kind of be out there. I'm not as grounded as she was, but she's a role model for actually remembering my zip code and keep my checkbook balance, that kind of stuff.

That's so good. And when you mentioned Lao Tzu, I think of, you know, the alternate pathways to Wu Wei and that effortless. Right action with Lao Tzu on one end of the spectrum and Confucius on the other. And I see our complementariness. You are Lao Tzuyin. I am Confucian in the rigorous discipline. Come on. That's the pathway to effortlessly doing that, which is right. So just, I find it charming to feel our beautiful complementary spirit in action as you reflected on that.

And they're both important. I did a program last weekend with Ken Honda. Do you know Ken from Japan? He's a, he's Japan's best selling motivational spiritual author and speaker. And he's also very grounded. He guides people how to, you know, make the investments and buy gold and stuff like that. So we had a great, great time the whole weekend doing this workshop. And I said at the end, well, I'm kind of in the space shuttle and you're the ground crew. And I said, I said they're both necessary, they're both important, they both serve.

Oh, that's so good. Fantastic. One of the things we like to frame up in, in my work, in our work with our coaches, is simplifying life into kind of the concrete idea of the big three, the energy, the work and the love. And Freud had said, and I jokingly say, I don't agree with Freud on a lot, but he said that a good life comes down to essentially your work and your love. If you can express, you know, yourself powerfully in those two domains, your, I like to say at least 80% there. But I say if your energy isn't where it could be because of poor lifestyle choices, you're gonna have a hard time showing up in either your work and your love. I just love to hear you reflect on maybe some of the distinctions that you have made over the last X decades to help you show up energetically. And you're so prolific and you're so creative in your service in the form of work, which of course is your love too. But then I also want to hear about your, your relationships with D and with others and how you create deeper connections. So if there's an idea that arises in, in each of those, I would love to explore them with you, starting with your energy.

Well, back to your first question. In my work, I, if I keep service as my highest priority, I'm in good shape. So I pray before every coaching session, I pray before every book, I pray before every interview. And it's my highest intention to bring some kind of healing or blessing or alleviation of suffering or improvement of life to anyone I touch. And as long as I remember that everything works. If I get distracted by money or details or power or women, you know, all this kind of stuff has affected me over my lifestyle, my lifetime, then something gets off and I have to come back to what am I really here for. And speaking of a course for miracles, there's a prayer from the course that everyone says and it begins with, I am here only to be truly helpful. And so as long as I remember that I'm not here for self aggrandizement. I'm not here to, you know, make lots of money, although happy, happy when I do. But that's not my main purpose. I'm here to make lives better of whoever I touch. And as long as I remember that everything works, they're happy, I'm happy, I'm prosperous. And so that's, that's the main thing that works for me.

Beautiful.

The other parts of your question refresh my memory.

Yeah, so then that's, that's beautiful. I absolutely love that. I think of the Dalai Lama, and I've shared this a number of times before he gives a talk, he'll sip his tea and think. One person with one idea from what I'm going to share, and then, boom, all the pressure is off of him. It's my practice, excuse me, what I do of being in service. I love the way that you frame that, get out of our own way, and allow that spirit to come through in service to something bigger than ourselves and specifically individuals. How about energy? What have you done to cultivate and express and amplify your sense of vitality and zest and energy?

I have to keep my. My head on straight. And as I mentioned earlier, I have to be in nature. I swim a lot. I have to play at my dogs. You know, I'm a heady guy, and my intellect's always thinking. And when I get in the water or I play with a dog, or I lay under a tree, or I meditate under a tree, suddenly everything makes sense. It's like that's the grounding and the balance that I need. Nature is a very high vibration. And, you know, when I. When I'm in nature, my vibration is lifted and I think, clearly I know what I need to do. And I'm. If I sit in my office all day or type or do email, spreadsheet, but when I. When I get it, when I see the sun, when I see if. That's why I live in Hawaii, because there's so much nature here, and it's just. It just heals my soul. So the nature heals me. That. That's my main connection.

Beautiful. Are you swimming in the ocean or in a. Yeah, yeah, swimming in the Ocean.

Yeah. About 15, 20 minutes from a couple beaches. Yeah.

How nice is that? I'm feeling the calm through the aloha blue shirt. I'm looking at Kim. You and Kimmy are neighbors. She's in Hawaii. You're both glowing. I'm missing my time in Bali right now, Alan. That's so energy work. How about love?

Say again?

How about love? What are the practices that have really helped you connect most deeply?

I think innocence is really healing for me. And so when I play my dogs, my heart opens. When I see children, my heart opens. When I watch funny movies, my heart opens. You know, love is such a big word. It's a glue that, that, that. That pulls the universe together. And was it. Was it Emmett Fox who said, you know, you can do all kinds of stuff, but if only you could Love, you'd be the happiest person in the world. And it all comes back to that, doesn't it? Somebody tell me about Roger Ebert's last words. And on his deathbed, he woke up for a few moments just before he's about to pass, and he said to his wife, it's all a hoax. And she said, what do you mean? He says, all of life is a hoax, except for. I'll add the except for love part. So there's so many distractions in the world, but when I come back to my heart, none of them have any power over me. So, you know, and the hardest one is to love myself. I'm really good at loving other people. That. That. No problem with that. But then I still hold judgments against myself. I still have fears that I have to overcome. And so, you know, love is a great healer. I mean, what. In fact, I. I did a lot of books for Hay House, and one morning, Louise Hay invited me for breakfast at her home, and she asked me, what do you write in books when you sign them for people? I said, well, I told her what I wrote, and she said. I said, what do you write? She said, I write. Love Heals. So in two words, she captured her whole philosophy. You know, she was well known for working with AIDS page AIDS patients in the 80s. Very, very popular. And so this woman's illustrious career, she lived until her mid-90s. Her illustrious career boiled down to Love Heals. How simple can it get?

Beautiful Love it. Very important question, Funny movies. What are on the top of your list of funny movies that we can consider watching as well?

D and I have watched Love, actually, countless times. We like Hugh Grant. I don't know. There's other movies that really move me besides being funny ones. Like, the Truman show is up there as one of the best. The 1937 version of Lost Horizon. Those two are not so funny. But they both packed metaphysical messages that capture a lifetime of spiritual study in an hour and a half. And if you get the message for those movies, including Love actually, in its own funny way, you know, you may not have to tramp to India, to the top of Himalayas, to sit at Guru's feet. If you get the messages from those movies, you got it. Spiritual, you know, spirit works through every. Every avenue, through books, through movies, through television shows. The good ones, you know, like. Like somebody who has their antenna can capture a masterful universal idea and package it in a movie. I mean, to me, that's a miracle. And I've learned probably more from movies than from Some of the spiritual teachers I study with.

That's amazing. Well, let's. Let's go deeper into that then. What else? What other ones?

Oh, goodness.

I'm asking selfishly now, Alan, because. Because in that I'll have to think.

About it and send you a note. Okay.

I got the private wine here, but I look forward to that. Literally. It's. It's. That's one of my kind of escapes out of my head. I love nature, I love training. But the good movie, a beautifully produced movie that brings you in with the art and with the story and the arc. But obviously we'll look forward to it.

Reminded me now there's a really good line, good scene in the movie Bedazzled with Brendan Fraser and Elizabeth Hurley. It's a new version of 2000 version and it's based on the Faust paradigm. So basically this guy's a nerd and he falls in love with this girl and she won't have him. So the devil in the form of Elizabeth Hurley says, I'll give you seven wishes if you sell me your soul. Did you see that movie, Brian?

Do you know the movie I may have it. I'm going to go back and see it again.

Okay. He sells her his soul for seven wishes. And each of the seven wishes, it's a different format of him trying to get the girl. So in one movie, he. In one scene he gets her, but she's in love with somebody else. Another movie, he gets her, but he's gay. And it's like in every. There's some tragic flaw in every one of his attempts to engineer getting this girl. And you know, by the seventh one he's exhausted because nothing he did to force her to get with him worked because it was the ego conjuring. All these, you know, these manipulative scenes. And none of them worked because they were all from ego. So finally the devil takes her doing. He's thrown into jail and he's in a cell with a beautiful black man with the cornrows and guy smoking a cigarette. And the guy says, what are you doing here? And Benny Fraser says, well, you know, I sold my soul to the devil. This guy, you know, puffs on a cigarette, he's like, that's impossible, man. He said, what are you talking about? He says, well, God owns your soul and you don't own your soul. God owns your soul and God would never sell you sell your soul to the devil. So neither can you. So what a. What a metaphysical teaching that. That your soul and this is pure course in miracles. Now back to the course that your soul is invulnerable. It's inviolate. It's. It's. It's eternal. It's whole. Nothing you could ever do could diminish the power and presence and quality of your soul. It's impossible. You could make all kinds of mistakes in the human world, but your soul remains intact. And that's the whole message of the course in miracles. There's one lesson that's repeated five times in the course, and that's I am as God created me. And the message is that nothing can take away who you are as God created you. You can make mistakes. Yeah, but they're mistakes in awareness, not in reality. So, a short question, long answer. God owns your soul. You can't sell it.

And that's where we're going to wrap this up. Alan, that was beautiful. And I was going to ask you for a book ended meditation, but you just gave us one, so bless you. Thank you. I so appreciate you being here with us, and I look forward to seeing you in person. I got to make it out to Hawaii in that beautiful ocean of yours, swimming, but thank you. And before I close, I really want.

To honor you, Brian. You're. You're the guy, probably, of all the people I know, who is most on the cutting edge of his passion and vision. I mean, you always got some new project, you're always expanding, you're always embracing more people, and you're just an amazing guy who keeps finding new ways to express universal truth from different angles. And so you're like a powerhouse of creativity. So that's. You know, when I think of you, I think of a guy who is endless in his wisdom and creativity. And, you know, you embrace lots of other people, too, besides me, of course. You pull in lots of authors and teachers, so you like a universal collector of wisdom channeling to the masses in your own unique way. So that's what I want to bow at your lotus feet for.

Oh, bless you and thank you for making me a better man and husband and father and teacher and leader and all the things I aspire to be. I'm thinking, as you say, that spirit means business, baby. Let's go connect to that. Allow that soul force to come through. Thank you for your kind words, and thank you for demonstrating what's possible. Bless you, truly. Can't wait to see you in person again, although I feel so connected right now and grateful.

Big love to you and the family. Your kids must be huge by now.

11 and 6, Alan. 11 and 6. I'm taking that happen. I don't understand. I'm taking Emerson to a chess tournament. We got a couple of two and a half hour drive here from Austin. We're now in Austin to Houston. But he just loves Chaz. Eleanor. Here's the fun story. Eleanor, 6 years old, she's learning how to read and write. She went to the launch party we had for the book and she could kind of sort of write her name. But by the end of the weekend, so many people in our community asked her to sign my book that she knew how to sign her name beautifully. So in my book I have Emerson and Eleanor are the signatories in my book. And then I went to a rope mommy. But yeah, 11 and six. Is that crazy or what?

God bless you. That's wonderful.

Yeah. All right, well, bless you and thanks.

To your great staff too. They're all over it.

Oh, amen. Well, we all love you, Yana. Nat, bless you. Thank you. And there we go, everybody, round of applause. Love, slash, high five, slash. We got Frank plus one there now too. Great to see you both for Alan. Thank you. Have a great rest of the day and weekend. And Nat, if you can connect all of us who would like to stay and connect, that would be wonderful.