Debra Poneman – Create True Success

A lot of people say that they just can't settle their mind down. But the reason why I've chosen that as my practice, because you don't have to settle the mind down. The mantra settles your mind down. The natural tendency of the mind is to always go to a field of greater pleasure.

So.

So even if you're using your mantra and somebody turns on your favorite song in the other room, your mind's going to go there, right? Whoosh. So you do want to have silence. But if your mind goes off on thoughts and you realize three minutes later, I've just been sitting here planning my dinner party, and you just easily go back to the mantra, and then the mantra has that ability to bring the mind back.

Welcome to the mindtrax podcast with breakthrough ideas to live your best life possible and how to make it happen. I'm Paul Shealy, and today we'll be joined by Debra Poneman. Deborah Poneman is a best selling author, award winning speaker, and founder of yes to Success and Ageless seminars. Her programs have been used by hundreds of thousands of people to not only live with success and abundance, but also deep happiness, profound inner fulfillment, and ageless radiance. Deborah is also the proud mother of two adult children. Her greatest accomplishment is not that she's helped so many live the life of their dreams, but that she's helped her children discover the greatness they truly are.

Foreign.

Deborah, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for being here with me.

Well, thank you so much for inviting me. You know, I absolutely love you. I love everything you do. You're one of my favorite people on the planet. So thank you for inviting me.

Such a pleasure. Well, we have so many things in common, and I'd like to start with the idea of meditation, because I think both you and I got into human development, got into consciousness through meditation. I was going to the university at the time and so were you. Could you tell a little bit about your story of getting into meditation? Why is it important for us today to have a practice of meditation?

Well, I'll just start out by quoting from Amity, the hugging saint. And she said, now is the time that we must cling to our spiritual practices, because when the world shakes, it will allow us to be unshakable.

Ooh, I like it so much.

Right. And that's the beautiful thing about meditation. It's when we try to build a life of success without a foundation of silence. It's kind of like trying to build a skyscraper with no foundation. If there's no foundation the first little anything wind is going to blow over the structure.

So.

So I think that both of us would agree because I think we both started in the 70s, we grew up in the same hometown, and we started in the 70s with a path of meditation. And I think that's one of the reasons that we've both been pretty successful. Because in any endeavor, you're going to have obstacles. In any endeavor, it's not ever straight up. It's always going to be straight up plateau, maybe even a little backwards. But when you have that basis of silence, it doesn't throw you.

I had certainly noticed that if I missed a single day, that my day just wasn't the same. And so I said, I've got to do this.

And I agree. I don't know how people live, especially at these times where there is so much turmoil, there is so much fear, there is so much stress and anxiety in the air. I don't know how people could even start the day without doing a practice that centers you, that brings you to that silence inside. And then based on that silence, then you can go out and live your day. And I remember my first teacher, Harishi Mahesh Yogi, he used to say that before we have spiritual practices, something would happen like, I don't know, Paul, have you ever done something like you put your foot in your mouth and you said something, you went, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that. Did you ever do that?

Oh, a few times, right.

And then every time you think about it, you contract again. And Maurice used to say, it's like a line etched on stone. Like a line etched on stone. And every time the thought comes or something that reminds you, it gives, gets restimulated. But the more you do your spiritual practices, those in Sanskrit, they're called samskaras, those impressions become lighter and lighter and lighter. And then you could live more in the present moment. I know there's a lot of mindfulness techniques right now about living in the present moment. But when you do a deep meditation, those impressions are become less and less and less. And eventually you live in a state where things. Something that happened, we do something, not we say something stupid, and it's like a line on water. We do it, but the impression doesn't stay. So we really can live in the present moment and not based on re stimulating those impressions from 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Yeah. So this idea of the samskaras and there's sheaths, you know, there's multiple layers. We know the, the deep Science, the yoga science and philosophy behind it. And I do want to come to this idea of if somebody doesn't currently have a practice, is there a way that you recommend that people begin an early practice of meditation?

Yeah, well, one is there's this great company called Learning Strategies.

And they have their fabulous parallel. I wasn't told to stay that. I just mean that from. Honestly, from the depths of my heart, I think that your preliminals are amazing. And also you often have guests that. That teach types of meditation. The type of meditation, besides listening to the Paralympicals, the type of meditation that I've been doing. I've actually been a meditation teacher for over 50 years, and I became a TM teacher. I went to teacher training in 1971, and I have been practicing a transcending type of meditation. So. And we use a mantra. And a lot of people say that they just can't settle their mind down. But the reason why I've chosen that as my practice, because you don't have to settle the mind down. The mantra settles your mind down. And a mantra is simply people say, oh, my mantra is I am happy. My mantra is life is good. No, those are nice expressions or affirmations. But a mantra is a Sanskrit sound that's been passed down from teacher to student, teacher to student for thousands of years. And if you receive a mantra by a qualified teacher and you're taught how to use it properly, it spontaneously settles your mind down. You don't have to do it. But as you say, if the mind. Because the natural tendency of the mind is to always go to a field of greater pleasure. So even if you're using your mantra and somebody turns on your favorite song in the other room, your mind's going to go there. Right. So you do want to have silence. But if your mind goes off on thoughts and you realize three minutes later, I've just been sitting here planning my dinner party, and you just easily go back to the mantra, and then the mantra has that ability to bring the mind back. I find that with the paralyminals, too, my mind will go off, and then I easily just bring it back to the silence, and then you can go deeper. So there again, I use a mantra most often, but there are other ways. But as you said, you bring the mind back and you don't beat yourself up, because the natural tendency of the mind is to go to a field of greater pleasure, just simply bring it back.

Yeah. Dawson Church was on the podcast and he talked a little bit about that as well. He said Bringing the mind back actually starts up the task positive network in the brain, which is a reward based system. So anytime you are practicing is going to be helpful. The, the mantra, the first and simplest of the Himalayan tradition is called so hum. So on the inhale, hum on the exhale and that simple repetition, the Sanskrit translation is I am that. And so to say I am, that I am, I am that I am is a beautiful way, very energet way to calm the mind. And my teacher said, you know, we elevate our consciousness when we meditate and then many people come out and fall back down to the default world and then they complain that the default world isn't behaving the way they want. And the idea is to raise your awareness and when you come out, stay in that awareness and raise your world up to meet you at that level.

And, and one other thing that I will add to that is that when you use a mantra like Soham, or if you get a mantra from a teacher, like with TM or Art of Living, we give mantras, what happens is, is that, you know, people go into their meditation and their mind goes off and oh, this doesn't work everybody. Here's the thing. I've been meditating now for 53 years. I started October of 1970, my mind still goes off. That's okay, just as long as you bring it back to the mantra, whether it's soham, whether it's a mantra you receive from a teacher. And what happens is, is that because the mantra allows the mind to go inward and eventually the mind will transcend to that place of infinite silence, to that place which is the Ritambara pragya, which is where all thoughts arise from. And all you have to do is dive in there. Once. You know, when you go into a swimming pool, you don't have to stay there for hours to get wet. You dive in for 10 seconds, you come out wet. So, right, so you dive into that silence. And if you meditate regularly and not like once and oh, it doesn't work, if you meditate regular, dive into the silence, come out, dive into the silence, come out. That silence stays with you more and more and more until you notice that even in the midst of dynamic activity, even in the midst of other people freaking out, you don't lose that silence. So don't give up after one or two attempts. Just know that even if the mind is being a monkey mind, bring it back to the mantra, go into the silence and eventually you will notice the result of silence.

And what's what's fabulous about the results and science is really proving that it has healing qualities because it's taking so many of the stress hormones out literally instantaneously, because it's calming the mind. And the mind and the emotions really determine how we behave and what happens inside of our body. The benefits are there. So even the simplest practice can make a profound difference. A minute and a half to three minutes of silence really is fine. It's like exercise. You talk about being ageless. We'll talk about that in a bit. This idea of simple exercise can make a profound difference. Walking, simplest of all, gets the body moving, makes a profound difference. So whatever the mind does repeatedly becomes a mind's habit. So the more that you can create a habit of bringing your mind to a place of stillness, the better. Now, at some point, Deborah, you got in touch with metaphysical principles or the idea that consciousness is creative, that thoughts become things. Could you say a little bit about that journey and then your work in actually teaching manifestation principles or prosperity consciousness?

Yeah. Well, thank you for asking. So I was a full time meditation teacher for the decade of the 70s. I was the director of admissions at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa. But at the end of the decade of the 70s, I worked for a nonprofit. And I realized that woman does not live by mantra alone. I had to make some money. I needed things like health insurance, car insurance, maybe a Carter insurer. So I thought, okay, where do people make a lot of money? I thought, Los Angeles. I'm living in Fairfield, Iowa, and I think I'm going to move to LA and I'm going to sell investments. Because I thought that's where all the wealthy people were. I mean, you know, I watched the Beverly Hillbillies. So I figured, you know, I'll just go out like Granny and move to LA and make a lot of money. So I moved to la. And you know that expression, we make plans and God laughs? Well, God had a big yuck over me thinking I was going to sell investments and make money. I did start working for an investment firm. And I never sold one investment, except to my father because he felt sorry for me. But, you know, we're always led by God, you know, the God of your understanding. And one day I was invited by a friend to go to the Learning Annex. This was 1980, and because the guy was giving a money seminar, I thought, oh, maybe he'll help me be better at selling investments. But I walked. In 1980, he was talking about the Law of Attraction. And he was saying that we are like tuning forks. And he said if an F sharp is vibrating and a B flat comes towards it, it repels the B flat. And if an F sharp is vibrating and an F sharp comes towards.

Enhances that F sharp. And he said we're like tuning forks. And if we're always talking about how poor we are, we'll never find our soulmate. We'll never have a best selling book. You know, my parents are poor, I'm going to be poor. And then wealth starts coming towards you, maybe in the form of a good investment or a job opportunity or business. We repel it because we are like that tuning fork. And he said, no matter what your financial situation is, only paint pictures of the good times to come. Only paid pictures of that vision of you having the bestseller book or you or the perfect investment being attracted to you or the perfect job or the perfect soulmate. And he said so many other things. He said one of the best ways to become successful is to help other people become successful. Successful like you do in learning strategies. I mean, we're so blessed that that's what our, our vocation is, is helping other people become successful. But even just lending a hand or doing a random act of kindness or connecting people or mentoring somebody, that is the, or just wishing somebody success and prosperity as you're sitting and waiting for your plane to be called to the airport, all of those things attract success and prosperity to you. Anyway, bottom line is that everything that gentleman said that night at the Learning Annex just vibrated in every fiber of my being. And I knew that was the real reason I had come to la. So I did what any intelligent person would do. I quit my job as if I'm a big hero. I never sold an investment. And I started studying the great masters of success and prosperity like Napoleon Hill and Wallace Wattles and Florence Scoville Shinn and Emmett Fox. And I started a company called yes to Success. And what's very interesting is that I used the principles that I learned from those great masters to create my own success. For example, an idea comes to you because you are the one who's supposed to manifest it. You know, like your new mind tracks. Now people, I don't have any thought, oh, I'm going to create an app and it's going to offer parallel. You have that, that idea and you acted on it. So when you have an idea, whether it's to teach leadership, whether it's to be a career coach, whether it's to grow orchids, you are given that idea. Because I believe that the God of your understanding looks down and says, that person is going to be good at being a relationship coach. But if you don't act on the idea it's needed in creation at the time that you have it, that idea is going to go to somebody else. And how many of you listening have had an incredible idea? You didn't act on it, somebody else did. And they became very successful with your idea.

See, and that's this idea that the universe is in a state of expansion. So an idea comes to us. We came from that same evolutionary impulse that brought us into the world, that expansion. And now we're given that gift of an idea to expand into the world. I remember reading this very cool little book on manifestation of prosperity. Consciousness said, seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, or is in the Christian Bible, kingdom of God and all things shall be added unto you. And the metaphysical translation of that was very important in the ancient Greek. There was no heaven, like, you know, a cloud. 17th century cloud filled space with somebody on a throne. It was Uranus, which meant expansion. So seek ye first the kingdom of expansion and all things shall be added unto you. And I took that in and immediately recognized where I was contracting. So when an idea comes to us and we feel that opportunity expand, we need to go with the expansion. If we pull back and if we track, we actually are fighting against the laws of the universe, which are about expansion. So you're heeding that call is probably the most important thing. And then taking just one small next step is really all that's needed, isn't it?

Right. Because that's showing the God of your understanding that you're serious. And what a lot of people do is they talk about that they're going to do it, but they don't take the first time step. And by the way, that's something else I learned from these great masters. And that is, when you have your idea, don't immediately go around telling everybody what you're going to do, because, number one, you will most likely bump up against what I call the discouragement committee. Most people are going to tell you all the reasons why. You know, too many podcasts on that subject, all too many books written on that subject. There are too many career counselors out there, and then your tiny ideas going to be crushed like a seed before it has time to sprout. And the other thing is that if you keep telling people what your idea is, then it's like letting the steam out of the kettle. You know, there's no pressure to actually go out and Manifest it. So I say what is sacred should be kept secret. Sacred and secret are from the same root. So keep your sacred ideas inside until you have made significant progress or taken significant steps towards the manifestation. And then you can share with people.

Yeah. Meditation teacher of mine said that a word spoken as a power loss.

Oh, that is so gorgeous.

Yeah, so. So the idea is to hold it. Now I do think that there are really supportive people that sharing an idea with means that I'm learning to speak it more congruently. In other words, this is what I am creating and a declaration can be quite helpful. And I really appreciate your idea that. Oh, just because it showed up for you immediately. Oh, I've got this great idea. I'm going to do this. It's a very different kind of energy than pulling it in. When paraliminal technology came to me, I was a student at the University of Minnesota, 1976. And it was very interesting because the image included the technology that would be required to create it, which didn't exist for another 12 years. It required digital editing and there was no such thing at that time.

The creator is not a trickster and the creator is not going to give you an idea without giving you the ability to fulfill it. So it's kind of like in that acorn there is the oak tree. And even though it was 12 years later, you did not. The Creator gave you the blessing of that idea and you did not give up. You manifested it. Because who are we to turn away gifts from the Creator?

That's right. So let's talk a bit about manifesting, because certainly you do a lot of that. The year of miracles and all of that. What are the key hints that you would offer secrets that you would suggest to people once they do have an idea that they feel really has landed on their heart and mind that really does resonate with with them, that it is part of their life's purpose. Yeah, they see it, they can feel it. But the distance between where they are now and where that's going to be someday in the future is so huge that all it does is really brings up a lot of unworthiness and doubt and fear of taking those first few steps.

Well, I would say that you need to break your big goals down into bite sized pieces. Yes. Hold the image of where you want to be. What are your lifetime goals? What are your five year goals? What are one year goals? What are your one month goals? You know, goal setting has kind of gotten a bad rap, but you know, you can't hit a target that you can't see. And I also believe that the cosmic order takers want to fulfill your order. But if you're not clear on what that order is, then the cosmic order takers can't very well help you. It's like, anyway, so is that bad customer service?

You end up with a bot in the cosmic order.

That's exactly right. But I'll tell you something. So what you want to do is hold your vision, but take a step. But I also say take a step from which there's no turning back. And that's where people get stuck. I'll just tell you from my story. When I decided I was going to. When I went to the learning annex and the guy was talking about the law of attraction, I came home and I knew that that's what I was supposed to teach. But here I am. I was 28 years old. The only thing I had ever done was teach meditation. I drove a beat up old Chevy Bel Air that my aunt had left me. I was beyond broke. And I'm going to teach people how to be successful. But that idea came to me and I decided that I was going to dive deeper into what the great masters of success and prosperity told me to do. And the first thing is take a step from which there is no turning back. So here I was, 28 years old, all those other things, and I decided that I was going to rent the Santa Monica Public library meeting room and put up posters. Deborah Olson. That was my name at the time. It wasn't Poneman. I've had a few. Deborah Olson. To teach a course on how to say yes to success and. Or give a presentation. And when I put up the posters, the discouragement committee showed up. But I had taken a step from which there is no turning back. I had rented the room and put up the posters. And even though they said nobody was going to listen to the crazy idea, like your thoughts create your reality, I couldn't turn back. So I recommend people take a step from which there's no turning back. And the second thing is, do you mind if I tell about a four minute story?

Oh, please do.

Okay. So for years and years, for decades, I always taught that our thoughts create our reality. And I know many, many teachers do. I mean, even in the Bible it says, thou shalt decree a thing and it shall be added unto you. It doesn't say, thou shalt decree a thing. Give it a try. It might be added on to you. Okay. It says decree a thing. It will be added on to you. And I Always taught that. And like about seven years ago, about eight years ago, I. It was 2014, 2015. I had come home from a developing country, and I never get sick. Notice everybody. That is what I decree. I never get sick. And. But this. It was a Monday night, and I felt like I was getting a little bit of a sore throaty thing. And I thought, well, I'll just take echinacea, golden seal, some electrolytes. I'll get rid of it like I always do. But this time Tuesday, I was a little bit sicker. Wednesday, I was a little bit sicker. And by Saturday, I was lying in bed and I thought I could die here and nobody would know I lived by myself. So I did what any intelligent person would do. I called my favorite healer. I said, can you please. Well, I couldn't even talk. I said, I think I'm dying. And he. I said, can you help me? He said, I will help you, but you have to promise that you'll do exactly what I tell you to do. I said, anything. He said, Call 911 immediately. So I said.

Because I was really going. So he called 91 1. And the paramedics came. They had to break into my door. I couldn't even get out of bed. They asked me what hospital I wanted to go to. I said, evanston, which is where we both grow up.

Across the street from where I grew up. Evanston on Ridge Avenue. Yeah.

So. And I was down south, like around Oak, you know, South Boulevard. And we don't have time to get you There is 11 minutes to Amazon Hospital. So they took me to St. Francis, also on Ridge, right around the corner. And when I got into the emergency room, they started hooking me up to every machine and every tube possible. But I started to die. My blood pressure was 52 over 28. Incompatible life.

That cannot be good.

That cannot be good. And you know what a sepsis is where you have a deadly bacteria in your. Yeah.

Killed my sister.

Two deadly bacteria. About 50 of the people lose their life. I had two. And so I started going. And I'm lying there on the gurney and I notice. And by the way, by. By then, my then husband, still my best friend, had arrived because the healer called him. And he was sitting there next to me. And I realized I was in a place between life and death. Because when my eyes were open, I could see everybody running around the room trying to save my life. But when my eyes were closed, I could also see everybod running around the room. But I saw something which was breathtaking and that is, you know, we say there are no mistakes in the universe. I saw there were no mistakes in the universe. I saw that everything is guided by the divine light. I saw the hands of the nurses being guided by the divine light. I saw the hands of the orderlies being guided by a divine light. I saw when a nurse fumbled an IV bag and dropped it on the gurney. And everybody shot her glances like, you clumsy fool. But when she bent down to pick it up, her head moved away from one of the monitors and the other nurse saw it and made an adjustment that saved my life. So I'm lying there and I'm thinking, oh, my goodness, I have to tell everybody that there really are no mistakes in the universe. And at that moment, my husband, then husband, still best friend, was crying because it did not look good. And this is the thing. A nurse went over, put her hand on his shoulder and said, don't worry, she's going to be fine. No reason for her to say it, but I saw the words come out of her mouth. She's going to be fine. Accompanied by this sparkly kind of pink light. It was almost like a My Little Pony rainbow. But she's going to be fine. Went into my body and gave me my strength back to the the tips of my toes and the tips of my fingers. And I'm lying there thinking, oh, my goodness, your words do have dominion over life and death. And then it got even more crazy because the doctor walked in, saw the monitors, and this really gruff voice said, get that blood pressure up. We're losing her. It makes me feel sunk now, because when he said it, I saw those words come out, and they had, like, a brownish gray color. They were even accompanied by a smell. It smelled like a swamp. They went into my body. We're losing her. And it took all my strength away again. And in that place between life and death, I had enough presence of cosmic mind to say to God, please let me live, and I will tell everybody the power of your words. And people shouldn't be so flippant with their words because they do have dominion over even life and death. And then I upped the ante and I said, if you let me live, not only will I tell everybody the power of their words, but I will never say anything again about my kids. You know, she's so crazy, or he's so this. Because I saw that when you say those things, it creates that in the life of the person that you're saying it about. I saw that in that place, life and death so the good news is I lived and yay. And the other good news is I've shared this message with, with thousands and thousands of people. Really watch your words. Because we spend a lot of our lives speaking words that are manifesting exactly what we don't want.

Beautiful. Yeah. I, as you know, in the early part of my career, I was a clinical hypnotherapist and I witnessed that as well because the part of the mind that receives those words is actually below the threshold of our conscious minds analytic capacity. So it is, it just, it penetrates, it goes right in. And there was a woman that I was called in by her aunt to help out. She was.

Non responsive. She had tried to commit suicide. She was alive, but her brain indicated she was still in a coma. And my friend Jane asked if I could help her out. So I spoke to the woman and when I was done, Jane came back to the room 45 minutes later and woman was sitting up and you know, miracle of miracles, right. And I, I know that the mind, it receives words, receives energy, receives ideas. So it, it behooves us to make sure that we really say that which we most choose to intend. And I've also thought when we are at our most vulnerable state, that's when any word of kindness makes the biggest impact. So especially when someone is really vulnerable or really open at that moment, pour into them those thoughts, those ideas that will help lift them up.

So true. And thank you for bringing the conversation to that place. Because you never know what one sentence is going to say.

I mean, how many times has it happened for you, Deborah, that someone quotes you and you think I said that's, I gotta write that one down. That's a great, great phrase. Because in that moment we're just channeling the truth as we understand it. And it does land on people in an audience. There's a reason why we tell this story here and we don't use that example there. Because that audience, in that moment, in that place, wherever country we're in, that's what needed to land on that. Those people at that moment. Right, right.

And, and I once got, he left. I once got criticized for.

Complimenting people too much. And like that is, somebody said to me, you know, you're always saying to be people. I love your shirt, I love your necklace, I love your speech. I love, and my feeling is if I have the thought that I love your shirt. If I have a thought that that thing that you said during your talk was so powerful, why would I not tell someone? You have no idea how much. One little sentence, you know, Marcy, Our dear Marcy Scheimoff tells a story about how one sentence that somebody spoke to their child prevented them from committing suicide. So why would we hold back a compliment or a thought that we have about somebody? We never know. And also, you know, people who think, oh, I've never done anything great in this lifetime. Of course you have, because any little act of kindness, you have no idea what the ripple effect has been. If you could see the trail of light that you have left behind you in this lifetime, you would all be the happiest people.

Well, and now I've got a color. It's that My Little Pony rainbow sparkling behind me.

That's.

I love that image. I'm gonna hold on to that one. That's great. Yeah. And. And the. There was a book written back in the 50s called words as Things, that There are tones and the. In ancient Sanskrit, they understood this. There are tones and there are sounds, and there's vowels. This, the sound o.

There. This is the universe coming in and completing creation. You know, it's. It's. It's a universally recognized sand because it is resonant to who we are as human beings come into this physical existence for the brief time that we're in it.

That's why a lot of people are turning back to, you know, the ancient Sanskrit, ancient Aramaic, ancient Hebrew, because a lot of these religions, they become so secular that they lost the juice of those sounds. You know, I love listening to, like, the monks, you know, the ancient. The monks and the. And I love Sanskrit bhajans, because the sound, the tone, it just resonates in our whole body and uplifts us, and it connects us with that universal consciousness. So I think that's why so many people are turning. But even the sound of the singing bowls, so many. I know our dear Deirdre Dre. She does singing bowls. She's a learning strategy regular, and I adore her. And she does a lot of that ancient sound because it is filled with the vibration that uplifts us. And the more of us who do that, the more we uplift the planet.

And if we can recognize music that lifts us up, films that lift us up, you know, instead of just merely entertainment, really look at what it is. What are the words saying? What are the messages that are.

Being received by our mind? You know, one of the concepts behind Paralympicals is sometimes a voice in our head isn't very supportive, and we need more voices in there that are. And so paralyminals are designed not to tell you how to live your life, but to really connect you with the resources that are there. As you said earlier, it's, I think it was Emerson that said it. You would not have received that goal, you would not have that goal if it wasn't already within you to be able to accomplish it. So we should take heart the divine ideas landed on us, whatever that means. We are the receivers of it, bring it into the world and, and it will occasionally require persistence and it will test our willingness to go the distance with it. But realize every one of those tests is also strengthening us to have the life that we're choosing to live. And you, Deborah, I mean, you had a great career and yes to success and then became a mom and spent 20 years doing that. And then you came back and Marcy Shimoff invited you back in. And now there is, there are some cool ideas that you have about living youthfully in an ageless way.

You're one of those people that I think like you and me, people look at us, they'll often estimate our age way below or yeah, they'll estimate us way younger than we actually are. What are some of the ideas that you would offer to help us live a more vibrant, healthy, ageless life as we go forward?

Well, thank you for asking because it is, I do still teach yes to success. But, but I also, what happened was when I was, you know, approaching the big seven, oh, people would say no way and how do you do it? And eventually I thought, you know what, I'll just start a course and teach people. And I called my friend Ronnie Newman, who is a Harvard trained mind body researcher. As you know, I went to the University of Illinois for a year and then I went to Washington University in St. Louis, which is where I met Ronnie. And she went on to do research on anti aging at Harvard. As a matter of fact, her research was, remember of the COVID of Newsweek in like 1990. It was have we found the fountain of youth? That was her team's research at Harvard. So we put together this course to teach people all the different ways you could slow, stop and even reverse the aging of the brain and the body. But today I'll just throw out a couple things. Everybody knows that diet affects your body and your brain. But if there is just one thing that I would tell people to do, if you really want to have clear, a clear brain and you want a beautiful skin and you want to have a strong body, is please stop eating white refined sugar in anything that acts in the body. Like white refined sugar, like white bread and white pasta and all of those types of white things. Because what happens is that we have these, our brain cells, our neurons. And you know, the, the message from one neuron, from this axon goes across the little receptor, which is called a synapse, to the next brain cell and then it goes to the next brain cell, then it goes to the next brain cell. And when we eat white sugar, what happens is that the neurons start retracting and then we can't remember where we parked our car, we can't remember what our friend's grandkids name is, we can't remember what our friend's name is. And eventually if we bombard our neurons, then they begin to die. And so if you want to do one thing in the area of diet, it's stop eating white refined sugar. And nitrates also. Stop, stop eating nitrates. And also you probably don't want to eat non organic because the chemicals also affect. But there are things you can do which is stop eating those things that cause your neurons to retract.

Or even.

The immediate recognition is the lowering of an inflammatory response that the body has to food. So.

Exactly.

Take it out for a day, or if you choose to go into it, just notice what happens 15 minutes later, 30 minutes later, an hour later. I mean, set your watch, notice what happens with the inflammatory response and eventually you'll say, yeah, no need to poison myself anymore, right?

You know, a lot of people say to me, oh, you must have gotten a facelift. No, this is my 72 year old face. But what I did notice is that as soon as I went off all of white refined sugar, my complexion completely changed. You know, wrinkles diminish, it's crazy what that does to you. And if there's one other thing that you want to do, is really do not stop exercising. Because, and I could go into the science, but it also lack of exercise. You need to exercise to oxygenate the brain. You need to exercise to keep the body healthy and the blood flow going. Meditation is another thing. There are, you know, volumes of scientific research that shows how meditation positively affects the brain, especially the prefrontal cortex, which is where the executive learning and memory is. And what happens is, is that if you're not exercising, if you're not doing some form of meditation, if you're eating, you know, Skittles, then, or even worse than skittles is artificial things, aspartame, sucralose, all of those things. The twin sugar twins, I don't know, whatever those are called please don't. And they are also related to so many other diseases like migraine headaches and even infertility. Look on the Internet, you don't need me today, but don't look on the Internet at the research that was done by the companies that manufacture those things.

Yep. A conflict of interest, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. The thing that I have always thought about when I think about you is what a remarkable positive person you are. But you, you really, it's your thinking that's positive. And when I say positive, I mean it positions for the end result that you're choosing to create. So positive versus negative, which negates the possibility of success. So it's in the way you think, it's in the way you interact with people. It's. It's how you are present to people when they're in front of you. You value them. You know, they're the most important person in the planet at that moment because they are. You helped me with the active listening Paraliminal. I just loved spending time with you, picking your brains about that. Thank you for all of that. Now, as kind of a parting message as we do see this tsunami of negativity and divisiveness and fear mongering and othering and hatred that goes on in the world today, what do you recommend to help us keep coming back to a true a center of truth and love that will help humanity weather these difficult times as we find a new way forward?

Well, I'll say two things about that. One is that there has been research that shows that when you exercise, when you eat well, when you sleep well, all of these things actually help you have a positive attitude. And also when you have a positive attitude, it helps you do all of those things. So they really do work synergistically. But if I could tell people one thing to do in order to foster a positive outlook. Well, actually two things. One is stop watching the news because it is all it is.

Mostly manufactured because if it bleeds, it leads. Right.

And. And it's always very narrowly focused on whatever it is they're trying to deliver. Right. It doesn't give you the whole. No.

And if there is, you know, something happening, even if it's a tiny horrible thing happening in the world, it's the headlines, everybody's talking about it. And what we put our attention on grows in our lives. That's just the truth. And so if you are constantly putting your attention. And that doesn't mean we're burying our head in the sand, you need to know. You need to be aware of what's going on. But not 24, 7. Don't be listening to some news channel 24, 7. Believe me, if there's something you need to know, you will find out about it. Because it goes into our physiology. And if we're always hearing about the horrors, it actually causes anxiety in our physiology. And then we vibrate in a negative way and we spread that vibration to the rest of the world and we become part of the problem instead of part of the solution. So I say do as many random acts of kindness as you can. You know, there was research done at the National Institutes of Health that when you do random acts of kindness, when you drive your elderly neighbor to appointment, if he lives in Minneapolis and it's 20 below with the wind chill, if you bring some food to the homeless, if you work in a soup kitchen, if you read to the blind, even if you just write a check that it increases the oxytocin, which is the feel good hormone. So by doing these random acts of kindness, you are are adding to the light on the planet. So instead of adding to the darkness by watching the news, add to the light by doing those random acts of kindness. And it also reduces the cortisol, which is the stress hormone and which affects heart disease, I mean all kinds of diseases. All you do is do random acts of kindness, do good deeds for one another and it increases. If you're depressed, just go out and do and it all because the increase of oxytocin decreases depression.

And also. So anyway, I think that I made the point here and that's a great place for starters. Just look for the good. And there is always good to look for. And the last thing I'll say is when you do look at the TV and you see somebody that just really makes you contract, you might not want to look at that person too much. But also Norman Vincent Peale might say that what you need to do is pray for them. Because if you pray for them, it takes the anger away from you.

Beautiful. Yay. And I just want to say that you're maintaining of an optimistic vision for humanity, which is what I spend every day in my meditation. Envisioning as well is really a light in the world. Thank you so much for bringing your.

Light to us and thank you likewise. As I said at the beginning, you are one of my favorite people. Your work, the Mind tracks learning strategies of paraliminals. What a blessing, really, from the deepest depths of my heart. Thank you.

Bye for now.

I hope you enjoyed Our conversation with Deborah Poneman. You can learn more about deborah@yestosuccess.com that's y e s T O S U C C E S.

And now in the second part of the podcast, it's just you and me. I'll tell you how to use the paralyminal sessions in the MindTrax app to easily handle obstacles and move toward the success you want, especially as it relates to Deborah's message. If you're new to the relaxing paralyminal audio sessions, they use breakthrough technologies to activate your whole mind in only 20 minutes minutes to help improve any area of your life. Let's get going.

Welcome. This is the follow on to my conversation with Deborah Poneman as we looked at Living Successfully and I just love Deborah's overall demeanor, her energy, the clarity of her message, and the importance that she places on how we actually use our mind on a daily basis. And so the Paralympicals that I'm going to recommend are based on five different ideas that I think emerged from our dialogue today. First of all, the idea of developing a meditation practice. If you don't have one, how you might be able to do that. Second is how we manifest our visions. Third is about positive thinking, or as I referred to it as the positioning of our thinking with the ideal end result in mind. Next is the idea of agelessness and the concept of diet and nutrition. And finally, the idea of youthfulness living agelessly well into our later years. So let's get into it in terms of developing a meditation practice. Obviously Deborah and I are both committed to having a meditation practice each day. If you have one, good on you. Congratulations. Stay with it. If there are days where you just back off because other priorities make it a little difficult, consider that you don't have to have it be all or none. You can find minute and a half to three minute opportunities to just drop into a place of silence and it's like hitting a reset button on the brain. Very, very helpful. The Paralympicals that help if you don't have a meditation practice would be self discipline. First of all, decide what it is you would like to be able to do on a regular basis. The self discipline Paralympical is really going to be able to help you accomplish that. That this other parallel that could help is called focus and concentration. The idea that we tend to lose focus during meditation from time to time. Perfectly normal, absolutely understandable. What we need to be able to do is bring our brains back online, bring them back to focus. So focus and concentration is a really Good one. To help with that, that.

Second area I'd like to talk about is the idea of manifesting a vision. Now Deborah was really clear about establishing goals and then holding those goals in mind because what that's going to do is it's going to cause you to vibrate at that higher level. And certainly she referred to law of attraction, so living the law of attraction would be helpful. In addition, I'd like to recommend. You deserve it because very often we may have a high hard goal that comes to us or really massively transformational purpose that we recognize we need to sign on to. It is ours to do at that moment. We know it, we resonate with it, but it's hard to necessarily get ourselves on it because we would think, well, somebody else is probably much more worthy than I. You deserve it. The Paralympical that I did with Lisa Nichols is super choice for that next area is around positive thinking. And I referred to positioning our thinking with the ideal end result in mind. Now Deborah really is an optimist. She didn't necessarily talk about it a lot in this podcast, but wow, that is really what she holds. She recognizes the research of what happens when people hold optimism as an ongoing mental attitude, what it does to our physiology, what it does to our brains, what it does to the results that we create. Very important. So first of all to help us be optimistic about a future is to drive fear out. And so the fearlessness Paralympical, really helpful to be able to get that. I'm actually in that para liminal teaching you a protocol so that fear doesn't need to take hold. If you find fearful thoughts coming in, you can easily diminish them and let them go. The fourth area I want to talk about is this idea of nutrition as a way of achieving agelessness or youthful vitality. And there is a parallel called ideal weight. Even if you do, you don't necessarily have a big weight problem, but you're not eating as well as you could. Session B. And the ideal weight paralliminal is about your relationship to food. Now Deborah is talking about driving out white refined sugar and other white refined products to reduce inflammation, to enhance brain conductivity connectivity.

Lots of research has been done.

All she can say is in a minute's time, do it. It's super important for you. So get the junk out of your diet if you can. Establish a whole foods based diet, plant based if you can. Super good in terms of running this.

Omnivore human physiology. A lot of great films, a lot of super research that's been coming out twin studies that have recently been published really show what kind of a difference when we get the junk out of our systems.

The final area is on this topic of agelessness and, and it's how do we maintain a youthful vitality long into our later years. And certainly the youthful vitality is the one that's going to help at a mental and an emotional level to maintain those characteristics of someone who is open minded, has an open will and open heart, is moving into the world with loving kindness, looking to create the result that you want in the world. Very powerful parallel. And the other one that can be very helpful for us in this area is Perfect Health. Now Deborah referred to the fact she never gets sick. She did get two bacterial sepsis infections within her body and was on her way out. But important to also understand she did survive it. It largely to the fact that she recognized this energetic of hey, I have more to do here in this world. Literally brought herself back from the dead. And I've got lots of stories of others who have done the same. Very important that we understand it is energy that we're using to manage this physical body and this bioelectric brain technology that is within us. We can use energy to help boost our immune system, our body's ability to regenerate, to heal. And Perfect health is a very cool parallel to help. If you haven't listened to it or if you felt some symptoms coming on and you put it on just to make sure the symptoms didn't get any worse, great. Someday I'd really encourage you to listen to it sitting up, eyes open. Because the technique that's being used on it is based on Paul Pearsall's work called Super Immunity. It's how we actually can direct the body's natural.

Immune response to outside infection, disease and problem. It's really something powerful. So I do encourage you to listen to it certainly anytime you need it. But also just from the standpoint of how do you work with yourself, your physical body, to maintain youthfulness and vitality. Well, that's it. Thanks so much for being a part of this. Look forward to seeing you again soon.

Foreign.

Thank you for joining me today. I applaud your willingness to maximize your potential. You can easily use the paralyminal audio sessions in the Mindtracks app to stimulate your non conscious mind, that is your inner mind, to reduce any resistance in your life and to propel you toward the success you want.

Want.

Go to www.mindtrax.com go that's www.m I n d t r x.com go these amazing audio tools have helped millions and I encourage you to bring them into your world today. Be sure to be back for more episodes of the mindtrax podcast. You'll find insightful conversations with authors, experts and thought leaders all devoted to improving life's experience. Thank you again for being here on our MindTrax podcast.

Sam.