You Have Permission To Follow the Fun! (talk 4 of 4)

Hi there. It's Mary Shiller, author and coach of MaryShiller.com, welcoming you to this fourth talk in the series called You Have Permission. Before I jump into the subject matter for tonight, I want to just double-check that you can all see and hear me okay. So if you can say yes or give me a thumbs up or a smiley face or something like that, great. Hi, Lynn, good to see you. Hi, Clifford. Hi, Terry. Hi, everybody. So nice to have you all here. Hi there. Thank you so much. Glad to hear everything's working okay. So I've really been quite happy with this new platform that I've tried out for this series called Crowdcast. From my side of things, it's been very easy to set up and use, and I think it's been the same from your side of things. So, you know, hopefully you agree with that. I actually have been quite surprised at how easily it's been to use compared to some of the other platforms I've tried. Mimi says there's always a delay for you. It could be your internet connection, Mimi. And, you know, sometimes there's a little bit of a delay for me as well. So thank you all so much for being here. It's lovely to see everybody. I'm actually going to just send a very quick email out to everybody letting them know that we are live. Hang on one second. All right, hold on. Okay, so see, isn't that cool? Like, I can send a message right anytime I want to. That's different from some of the other platforms I've used. So thank you again for joining, and if you've been watching this whole series either live or on the recordings, I really appreciate that, and I hope that you have gotten as much from them as I have. I have found them to be really, really eye-opening and heart-opening and all of those kinds of things. Just all of the interaction that we've had, and not just during the calls, but afterwards. I've been hearing from a lot of people, and we've had some nice email conversations. So from my perspective, it's been a really, really wonderful experience. And it actually is kind of funny in a way because it has a lot to do with the topic of today's talk, which is you have permission to follow the fun. And the reason why I say that is because I came up with this idea, you know, I started doing these talks just a few days ago and I came up with the idea literally a day and a half before I did this first one. And I was— I, you may remember, I said I was on a beautiful sunset walk here in Paris last week, and I was thinking, you know, I really would like to do some kind of live talk. I would love to bring people together and have a really nice conversation over several days. And I can also mention this training program that I'm doing. But mostly it's because I just want to make a new connection with people again, a renewed connection with people. Excuse me. And I realized I hadn't talked on this topic of you have permission in this way before. So in essence, I was following the fun. That idea popped into my head. No idea why, because I can't explain these things. And instead of going, oh, I can't get it together that fast, you know, what would I talk about? You know, it's really short notice. Will anybody sign up or will they come? I just didn't worry about that part. I simply said, yeah, I'm doing it. I got it set up quickly here in Crowdcast and it was easy to do. Sent an email to my list, put it on social media, and ended up with quite a few people who've registered and participated. So all that to say, if I had responded the way I might have a few years ago, I might've heard some ideas similar to that and thought, and the next thought would have been, well, nobody's gonna wanna listen. You know, what if hardly anybody signs up? What if, you know, you don't do very well, et cetera, et cetera. And I would have really paid attention to all of that. I would have said, yeah, you're probably right. Not a good idea. You know, it's really spontaneous and I'm not really used to being spontaneous like that. So, you know, I better be a little more careful. That's how I was living before. Now my life experience is very, very different. And even though this phrase of follow the fun sounds somewhat frivolous, it's actually not frivolous at all. It's not frivolous at all, and I'm gonna explain why in a few minutes. So let's just spend a couple minutes recapping what we talked about in the previous calls, because that might be interesting. So the first call was you have permission to say yes. You know, we, we get a lot of ideas that come to us every day, and I think most of us reject them just out of hand. You know, we don't— there's no pause in between. There's the idea, and then there's that no, can't do that, no, no, no. And actually We do have permission to say yes to those ideas if something seems interesting, even if it seems very far afield. And I've come to the conclusion myself that often the more far afield the idea is that comes to me, the more interesting and the more energy is in it, and the more likely I am now, not before, but now, to say yes to it. So that's been a big one too. The second talk we, we had was, you have permission to say no. So we talked a lot about the fact that we can kind of get into these habitual patterns and we don't even realize we're in them. And even if something kind of doesn't seem right anymore, or, you know, we seem a little bit stuck, we're kind of scared to say, you know what, I don't really want to do that anymore. That doesn't feel like me. Instead, we kind of plow through and keep going no matter what. I certainly used to be that way. I would just stick with something until the bitter end. And that is not how we are designed as human beings. We are designed for change and for transformation. And that's simply how we're made. And so if we kind of keep trying to hold that back and say, I just have to stick this out and it's going to be okay, we don't have to do that. We are allowed to say, no, I don't wanna do that anymore, and just stop. So, you know, as the subtitle of my book, You Have Permission, says, you are free to do the things you want to do and to stop doing things you don't wanna do. And we want to start going way, way, way more towards the things we want to do. And the talk that I gave yesterday was on the topic of you have permission to wake up tomorrow and do anything. And do anything. And that can be quite a shocking realization. It was for me. When that came to me, I was just like, wow, really? Hi, Robin. I can actually wake up tomorrow and do anything? That's kind of a wild idea. You know, and I just noticed, even just when I had that thought, it was like, wow, life suddenly looks a lot more expansive to me. A lot more expansive. So, hi, Lynn. This is what I've been doing with my work with divorce recovery. I'm saying to myself more and more that I don't wanna do this work anymore. I'm looking at something new now. Excellent. That's a great example, Lynn, of having done something for a while and it was probably fine for quite a long time, and then suddenly it's like, hmm, I'm really not interested in doing this anymore, so I'm gonna say no to that and see what else shows up. That might be interesting for me to do. So before I go into the Follow the Fun topic, I just want to reiterate one kind of cool thing with this platform is if you have a question, you can put it in the Ask the Question area and I'll get a little alert that there's a question there. And then when I answer it, I will click a button so that when you can watch the replay later, you can actually go right to that spot on the replay. So don't hesitate to use that feature because it's really handy in watching the replay here. So if you have a question and you want to be sure that I see it, please feel free and put it in there. So I want to start by asking you guys a question, and you can just put this in the comment box there in the chat box. So before the broadcast started, a few of us were chatting because I was on there a few, a couple minutes early. About the fact that this idea of following the fun almost seems like a foreign concept. So I'd love to hear from you. You know, does the idea that you are allowed to follow the fun in life seem rather strange? You know, has life sort of become a very routine kind of process that, uh, you know, may not have too many highs for you anymore is maybe sort of— oh, you've lost the video. Am I still on? Can somebody say if I'm still on? Okay, I'm still on. Okay. Robin says, it seems so irresponsible. Okay, thanks, you guys. You know, it seems irresponsible. You know, we can kind of be on this, this track where we're kind of just doing the things that we think we have to do or that we're supposed to do. And, you know, if you ask somebody how they're doing, what's the common response? They say, oh, I'm okay, you know, that's okay, we're fine, you know, kind of like that, right? And I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound a little nuts, but I am on a mission to abolish that phrase. I never want anyone to have to say Yeah, it's fine. Life's good. It's fine. Kind of like that. I want people to say, life is effing amazing. Are you kidding me? It's like the greatest thing ever. No matter what is going on, no matter what my circumstances are, life is fantastic. I want more and more people to be able to say that with absolute conviction. So, uh, so just so you know, that is where I am coming from with what I do as a professional. I really want people to not have this feeling of mediocrity or just kind of being okay or, oh, it's fine. I want them, no matter what is going on, and I mean that no matter what is going on, to have this sense within themselves that life is awesome, like they can't even believe how lucky they are to be, to have been born. That's where I'm coming from. So let me go back to some comments here. Mimi, I have too many responsibilities. My kids, my husband need me. Trevor, responsibilities and obligation— obligations take priority. I'm glad you're laughing at me. That's fine. So let me— yeah, okay. Oh, that's a good point, Andrea. I'll come to that. So Trevor and Mimi brought up something that I knew you guys would bring up, like, I have too many responsibilities, I have too many obligations, you know, to just follow the fun. That sounds way too frivolous and, you know, irresponsible, as I think was Robin who said earlier. And I know it doesn't look this way, but just for a minute, like, suspend your, your previous knowledge of things and listen with the open mind, that open minds that I know you have, that when you go in the direction, now I'm using the word fun, but you could exchange that with inspiration or what looks interesting in life and away from what seems boring and too familiar and continue to go towards what looks fun to you. When you go more in that direction, I promise you— I can't promise much, but I can promise this with 100% certainty— the things that look like responsibilities and obligations will start to change. They will start to change. Things that used to seem to take a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of hard work will start to look easier. You will have new ways of handling those things and those people that you are responsible for that right now you can't even see. You can't even see them. And I have no, it's really beyond my personal understanding why this is so. I can only tell you that, again, you know me by now, that I test everything. I experiment. I, I go, is this really true? Let me test it. And I am not kidding when I say that this is true 100% of the time. I have tested this over and over and over again in the past 4 years. Whenever I have been tempted to go in the direction of something that's sort of familiar but kind of, you know, and I go, not going there. Not going there. I'm going to go in this direction that looks fun to me. I have no idea what's going to happen. Just not a clue. What always happens is that my sense of life gets energized. You know, it gets— it's almost like I've been plugged into a light socket and suddenly, you know, everything just seems turned on and bright and exciting. And things that looked really difficult to me don't look so difficult anymore. And this, and, and things that, that looked like they were a big drag on me suddenly either aren't there or seem like very easy to solve. I don't have a way of explaining it except to say that it seems like how we are designed as human beings. So let me go to some of the comments here. Let me go Andrea said, sometimes fun becomes more of a reward after drudging through life rather than a way of life in itself. Like we can't enter fun thing until we've earned it with a bunch of not so fun things. I'm seeing this differently these days, but I see this as habitual thinking in my life. Andrea, I don't think you're alone there. I'm sure a lot of people watching this know exactly what that means. It's kind of like we have to get our chores done before we can go play, right? And I'm saying, that we can go play and we can go play and we can go play, that nothing has to be a chore anymore. We can go play. Um, are there things that have to be taken care of in this physical world? Yes. But what I'm suggesting is that they can be taken care of in ways that are a lot more interesting than you may realize right now. That the fun can be the focus of your entire life and the way that you go through your days. That it doesn't have to be the other way around. You know, we're so conditioned, at least in Western culture, you know, we work 5 days a week or more, we put in a lot of hours, and then we have fun on the weekends, right? You know, that's how people's lives are generally designed. We might venture out on a weeknight. Ooh, that's kind of dangerous, right? But this is how life in our culture is sort of set up, and it seems absolutely insane to me. It seems absolutely insane. We have people, I was one of them, so I'm putting myself in there, who trudge to an office every day, even if the work is sort of fine. It's not great. We're not really in charge of what we're doing. Maybe we're not doing all the things we like, but we figure, well, it's a compromise. Because the money and this and that. Why are we doing that? Why are we doing that? We have all of the resources of everything all around us all the time. We do not have to live like that. We simply don't have to live like that. We are free to follow what we are interested in, really interested in. What looks fun to us. You know, anyone who is watching this right now is not in a situation where, you know, your, your life is in danger because there's, you know, guns going off outside and, you know, you might have to flee your home because a bomb is going to be dropped. We're not in that situation. There are people in the world who are, but you and I are not in that situation. We do not have to settle for a life that is not fun and interesting and inspiring. We simply don't. And we have sort of been conditioned to think that we do have to, but we don't. So let me go to some more comments here. Hi, uh, Di, I have my father's voice in my head telling me that work is the most important thing in the world, definitely more valid than having fun. Well, I would say that that's a very common thing that most of us grew up hearing. You know, that it was important to do a good job, you know, and that you were rewarded in some way after that. Well, all I have to say is there are a lot of people on this planet who are having an awful lot of fun doing what they want to do, and many of them earn a great living at the same time. Some people don't, but who cares, you know? To me, it's not about what gets created in the physical world. That is not important to me. What is important to me is, am I living more and more of the time from my true self? You know, what happens in the physical world is what happens in the physical world. You know, I'm not going to— if I had a young child at this point, I wouldn't, you know, do something that would endanger them, of course. But for goodness sakes, you know, there are literally millions of options available to us. Ways that we can still take care of the people in our lives who we— but that doesn't mean that we have to go anywhere near anything that doesn't look interesting and fun and inspiring to us. We can steer clear of that stuff and go towards what is really speaking to us. And to me, that is so key because those callings, like I said before, are there for a reason. They're there for a reason. They're a way in to this Self, capital S Self. They're a way in to see what we really are and who we really are. And if we just go through life ignoring that, we're missing what life really is. And that's why this topic of follow the fun is not frivolous to me. This is really what it's all about, and it's why I've made it the last of these talks, because it's so important to use this as sort of a punctuation mark, if you will. Let's see. Hi, just fall. Peter says, I think I left my joy in childhood. You know, that's unfortunately a common refrain, Peter. I hear that from people all the time, that, you know, they look at their childhood and they think it was very carefree and they didn't have any worries. And what I'd like to point out is you're the same being now as you were then. You haven't left your joy anywhere because joy is actually what you're made of. Uh, slight plug for my book, The Joy Formula. So, you know, we are the same beings we were when we came into this world. Nothing has changed. We still have all of that available to us because it's what we're made of. We don't have to try to recapture joy or recapture happiness or that feeling of being carefree, because that's what we are. And that also means that we are free to have the same level— this is kind of what I was talking about earlier— the same level of energy that a child has when it, you know, chases the ball or they, you know, they go on the swings. That is still what we are made of. So we have the ability built into us to go in those directions all the time. Let's see. Ann Marie says, "What a way more exciting way to live." Totally, totally. I mean, I feel like, you know, and I've talked about this in a previous talk, so I won't belabor the point, but you know, I shared with you how life used to look to me. Another plug for my other book, my memoir, I'm Just a Woman. You know, that's how life used to look to me. It used to look very bleak. And now that I have just thrown myself into completely this journey of discovering what I'm about as a human, what, what is this thing that I am, life is way more interesting and exciting. And it doesn't even matter to me anymore what the circumstances are. I don't care. I don't care if I go broke. I don't care if I get rich. I don't, I don't care about where I happen to be living. None of that matters to me. I'm so focused on following what is calling to me and seeing where that leads and seeing what I can learn about myself through that, that it's, it's nothing else matters. And it is an incredibly exciting way to live. Hi, Kathy. It's insane. I've always felt that the point of living isn't to work. It's not. The point of living, the point of living is not going to a job, paying the bills, retiring, and then dying. I mean, you know, that's kind of how— I mean, I'm laughing, but it's not really funny. That's kind of how Western culture has made life out to look, right? You know, you— and nowadays you don't have one job for your whole career like you used to. You might have many jobs with no security, at least if you're in the US. You know, you have no No job security, so you kind of do your best to hang on by your fingernails and hope that you don't get fired and hope that there aren't layoffs and all these things. That is not what life is about. It just isn't. We are, we have so much more on offer to us, so much more. Let's see, let me go back here. Doug, it occurred to me that we must just trust our true self and the creator of everything, that inner guidance, divine mind. Yeah, Doug, I think that we can even go one step further and say that it doesn't even require trust. I've talked about this a little bit before because we're kind of taught that we have to trust and believe in something in order to live this way. And to me, that's the equivalent of saying that I have to trust that gravity is holding me to the ground right now, you know, that there's this force that keeps everything from flying up. If trust isn't required then what? It means that, oh, I'm already here. I don't even need to have that. I can simply start following the fun. I can start to live more from inspiration and from this place of excitement and exploration. Let's see, Peter, I've already bought it in the press. Oh, thank you. That's very kind. Thank you, Peter. Hi, Kathy. It's been my entire life work to keep the roof over my head so I can keep going to work. Exactly. It's kind of like, this. Yeah, it's just this strange social structure that has been created that once you— you know, I wish I could think of a good analogy. Um, but okay, so you know if you watch a magician and you know the trick, you know, you— he does— he or she does a trick, but you know what the trick is. So You can't really watch it the same way anymore because you know what's going behind it. That's kind of how this is. It's like when you're on the other side and you've stepped out of it and you're, you're kind of watching it now from this, this spaciousness that's actually what we are and, and everything. You're kind of watching this movie of how the world, you know, is kind of working. You're like, that just makes no sense. Like, I can't even I don't think I could go back into that. Like, I can't even imagine myself doing that at this point. I really can't imagine myself doing that because that just doesn't seem even close to how human beings are actually made. Even if you look at it from sort of a physical, scientific, or whatever perspective, that You know, we are constantly changing. Our cells are turning over all the time. We're constantly getting new ideas. That's shifting. Our experience shifts all the time depending on what kind of thoughts we have and, and all of that. And to imagine that a being that is made like this is supposed to fit into some sort of slot, you know, some sort of social slot and then is supposed to do these things in a certain order and it just seems kind of crazy to me now. So yeah, I hear you. Let's see, let me go up here. Hi Lisa, sadly during childhood I was on my guard and it's carried through to adulthood. I find it hard to know what I'd like to do for fun because habitually I try to please others. It almost feels like I don't deserve it when I do try to please myself and I feel guilty. Lisa, you're not alone there either. I hear from a lot of people who have a similar kind of perspective. And what I would say to that, just in brief, is that if it looks to you like you don't deserve it, you're not obligated to go there. You're not obligated to go in that direction. I think that we have a lot of— all of us do. We have a lot of habitual thinking that relates to the kind of person that we are, quote unquote. You know, I'm the kind of person who, or because of what has happened to me, therefore I am this. And we are not obligated to go in that direction, even when it looks very compelling. To me, if there's, you know, this feeling like, I don't like that, I just don't go there anymore. Instead, I turn my gaze this way and I follow the fun instead. You know, I just don't see the point of, of listening to any kind of thinking that suggests limitation because it's automatically false. There's nothing about you and I that is limited. So I would just encourage you, Lisa, to, to take those ideas of yourself with a grain of sand, salt, I forgot the phrase all of a sudden. Here I am in France. This happens to me now. Like, I'll forget what I'm supposed to say in English sometimes. It's very weird. But anyway, um, and turn your gaze towards what else there is, which is your true self and what's calling to you. Um, Kathy, I've always felt that I've been trying to escape for my entire life. Let me out. Yeah, you know, the good news, Kathy, is that you're already free. Nothing has to be opened for you. You're already free. It looks like you're in something, but you're actually not. There's nothing there. It's an illusion. It's a hologram. Hi, Mia. In my teens, being in a crowd, we got the question, what do you think is the meaning of life? I was the first in the crowd to answer. I think it's to have fun and to explore it. And that sentence started an explosion of comments all telling me how irresponsible I was. I've never felt so ashamed ever after. This is a turning point for my life to worse, but I didn't— oops— I didn't see that until many years later. Today, I love that sentence. Yeah, absolutely. I'm so glad you kind of turned that around, Mia. That's awesome. Oh good, I'm glad that was helpful, Lisa. Let's see here. Hi Trevor. Allegedly, John Lennon was asked by a teacher at his school what he wanted to do with his life. Lennon replied, to be happy, sir. Teacher said Lennon hadn't understood the question, to which Lennon apparently replied, no sir, I don't think you understood— you understand life. You know, we can kind of get to a point as adults here where We think that we have to behave a certain way. We think that, as we've been saying, that certain things are responsible and irresponsible. And to me, that discussion, very much what you just quoted there, Trevor, is missing the entire point. It's missing the entire point. You know, what is the point of us being here? What is the point of us being here? To me, It looks like the point of being is to figure out, to explore, to discover what is really going on, you know, to continue to lift the curtain on this thing called life and see what's behind it. And for me, I can't overstate this enough, how key this follow the fun— you can, you can use whatever phrase works for you that rolls off my tongue very easily. That phrase has been instrumental for me in, in, in having the sensation of freedom to go in a direction that looks interesting to me. I'll give you a very, very recent example of this. In addition to setting up these talks, like I was saying earlier, that I have spent, as some of you know who've been following me a little bit, I've spent the last few weeks you know, reevaluating what I've been doing with my business and, and have been looking at things from a different perspective. And I was in a little bit of a state of confusion, which I don't mind because usually that means that I'm coming out on the other side of something and I'm gonna have some kind of big realization or something. So I don't mind having that sensation. It's actually kind of pleasurable in a weird way. And I, uh, I, I kind of kept going, looking at certain options that were coming to me, and, and I almost went with a couple of them. I was like, no, it— something's not— something isn't sitting right with me. Something isn't sitting right. And in the past, I would have grabbed on to one or more of those ideas and said something like, well, you know, I think that's fine. It's helpful to people. I'll probably earn some money from it, so I'm just going to go with it. Not this time. Not this time. And that's been the difference with the last 2 and a half years or so that I've been in this business is I've said to myself, I'm not going that way. If something doesn't look really interesting to me, I'm just not going to do it. And as I said before, every single time I have ignored the stuff that's like, eh, meh, mediocre, and gone for what's fun, Really cool stuff has happened, especially in my understanding of myself. And what happened this time was, if you read that Facebook post or if you're on my email list and you saw that email about commitment, that was the big realization I had. I've been asking this question for so long of how could I help people more, more effectively to access their true self and really experience life in a very new way. And I've probably been asking that question for at least the last year. And I heard it when I kept saying, no, I'm not going towards what's mediocre. And I said, I really want something better. I want something super exciting. And then suddenly, boom, there it was. And now I have tons of new ideas for ways that I can I can share something with people that I think will be extraordinarily helpful. So that's a very recent example of me saying, eh, no, I'm saying no to the mediocre and I'm going towards the fun and inspiring instead. Let's see, Mimi says, I think I'm gonna call it Follow My Inspiration. Yeah, exactly. You know, we, we seem to think that um, that, that we, we can just ignore things like inspiration and that's okay. Like, we can continue to say no to what is really speaking to us. And I've gotten to a point personally where I just don't want to do that anymore because those are gifts Those are tremendous gifts that are literally being handed to us. We don't have to do anything to be inspired. We're simply inspired. We simply, boom, ideas come to us and we're inspired. And we see something fun and interesting. And instead of charging headlong into it, we hang back and we make, we hear excuses in our heads and we listen to those and we don't, experience life the way that we could, even though every day we are given the keys to the kingdom. Every day. And we don't take that key and turn the lock. We just don't do it. And I'm at a point now where I am saying, yes, bring it on. I want to see all of it. I want to open every door that, uh, that you give me the key to. Whoever is doing this for me, or whatever, I have no concept of that. I just know that, that those moments that we have where even if it seems like you've lost that, there are times when you still have moments of inspiration or moments of, gee, that would be cool, and then you feel like it's lost, but it's not lost, it's still there. Those are gifts, and I'm no longer willing to just reject them out of hand because I think they are the way in They are the way in to knowing more about what is really going on in this thing called life. Hi, Justball. Mary, how do you know when the option is good or not? I mean, do you hear or feel it in your body, for example? I don't judge it, Justball. I don't judge things good or bad, positive, negative. I think you hit on something really important there, so I'm really glad you asked that question. Oh, I see someone else has a question too. So I'll answer just balls first. So when we stop judging things as good or bad, it changes the entire landscape of what is presented to us in terms of ideas. When we stop looking at things from that perspective, because basically what that's trying to do is say, well, if I do that, then in the future something will happen. That's basically what we're trying to do with that. So I don't go there. I don't judge things like that anymore because I have no clue what will happen. And I'm wrong every time I think I do know. So let me go to the question here. Hi, Michael. For later. Oops. Let me see this. Michael says, for later, can we share these talks with family and friends? Thanks for asking that, Michael. These talks will be up here and available for a while. I'm not sure how long we're gonna leave them up. I haven't made that decision yet. And then at some point, I, I may kind of repackage them. But yes, certainly while they're still up. Yes, for sure. And I will probably let you know through an email if I plan to take them down at some point. So, you know, feel free to have people watch them with you, or I don't know if you can actually share the link if somebody didn't register for the event. That's something on crowdcast, I'm not sure of. So thanks for asking that question. So let me go back here. Mimi, let's see. I've been accused of being wishy-washy because I love to learn. I have an interest in many things, so I stopped. Now I see that what I learned comes in handy now. Yeah, Mimi, I too have been what I would call a dilettante or something like that. In my lighter moments, I have thought of myself as sort of a Renaissance woman in that I have a lot of interests and I have developed a lot of skills in my life. So I'm not one of these people who has, you know, found one thing and done that my whole life. Instead, and I used to see this as a detriment because once again, our culture tends to want to box people in to one thing, to one profession, to one, you know, whatever. And that just hasn't been me. I'm just, that just hasn't been the way that I have lived. You know, even when I wasn't seeing life like this, when I was, you know, still kind of in that post-traumatic stress disorder realm, I still had a tremendous number of interests. And I've looked back on my life and noticed, you know, I did sort of just go with what looked interesting to me at the time. And that served me quite well. It was, it actually, was quite a creative and interesting way to live. And so I don't see that as a problem anymore. To me, that seems more like how human beings naturally are, that we all have varied interests and we are free to explore them as we want to. Trevor, you can share the link. There's also an embed code. Oh, there's an invite option at the top of the screen. Oh, and yes, duh, I forgot to say this, Michael. I have them all on my YouTube channel. As well. I'm uploading them there. So yeah, so I guess I will just make them available in perpetuity on YouTube if not here. So you can always go to my YouTube channel and find them there. Yes, just ball. Sorry about that. I totally blanked that I had been doing that. Let's see. There's nothing that is good or bad but thinking makes it so from Hamlet. Yeah, exactly, Clifford. Like, you know, we we can have sort of a snap judgment about things, and we can— we can— it's, it's almost like a reflex, right? You know, you'll have an idea for something, and the next thought that comes in is something like, oh, I couldn't do that, that's not right. You know, I'm not talking about things where you're gonna harm someone or something. I'm talking about just, you know, normal everyday inspiration things. And we don't have to go in that direction. I think that when those thoughts come in, they look so compelling to us, but almost the more compelling they look, like almost like going like this, like you shouldn't do that, no, no, no, that's when I know for sure I don't need to listen. It used to be the other way around, that when I would have some thought like that come in, I would listen to it and think it was telling me the absolute truth about myself. And now it's basically the opposite of that. Pardon me. So as you've been listening to this talk, and thank you so much for all this great participation, this is awesome. You know, what do you feel like you could do What do you think you could change that would indicate that you were following the fun more of the time? Like, is there something that you would love to do that seems kind of out there but would really show you, you know what, I am listening to myself? What would that be? I'm really curious to know. Hi, just— well, I'm not sure I can see things as neutral. I, you know, yeah, just give it a try. Just, well, just give it a try because in fact, every idea we have is neutral. There then comes another thought that tries to place a judgment on it, that tries to measure it, but it can't be measured in that way. It simply can't be measured. Like for instance, sometimes people will email me and they'll send me an idea of something that they would like to do in life. And when I read it, I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Like, that is really totally doable. It's really fun sounding. And then they'll follow it up with, you know, but I don't think I can do it because this, that, and that. And, you know, it sounds kind of irresponsible. And I'm just looking at it going, wow, that's a lot of thinking they're listening to, you know. So my suggestion is to Yeah, have you ever seen a document that's been redacted? You know, it's got some writing and then it's got these big black crossouts, you know, stuff that you don't need to— you can't read. That's kind of what I would suggest you do here. Listen to the inspiration. That's the stuff you can look at. And then if there's other ideas that come in saying, oh, you really shouldn't do that, Mary, you know, that's not responsible, or it's really a bad idea, you can just redact that. Just kind of cross it off with the big black marker and don't go there. You know, it'll try to peek through, you know, and it may, you know, ask you to hold it up to the light to try to read it, but you don't have to go there either. Uh, hi Trevor, I would make a ton of videos and ebooks on topics related to personal happiness and fulfillment, which I've already done a lot of, just not sure how I get paid. Who cares, Trevor? Isn't that a concept? Who cares if you get paid? You'll figure out how to pay the bills. You know, I think one of the things— I'm not saying that as a joke, I really mean that— that when I stopped caring about any of that stuff, when I stopped caring about, you know, what my level of income was, when I stopped caring about, you know, where I was living, when I just went for it and said, I'm going to follow this, this line of inquiry into myself. My whole experience of life changed even when my circumstances were exactly the same. And, you know, sometimes I think it's fun to play the money game. So I play the money game. And sometimes I think it's fun to play the Paris game. So I play the Paris game. To me, life looks like a bunch of playing now, playing different games. You know, gee, it'd be fun to play the business game. I wonder how I would do with that. Well, let's see, you know, or let's play the money game and see how fun that might be. Or, you know, just seeing life from this angle just lightens everything up. It's like everything is sparkling instead of so dreary and scary and horrible as it used to look to me. So I hope you didn't take that as flip, Trevor, but that's really how I see things. So there you go. Let me know if you were offended, Trevor. I'm sorry if you were. Lynn, I've been struggling with the decision to move across country. To Vancouver Island. Some of my family here, it's hard to leave to go somewhere where there is no family. Guilt seems to set in. Well, Lynn, all I can say is that, um, you know, I moved really far away from my whole family except my daughter is in England, but all the rest of my family is in the United States. There's nobody over here, uh, and, um, you, you just do what you want to do and then things start to appear that maybe didn't occur to you before. Like, my whole family came over here for 2 weeks to see me. Uh, you know, I'm gonna be going back there, uh, in the not-too-distant future to see them. And so, you know, things can look sort of insurmountable, but when you start going in this direction more of the time, better solutions start to occur to you for things like that. Uh, Robin, that's the key, isn't it? It's no longer caring about money because you know you'll manage anyway. Exactly. Yeah, it's kind of like there's so, there's so much more going on than, than creating something or not creating something in this physical world. There's so much we can do from an internal level that's just so much more exciting and allows us to feel like we're playing in this life instead of working so hard. Mimi, I have for as long as I've known myself, love sharing what I've learned with others. I'm looking at coaching now, but that doesn't seem to be it somehow. I just don't seem to be able to get clear on how I could do it. Mimi, you know that if you're not sure about something, that's fine. You have an answer and it's probably already revealed itself to you. If you would kind of set all of that other thinking aside, I bet it's already there. That happens to me fairly frequently. Oh, good, Trevor. I'm glad you weren't offended by that. Yeah, what if— Robin is quoting me— what if it's actually easy? You know, what if the thing that you would like to do that is calling to you to do is actually easy to do? And what if whatever it is you want to do does bring money with it? Wouldn't that be cool? You know, I guess my attitude is you never know until you do it. And there's nothing stopping us either. You know, we have this idea that, you know, thoughts can stop us and people can stop us. It isn't that way. We're free to do anything at any time, and there's nothing ever holding us back, ever. Mimi says, I think your videos and ebooks would be great, Trevor. You have a great way of sharing. He does, right? Totally. Robin, so I guess you could gain when following the fun is worth more than anything money could bring you. Um, or what? Yeah, exactly, Robin. I feel like, uh, you know, again, society places these weird measurements on things and seems to indicate that, you know, if you don't have certain things, that your quality of life is lesser than somebody else's or something. And you and I know that that's not true. Because that's not what life— and I'm— if I could type, write in all in big letters, LIFE— that's not what it's about, is it? It's really about this, as far as I can see, this self-inquiry, this self-discovery, this exploration. I do often feel like I'm an explorer, like I'm, you know, somebody setting out into territory that I've never seen before. I don't know what I'm going to come across. I don't know who I'll meet. I don't know what I'll be doing. And that can have a quality that people deem as frightening. And to me, it's excitement every day, because that is the state that I am in every single day. I'm not kidding, where I have this sensation that I'm always approaching the edge of what I know. And I want to go past that. And as simple as it sounds, one of the ways that I do that is following the fun. I don't go anymore towards things that look boring or I've been there, done that. I don't do that anymore. I could, I could do that, but I don't because that's not very fun to me anymore. It's too I've been there already. I don't need to explore that territory again. I want to go in a new direction. And also, it can seem maybe from the outside, if you're listening to what I'm saying and you're kind of like, well, isn't your life just sort of quote unquote all over the map then? It doesn't have that sensation at all. It feels very much like, like I am being shown something that builds upon itself, you know, that it's not just kind of these random places that I end up. There is something at work that I can't explain that seems to, uh, help us go in some kind of direction that makes sense in some way. Again, that's inexplicable. I hope that made sense what I was saying. Uh, hi Trevor, thank you. Mary, there are already some books on Amazon, just need to do more. Absolutely, go for it, Trevor. Graham, following the fun seems like a good next experiment to play with. Oh, I like the way you said that, Graham, about playing with it. Yeah, you have the option at all times, at all times, to follow the fun, to play with that idea, and to see where it leads you. So, um, again, I know that the phrase itself, or following inspiration, can sound kind of woo-woo or silly or whatever. But to me, it is really— it has been so instrumental in the way that my experience of life has changed. It would be hard to overemphasize its importance to me. So I don't take it seriously, but I do view it with a level of reverence, I guess would be a good word, or respect. And seeing that, that we are given these desires for a reason, and I'm not so willing to reject them out of hand anymore because I've seen where they've taken me. Like, they've taken me here. They've taken me to this moment of talking to all of you and interacting with you and being part of a community that has been created around all of this. So, you know, there's just so much evidence to me of how this direction is, is just life-changing. Uh, hi Jackie, that makes life sound so much more meaningful to see every experience as self-inquiry and to know it's limitless. Exactly, Jackie. And what I love about this too is that we can look at moments when we're not feeling so hot about life, and that can be self-inquiry too. You know, that's another— everything is an opportunity. Everything is an opportunity to see more of what we are. Uh, hi Mimi. Mary, I think I'm not the only one when I say this may work for someone else but not for me, just another thought. Well, instead of looking at it as just another thought, Mimi, um, dive into it, you know, because I think it's really easy for us to say, oh, that's just another thought I have. I would love for you to set all of that aside and just dive headfirst into what's fun and inspiring to you. Follow your inspiration. So on that note, if it's all right, I'm going to make one last point here, which is that I still have a couple of spots left in my 3 Principles training that starts next Tuesday and Wednesday, September 25th and 26th. If these topics that we've been talking about have been interesting to you, that is what I will cover in depth over a 2-day workshop via Zoom. So you can participate from anywhere in the world. And though the program is really about looking at all of this from a very much simplified angle that is incredibly impactful, I'm going to be talking a lot about this idea of committing to exploring life from this perspective and really diving into it. And if you have a desire to share this with other people, that can be part of the discussion as well. And then also, I am supporting everyone who participates personally for 6 months following the workshop by email and video coaching, as well as through a couple of one-to-one calls and some more group calls. So If you are interested in that, please let me know, or you can click the button here on the screen because I'm closing registration at the end of the day tomorrow, which is September 19th, because I need to set the schedule for the workshop. There are some wonderful people who will be in that workshop with me who I'm sure will create a wonderful experience. So I truly hope that you will consider joining me for that. It would be just a wonderful time for me to spend with you. So thank you so much for being with me on these calls. What other questions or comments do you have before we close this out? Let me go up here. Whoops. Let's see. We're all made of the same stuff, Mimi. Robin says yes. Thank you, Robin. We are all kind of one thing here. It just looks like we're these separate entities, but in fact, we're all made of the same stuff. We're all made of freedom. We're all made of joy. We're all made of inspiration. We're all made of fun. We're all made of peace. We're all made of abundance. We don't have to go out and seek these things. They are what we are. And where I'm coming from is that I would love for you to consciously allow yourself to give yourself permission to explore all of those amazing qualities that you simply are made of, instead of looking towards something that is false, that has nothing to do with who you are, instead of looking towards a limitation, towards something that looks small, towards something that looks powerless. That is not true. That is an illusion that has no more substance than air. Or, you know, some kind of, um, you know, I don't know, something that has no substance to it. That isn't true. The truth is what I just said, which is that you are made of all of those beautiful, wonderful qualities. And life, as far as I can tell, is here for us to explore what those are, how those can play out in this physical world that we live in, and, and how we can consciously create things that bring people closer to who they actually are. Oh, I'm glad you guys enjoyed the talks. Thank you so much. Oh, hi, just Paul. Thank you for asking that question. I'm working on a new program that I will most likely offer live starting sometime in early October. So I'm going to be taking a lot of the things I've been talking about and some other things. And I'm, I'm really actually pretty excited about what I'm creating. I think it's pretty darn cool. And I think I'm going to offer it for the first time, at least as a live program over maybe 4 weeks. So people will be able to participate just like this and have the recordings and things available to them. And I think it's going to be exciting to, to see where that leads because it's been a, it's been a while since I've really been this inspired to create something that I think is really going to help people a lot. So thank you so much for asking about that. All right, everybody, thank you so much. I have loved having you all here and You know, you can always get in touch with me by email, mary@maryschiller.com. I answer every email personally, and you can always get in touch if you'd rather ask a question personally like that and not in a public sphere. And yes, thank you, Despaul, for reminding me that I will put this video on YouTube as well so you can access it there or here. And on YouTube, if you'd like to share it with people, that would be amazing. Thank you so much. I love you all with my whole heart, and I hope you're having a wonderful week. And I do hope that you'll consider joining me for the program that starts next week. It would be wonderful to have you there. Thank you so much, everybody. I'll talk to you again very soon. Bye for now. Au revoir.