12-16-23 FIREDANCE

Let me just get that here. It's been content is being sent to a third party. You bet it is. Facebook Live page. Okay, I'm gonna kill the sound. Say hi so that we can see. I can see the. The things. And just before I get started.

If.

There are any comments, questions or requests that you'd like to ask them really quick before we start the main gig, please raise your hands. Otherwise, we'll get started in just a minute and we're going to have a wonderful time. Oh, let me get the screen sharing ready. Screen sharing. There we go. Okay, I think this will be good. All right. Alrighty. Deck the halls and war pigs. Somebody is warped. Is that you, Ross? Oh, God, it's so good to see everybody. And other people will be dropping in and it's been a good year coaching you guys and it's been good to see the people who've been here who feel that you've had positive results. Anyone who feels that you have not had positive results, I would really like to hear from you. And so I know better how to serve you. But I'm just so proud and so happy of everybody who's stuck with it because in many ways, the key to success in life is consistency. Whatever you're doing on a daily basis is where you eventually go. So those of you who've been with me every week, this hopefully has helped you anchor your week. There's one period of time where you're paying attention, where you're focused on improvement, on being a better person, a better version of yourself. Increasing by just 1% a week will do it. That's all I ask for. That's the buy in. But at any rate, so welcome to Fire Dance. This is our Saturday gathering where you let me coach you and you talk about your results. And the coaching is within a very specific framework. And we're going to talk about frameworks today and some other things. But before I go further, just, you know, I'm Stephen Barnes. I'm a novelist, martial artist, and most importantly, a husband and father. I was always interested in how to succeed in all three of these things at the same time. So everything I was doing came from the fact that I had no role models for any of this. I was coming from broken home. I was a totally unathletic nerd. And there were no black science fiction writers that I knew of anywhere in the world. I could not find even one until I got into the field, at which point I met Octavia Butler and Chip Delaney. Chip Delaney left the field so that for 20 years, Octavia and I were, so far as we could determine, the only black science fiction writers in the world. Wow. So all of the. The technologies that I created were to keep myself from getting terrified because everybody told me I couldn't do it. And in each of these things, I had the voices internally and externally saying, you can't. But I had this obsession that if I could not find a way to succeed in all three arenas, I would be killed. That life would crush me. So I literally had fear of death in connection with all those things. Coming from poverty, with food insecurity, and a single mother home, moving into a field where, you know, white people and black people said that I couldn't do it, and trying to become a martial artist when I had been bullied enough that deep in my heart, anytime I thought I saw a fight scene in a movie, I would identify with the person getting hurt rather than the person doing the hurting. That. Jesus. You know, it's. I just. I needed to learn how to flip the switches that said I couldn't to the switch that said I could. So I am very, very grateful if anything that I learned along the way has been useful. And one of the evidences that it has is my beautiful wife and partner, the amazing Tananarive due. Take it away, sweetheart.

Hello, everybody. Let me add myself to the spotlight. Oh, hello, everybody. Hold on one second, I'll get you. I got it. Here we go.

Okay. There you go.

Here I am. So. Hi. Hi. Hi. Very excited to see so many people here. Oh, my gosh. A lot of people here at the start of today's Zoom and just happy to be here. Love you, darling. Thank you.

I love you, too, baby.

Starting this space and just an announcement, right.

You are the evidence that dreams come true. And I get to look at you every day.

Back at you. You were things I wanted and things I didn't even know I wanted. So it's. That's been great. And later, right after we do the Zoom today, we'll be recording our 102nd anniversary episode of our Life Writing podcast. If you're not listening to the Life Writing Podcast, this isn't really an ad so much as. I don't know what. What. If you like us enough to be here on a Saturday in person, then you definitely wouldn't mind a podcast where you get to hear us talk about writing and life anytime you feel like downloading it and listening to it.

So, yeah, we have some wonderful guests on there, too.

You won't believe the guests we get. Patton Oswalt, like why. But he did.

We've had him on twice.

We've had him. So, yeah, Reggie Hudlin.

We have. You know, we've been blessed by having people who are extremely successful at things that we care about. And if you listen to enough of them, you will start getting a sense of what it takes to succeed. And that's what we really want, is for you to be able to say, you know, I want to find somebody with fewer resources than I had, who's accomplished more than I have. Anytime you see somebody like that, pay attention to them. Because people, people, success leaves clues what other people. One of the most useful beliefs you can have is, I don't know how to do this, but I can learn. Yeah, I can't do this yet.

And this is especially true of the writing community, even honestly, to a degree, the Hollywood community. So often you read about the bad actors, the people who are a nightmare on the set and those kind of people. But my experience has been that if you had sense enough to get to the venue, whether it was a film festival hallway or whatever, a lot of people in the industry are not only very approachable, but willing to give advice on the spot, sometimes willing to share their email information. But the generosity of just people coming on our podcast, I consider that generosity, enormous generosity. Or Steve's holiday fund that he does every year on Facebook, which is just honey, no words. People are so grateful.

You know, and just let me tell everybody listening here until Christmas, if you know someone who is dealing with food insecurity or you know, we have, we can.

Lights are about to go off.

That's right. Or can't buy a present for their family. We have a fund that is, we fund it. We started ourselves. But then people join in and just have them send me a, a personal message on Facebook or through email and we will, we will give to them. If you can contribute to the holiday fund, you can go to, to PayPal. And my, my PayPal address is se Barnesol.com but even just your best, even if just your good wishes, your wish that we do this successfully, find the right people is beautiful for us. We, we have averaged sending out 125% of every dime that comes in. So this is, you know, if you, if you trust our integrity on this because we don't have an organization to fact check all these things.

You know what? Now that we're incorporated, we need to figure out how to do this.

Yeah, we will. Maybe we'll have that by next year. But this year, people, people are Living in their cars.

Right.

And, you know, in the snow. And I've got to. I've got to do what I can for them if I possibly can. So contribute. If you can, or if you need something, please ask. And we'll. We'll find a way to send YOLO some.

So that was it. I just wanted to pop in and say hello and thank you to Stephen in the chat for your kind words about reformatory. That has been a very, very special book to me, and I'm just glad that. That you're enjoying it. Back to you, darling.

Okay, I'm. And remove.

And I'm gonna remove your spotlight. Don't worry, I got you.

You got me?

Oh, you already. You beat me. He can't stand not seeing your faces. That's why he hates the spotlight.

Okay, so one of the things I always like to do is to start with a framework and then go from there to drill down. Oh, Valdina Rush said hi. I love you both. We love you too, darling. And I hope that you can feel that we mean that. I mean, we're here every week, even when we're traveling, for no other reason, that maybe there's someone here. My actual thought is that every week there's someone on here who really needs to hear something that somebody will say. Maybe it's something I will say, and maybe it's something that one of you will say, or maybe there's a question that needs to be asked. But it is my belief. This is. I don't want to call it my church, but this is what I do instead of going to church, is to encourage all of us to share together, to move forward together. So what I wanted to talk about today, there are two things. One of them, I do these daily short videos on Facebook. And part of the reason I'm doing it is to. To kind of empty my mind and think. What's the most important thing that I can talk about today? You know, what's at the forefront of my mind. And part of this is what I'm doing for myself. And part of it is trying to sort through everything that I learned so I could find the right things to teach my son. And the top of the list is probably the magic formula, map or model. Daily action. Gratitude. It clear intention and conviction. Courage, which relates to one's personal identity. The degree to which you believe that what you're doing, you can and should do, and that as long as you don't have a zero in any of those five categories, you're in the game. But there Is a truth that it is possible to succeed externally and lose internally. And so one of the things we need is a system of ethics so that to guide our behavior. And that is in terms of this system, what we're doing here, the three gates, asking yourself, is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? But the other thing that you need to keep it safe internally is to be sure that your actions are balanced. So we also have the three centers. Belly, brain, heart center, head center. Now it is possible that if you just had those three things, the magic formula, the three gates and the three centers, you could evolve a complete personal system. Especially if you look at the M in magic as models. Well, what models can I adapt? I mean, the three gates and three centers are just models of behavior and what the human structure is life. Writing is a model. The 1% principle that we use here is a philosophy of action. So that kind of fits into a. But it's also a model. See that? If I looked at the Eightfold path in Buddhism, that's a model of how should we behave in order to become awake and aware. The ten commandments, the golden rule. Whatever principles you were taught in childhood that you still respect is something you should bring into conscious performance every day. So maybe you take, you know, I talk about, I've got maybe a dozen different models that I'll move around through with maybe four of them being things that I talk about a lot. Four or five, you know, the, the, the magic formula, the, the morning ritual, five minute miracle, 1%. Those things are, you listen to the things that I talk about the most, and those are things that are probably 80%. But bringing in your own formulas or things that you respect is critical. So if you use my model, you can get into the game. But to make this customized to your life, you might say, well, I want, specifically want to be a writer. So what model should I add there? So we've got, you know, we've got the life writing thing and you write a sentence a day, you know, one to four short stories a month and so forth and so on. That's just another model. It's another way of approaching a process. So whatever it is that you want to do, as long as you are addressing your body, your emotions and your mind, be sure that what you're doing at the minimum, go right ahead and incorporate any, the magic formula so that you have a map or model, you're taking daily action, you're managing your emotions, you have a clear goal and you believe that you can and should do this. And you're balanced in the three gates, three centers, and you are respecting the three gates. That is all that I ask from you. Aiming at 1% per week, taking 5 minute miracle breaks, doing morning ritual. In many ways, those are ways to implement these things really, really, really important. It's, it's rubbery. Life itself is too messy to come up with a simple plan. It's just too, you know, and then everybody has different goals, different values. So all I can kind of do is talk about the way I'm using this stuff, invite you to try it, and then report back to me what, what results that you're getting. Then what I can do is I can coach you so you can say, oh, okay, 20% of what Steve says useful to me. The other 80% is not useful. What is 20% will be useful for you. You know, hopefully if, if you see enough value here to be here every week, you can trust yourself to pick out the things that are most important. But I would say that the three most important at the very top are the magic formula. Oh God. Maybe the five minute miracle, three gates and three centers. You can see how it's difficult for me to say exactly, but I can do is present them and allow you to question me about them. Now, one of the things that is true is that when you listen to the conversations, first of all, let's unmute ourselves. I'm going to unpin myself and we'll do the thing that I really love to do, which is to allow you guys to unmute yourselves and say hello and get some energy going. Because one of the first things you have to do is get excited, get some energy going. On a Saturday. Can I have an amen on a Saturday morning? Good morning. Yes.

Hey everybody, I'm back Saturday.

That's so good.

You make so happy.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Hello, hello, hello.

And in the chat, keep it going, love each other, just, you know, have jokes, I don't care. Keep the energy going. We're doing great, people that we're doing great. We've had a great 2023 and we're going to have a better 2024. This will always be free.

Absolutely.

This will always be free. I may spin off a mastermind where I work with a smaller group or something like that, you know, we will see about that. But right now we're still manageable size until we get up above 50. I don't need to do that, you know, so even if I do get above 50, there will always be access. I love this. I just, I love Doing this. This is one of the high points of my week when I get to talk about what I have been experimenting with. So one of the things that happened this week is that we'll go back. If you're around professional athletes talking about athleticism, they talk about it at a higher level. Always interesting. You look, people who are masters in any field, they talk at a higher level, a different level, always interesting. I managed to get my hands on some secret notes from a millionaire mastermind group that cost like a hundred thousand dollars a year. And I got a hold of the notes that, that they were giving them. These are people, they're all rich. You see the 50 or $100,000 year, I forget what it was. They're all rich already. They're looking to improve their lives in other ways. So if you want to know how rich people think about this stuff, just let me. I'm going to share the screen and go over this real quick. Bump, bump, bump. Because it was fun. It was fun. Okay. So the first thing they talked about is to ask yourself, what do you want? And anybody who would write this into the, into the. Into the chat would be great so that people could just can get this. What do you want? By asking yourself what you want in life, you activate your hunger. Okay, so that's really critical. What do you want? Because that's going to determine how you measure success by getting what you want. Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Right? So what do you want? That's the first thing. The second thing is to find and face the truth. You need to know in terms of what you want. Let me undo that. What did I do? Yeah, there we go.

Your best bet is to copy and paste the text and just make it bigger.

Yeah, yeah, I did this. So please pardon me. You know, we. This is. This is not as elegant as it could be. So the first thing is to activate the hunger. What do you ask yourself what you want and be sure that you're really telling yourself the truth. The second thing is to find and face the truth. Once you've determined what you really want, where are you in the process of getting it? How close are you? How far away are you know where you are and where you need to be in order to get the thing that you. You want. Right. Make sense? I hope so. The third thing is to resolve and create a map. That means you decide you're going to have this. That means, you know, if you look at the magic formula, you can see how these things are fitting in. So this is What I'm always doing, I'm looking at maps from very successful people and asking myself, am I forgetting anything? Is there anything that I'm not including here? And whereas you can add additional steps, I think you'll be able to agree that the magic formula is covering some good stuff. Resolve to do it. That means that it is in alignment with your beliefs and values. You know, that's the C. Really. And create a map of action so that you know what to do to move forward. That's. That's the m. The magic formula. Do what's hard. Slay your dragons. Brendan Burchard would talk about this. It's done by one. You apply the Pareto principle. You find out what is the 20% that gets you 80% of the results. And maybe you find out what is the 20% of the 20% that is getting you the results. What are the most critical things that you have to do every day? And you find the simplest version of that. To take at least one step every day. You simply demand that of yourself. I will take one step towards my goal every day. And so this is what the millionaires were telling each other in this, you know, and they were kind of, you know, analyzing what's the hardest thing for you to do? You know, maybe it's talking to people or taking a meeting or doing some study or doing this, going through these papers or whatever it is you do that first. Slay your dragons first. Develop a daily practice. Show me your habits on a daily basis and I will tell you your destiny. What is it that you are doing every day? Are you taking action? Are you recharging to raise your energy? Are you connecting with your allies? Are you learning new things? What you doing are. What are you doing every day? This is what you keep working on that, and you keep doing that until it's an unconscious competence. You simply do it because you do it. Okay. Raise your standard and measure more often. People will go to work every day, but then say that they don't have the discipline to exercise or the discipline to write. Really, they've got discipline. They get up every day and go to work. What they don't have is a level of urgency about what it is that they're trying to do. They say it's something that they should do instead of something that they must do. They must go to work. They should stop smoking, they should exercise, they should write that page. Or they would like to, but it's not a must. So you take a look at the musts in your life and you Ask yourself, how did they become musts? How do I get myself to do the things that are musts? Because inside each and every one of us, there is a set of machinery that will do the things that we feel we must do. But the stuff that we should do, well, I'll wait for that. I'll do something else. Other people are more important than me or more important than my dreams. Raise your standard. What is it that you're going to demand from yourself that you're gonna. You're willing to say, I am not willing to settle for less than this and measure it more often? Most people will set New Year's resolutions, and a month later they've broken them, and they don't even notice that they've broken them until six months later. Was that. Oh, God, didn't I promise myself I was gonna, you know, stop doing this or start doing that? God, I didn't do it. What I'm hoping you will do is use this meeting. Every week. You think about what your goals are in terms of your physical health and vibrancy, in terms of your love, your connection, your relationships, and in terms of your career. That every week you'll think about that. And if you will do that, you are getting information feedback from your environment much more frequently than most people do. You're like a bat flying through a cave. Your actions are the squeak. The way the universe reacts to your actions is. Is the sound bouncing back to you. You then get to echolocate and change, change your direction. If you don't measure, what gets measured gets managed. If you don't find a way to measure your results, it's easy to go years and not notice that you're gaining weight or going back broke or that your marriage is going down the toilet every week. Have something. Am I spending the time with my children? Am I spending the time with my wife? Every single day, Tananarim and I do our blessing dance. You know, we do at least five days a week. Honestly, we forgot to do our blessing dance today, sweetheart. We will do this after we get finished with this because it's critical for us to. To constantly recalibrate. Where are we in terms of being loving to each other? Where are we in terms of taking care of each other? Look at our finances daily. What's happening there? It's hard. It's painful. We didn't used to do that. We used to look at it once a month. Now we look at it every day. You think, maybe we're going to start making more money? You think maybe we're going to protect it better. Do I step on the scale every day? No, I don't. But what I do do is look at myself in the mirror. How do I look? How do I feel when I wake up in the morning? My joints ache. No, feels good. How's my energy level? How's my sex drive? How is my sense of optimism about the world? All those things relate to my health and physicality. When I look at myself in the mirror, would I want to jump my own bones? Seriously, how am I in terms of my own standards? Do I live up to my standards? What you are attracted to tells you what your standards are. If you're not that, all you have to do is head in that direction and you'll be happy. Because success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. It's not getting there. It's that the process that you're on is telling you I'm taking another step towards what I want today. Okay, so let's take a look. So raise your standard and measure more often. And then life is a gift. Celebrate. Do you celebrate every day? I'm suggesting that the five minute miracle, you know, where you every couple hours you stop and you breathe for 60 seconds. Why not make that a celebration for 60 seconds? Why not dance a little bit while you're breathing? Why not envision that child that you were being happy and just jumping up and down and saying, go for it, mommy. Go for it, daddy. These are seven things that rich people are teaching each other that I got my hands on. You can think about this. And what I would suggest is you look at it in terms of the magic formula and say, how would you. How does each. To the degree that the magic formula is legitimate, it's going to be a superset of all this. So what do you want? You know, clarifying goals and activating positive emotions. Hunger. Face and find the truth. Find out where you are and where you need to be. That's part of, of your planning your map, right? Resolve and create a map. We're back to maps again. Do what's hard. Slay your dragons. 1%. You have to do the critical things every day. Develop a daily practice morning ritual which grows out of, you know that morning ritual is how you implement the magic formula, how you get it into unconscious competence. Raise your standard and measure more often. Is that in there? I mean, I guess it is. If, if, if success is the progressive realization, then you should always be looking for something, something that's in the. In the future. That your sense of self confidence and Your self image should be of a person who can accomplish the things in your life and have fun in the process. And then life is a gift. Celebrate Faith is nothing more than gratitude in advance you and you are grateful about what you've had in the past and grateful about who you are in the future. That emotional momentum keeps going into the future. If you are grateful for the past, you're grateful for the present. It's easier to believe that tomorrow can be better than yesterday. So that's the core teachings from $100,000 a year or $50,000 a year. Mastermind, Secret Mastermind and I think it's great stuff. I think it's good stuff, but it's not better stuff than what I'm giving you. It's not stuff that is not available in books and texts. In the secret, you know, sacred teachers of the world have not discussed endlessly this. We become what we think about. We become what we focus on. Where attention goes, energy flows and results show. Hawaiian huna say that it doesn't matter where you where you look. The best of the best of the best talk the same way about their lives now. Celebration Tananarive Would you tell our guests what you were saying to me today about Christmas?

Oh, absolutely. I froze up for a second. I wasn't sure. I. If you're on my newsletter, if you've seen my newsletter for today, I talk a little bit about the management of grief at holiday time and how hard that is. For example, we woke up from what had been a very cozy Christmas Eve where we spent the night by the fireplace on the sofa bed and it was so gorgeous. And then Christmas morning, early in the morning, I got a call from my cousin that our grandmother had died. And as. And I was very close to my grandmother. So it's not like you know that. Well, I was very close to my grandmother, so that was a major loss and still feeling that. And I had what I think was a revelation while I was watching the movie Krampus. I'm not going to be too spoilery and tell you exactly where this happens, but there is a very important moment in the film where you see a collection of glass ornaments with different families trapped inside. And it dawned on me the second time I saw this movie that for me it was a powerful, powerful metaphor for the way we trap ourselves in our past holidays. And therefore we're not able to move forward to find new joy at holiday season. Rather than it reminding us of joy, it reminds us of pain. And my grandmother used to have a very Special Christmas Eve gathering at her house. Every year, we got to open presents early. I mean, she was firmly embedded in our Christmas tradition. So that was a tough, tough loss. And we had the gift of a child in our house, you know, so we did the same thing, I'm sure my parents did, which was put on a game face and make Christmas, it feel joyful for our son's sake. You know, that. That was my way back into joy and back into celebrating Christmas. But it's not all. You know, not everybody has kids. Sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes the memories of Christmas are horrible memories instead of joyful memories. So now it's. It's. It's not grief over the lost Christmas. It's a reminder of the trauma past holidays, unfortunately. But whatever it is, you know, like I said on my newsletter, I really do believe community is an important part of addressing that. Here we are. We're a little community. You know, it's. It's not. Well, it is the holidays. It's Hanukkah. Christmas is coming up. Kwanzaa right after. So happy holidays, everybody. I'm sorry for whatever the memories are that. That loss is inevitable. You know, we've all lost, and we all will continue to lose. So I think my priority at this stage in my life when I know there's a lot of loss ahead and the loss starts to cut deeper and deeper to the bone, you know, that I need to find my tools to stay centered and balanced so that I can still claim my joy even when, and especially when time gets hot. That's what I wanted to say.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful, sweetheart. And, you know, I know that our thing is always, you know, taking care, taking care of the children. That I remember hearing that people who live in really adverse circumstances, like, let's say the Inuit, you know, really harshness of winter tend to be the kindest to their children. I don't know if that's true. It was an anthropologist saying this in some book years ago. It could have even been a character who's an anthropologist. So it's not necessarily legitimate at all, but let's just say to the degree that that might be true. It's about knowing that life is so tough that you have to give your children all the love they need, all the light they need, all the support they need that will last them the rest of their lives when they go out into a harsh world, and that they will be able to pass that on to their families when they have children. They will have had a sufficiently beautiful experience of holidays to Be able to understand why it is important to protect our children and to give them a sense that the world has magic, the world has meaning, that love matters. Even in the midst of all of this chaos, there are people who would get depressive seasonal affective disorder. If there's a thousand. If there's a house, a city with 10,000 homes, and one of those homes is on fire, they will believe the world is burning. That's what happens when you develop negative tunnel vision. Of course, the flip side is, you know, positive tunnel vision would be 999 houses are burning. One of them is okay. And so you're focused on the one that's okay. That would obviously be foolishness. What is healthy, you know, it is the thing that allows you to act with the greatest.

I'm sorry to interrupt you. Jaime has just announced in chat that that is true about the Inuit and their children, which I think is beautiful, Absolutely beautiful.

And thank you so much, honey, because like I said, it's. It's true about the Inuit. That's fantastic. How about doing that for ourselves, people? We were all children. If we were blessed to have parents who protected us, then Christmas morning was a time of magic. It was magic. Our parents created presents from nothing. We had no idea how they made money. We had no idea what money was. All we knew is that bicycles appeared under Christmas, under our Christmas tree. If you were lucky to have a healthy family, if you want to go back and recreate that for yourself, fantastic. And if you never had that, it's even more important to deliberately craft moments during the year, during the week, during every day, where you focus your emotions to the positive. I get accused of being a Pollyanna, and some of the people who I respected the most in life thought that I was too naive and optimistic to survive the harshness of life. I think that those people did not notice that I was also obsessed with martial arts. I don't think they considered the implication of someone who is as open hearted and loving as I am. Having spent, you know, most of my life training and how to take people's bodies apart. What is the psychology of that? The psychology of that was from my position. I was a griot. I was a teacher, I was a storyteller, I was a healer who did not have a tribe to protect me. So I created my own tribe of warriors to protect myself, just myself, so that I could be the goofball that I am. Very, very emotional, Very, very open. I don't have to worry people. Every day people say, well, Steve, you Shouldn't say this, and Steve, you shouldn't say that. And, you know, there's a part of the back of my mind that's saying, or what, you know, we're on the Internet, buddy. You can't do anything to me. And if you were in person, I promise you would be being more polite right now. Now, because that's what always happens. Predators are actually relatively polite to each other because they know they can hurt each other. And I know I can hurt you. Doesn't mean I think I can beat you. I'm not even concerned with that. I can beat you. I know for absolutely certain that if I focus everything I have, I can take the left eye out of your head. Given that, why don't we have peace. Let's just, you know, raise a cup and enjoy and hug each other because there's no need for us to hurt each other. But don't think you can intimidate me on any level. You cannot. And that's the way the parent side of your personality should feel, perhaps, so that the child part of your personality can feel totally safe and joyful. So kind of suggest to kind of separate out the adult part of you needs to choreograph a celebration for either the children in your life, the family in your life, or the family within your heart. Do things that make you happy on Christmas Day. If you can't do that for yourself, then go to a soup kitchen and serve food to those less fortunate than yourself. Give joy to others as a way of finding joy for yourself. Now, what I would love to do is to open this up to people who have questions, comments, or requests about anything that we have covered here as we motor towards the end of the year, as we motor towards Christmas. Becky. Yes, Becky, Unmute and lay it on us.

Two completely opposite things. My daily walks where I've added the zigzag, are doing something really amazing. The zigzag is causing people to talk to me who would normally just walk past if I was just walking normally. They ask me if I'm adding steps, if I'm counting steps, or they smile and say, looks like you're having fun or something. And then I. I can stop. I take my. My little earbuds off and I talk to them about what I'm doing, about my heart attack and the changes I've made and how I've improved my health as hopefully encouraging. Make good, healthy choices. I have had amazing conversations on a daily basis with a variety of people of different ages, all the way from kids and teenagers. All the way to an 82 year old guy named Ho yesterday. It was really amazing. The really touching one yesterday was a young man who was probably in his early 20s named Dylan, who was just crushed by his girlfriend trying to commit suicide and being in the hospital and feeling betrayed by that. And I, I gave him a hug at the end of our conversation. I, I hope that I said things that made him feel seen and heard and valued in the world, even by a complete stranger. He said he was pretty much cut off from friends and family. He felt very much alone. And at the end I said, you need a hug. And I gave him a nice hug and rubbed his back in that hug to try and convey genuine caring for him.

You know, just, just how few, how few of us get the equivalent of a 20 second hug every day?

I know.

That's how long it takes to release what? Oxycontin, the, the, the hug hormone, the, the, the, the love hormone. The feeling of being safe. Oxytocin. Octacosin. Right. Oxytocin. Oxycontin is the drug that's. Yeah. So you don't, definitely don't want to release that oxygen cosa. Yeah, go ahead, Becky.

On the opposite end of that, and I did post this during the week, there's a man who's been coming up behind me walking fast. He's middle aged and bulky, not real fat or something, but just bulky. And he barely misses hitting his shoulder into mine from behind. And the third time this happened and I recognized him, he always wears the same exact clothes and he always does the same thing. I yelled at him this time first. I felt the fear, you know, as a female when I, I don't know if the men will understand this, but as a woman, when a man enters your bubble from behind, that is a stranger, it can feel pretty frightening.

What you need to do there is. That's your, your survival drive, you know, your survival drive turns fear into anger.

I got angry.

Yeah, so you got angry, which is better than being afraid. There are more evolved responses, but your response was completely appropriate. Your response, your primary responsibility is to protect yourself. Only after you feel safe is it safe for you to open your heart and just be that, you know, loving goofball. So the first thing you did, that yelling, that was turning fear into anger. Anger response. And you have the right to control your space. You simply do have that right. Men get that some, but generally it's. If you're dealing with a younger man, a larger man, or more than one, you know, men are more, are more Often victims of. Of male violence than women are. However, men are violent towards women a lot more often, you know, in terms of actual damage than women are towards men. So there are lots of different gradients there. You're completely. Everything you're saying makes. Makes sense. So own that you made sense and be grateful that you took care of yourself. That's good.

Well, I have taken two pictures of him yesterday on the walk. When he walked, there were a couple of other people near me and I just stepped to the side so they could get by because my zigzag takes up half the trail. And when I know people are coming, I'll just step aside and let them go by so that I'm not inconveniencing them. Because the zigzag takes. Is slower than their general.

To be honest with you, I used to do much the same thing.

And he walked past me.

Yeah, I mean, I think that. I think that almost everybody.

And he walked past me and I got to see his face.

I think almost everybody does that.

But it's gonna happen and trigger.

So thank you. Yeah.

I decided to take a couple of pictures of them from behind at least.

Okay. And you make sure that you email those pictures to yourself so you feel like there is. There's a copy we need to go on to the next person. Thank you very much, Becky. And keep taking care of yourself. Okay.

How about Manuel?

Thank you.

You bet.

I've been thinking about writing to him what I'm doing so that he understands better, because I don't think he wants to talk to me. He was very brusque and rude. It could be, but what do you.

Think about my writing out about that?

Maybe you can say if you hand him a note, be sure that you're saying exactly what it is that you wanted to say and no more be careful about that. Okay. Manuel Zapata.

Hey. So, yeah, I have a question about the magic model. Specifically about the map. The model part.

Yes.

So in my current situation, I'm experiencing some financial difficulty. Pretty rough for over a year. And the thing that always has stopped me, and I think I changed this in the past three weeks, but it's still too early to tell results is that whenever I started following a model, I mean, the financial needs are pretty immediate.

Right.

Like they. Yeah, they, they. I. I feel taken like by the neck and like needed needing a solution.

Right.

Like immediately. But the results come after like some time taking action.

That's right. That's right. You just. You're going to go on, but that you Just touched something that's critical to look at. There are the important behaviors that are generative and long term and then there are the imperative needs that are like, I need something right now. So those are not the same things at all most times. So you might need to have two separate plans. One is what is the long term generative plan? And the second one is how do I generate some money by the end of this week?

Yeah, exactly. And that thinking of how do I generate money like tomorrow has kept me from like being consistent doing anything because, well, after three or five days I didn't see results. So I would just stop.

You know that. You know that if it might take six weeks or three months for the long term results to kick in.

Yeah, exactly. And the angst was so high that I would just stop. And sometimes I would see myself at the end of the day having done nothing because I couldn't come up with something that would get me money by the end of the week, which is like over time. If I had done something, then I would have the result I want because.

So, buddy, let's take a look at this. Like I said, you need two separate paths. And if you're really clever, you might be able to figure out a way for one path to do both. But that's pretty rare. Usually it's, you know, I need to write this book so that I can get this chunk of money. And then there is the end, I need to pay my bills at the end of this week. Okay, the book will take three months, four months before I get a dime out of it. What I do by the end of this week. So you're going to do two completely separate kinds of research. One is how do you keep a long term plan going so that every day you're taking another step? Because if you look back several years, my guess is you've had this problem for a while that the question of whether or not money is coming in rapidly enough to pay your bills seems to be at war with the long term plans, which if you had stayed with them, you would not have the short term problem. Is that accurate?

Somewhat.

Yeah.

Especially so let's say for the sake of argument that it is a war between the adult part of your personality that has the discipline for the long term plans. I'm going to do this every day and then tomorrow I'm going to get up and chop with carry water and the day after that I'm going to do the same thing. And the short term kid part of you that says, but the roof is Leaking right now. Don't think about patching the roof. Think about putting out a pot right now. So you then divide your times. So you're going to spend 20% of your time, 30% of your time, 40% of your time. You decide doing the generative work so that this time next year you don't have this problem anymore. You can simply do what is imperative, rather what is important and generative rather than what is imperative. What you want is spend the majority of your time having fun. You are fear driven. My guess is that you, you stick with a plan until the fear diminishes enough that you feel like the plan doesn't need to be followed anymore and you switch to something else. There's something that is happening. Look at the fact that you, you start doing the thing that is long term generative and you keep getting distracted by the short term imperatives. If you were doing two things, let's say you decided to split your time 50, 50, just, you know, you, you, you, this 50% of your time is looking at the long term things, which if you did it for six months or a year or three months, you'd be in Oz, you'd be okay. 50% of your time is focused on how do I pay my bills this month. That might mean garage sales. That might mean taking everything you know about being a copywriter and, and doing a workshop online about how to be a copywriter for $50 a person and trying to get 50 people in there. It might be taking a job temporarily while you're working on your copywriting at night. Your primary responsibility in life, I would say, is to take care of yourself. After you take care of yourself and you are no longer driven by fear, then you can do the loving things. So focusing on what do I need to do to make the money, I need to get out of that sense of emergency. It's not only valid, but it is part of what you must do as an adult. And learning how to take care of both your short term needs and your long term needs is one of those things that is just critical to survival in the world. Because what you want to do is you want to get yourself to the point that your automatic daily behaviors are handling your short term needs. You just get up in the morning, you do X, Y and Z. You've done X, Y and Z. Now you move on to the other things that you want to do. You've taken care of what you must do. You can move on to what you want to do. So what you need to do, there Are very few problems in life that will survive 24 hours of sitting by yourself at a table with a pile of index cards or, or a notebook and writing down is getting the greatest clarity you can on what the situation is. Working backwards, what you want your life to be. And let me tell you what you want your life to be. You want your life to be happy. That's the primary thing that you want. That's what everybody wants. You want to move away from pain toward pleasure. The money is a way to take care of pain or increase pleasure. That's the only function that money has. If it's not doing one of those two things, why would you want it? So what can you do? You need both long term plans, that's your direct response to copywriting, perhaps, and short term plans. Copywriting, remember, is the art of sales translated into language. If you are good at that, then take your understanding of sales and find a way to sell a product or service to people. Look at it as an exercise. In copywriting. For instance, anything you want to do to make money short term is going to be getting money from other people. It's going to be borrowing money from someone so they have to believe in you that you're going to return it, or selling something to people so that they have to believe in its value. Or selling a service to people so they can believe that, oh, he's going to teach me to do something or he's going to do something for me. So in other words, marketing and sales, which is the thing you're focusing on, is also the thing that's going to get you out of this. Marketing is a matter of finding a group of people who need something and finding a way to satisfy that need and convincing them that you can satisfy their needs, stimulating their hunger, satisfying their need. Sales is getting them to give you their money for that right now. Okay, so if copywriting is always specialized to a particular audience, a particular product, what is the universal selling proposition of this product? The unique selling proposition? What is that you have to offer the world? What do you have to offer the world that no one else can, that you can sell fast in order to raise fast money? Or what network can you tap into where there are resources that will keep you going? And remember, you're likely to survive. You're very likely to survive. If you don't break this pattern now, you're going to have the same conversation a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. So the panic of what's going on right now is going to Stop you from the creative long term thinking that could solve your issue. Does that make sense?

Yes.

So use the magic formula. Start by breathing. Okay? The way in on this is at least, you know, every hour, stop for 60 seconds and do 60. Except for 60 seconds, do 60 seconds of deep, slow diaphragmatic breathing that will get you out of the panic. Every hour you stop, you stretch, you say hallelujah. You think about, you know, loving. If you got a pet that you love or children that you love, anything like that, think about them. Think about hugging them, think about touching them. Think about bringing the best Christmas in the world to them. Fill yourself with positive emotions, critical. Okay, so it would be. What I would suggest for you is that you're going to look at the five minute miracle, which is at least five times a day you're going to do that, but ideally every hour because you're stressed out. So every hour, you know, go to YouTube, look up diaphragmatic breathing and do 60 seconds of diaphragmatic breathing every hour. Okay? That will break the panic chain. Then you create a morning ritual. Every day you're going to get up and you may be walking through the valley of the shadow, but you find the part of yourself that knows that you are the meanest son of a in the valley. And you get that by loving the child inside yourself enough to be willing to fight for him. Because if the, if the adult part of you will go down into the coal mines to pay the bills, the child part of you gets to decide, this is what I'd like to do with my life. And parents do that. That's what they've always done. They fight the bear, they stay up all night, they go into the coal mines, they die. They bury their dreams so that their children can have a better life. You do the adult work of figuring out what the short term money is so that the kid part of you can play. And when the kid part of you plays, what is the game that kid likes to play? Maybe that game is selling. When you start looking at sales and marketing as a game, as long as it's an ethical game, you have rounded the corner, buddy, because you're going to be obsessively studying it. You're going to be looking at like a baseball fan knows baseball statistics. You're going to look at the who are the greatest salesmen in alignment with your values? Who are the greatest marketers in alignment with your values? So the first thing is to breathe. The second thing is to build a morning ritual where every day you Are you are implementing the magic formula, in other words, map or model. Who are the people who could get out of your situation and have fun in the process? Who are the people who could kick butt using your skills and have fun in the process? 2. You are taking daily action. You are deciding. These are the actions I'm going to take every day. You know, the minimum of that would be, you know, x amount of time. Planning, plotting, studying, inputting positive things, studying the best marketers on the. On the Internet, the people who know how to make money fast. How can I make money, you know, in a. How can I make honest money rapidly? You know, find the Google search term, look at a hundred different people, say this and you will see. Oh, my God, I can have a garage sale. I could sell all this. Or there are these people who wanted to be clients of mine. I could have a fire sale and say, you know, special discount at Christmas, you know, and just, you know, build up a mailing list. You know, I. It won't make me money right now, but I can see that in 90 days, if I build up my mailing list, I'll have this group of people that I've been communicating with that now, trust me. And I can have a fire sale and say, hey, you know, $25, and I'll teach you marketing for two hours. And now you've raised the money that you need, you know, whatever it is, use the magic formula. So what is the mapper model I need? What are the daily actions I need to take? How do I fill myself with positive emotions? Gratitude, love, faith? What is my clear goal and who would I need to be to implement this goal? You look at those five things and you figure out a way to integrate them every day.

And.

And you do that, and you come back next Saturday and talk about what it is that you came up with and let us work with you. Okay?

Yes.

Okay, buddy. You take care. And let's see. There's a. Zita has her hand up.

Oh, hello. Yes, sorry, I thought I'd actually put my hand down.

I had.

But I'll ask the question if there's time. Have a very specific, slightly weird question. I guess I was wondering, and maybe this is a question that Tananarive could help with if you're still on. If you guys ever get. And anyone in the chat scared of the subject matter that you're writing about.

Take it away.

Yes, sorry, go ahead.

Have you seen my interviews about the reformatory? It took me seven years to work on that book.

And Zena can You can you get yourself on camera? You don't have to. If you can, it's useful.

No, I can. I just, I. I'm not looking my.

Best, but hold on, I. I totally accept that. That's a great picture.

Go ahead, T. So I have a reminder of, you know, really distilling one of the reasons it was so difficult to research this book. It wasn't just that the memoirs were so difficult. Hey, Zita. It wasn't just that reading the memoirs were so difficult, or imagining my son in that situation was terrible, or imagining that I had an actual great uncle who died at this place was terrible. When I was on book tour, when by chance, the very same day in the morning, I Talked to an 88 year old survivor who was still so traumatized he could talk about nothing else. And that evening I met a much younger man who was also a survivor, who was shaking beside me because he was still so traumatized. I realized that a lot of probably what was holding me up and making me fearful, it wasn't just the pain of the research, it was the fear that I did not have the right to tell the story. Right. So I was just on an appearance with the writer. Oh, gosh, what's it called? He was in Afghanistan and he wrote a horror novel set in Afghanistan. I wish I could think of the name of the book because it sounds really incredible, but it's horror, right? So it's actually accessible to me because I don't want to read a war novel, but I will read a horror novel set during wartime if there's a subtle difference there. But even though he once served in Afghanistan because he was not in the infantry, like his character, he had also wrestled with. Does he have the right to tell this story? And, and I don't know if that's your question or your issue, but what calmed me down when I was on book tour, because I was shook. By the end of that evening, I was going through all my fields from the seven years I had been wrestling with this book. All of it distilled, the two men in one day. And I realized, hold on. He thanked you, didn't he? Both of them thanked you for writing this book. So actually, is it fair to say that it was a good thing that it was written, that even this younger white man felt seen by a novel set in 1950 about a 12 year old black boy? Which, as sad as that is, is exactly how he felt then. Then, yeah, I think we just have to wrestle with ourselves. What's your specific issue been so My.

Specific issue is I was very interested in this written language from Nigeria, where my family is from. And I've done a lot of research. But obviously when you're doing research into any kind of African or African descent history, there's a lot. It's quite difficult, you know, combing through the records and the sort of things that people say about it is quite charged. And, you know, so the writing, it exists, existed in Nigeria. It's kind of, I don't think it's really used that much today. And also was, has appeared in different parts of North America and also in Cuba and other Caribbean countries.

Let me jump in here because I, I, I see you.

Okay?

And who you are is a cultured, educated, intelligent woman who is in emotional conflict with what white people and others have said about who you are and who your people are. You check every word you're saying. I watch you go through a loop. Is it okay for me to say this? Is it okay for me to look this way? Do I, you know, can I do this? Can I say this? So what's obvious to me is that you would be greatly benefited by knowing that you have the right to be who you are. That fierceness to develop the adult female part of you, the lioness part of you that will protect that cub with everything with fangs and claws. No one had the right to make you feel small. No one had the right to tell you that you are not brilliant and beautiful and from a people who are as good as anyone in the world. And anything that has ever told you that has been a lie. To understand that the Three Gates, the first step of the Three Gates is, is it true? Is it true that you don't have the right to be proud of who you are and the people that you come from and all that you have accomplished in your life, is that true? I don't think it is. I don't think it's true.

Missionaries and that's right. Yeah, exactly.

The adult part of you has to stand at the gift gate of your mind with a flaming sword and say, you shall not pass to anyone who tells the little girl inside you that she is not a princess, she is not a goddess, that she is not as good as anyone who has ever walked this planet, period. Anything that has ever reduced your belief in yourself is a lie. Anything that has ever said you are not worthy of love and as good as you are made of the same stuff as the stars, you are halfway between the infinitely large and the infinitely small. All you have to do to know that There is no one who has ever lived who is any better than you is to know that you're no better than anybody else. All you have to do is give up needing to be better than anybody else. And the question whether other people are better than you is an obsession. Absurdity. It's an absurdity. You start with loving yourself, with nurturing yourself, with understanding that you have been a warrior for your own heart and that your people have as well, that you stand on the shoulders of giants. And it is your gift and your honor to give that beauty to the world. You are going to show the world so that there's a little girl just like you who is starting out, who will stand on your shoulders and see further than you. You must stand for that little girl you write for the younger version of yourself who needed to know that she was beautiful and powerful and brilliant. That's who you're telling your stories for, and settle for nothing less than the best you can do.

Thank you both.

Is this non fiction?

Well, no.

Originally I was writing it as non fiction. So I have, like. I'm also a visual artist and I did an art project around it and wrote some non fiction. But yeah, I was trying to create a fictional story as part of this.

You commit to writing that story and you bring it to. To us, people who come on these broadcasts. We enjoy going over stories and actually working with people with them. We will actually. We can actually do that. You know, you. You've caught our attention. We care about you. You do your. Go ahead.

Want to add that fiction is very freeing in that sense, if you feel like you're constrained by what really happened. And you know, the reformatory was based on. Well, inspired loosely by actual events. I tried to give it realism wherever I could, but at a certain point when you're writing fiction, you also have the absolute freedom to tell the story your way. It doesn't have to be a literal interpretation. It can be metaphorical. It can, you know, you're creating a character to experience something so that people will understand it. So, yeah, what Steve said about, about sharing pages, frankly, we. We do read pages if people are willing to be workshopped in front of the group. But. But yes, absolutely. Feel empowered in your fiction to tell the story your way.

That's right. And do it for the little girl inside you. Because when you do that, you are more willing to take the pain. Maybe somebody, maybe you feel on some level. My mother told me when I was a kid, steve, if you let white people know how smart you are, they will Kill you. My mother told me that if you want to know why I spent all this time studying the martial arts, because I felt surrounded by enemies who would destroy me. White people, black people. Everywhere I looked, there was nothing. What I found out is that the key to the martial arts does not need 20 years or 30 years of training. All it is is being willing to die for what you believe in. As you find the part of you that connects to your ancestors. Ghosts. And you look at them and say, I. When I join you, I will join you with my sense of honor intact. I will do you proud. And you have found the part of you willing to die. And once you find that nobody can control you. So you find that and your art needs to come from the deepest part of yourself. What Harlan Ellison referred to as the burning core, what Octavia referred to as your deepest truth. What is it you really, really believe? You tell that, and you have something wonderful to offer the world and be willing to die to give it. And nobody will be able to stop you. No one will be able to threaten you. And the voices in your head that say that you're not enough. Repeat after me, I am that bitch.

I am that bitch.

There you go. When Tananarive and I are faced with a. An opportunity or a problem, we turn to each other, look at each other in the eyes and say, we are that bitch. We are. Your ancestors are watching. And your descendants love you for who you are. This is your moment. This is your moment. The little girls that follow you don't have to carry your burden. They'll carry new burdens. They'll dig deeper. You do your part right now, and you come back next week with. With what you have done. And we will support you to the best of our ability.

Amazing.

Thank you both so much. I really appreciate that.

You bet it. I love this. Merry Christmas. Okay. Tom Barkley. Tom Barkley. Nina, take off your.

You didn't want to unmute.

I'm sorry.

Z, I just want to add something here that there is something going on with Nigeria coming into greater prominence in world culture and western culture in particular. Ove Donald Eeki is doing great work and getting great recognition for his writing. A friend of mine is a leading ultrasound physician. He's from Nigeria. All the languages in Nigeria that interest you are gaining aware. People are becoming aware that there are many interesting languages spoken in Nigeria. And it sounds like that's part of what you want to write about. And I think that's a great thing. I think you may be right. You may be Right at the front of the. Of a wave of making Nigeria, Nigerian culture, Nigerian history more accessible to more people in the west and the North. So, like Steve said, this really is your moment.

That's beautiful, Tom. Is there anything we could do for you today, Tom? Me?

Yeah. It's Christmas season. I'm doing a lot of deep breathing and singing.

Fantastic. And that gift that you just gave to Zeta. I love what you said. I love what you said. That's. And do. You guys can continue the conversation in chat? Chiquija and Indigo.

Hi.

Hello.

How's everyone?

We're fine. Can you put. Oh, there you go. You are.

I am here. Here I am.

There you are. I just. Yeah, I just need to see a smile and your eyes and stuff like this. It helps me to cuss. To customize what I'm saying to you. So tilt your camera down just a little bit so I can see your chinny chin chin.

Here's my chinny chin chin.

Okay. What do you. What comments, questions, and requests do you have today?

Hello, everyone. Hi, Tananarive. I'm gonna try not to be weird, but I can't help it. Good to see you. Just real quick, I have a question for. Is it. Is it Zita?

Yes.

I was just wondering if you're familiar with Chinua Achebe's work.

Yes, I've read the first in his Things Fall Apart trilogy.

Yeah. Does your work align with anything that he's done?

A little bit, because he's Igbo. My mom is Igbo. So it's an ethnic group, and they are one of the groups that was prominent in this. In using this written language. So, yeah, it's connected, definitely.

Oh, cool. Cool. I just wanted to offer further encouragement. I'm so inspired by Steve and Tananarive. Oh, my God. So I'm hoping that you will keep coming back and keep getting your cup full, filled up. I'm from Philadelphia, so I cut off a lot of my stuff. I have a master's degree, so I can speak standard English, but I choose not to.

But if people ask me if I speak any foreign languages, I say yes. I speak fluent Caucasian.

I speak fluid black people. Black. Whatever you want to call it. That's what I speak fluidly, but that's all that I wanted. I'm just hoping that you embrace everything and you get the work done. So looking forward to seeing what you do.

Yeah.

Let's set.

Let's set each other up to have 2024 be a year of breakthrough for all of us in Terms of our self love, our art, our health, our financial abundance. You know, I think everybody wants health, love and abundance. And I think that if we own that, then it's a matter of, you know, a lot of people won't even let themselves admit they want those things. So admit that you want them. And then the rest of it's figuring out how to get it within an ethical structure. So if we can start the year by admitting we want health, love and abundance, then it's like, how can we help each other do it? How can we brainstorm how to do it as our copy, you know, copywriter made it clear there are the long term paths and then there's paying the bills now. But if you get caught in paying the bills right now, you never develop the generative plans that enable you to, well, frankly, just to be honest about it, give thousands of dollars away every Christmas. How about having enough abundance that you can give thousands of dollars away every Christmas? Join us in that. Let's help heal the world. Just embracing physical vibrancy. Not just dragging your butt through the day, but feeling, you know, like I tell Tananarive, I said, you train as if you're getting ready for a marathon or a title fight. Before you go out and you start promoting your new book, you are going to need a level of energy. We're going to need a level of energy to do this next thing in Hollywood that demands that we treat ourselves as if we are athletes in terms of our. Of our emotions. Loving ourselves, feeling safe enough to expand that love to our families and then our neighbors and then the various tribes. I have at least four different tribes that are very important to me. Science fiction is important to me. Martial arts is important to me. Writers are important to me. Black folks are important to me. Okay. People who believe in the equality of human beings across grids of race and gender are very important to me. So if you're a member of any of those tribes, people who want to improve themselves, if you're a member of any one of those tribes, I'm here to serve you. You decide where you want to put your love, and you have so much love that you can extend it. And then resources, money. Don't be afraid to say, I want money. You better not be in the adult world. That's what people exchange for their time and energy. Money. So if you say, I want a strong, healthy, sexy body, a body I would find sexy. I want to have a heart filled with love so much that I can extend love out to the world while still Feeling safe. Start with feeling safe. And then I want enough money. That money becomes a tool to help people rather than an obstacle that stops me from feeling safe or enjoying life. To move away from pain into joy, into abundance and contribution. That's what I want for everybody in 2024. What I'm trying to figure out is what's the best way to facilitate that. And you guys are teaching me to honor you. You seem. You're kind of leaning forward sometimes that you wanted to say no.

I'm just here taking it all in.

Okay, so we've covered a lot of stuff here, and I'm very curious. Does anybody else have their hands up? And I will, you know, be v volunteer or you will be volun told. So let's. Let me remove this pin and take a look at everybody. Jim Early. Hello. Hey, buddy. How you doing?

All right.

So what's going on in your life in the last week? Have you moved forward or slid back? Bit of both.

Forward in some areas, backwards in others. I was hoping. It's like you asked me a question a couple weeks ago, and I kind of had a part of an answer to it, but I didn't want to share it on the recorded part, and I didn't get here in time to talk to you before you started recording.

Okay, well, you. If you want to, you could email it to me or you could PM it to me, and I, you know, just remind me that I said that, and I will. I will respond to you. You have the right to your privacy. You know, is there an aspect of it that you can share so we can workshop it a little bit so it will help other people? Just take the personal, you know, the.

The.

The most embarrassing details out. In general, what are you working with?

Finding my inner child. There's been. It's like some of the stuff you've mentioned today were things that I struggled with as a child, and I came up with a different solution. It's like you started.

You.

You went to martial arts, and I learned to hide. And it kind of occurs to me that I've never stopped hiding.

Oh, okay. Even.

Even though the.

The things that I was hiding from aren't there anymore, my natural response to challenges became avoidance.

That is so human. That is so incredibly human. Human. You are talking about an aspect of the universal experience. You know, the way that you get an elephant to be controlled with a rope. As you start when the elephant is small and you tie it to a rope, and then you. It will try to get away, and then eventually it will Stop trying. And so you could have an adult elephant tied with a rope that it could snap, but barely even think about and won't even try. We get programmed by early experiences. The things that happen to us before we can pay our own bills. The things that happen to us when we are infants and helpless. The things that happen to us when we were first trying to understand our own sexuality and our agency around 13, you know, when the hormones really start pumping. That stuff lasts for a lifetime unless you really go in there and work it out. So the ancient child is one way of rewiring those things. I suggest that anytime you feel stuck, try three different things. One thing that is body centric, one thing that is pure emotion, and one thing that is logical. Okay, so the body centric part of it might, you know, so during your morning ritual, you know, so do the, you know, if you're doing the five. The breathing five times a day, that breaks your pattern and creates a little, little, little moment when you're not caught in the spiral because of the breathing. To make sure that you're breathing as if you feel, you know. So do that with me right now. Just put your hand on your tummy and on your. And everybody do this with us. You know, when you inhale, you know, let your tummy expand. When you exhale, contract it. So let's just. For 60 seconds, let's just do that. Inhale, exhale. Exhale. It contracts. Inhale, expand. Exhale, contract. Inhale, expand. Exhale, contract. Two more. Inhale, expand. Exhale, contract. Last one. Inhale, expand. Exhale, contract. Now, in that warm place, visualize the child that you were. Visualize a child that is loved and cherished and absolutely adorable with all the potential of life within him. And your only job is to protect that child. That child is safe because you make a commitment right here and now that you will take whatever it takes to protect him. When mommy and daddy will do whatever it takes to protect the child, the child is safe and begins to take his armor off and just express his joy and potential and creativity and love. Anything less than feeling that connection with a child that feels safe and loved and is burbling with happiness and overflowing with energy, simply says that the adult part of you has not yet closed the gate, has not yet nurtured that child and said, I am here. I will protect you in this space that we are creating here with Fire Dance. You're safe. No one will come in here and criticize you. No one will hurt you. You're safe. For just A few minutes every week, we can share our hopes and our dreams, our laughter and our tears, and build a better life for each other and ourselves. And I honor you for being here. I honor you for taking the chance to be here. And I want you to do whatever it takes. And whatever I can do to serve that father son connection, I will do. Because I think it's sacred. I think that is absolutely sacred. You are now the father you should have had. Simple as that. You are now the father you should have had. So repeat after me. I am now the father I should have had.

I am now the father I should have had.

And I will die before I let anyone hurt my son.

I will die before I let anyone hurt my son.

Now, after this, I want you to look at yourself in the mirror and say those things 10 times. Then close your eyes and imagine that child and see what he has to say to you. Whatever he says to you, however long it takes for you to sit there and look at him, you do that. You do not blink. You shut up and let him talk. And you wait an hour, if you need to, for him to whisper to you what he wants to say. It will be transformative. If you share that with me, I will workshop it with you. But really, it's for you and you alone. These are the secrets between you and that little child inside you. You are now the father you should have had. And we will make him strong so that his son can be loving and full of energy and life and hope. And will love his daddy with all his heart. Because Daddy is home. Thank God. Daddy is home. Where have you been, Daddy? I love you so much. When you get that response, you have created an internal family that nothing can shake. And all you have to do is keep checking in with it every God damn day. Every day. Play with that little boy every day. Let him know that you will die before you let anything happen to him. And on Christmas Day, you find out what he wants you to do. What does he want for Christmas? My guess is the first thing he wants is for Daddy to be home. Okay, Jim. Okay, I'll try it. All right. Thank you, buddy. Okay, so we have seven more minutes. That was a good one. If I. I can hardly even tell you how much I wish that my father had been there for me. I remember when my mom. My mom dated very little after they were divorced. And they were divorced when I was about, I don't know, seven, eight years old. Hard for me, even though she never remarried. But I do remember one guy that was dating My mom. And they were sitting on the couch, and I was sitting in a love seat behind the couch. And I was curled up there like a little puppy. And all I wanted in all my heart is for him to reach over and pet my head. And I remember thinking to myself, doesn't anybody love me enough to want to be my daddy? Am I so hideous? Am I so stupid and clumsy that no one wants to be my daddy? So if you want to know why I love my mentors so much, why I would do anything for Larry Niven and Steve Muhammad is because they were my daddies. They showed me how to be strong and protect myself and make my way in the world. And I thank them beyond anything I can put into words. I needed that so badly because what I wanted was to be admired by the kinds of men I admired and desired by the kinds of women I desired. It was really. That's what I wanted, buddy. I mean, that's. That's what I shaped myself into. That's how I got out of my trap. But I had to admit that I wanted it, that I needed it. We talked about how we don't do the things that we should do. We do the things that we must do. Creating a healthy relationship between the adult and child. Parts of my personality were a must for me. I had to figure that out or I wouldn't survive. And most of us have that to the point where we can survive, but we're not thriving. We're not thriving. That abundant health, that abundant love, that. Those abundant finances, all three, so that we can move through our world, the inner or the outer world, with power and grace and honor and a sense of joy. If the Dalai Lama is true, then the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service. And the meaning of animal life is to move away from pain towards pleasure. Combine them, and you have a path for life. Shakeja. Did you raise your hand again?

I did.

Lay it on us.

Just a real quick question. I think it's a quick question. It's a quick question, but I'm hoping that the response is something that can be handled in the time that we have left. So I teach art at an elementary school with a bunch of children who I feel like could use some help with regulating. And I am trying to implement the breathing, and I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to merge the two.

You want to merge breathing and what?

The three gates. I want to introduce them to the three gates, but not necessarily as three gates, because I don't I'm not that versed in three gates, but I think the principals are amazing and they can work for an elementary school.

So I would say that you verse yourself more in them. If you admire them, and I think that they are really good tools, then simply start them more. You know, is it the usual way? Is it. Is it true? Is it useful? Is it kind? Is the most standard one. And you look into Khalil Gibran, I think it is okay, but, you know, look up the three gates. You find versions of it in Buddhism, you find versions of it in Sufism or Rumi. R U M I. It's Rumi, the poet that talked about. And you go into them until you can express them in your own words. Okay, now, in terms of the class, you might want to talk. You might want to just the breathing. Instead of having them breathe, you might have them move. You let them have 60 seconds to move, to stretch. Maybe you, you know, if you do yoga, maybe you teach them a sun salutation. You, you know, maybe teach them a couple of Tibetans, maybe have them march around the room. But you can also teach them how to breathe properly just by. Once again, go to YouTube, study diaphragmatic breathing, and you come up with an exercise to teach them belly breathing. You know, make have them lay on their backs, put a book on their tummies and watch the book go up and down as they inhale and exhale. And you tell them that this if the next time they're angry, the next time they're scared, if they will focus on their breathing, they are taking control of themselves, you find the right way to do it for yourself. I also suggest that you do the inner child exercise and you literally have a conversation. You say, little Chikadja, I would like to teach my kids this. What do you suggest? I say? And that part of you understands how to communicate to a child that age and come up with inspirations that you do not have. So you already have within you the map for accomplishing everything that you want outside of yourself.

Thank you.

You're very welcome. Great question. That's a great question. Let me know how that's going. I mean, it's like I think that teaching the five Tibetans, for instance, to a group of kids would be perfect. I mean, I wish that all that kids could not, you know, could not graduate school without learning some simple, basic way to take care of themselves physically, emotionally, mentally. So you have the chance to change the world right there where you are. And by doing that, all you have to do to do that is change yourself. You give them a piece of who you are. You give them a piece. In other words, if you, if you were a ham, you don't stick a clove in the ham and give them the clove. You actually cut off a piece of yourself. That's what, that's what parents are doing. That's what teachers are actually giving a piece of ourselves. So integrate these things into your life and then simply represent this is who I am. There's been qualitative analysis of therapists and teachers to a huge degree. The most successful teachers and therapists. It's not a matter of the school of therapy or the theories of teaching. It's the degree to which their students would like to grow up to be you. It's the degree to which the clients believe you represent health. So be that person.

Okay.

We say, when we say I am that, you just say, imagine the part of yourself that could do this and have fun in the process. And just everybody, all those kids want to be you and they will remember you for the rest of their lives. Not because of what you said, but because who you were and when you looked at them, what you saw within them.

For sure. Thank you so much. And I probably shouldn't say I am that the first.

I understand. No, no, that's, that's, that's what I say. It's, it's, you know, I, I, I hope that you understand the spirit in which.

I do. I do. No, it's, I'm, I'm, I, I receive it. I receive it the way that you're giving it. And I'm probably going to be more of a turkey than a ham because I don't eat pork, but that's another story.

Okay, Turkey. All right, guys. Well, listen, we will meet again before Christmas. I would want you to, to work very, very hard on just improving yourself by 1% in the next week. Tananari, would you like you have a closing statement?

Not really. Just everybody have a great weekend. It's been so great to share this time with you. Thank you for being here.

Absolutely. Those of you who are writers, go to lifewriting premium.com and get closer into our program. Those who want to know more about just the daily program. Fire dance, tai chi. Other than that, come here. We love dealing with you. We love helping you. Everybody unmute yourselves and say goodbye. Bye, everybody.

Thank you for lovely Saturday morning.

We'll do it again, everyone.

Bye, everyone. Thank you.

Bye. Good to see you all.

Good.