How To Create More Opportunities And Flow Through Generosity - I Love Marketing Episode #231

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and this is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, this is Joe Polish and I'm good to be doing an interview here with Ian Lopaten. He is the founder of a company called Spiritual Gangster, which you may or may not have heard of, but really cool company. He's someone I've actually known for many years, but we didn't really become friends until just recently. And this is the first official interview that you've ever done, Ian. So how are you?

I'm doing great. Glad to be here. Okay, so here's the deal.

We have a mutual friend, Robin Sharma, who wrote a book called the Monk who Sold His Ferrari, and the leader who has no title and just this really incredible guy. And we were all hanging out about, I don't know, a month and a half here in Arizona when Robin was in town. And you guys really hit it off. And now you're getting into this world of people are seeking you out to speak and be interviewed. And you've never actually done this before. So how is it that you've been in business for how many years you've been in business?

Well, I've been in business with Spiritual Gangster for about five years, and before that I was briefly an entertainment lawyer and then had a chain of yoga studios that we had for 13 years and then were able to sell. So I've been in business basically my whole life and mostly working for myself or as an entrepreneur.

How is it that someone could be in Business Outline and never actually done a public speech or been interviewed and stuff? Especially because you've had some pretty big success.

I just guess I wasn't ready for it up till then. Something that I've been recently more interested in. And now I'm seeing more speakers, seeing more interviews, and now getting the chance to do it myself. So it's pretty awesome. Awesome.

Well, let's first start with for people that don't know you, we've already established you're the founder of Spiritual Gangster. I'm going to ask you about that company, what it even means, what do you guys actually do? And beforehand, I mean, I don't know. The first time I went to At One Yoga, which you ended up selling to a company, Lifepower. They're the company that is Lifetime Fitness. I actually went to some of your yoga classes and actually took yoga from you. I don't know how that was probably a decade ago, I'm not even sure. But before that you were a lawyer. So let's talk about how you Ended up developing a business and what the shift was. And we'll kind of go through the origins of your life.

So I went to law school in Los Angeles and my first year of law school I just got, you know, I was high stress environment, didn't really know what to do to manage it. And you know, there was a lot of good yoga at the time. I was living in Malibu at the time. And then I moved down to Santa Monica, which was like the capital of yoga. And I truly got addicted to yoga. So I started taking classes and my mom at the time was living in Florida. So for Christmas I went out and spent some time with her and she gave me a yoga book to fly back on the airplane. And when I was sitting in the airplane, I sat next to this Indian guy with a ponytail and a white satin jacket with like a tiger on the back and his wife and just didn't talk for a while. And then I took out my yoga book and he looked and he goes, you do yoga? I have Bikram. I'm like, you want to see my book? He goes, I have my own book, 4 million copies. So I ended up the next day going to the studio and started doing yoga with Bikram. And I felt like that was an enormous. Someone was hitting me over the head. I felt like I didn't get that message. So I went out and bought his book. And then every day and sometimes twice a day for the rest of the year, I would go do yoga with Bikram. I really got addicted to yoga. Then after that I wrote a business plan at UCLA when I was in law school on a yoga studio. I sent it to five friends, they all sent me money. And the next thing I know, while I was building a yoga studio in Arizona, while I was studying for the bar in California and would fly back and forth in the beginning and teach yoga on the weekends and be a lawyer during the week. And I was actually in Hawaii with a family friend and who's very successful people. And I would meditate in the mornings and think of what I was going to do. And he said, did you figure it out yet? And I said, what are you talking about? He's like, you got to go quit your job. Your business will never work unless you quit your job. So I ended up flying back to LA and it happened to be over the holidays again. So for five days in a row I went into my law job to look for any of the partners there to quit to because I had this whole speech worked up by the end of it. I just like the fifth day I just walked in and been like, hey, I quit. So it was quite a transition. And then for 13 years I moved to Arizona and taught yoga around the world and we built an amazing community and we really brought yoga to Arizona and we did it in a way that we demystified it and made it popular for. I figured if we could sell yoga to white Republicans in Arizona, that it would work.

That's great. That's great. One of the things I always remembered at, at One Yoga, which even to this day there's very few studios that I ever go to that have the same sort of feel. The environments that were there were awesome and just really conducive for feeling engaged and connected. And as you know, being in environments are really important to you. As a matter of fact, we're at my house today and you're coming over here giving me suggestions on get rid of this, add this, that sort of stuff. Because you're really big on environments so you somehow have tuned into energy. And I don't want to sound too woo woo or whatever here, you've actually figured out quite a few things that make life flow and areas of life that prevent you that throw up hurdles. And so the outcome that I'd like to get with the interview that we're doing here is to share with the people that are listening. Most of them are entrepreneurs on how to actually get rid of self imposed obstacles and hurdles that are in their way and talk with you about what you've discovered in your life and go through some of the things that you do in terms of rituals and what you've learned. And we're just going to kind of go through this. I know we could talk for two weeks straight, but we're going to do a short version of this and then see what the listeners have to say about it. Were you stressed out when you were an attorney? Was there a time in your life where you're like, I am trapped. I got into something that I just am very unhappy about or not.

I think I was always extremely stressed. I was for sure a high achiever. But I don't think I had ways to manage my stress levels. So I would run, but I would only get tighter. I would attempt to surf, but I wasn't that good at it. And I would get just crushed by the waves every day. But I didn't have a real technique or things that helped me manage my stress. And I also realized just being in law school that everyone did it one way and that way was very stressful and it was a very zero sum attitude. So I had a hard time buying into that philosophy. So I started exploring other ways to manage my stress. And I was lucky enough to find a yoga class. And first time I went, it made me feel amazing. And then I did a study of my own. I was able to do very well in law school and realized that, hey, I don't have to do it the way everyone else is doing it and I can actually there's better ways of doing things that maybe aren't so popular people don't know about. But for me, I was a seeker. I was in a bad car accident when I was a kid as well. So my spine, I had scoliosis that I've been able to reverse, but I was always uncomfortable, so I had to find ways to be more comfortable.

What did yoga actually do for you? I mean, when you were, you said it made you feel great. What I mean, I've talked to a lot of people that do exercise and know a lot about the human body, but you are like truly, you achieved some pretty serious mastery and you've worked with some of the top people in the world. What does the whole practice of doing yoga do to you physically, mentally? How would you describe it?

It opens you up. I think yoga is super user friendly. So first of all, it's like music. There's a type of yoga for everyone. If you don't like classical music, there's rock music, you can like Ra. So yoga is all these. And there's different types of yoga for different people, different stages of their life depending on where they're at. So I think the one, it definitely opens you up physically, but I think even more so it can open you up mentally. And I think those are the two great. It doesn't have all the answers though. That's one of the biggest things I think, kind of the way the pendulum swings, right? So people get into yoga and they try to pretend they're so spiritual and they become totally ungrounded. And so I think that yoga is a great tool for opening up, but it doesn't have all the answers. I mean, maybe for a guy who lives in a cave or a sadhu in India might have most of the answers, but for the modern world, yoga needs to be grounded and needs just one tool in the tool belt. It's not, to me the magic bullet, but it does. Most people are closed physically. Their bodies are closed and tight or weak and tight. And yoga can strengthen you physically and also can open you mentally and Allow you to be exposed to other stuff that I think yoga is a gateway drug to spirituality. It can help you get into other things that can really enhance your life that most people may not be open in the beginning.

How would you define spirituality since you have a company called Spiritual Gangster, which I'm going to talk to you about?

It's having a connection to higher power, knowing that we're all connected, everything around us and there's a greater thing at work. And so spirituality to me is just, it's being in tune with the force. If you're a Star wars fan.

Right, Right. That's awesome. So you, you ended up getting into developing a whole business around it. Did you find that there's a lot of people that love guitar and then they get it, you know, hope they're going to be a successful musician or they try, I'm going to start teaching other people guitar and then all of a sudden they find that, well, doing the thing versus trying to run a business built around the thing are two different skill sets. So how did you. Were you doing yoga for a period of time and then you decided, I'm going to, you know, create a yoga studio or did you just jump right into it?

So I think this is, you know, I think I had, I had a very weak skill set as a yoga practitioner and none as a teacher. And I also never had my own business before. So I just sort of jumped right into it because I fell in love with it. In fact, one of the guys who became our top yoga teacher here, and he traveled all over the world and he gave me a pride when we first started and I started doing yoga, he looked at me and goes, do you even do yoga? So I started teaching yoga, but I was pre qualified and I had high job security. Right. No one could fire me at that point. And I was able to figure it out as we went along. But I just. Yoga was a passion of mine and I actually, when I opened a yoga studio, wasn't even planning to teach yoga. I just thought yoga was a great thing. I wanted to share with other people and just didn't exist in Arizona when we, when we did it. But I didn't even think about, I mean, when I quit my law job, I remember driving down the street one day and saying, wait a minute, I'm the yoga teacher in Phoenix. How did this happen?

Right. Well, it's okay. There's some interesting things based on what you said and I've thought about this term and I'm not 100% sure this is the best advice to give people because it could be taken out of context. But I heard it years ago, which is anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. And the way that I interpret that is, first off, every time we all tried to walk as babies, we didn't. I mean, we crawled and we were very poor at it. And the first time we tried to ride a bike, you know, we're very poor at it. But if you keep at it, you keep at it, you get good at it. I mean, the first time I ever did a public speech, I was sweating bullets. I was a nervous wreck. It was so awkward for me, but I kept doing it. And so here you are. I think it's one of the attributes of entrepreneurs is they're willing to throw themselves, jump into the lake and then figure it out. However, you should strive to be excellent, of course, and you don't want to be so poor that the result for the client is you're selling them crap or you're providing a terrible service. What I would like to get your advice on though, is that you have started ventures and you're a risk taker, but you also are very much tap into your intuition. I mean, knowing you, you're a guy that really kind of you feel your gut feelings about stuff, about people, about situations. Do you think you're just an intuitive entrepreneur or do you have some strategy that you think about when you start a business or you go into things?

So there's a lot of questions there. I think one that I'll start first is in the beginning, you don't know what you don't know. So it's pretty easy to get into stuff when you don't know anything. And then later on. And I also had a big believer. My dad always used to tell me, you'll figure it out. I would ask him a question, he goes, you'll figure it out. So I had a strong confidence for being able to figure out whatever that was. Even with spiritual Gangster, we knew nothing about fashion apparel. And I thought I'd figure it out even faster than we have, but it doesn't. It's not so intimidating for me to go into places where I don't know what I'm doing because I'm able to flow in that state and operate and be able to figure it out. I think though, like, even this interview, this is the first time for me ever being interviewed. So hopefully you always get better the more you do. And you just gotta. In the beginning, you just do your best. And I think if you do your Best the people who you're talking with get that vibration and then you can continue and continue. And there's always room to improve. But in order to improve, you gotta do something first. So our thing with that one was always, I call it dialing. So we're always dialing it up or even with Spiritual Gangster. How do you make it better? How do you remove the rub? How do you make it super fluid and you want to start at the highest level, but then there's always room for improvement in every area. So how do you continue to dial it across all areas?

Well, you're a guy that actually has built a company around a lifestyle. And one of the things I heard you say is that Spiritual Gangster is a movement disguised as a clothing company. So what do you mean by that?

I think that Spiritual Gangster, it's a community. I mean the same thing we have with the yoga studios where people are coming together and attracts like minded people. And right now apparel is what we're into. But I think there's a lot of things that can populate the brand and it's the idea of just, you know, sometimes I have a lot of people wear Spiritual Gangster and they wear other people's brands and they say, hey, when I wear X&Y's brand, I feel like I'm repping their brand. They say when I wear Spiritual Gangster, I feel like I am the brand. So it allows people to identify sort of who they are and what they believe in. And we want to make people realize we're connected. You know, the positive slogans, the beautiful pictures of traveling and the great places you get at and the community you're around. And also we want to do the right thing, but we don't want to brag about it or be too preachy about it. We want people to, when they ask questions, we want to get deeper. We don't advertise all the stuff we do, but there's a lot of to it and we want to help. We're in for spreading abundance, sharing what we love, making other people better. And I think the people who are attracted to that mentality are also the people who are buying in. People vote with their dollars.

Right? Okay, so we can now take a slight commercial break and say that if anyone wants to go look at the website, if they've never been introduced to Spiritual Gangster before and just go buy some shirts or anything at this point, where would they go and explain some of the slogans and stuff that are on your clothing so that people have some context.

So spiritualgangster.com is the best spot to go. And a lot of all the slogans are inspirational things that we want. We believe in energy and the universe is energy. And we're all energy and high vibration living. So as you raise your frequency, you also raise the frequency of the people you come in contact with, the experiences that you have. And that's what it's all about for us and helping others. And we do, you know, we feed people for every item that we sell. We do a lot of stuff with charities, like Make a Wish, for example. But we're very into helping our local communities and helping and helping people and also spreading our vibe.

Well, so I'd like to hear some of your favorite slogans. The ones you come up with are words.

So my wife Vanessa is our real creative director and she's, she definitely has. She's the key to most of the creativity, especially the slogans. But you know, things like I'm just here for the Shavasana has been super popular.

That's funny. What's your favorite? If you could only if you, if you're on a deserted island and you only had access to your clothing. No Lululemon?

No.

American Apparel? No.

I like. I mean, the karma made me do it is a great one too. I think that's very catchy. And I just like the spiritual gangster, the oxymoronic of the phrase itself. You know, one of my favorite things to do is I wear the T shirt every time I travel in airports or in places are really busy. And I love seeing the different type of people who are attracted to it. And it's a conversation starter. I mean, people will. It just opens up. And from, you know, young girls to older guys to, you know, people from church to people, all different cross of life to Marines, it just, it gives a good cross section and everyone has their own definition for it. So we like to tell people like, you know, what it is. The people who knows what it is are it. And it's very cross cultural. And that's one of my favorite things about it. When we first started, like put spiritual gangster on their shirt.

Yeah. So what's a spiritual gangster? How would you explain, I mean, how would you describe the avatar of who this person is?

Well, my Bitmoji I think might be the avatar of the spiritual gangster. But it's someone who believes in sharing what they love and doing what they love and having a very abundant world that we live in. There's more than enough for everyone. And we want to be able to tap into these ultimate Resources and allow everyone to play at their highest level and do the things they love to do in ways they want to do it. And I think just getting people to think differently is a lot of what spiritual gangsters are all about. Awesome.

Awesome. Okay, so so much of your messaging and so much of your communications is about generosity, is about giving, is about contributing. So what are your thoughts on generosity?

I think that it's one of them. It's one of the most misunderstood things, generosity and sharing. I think it's very. You hear, you get what you give, but that's really how things work, at least in my belief system. And I think that every time.

A.

Practice that I like to think of as being radically generous, give more. Give to the point of where you maybe become uncomfortable so you can. It also opens your capacity to receive. So I think people are counterintuitive sometimes. Oh, let's use money, for example. When people are lacking money, the first thing they do is hold onto money and they tighten it. But really what they want to do is give it. They want to be strategic about it, they want to share it. They want to help other people who need it more. So then it will open the flow to come back in their life. And I just think you have to practice that, you know, we talked about with all the other things. It's practicing these things, like intuition is something that you have to cultivate, you know, just like generosity is something that has to be cultivated. And then I think that once you become good with the techniques of being generous, you get more and more flow. And there's nothing better than sharing what you love, you know, even. Especially with people that you love. But it's also great sharing what you love with people you just meet. And I think that too sometimes think, oh, if I'm generous to this guy or girl, will they be generous back to me? And the flow of abundance comes not necessarily from the person you give it to, it comes from all around you. And I also think what it does is allows you to see opportunity in everywhere you go. So by being more generous and being more in the flow, you look at things differently than other people, and you're able to see opportunities of other people people miss. So I think to me, generosity is one of the keys to living an abundant lifestyle. In the flow. Yeah.

That's great. That's great. Now, there are people that I know that have done very well financially, that are very selfish, that are takers, that are arrogant, that in some ways could be even ruthless, mean, cruel, and the world will look at them and say, well, you know, but they're successful. And the way that I gauge success is the ability to, you know, not have enemies. You know, not that you can be the greatest person on the planet and still have enemies. I mean, many people hate Oprah, hate Mother Teresa, that sort of stuff. And a lot of people would say, well, these are very kind individuals. What I want to get your perspective on is you have this thing. What is the saying you have about sleep? I heard you say it before. It's actually quite.

I say takers eat well, givers sleep well.

What do you mean by that?

Well, I think that as a taker, you can create some level of abundance in your life where you can surround yourself with things and you can appear to have, you know, you probably do have it, you know, the stuff you want in your life. But how do you feel when you go to bed at night? I mean, to me, that's what it's all about. And I, I think that if you, if you all day being generous, doing good things, you have no trouble sleeping. And you also, if you're, if money is important to you and you're generous with money, you'll have a ton of money. I mean, that's just how it works. So.

Well, let's talk about that, because some people might hear that and be like, well, I don't know about that, Ian. I tend to do a lot of stuff for a lot of people and I struggle financially and I don't really get it. What are the obstacles that you think cause some people to maybe seemingly think that they're really trying, they're really working hard, they're putting forth effort, but they're not. They seem to be watering their garden and harvesting it, but they're not getting any fruit of their labor.

Well, I think, you know, one, most people work way too hard, and I think that people need to learn how to work better or work smarter or use the right tools. And then figuring out, you know, it comes from planting the right seeds. So if you don't plant the right seeds, you can't harvest the garden. Or if you're, you know, one of our teachers says, if you want watermelons, plant watermelon seeds, and if you're planting cactus seeds, you can't expect to grow watermelons.

Right?

So I think it's important with generosity. I mean, you're going to get what you're giving. So the proof is in the pudding. If it's coming back to you differently, you're getting what you're giving. So, I mean, and that's the biggest thing that I think people have to be aware about. You know, everyone's got their own story and their own way of seeing at it. And, you know, even one of the things that I talk about a lot is. So some people are like, well, are you. Isn't it selfish? Isn't it selfish if you're giving because you know it's going to come back to you? But it's like, I know if I throw a ball up in the air, gravity is going to take it down. It's just one of the rules, right? So part of being generous. Some people would say it's a selfish practice, but it's really. It's cause and effect. So most people misunderstand real cause and effect.

By the way, for people that are not. This is so funny. I'm just going to say something about our interview here. So Ian is quite an animated guy, and he's sitting here. So if you're hearing the beating, I don't have a whole studio set up here. We're actually at my kitchen table right now where we decided to do this impromptu interview. And he's going. And so I was pointing at him. He was kind of looking at me like, what? What? And I was just trying to identify that the pen here is real close to the microphone. But we're just going to leave that in because I think it's awesome. Just so 10 years from now we.

Know what that is.

Speaking. Wherever you're speaking at, you know, the president will invite you to speak to the whole country or something about spirituality. You'll at least be able to look back and say, well, I'm not banging the microphone.

Banging the microphone with the spiritual gangster.

I mean, you're here to just rough shit up a bit, I would imagine, just a little.

Hopefully I'm not going to wreck your kitchen. It's looking so good so far.

So do you have individuals that you look at, be it role models or people that really have helped you develop some of these philosophies and how you think about things, be it your heroes in life? I mean, who are some of the people that you look up to?

For sure. I think, you know, it's important to surround. And I'm always, you know, you're a new friend of mine of people around you in your life who can help you learn things you want to learn about and who are doing it the way you want to want to do it. So I've, you know, I've had many different friends and mentors and some of them are friends of college who have become super highly successful and other ones are friends of other friends. But I think it's really important to surround yourself with people who you aspire to be like. I mean, everyone around you is a big mirror of who you are, I believe. So, you know, I like to surround myself with, you know, people who are playing at the absolute highest level. And also people are very successful in areas where I'm not necessarily as successful. So, you know, whether it's business people or NBA owners or professional athletes or artists or people who are at the top of their game. And also too, I think what's really wonderful, when you meet people who are at the top of their game and you're talking about what you're passionate about and comfortable about, you meet them and they're very easy relationships to have because it's based on sharing. So I think most people who are givers sometimes have problem receiving. And that's why even people who say, I'm doing all this for all these people, but they're not receiving, you have to let people do stuff for you, otherwise they can't be givers too.

That's a great point. That's a great point. Because a lot of times people will.

Shut off or they're only one way. They think they can only give and they can't receive, and they think receiving is weaker than giving. Another thing about money too is when I talk about being in the flower, it's currency. So Deepak calls it currency. So you have to keep it circulating. And I think that's super healthy that you have to constantly be in the flow and the more things circulate, the healthier they are.

Yeah. So you. I have some female friends that would typically make this sort of statement that are very kind of woo, woo, and we'll be in a car driving or something. They'll be like, well, the parking angel is going to show up and there's going to be a parking spot. And sure enough, sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. And then I could say, we'll see how well this whole parking angel thing worked for you. Now, that being said, you are really known for having this whole attitude of like, things are going to happen because I'm, you know, just expecting them to. So you have this, of course, philosophy. So I want you to.

Well, I always get parking spots out front, first off, because I have forever and I look for them. They're always there for me. But you know, it's interesting that I think people are so Surprised when things work out in their favor. They're like shocked by it. And to me, it's such an of course it's going to work out in your favor. If things are working right. Of course they're working out in your favor versus why are you surprised when things drop in your lap? Like, another thing I say is, things always drop in my lap because that's how it works if I want to talk to someone, hey, about this, bam, here's your super bowl tickets that I was just thinking about, or whatever that is. No matter how easy is a parking spot or a trip around the world, those things, when you think about it and you're open to it and you're planting the right seeds, of course things drop in your lap. And so I'm going to share a brief story which to me really summed it up. So I have a six year old son and his name is Jedi. He loves NBA basketball and he loves LeBron James. So last year we went to Cleveland, I took him to a game and we flew to Cleveland. It was a crappy weather and we get there like an hour before the game or an hour 15 minutes before the game. And the hotel we're staying at happens to be where all the San Antonio spurs are staying and it's connected to the arena. So we get there and as we check in, he's high fiving all the guys in the spurs because they're checking out. And so we check in our room and they walk over to the arena. And then we're sitting first row on the floor and there's the Cavs. All of them are in front of us and guys are coming over and saying hi. And the game starts. And five minutes into the game, my son looks at me and he goes, dad, I want to high five LeBron. And so I'm a positive thinker, and I'm like, oh, my God, we just flew all the way to Cleveland. And all he wants to do is high five LeBron. This is going to be a bust. Like, I didn't say anything to him, like, oh, it's hard to high five LeBron. We're in the middle of an NBA game. How are you going to high five LeBron? So I say to him, to the guy next to us sitting, because I know that he is some sort of relationship. I said, jedi, tell Joey what you want to do. He said, dad, I want to high five LeBron. So cut to halftime. Right before the second half, we're standing up, clapping, and my son has a LeBron jersey. On. And the referee who goes to throw to Inbound the ball, LeBron starts walking over to the ref. Next thing I know, LeBron turns from the ref, high fives my kid, and rubs his head. And this is the middle of, this is right before the second half of the game's about to start. And everyone around me is like, oh my God, did you see that? So I sit down to my son, I said, jedi, you know how to high five LeBron? He goes, yeah. Say you want to high five LeBron. So that was to me, like, oh, wow, okay, whatever you want to call that, that's amazing. But it gets even better. So three days later, I have to be in New York on business and we're going to go see Knicks game, and my wife and I are going, and we end up saying, oh, we're going to go to the next game, let me take our son. So we take him and we look across the floor and LeBron happens, he's not playing in the game, he happens to be at the Knicks game. And that cut to the chase. Next day, LeBron ended up staying at our hotel. And the next day, on his way to his game, I'm in the lobby, I hear, hey, little man, LeBron high fives my son again. So you can't make that stuff up. I mean, even if you planned it to the. So that's a big believer. Of course, like when you're in the right place, doing the right thing, and it's always way better than you could ever make it up.

Okay, so some people would say, well, that's this really extreme coincidence. But you're saying, no, it's not. So what's the difference between this and coincidence?

Well, coincidence is, it is coincidence, but coincidence is mistranslated. So if you. The word comes from when two angles coincide, meaning that they're in perfect alignment, but somehow coincidence has been mistranslated to mean by accident. But coincidence doesn't mean by accident. It means by imperfect alignment. So when you're in perfect alignment, stuff like that happens all the time.

Okay, so this is good. This is good because if people could actually have a formula for perfect alignment, that would be pretty huge. But let's not even shoot for perfect. Let's just shoot for maybe 10% better in all areas of their life, their health, their relationships, their business. Let's walk through some of the things that you have discovered either in your own life, you discover from so many of the people that you've worked with. I mean, you know, so many world class people You're a seeker. You've done a tremendous amount of work, and you have probably spent thousands of hours in some form of yoga or spiritual meditation, some sort of practice, be it reading, writing, floating. I mean, all the different things that you do. I want to kind of get through some of the stuff that you do to give the listeners some ways to think about how they can get into better alignment. And I would also preface this by saying that this is Ian's perspective and some of the things that he does. But I think there's a lot to be learned from it. So let's first ask a question like, what are three keys to living magically?

So I'm going to give a. First off, you could hear from me in two years and all this could change. But where I'm at currently in my life, this is what I believe to be the best. I think having a positive attitude. It all starts with. With your attitude. I think how you look at it is really outcome determinative, and you can control your attitude. And most people don't take responsibility for that. So before I get out of bed, I say, today's a great day. I am blessed. I use positive affirmation. I am. And I only talk about what I am. You know, even I was talking with the GMR president of our business, and he's like, I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this. So let's rewind this. Tell me what three things you want. He's like, I don't want all the staff to go away. I said, okay, we want to keep our staff. Okay. So being how you. How do you talk to yourself and how do you talk to the world and how do you think about it? So always be affirmative. Talk about the I am and think positive. I think that's the most important thing. And whatever the situation is, whether it's an obstacle, an opportunity, whatever's going on, how can I think about it positively and what do I have to learn from it? So I think that's. That's really. To me, I definitely learned that from my dad. He was a trial lawyer, and he was always positive. Every single day would get up, get up, get up, get up, and be positive about that. And I think that is super. And especially as entrepreneurs, I think that's where most people, you can never give up on your vision. You can never give up on. Just always be positive about it. And that for so many times, even without one yoga, the thing would have fallen apart had I lost my positive Attitude. So it's infectious and it's really a secret that, that holds things together. I think, you know, other things that are super important for sharing and, and just taking care of yourself. I think that you have to be able to, to be at one, for lack of a better way to put it, and to find, find routines that help you play at the highest level. So I think that, you know, things can get out of balance and I think that's where people, you know, get injured is when their life gets out of balance and their bodies get out of balance. So I think that, you know, maintaining a real good balance between your work life, between your friends and your family life, and your health and wellness and spiritual life. Sometimes you look at the guys on Wall street, tons of money, you know, broken marriages, poor bodies. But so figuring out how you can keep all these areas of your life and do things so we can talk all day long about business. But I think the thing that's even more important or what are you doing for yourself personally to maintain your frequency, to raise it to the highest level. So I mean, meditation, I think is super important. You know, I've been experienced all different types of meditation. I think TM meditation in my experience is most user friendly. I think that, you know, now I meditate on airplanes. I can meditate in crowded areas. I can meditate that I never was able to do before. So I think finding some ways, you know, we were talking earlier about, it's not about just working out, it's working out and working in. So I think you have to go both ways. I think breaking a sweat. We like to hike the mountain together and doing things where you're present in your workout versus just clipping away on a treadmill, but being aware of every step and being out in nature and doing stuff that's challenging. So it requires your focus. I like yoga, tai chi, any sort of internal exercise where you have to tune in when you, when you work out as well. So it heightens your sense of connection to energy versus just building muscles. So things that, things that help you become more present. You know, there's all. There's a book on flow state and a whole bunch of flow state talks about how time starts to warp, whether speed up or standstill. And it has to do with, you know, all these different factors. But the, you know, being in nature is a big of part fact of it. Breathing consciously and being heightened awareness. So doing things that allow you to get in those states, I think are super important.

Well, you know, I'm going to Ask you about flow state. Well, now we both have a very dear friend, Dusty, who you get a lot of body work and she's like this amazing world class healer, massage therapist, which would not do her justice based on what she does. But you, I mean, how frequently I want to actually talk about this because I know how much you actually put into taking care of your body. And I think it's important for people to hear this.

I think so what would be even more so Dusty is amazing and a huge part of my weekly ritual. So I think part of what we should do is I'll just lay out a week of when I'm in town and what I do and how that works. So on Mondays I'll get up and drop my kid off. I'll meditate first, get off, drop my kid off at school and then I'll hike the mountain, which I would right by Camelback. It's like two hours for some people, an hour and a half for me, sometimes two and a half, but very focused walking. On Tuesday I'll drop my kid off at school, then I'll go teach Tai chi to the elders at the old folks home and then go to yoga. So that's how I do my morning. On Wednesday I'll meditate and then I'll go see Dusty. So every Wednesday I have a standing two hour back walking session and it's been part of my ritual for five to six years and it's helped me transform my body. So you're not just this is all proactive stuff versus being reactive. Then on Thursday again I'll go to the old folks and do Tai chi and then hike and then do yoga. And then Friday I'll do the mountain again. So having a ritual when I'm in town of doing a variety of these exercises and I like to do them all once I start the day. So then I'll go to the office. So I'll be in the office by 10 or sometimes 11, but I'll be up and I'll get myself in the zone in the morning.

Yes. So how would you trans? Which is great. I mean that's really awesome to hear that ritual and the fact that you're. You place such a priority on it because you know that your ability to function in your business has to do as a result of you doing that other stuff. Not in spite of, but it literally fits together well.

And it also allows me to be, you know, a way more efficient with my time and also be at the top of my game. So I'm there And people are like, oh, what'd you do today? I'm like, oh, I already climbed the mountain. So there's a difference. When you go on Monday morning, you've already climbed a mountain, you're showing up to work or in the middle of Wednesday when everyone's getting crushed, you've just had a two hour back walking massage and you're totally relaxed and you're ready to come into your day. So I think that if you can augment your energy, you can become way more efficient. Most people waste a lot of time. They value time the most, but they waste it the most because. And then they also don't know how to recover. So I was just. I spend a lot of time with a lot of world class athletes. And the thing people snowboarders and they get so high from these endorphins and these amazing. But it takes longer to recover and they don't know how to recover. And I think business people are that too. They're always working, they're always adrenaline junkies, they're always going. But then they get depleted and they don't know how to recover. So I think having these rituals and being consistent with them and things like regular body work, seeing chiropractors, obviously you know, we're big fans of float tanks, yoga, these are all ways to recover and recover faster.

So why don't more people live like this? Other than I could hear some people saying, well I can't, I have a job and I have a regular career. I can't go to hike in the mountain in the morning. But I mean, but maybe they could. So I want to hear your perspective. Why don't people, why don't people do this?

I don't know if they are aware that this is possible or knowing all the pieces that can help out, hopefully that we'll be able to share it with people. And I think everyone has a possibility of living this way. It's getting the most out of your life and having great experiences and being productive and being generous and helping others, but also too being in the best shape of your life. You don't need to be pro athlete shape, but you definitely need to be in the best shape of your life versus getting older and losing energy. I think about it, there's an arc to life and you want to. I'm 42 now and I think you're about similar but you want to age gracefully and you want to keep that arc up. You're growing, you're growing, you're growing and then you get to the mountain and you want to stay at the peak, as high as possible. So when you're younger a, you don't need to recover. And these things aren't because you have so much energy and you just get away with anything. But I think as you start to age and you get a little wisdom. You know, for me, I spent 20 years of my life exploring and seeking these things out. And so what I want to do is share with other people. Out of these 20 things, I found 300 that didn't work, or probably 20,000. So there's a lot of stuff out there that didn't work for me. But there's certain things out there that we've done been able to work. And my favorite thing to do now is share them to the people closest to me. Be like, hey, how does this help your life? And I think the busier you get, the more you need help.

Right?

So being open and you want, you want experts of people, you're not experts, you know, and things. So I think that's kind of how we all get to the next level, is by helping each other. So for me, it was synthesizing the things that worked best for my life and now putting them in a way that we can start sharing them to others and exposing people to them. Yeah.

I heard an author say, I went and saw at a bookstore years ago. He said, you know what? He interviewed handicapped people, successful rich people, mothers, athletes. I mean, you know, the whole gamut of different humans, different countries. And he said, you know, after interviewing thousands of people, what I've basically figured out people want is more woo and less. Ah. I was like, what a simple way of explaining it. You look at everything that we do. If I go out and build a business, do I want more money? Yeah. What I want is a byproduct of what money provides, which are a lot. It provides a lot. If I go to a yoga class or a spin class or hike a mountain, I want the feeling of energy or feeling of feeling good. And health is so critical to me. What people that are listening to this, even listening to an interview like this, what is it that they really want when they're doing their business or starting a business, what is it that they want? A lot of the answers they'll give, they're not quite aware of what am I really pursuing? And we know this because you'll see a lot of people that will pursue money and they'll neglect their family, they'll neglect their health, and then their life can really suck. And there's this Indian Proverb which, he who has their health has a thousand dreams, he who does not have their health has only one. And it is so damn critical for me. I've placed an enormous value on health. And so I want to ask you what of the healthiest people that you know, what do they do? I mean, what are some of the things that you've not already talked about that you can speak to deeper? Because I think it's such an important subject.

So I think that, you know, there's a lot of different ways people. I don't think fitness is necessarily healthy. So I think it's important to talk about health and people who are health and people who live healthy lives. And to me, I think health is more. It's having great fitness, but it's also having great relationships. So I think the thing that I see the most, the people who I admire is the most healthy are healthy attitudes. They seem positive, they're always grateful, they have great routines and great habits. Meaning they get up in the morning, they do some sort of exercise, they stretch. Maybe they don't do yoga, but they stretch. They might not meditate, but they're conscious, they breathe, they do a lot of walking, especially if you're talking about people as you get older. They have great posture, they eat great food, and mostly they avoid inflammatory things, they avoid processed foods, they laugh a lot, they're generous, they're sharers, they're givers. So I think, you know, it all starts with a healthy attitude. And you know, you, there's an old saying, your issues are in your tissues. And, and I think to your, the body. You can see a lot of, by, by how someone carries themselves. So it's tough to hide in your own body, right?

Well, if it's not. And by the way, I mean, you already know this. A big emphasis that I do, aside from my genius network business and helping entrepreneurs is helping bring some of the best thinking and practices and rituals and things to help reduce suffering for addicts. Talking about flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who wrote one of the first books on flow, said that the same neural pathways that a athlete, an entertainer, a business person uses to get into a state of flow is also the same neural pathways that an addict will use for addiction. And so it's like we're using the same roads, but one leads to massive achievement and connection. The other one leads to, you know, pain, self sabotage and disconnection. So it's like we're almost using like the same accessories of the brain, but it's how it actually plays out. So my question to you is, if someone's listening to this and they're just overwhelmed. I said my whole little rant about pursuing a feeling. I think about the term overwhelmed because I will get myself in states of overwhelm a lot. And is overwhelm real or is it just the way I'm responding now? I certainly believe overwhelm can be real. If you have so much weight put on your body and it's crushing you, that's a real overwhelm. But in terms of like, I'm feeling overwhelmed, is it a feeling or is it a real thing?

Well, everything's a feeling. And like I said before, everything comes back to your perspective. So overwhelm is usually, well, always is your perception of the reality. And so there was the guy who wrote the book Flow. I forget his name right now, says that if you take seven, if you take an exhale for the count of seven, you impossible to feel panic. So just by the state of changing your breathing patterns, that affects how your brain's firing and looking at the world. So if you can have a long exhale to the count of seven immediately, that will change your perception of the reality because it's, you know, it's not the reality, it's how you're perceiving it. And that's what the state of overwhelming is. And some people choose to do some crazy stuff like even take their lives because they're feeling overwhelmed about some sort of situation. That isn't a big deal if you could stand away from it and look at it differently.

That's the key. If you could stand away from it. So getting yourself that pause.

And it's not. So it's not a black and white reality either. That's another thing too. So most the people who I think get overwhelmed more frequently see things in black and white. And there's all these different shades of gray and different colors and hues, and there's so many different perspectives. So how do you get a healthier perspective to look at what's happening?

Gotcha. So what would you say to the person that they're getting this on an intellectual level, but they're feeling physically out of it, they're not aligned, they're maybe struggling financially, they're really challenged. And you have to be the dispenser of perspective. Advice, suggestions, recommendations. What would you say to people that are in pain?

I think. I think you want to look at what you're doing with your day and figuring out what your habit patterns are. And whatever you're doing or have been doing up to this point is going to yield where you're at right now. So I think changing your day, if you have the luxury and living in Arizona, get to go see Dusty. That's what I do for sure. I'd go see a bunch of body workers.

She's one of the most expensive I'd.

Sign you up for. Get them even like yoga. Or find a meditation teacher. TM Meditation. Bikram Yoga.

TM.org yeah.

Or any sort of exercise routine where you're sweating. Go hiking, do something and do it for a couple weeks and notice how you feel afterwards. I think the process of just moving your energy will help a ton of. And find some way to work on your posture. I mean, I think the only place they even teach posture sometimes is in the military. It's wild. Most people are in tremendous agony in their bodies through years of misalignment.

Right. You know, it's cool. This will be a sneaky way to make it sound like a good idea, which I actually think it is. But now perhaps it'll be free spiritual gangster gangster clothing for the rest of my life. I believe everyone listening to this. If you want to try a little trick on this to embed things, I think words are powerful. What we say when we talk to ourselves is really important. Go to spiritualgangster.com, buy a shirt for your loved ones, one for yourself that has any message that says grateful or whatever.

And grateful is my favorite.

Wear it to bed and wake up when you're starting this whole ritual of taking on something and use it as a trigger to remind you of some of the things that Ian has been sharing. I honest to God, think that could even become a ritual to just remind yourself or to get in this. Hang it up where you get. Because, see, every person has to put on clothes. Well, maybe not, but at least the ones that will be listening to this interview or of the species that wear clothes, at least the most that I know. But I think if they actually went and got themselves a spiritual gangster shirt, just something that resonated with, with them about karma or whatever, I think it would be a really good trigger to not forget some of the things we're talking about. Secondly, some things that work for me, having done a lot of stuff, if you're ever feeling so wrapped up in how crappy your life is, and I certainly could admit to being a whiny victim in situations where I was just blaming, criticizing, and not in a good mental state. And whenever I can get the focus off of, of me or whatever I think is bad and help other people. It's tremendous. Joe volunteer.com, which is this thing that a guy by the name of Chip Franks started. He heard me share an idea on my podcast and literally is in the process of creating this app that will link people that want to volunteer with organizations that need it. I mean, from people in nursing homes to animal shelters, to disaster relief, to children's hospitals, to recovery centers, to burn clinics. I mean, the world is filled with people that are suffering. And when you can go out and just help someone, it will do so much for that, work in that inner work in the same way that exercise and eating well and float pods. Like float pods. Truerest.com you ever go to Arizona Trust, they have float pods, things that just will help other people. I've seen people get out of depressed states and are just sabotaging the shit out of their lives and you put them with someone that is in a worse state than them or that needs help and all of a sudden their attitude changes, they feel better. And these are just incredibly good rituals. But if you haven't done them, it's a lot harder to create momentum than it is to maintain it. Part of what you're sharing here, you didn't just wake up one day and then you're hiking the mountain, you're going and doing bodywork, you're doing yoga. I mean, you had the building and.

You have to create some easy wins for yourself right away. So I think in the beginning, things like yoga is an easy win. Things like volunteering and helping people, that's the easiest one because not only are you actually helping the people, you get so much for yourself out of it. But I think, you know, volunteering is the greatest thing you can do. And by just getting your community and helping the people around you, the benefits are tremendous and they have an effect on your attitude.

Right. So no, this is great. So what would you say to your, you know, how old were you when you first started at one, Neil?

I was 23.

23. Going back in time, what would you have said to your 23 year old self that would have saved you? Because you're 42 now. I'm 47. That would have saved you maybe a lot of pain and misery if you would have paid attention.

What the fuck are you doing? I mean, there was so much I could probably tell myself and I didn't really have an idea. And for a while maybe I was more stubborn or a lot of times you have to be stubborn to get things done, but also you realize you have to be open to get help. So there's a, you know, I've learned a ton along the way and, you know, a friend of mine tells me, you know, the price of education goes up a lot after school. So there's very expensive lessons that you learned. And I think too, a lot of though too is people need a laboratory or you, you know, your life is a laboratory to test your belief system and even starting your own business becomes that. But I think a lot of the lessons that I Lauren is, you know, for sure, leave no blood. So you always want to do the right thing and if it doesn't work out, you want to get out of it the right way on the highest level. I think, you know, looking a new philosophy for me is two winners. You know, I used to be way very competitive and, you know, I used to play a lot of golf. I would even play in the World Series of Poker the day after I sold our AT one yoga business. But I'm staying away from things like that now. I still love golf, but versus the competition where there's a winner and a loser, versus things where there can be two winners because you can have both. So I think that it's always best to look for scenarios where there's multiple winners. So that's a big thing that I thought about lately.

I've got to say this because it's making me laugh, because I show some humorous things during my Genius Network annual event. There's this Twitter feed called GS Elevator, which are supposedly things that are heard on the elevator at Goldman Sachs. And it was just funny as hell. One of them was a win. Win means I just beat you twice.

I think to me, generosity has been huge. And I have a Buddhist teacher, Geisha Michael Roach, who had opened me up and taught me a lot of things that have now been incorporated into my belief system. And it came a lot of the time around when I was selling at 1, but it helped me see the world more globally and realize our connection and understanding how important giving and generosity really can be and also can be as a way to help others, but also can be as a tool for your own growth. Yeah.

So what would you say to. Your son if he was 18 years old sitting here to you now and you had any sort of life advice for him as he's about to venture out and do whatever his heart desires?

I mean, I think it and I say it to him now already. Believe in yourself. You'll figure it out, believe in yourself and just be good to people. Be good to people. I think you, you know, be good to everyone, too. I think that, you know, that's one of the biggest things about. About life is it's all about the people you meet and the people you come in contact with. And the better you are to people, the better people are to you. And I think that the more that you can share with people around you and the more you help others, the richer your life becomes.

Right now, it seems such simple advice, but many people do not do it. And there's one saying that we talked about before we started recording was what I learned early on. Someone said to me, be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They're the same people you meet on the way down. And most people have probably heard that or heard something similar to that. But I swear the way that I gauge who I hang out with is when I see people that are more powerful. How do they treat people that are less powerful than them? If they're rude to waiters, if someone opens the door, they don't say thank you. If they think everyone should kiss their ass. I mean, I just don't want to associate with those people because they're assholes. And it's one of these things to where if you go through life leaving scorched earth, it will catch up with you and you will run into people 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And if you don't treat them well, they will remember it and it will affect it. And it kind of goes back to what you were saying about sleeping, being able to. Because I'm not the greatest sleeper in the world. So although I think I put a lot of good karma in there, I still have challenges sleeping, which is kind of funny. I'll be meeting with Michael Bruce, the sleepdoctor.com tonight, a good friend of mine. The thing is, though, I feel really good about what I do in the world. And there were times in my life when I didn't. And most of those is not what I was doing to other people, but what I was doing to myself. I mean, most people that listen to my stuff, they've heard me talk about my addictions, my challenges and some of these things. But I'll tell you, practices and adopting practices will allow you to overcome things. And you can so much shift. I mean, you know, When I was 18 years old, I was a drug addict that weighed 105 pounds from free basin cocaine. If I would have looked at my life back then, I would Be like, I would have probably been dead. I would have never even made it. But if it wasn't for mentors and books and seeking and always having that hope, always having that hope. And hope heals. And so I love hearing people talk about things that instills hope. And you've created a whole company that is built around doing that, which I think is not only admirable and smart and cool, it's just you get to see the byproducts of happiness. The thing that strikes me the most about you from all the times we've interacted is you are about fun, you are about being in a flow state, and you're about not having friction in your life. I mean, you're kind of like a friction free guy. I don't want a lot of shit going on and I want things to be easy. So for people that want to go deeper with your philosophy, I mean, what do you think is going to happen in the next year? Are you going to write a book? What are you going to do?

I for sure would love to write a book and start speaking more and even doing workshops and now speaking of my other friends, workshops and just helping people to access this way of thinking and way of living.

Great. Well, and of course, all that was loaded because I'm kind of egging you on here. Everything I said, that was kind of of a setup. So people want to find more information about Spiritual Gangster. Anything else before we wrap this up that you'd recommend that they. Any call to action, any cool new product lines that you guys have released that you think everyone.

Well, all our new stuff is coming out for the holidays, so if you need a good holiday gift, go for spiritualgangster.com. check out Joe's Genius Network for sure. He's amazing. And just find someone, go help them and do something nice for someone. Awesome.

I love it. Well, thank you, Ian. I appreciate it. I'm very happy. This was our first interview. Wherever you're hearing this interview, please share your comments. If you found this very helpful, please share it all over whatever social media that you do. If you want to subscribe to my podcast, you can do so on itunes. Give us your comments and let us know what you think. And Ian will certainly see them. And thank you.

Thank you very much.