FIREDANCE 1-27-24

This the first things that I want to talk about. And then what I always hope is that people will have specific requests of me and then take it in the direction that they want me to go in. So I. Okay, great. We're up on Facebook in that direction that they want me to go in and I will make a comment. We're up on Facebook. I got a direction they want me to go and I will make a comment. And then I have to mute it because otherwise I talk over myself. That's great. So, Alexander James Adams. Hi. It is. How wonderful to see you, sir. Okay, you're muted.

Oh, I'm muted. Okay, hang on, hang on.

Unmute it. It. Great. Fantastic. We'll get started. Actually, it's time to start. Hi, welcome to Fire Dance. This is Steve Barnes, the creator of the technology. We'll be talking about a lot of different things today. Let's see, Let me let some participants in admit all. Oh, cool. So the first thing I would like to do is for everybody to unmute yourselves and say hello to everybody else and give high fives to the people at your side and as if we're all in a room together. Because the most important first thing you can do is get your energy up. You know that there are real reasons for that. So let's, let's have just a few seconds of getting our energy up and saying hi to everybody.

Hello, everybody.

Hi, everyone. Hello, everybody.

Hi, everyone.

Fantastic. That's, that's, that's great. Now I'd like for us to breathe. The most important buy in in this process is breathing. The idea is the deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing. 60 seconds per hour, at least five times a day. If you will do that. You're going to be interrupting a massive number of negative patterns and you're. It's kind of like shifting into neutral from there. You can shift into reverse or you can shift forward. You can do whatever you want to. But what is hard to do is change direction if you're already heading in one direction. So taking those little pauses multiple times.

A day, you actually had the information.

About the Friesian horse puzzle.

Somebody was asking about it.

I'm going to mute everybody right here. And people are coming in. It's so great seeing people come in. So what I want you to do is put your hands on your tummies and when you inhale, you expand your diaphragm like a singer, an opera singer. You do this in yoga. So let's have five deep breaths. Inhale, exhale. You should feel your belly expand. On the. Inhale, inhale, exhale, Inhale, exhale, Inhale, exhale. That's our minimum volume. It is a technique, and I like to look at complication. Complexity can make it difficult to function. So we try to keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler. So if I was to say what the most important basic pieces are and understand that this all started with life writing, the observation that the structure of story mirrors the structure of life, and things went on from there. So if that's the context of everything that we're talking about here, and having just finished a Star wars novel, I found myself thinking about that a little bit more than I usually do. Okay, good. My chair was sitting on the cords that I used for my microphone. This is not good. I could actually have been muted there. So Hero's journey. It's always is you're confronted with a challenge. If the challenge is large enough to change your life, you will reject it because of fear. You are either, at some point, you're either going to accept the challenge, or you'll keep going in a loop. In the old way, you set out along the road of trials, which is just the things that we do between where we are and where we need to be. Along that path, we meet allies and gain powers, understanding of our abilities. For instance, the original movie Star Wars A New Hope, which I watched again yesterday, is about Luke Skywalker. It's the journey of Luke Skywalker becoming a full Jedi. If you'd taken that farm boy and dropped him into the Death Star trench at the end of the movie, he would have been dead in seconds. So the entire movie is about preparing him to be a leader, a fighter, a warrior. And so his road of trials is, you know, meeting allies and powers and so forth. And Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, you know, are all people who you know. The obstacle, in many ways, is the advantage. The obstacle is the tool that you use to become the person that you're going to be. The obstacle in your path represents. If you view it as an obstacle, then you don't have the strength or the creativity or the flexibility currently to be able to overcome it. That's why you perceive it as an obstacle. And it is in learning how to get around that obstacle that you gain from the powers that you need at the end of the journey. If he does that, then he confronts evil and is defeated. And I would say that the defeat is the death of Obi Wan Kenobi. This throws him into the dark night of the soul, where it feels like nothing is going to work, in which the way out of the dark night of the soul is the leap of faith. And the leap of faith is always, always faith in one of three things. Faith in yourself, faith in your companions, or faith in a higher power. And in Star wars it was three, because the force flows through you, it binds the universe together. And also Han Solo comes diving in out of the sun and saves him. So if you do all of that, you meet evil again. And this time you're successful. And the last step is the student becomes the teacher. The movement to the next level. There's always a next level. It's not a circle, it's a spiral. And the spiral is always either ascending or descending. There's no way to remain static in life, cannot do it. Entropy won't let you. So you have to ask the question, am I integrating and moving towards a higher level? Becoming more and more of who I am, or am I sinking? So given that, then I started looking for tools. I mean the first set of tools that I ever encountered was Probably Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. It's a pattern. And there have been countless others through the years from countless different teachers. All my martial arts instructors and yoga teachers and philosophy teachers and self improvement teachers, all of them offered different perspectives. And the question was always how to integrate the useful parts of these things. Eventually I, and this was almost 10 years ago, I guess now I was in Atlanta and I'd hit bottom because of some choices we had to make for our family. The weaknesses in my game plan were exposed in some ways that were really, really, really painful. And in moving through that, I went back to the beginning and I began to research the self improvement stuff that had created my life in the first place, saying, well, what am I missing? What am I not doing right? And out of one book called the Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles, I discovered that something in that book was breaking my brain. That literally was just a little book, wasn't more than about 80 pages long. You get a free PDF of it on the out on the Internet. And I read it and I could not remember a single word of that book. It was like, what in the hell? My brain literally would not hold what was in this book. So I read it again, same thing happened again. And I realized that some part of me did not want to hear something that was in that book, that my brain was literally blanking me out. So I did. There are about five to 10 things in my life that I could Point it as that time I got it right, that time I did it right. It happens from time to time. And this time I did something smart. I went through the book one page at a time and I kept reading each page individually until I got an idea of what was on that page. And then I would write out like a one sentence. Condensation was on that page. Then I'd move to the next page and I'd read it over and over and over and over again until I had the essence of what was on that page. And I ended up with about a four page document. And I boiled down what was on those four pages until I had a two page document. And then I boiled it down again until I had a one page document. And I kept boiling it down and boiling it down and boiling it down until I got what I now refer to as the magic formula. Having fun here? Yes, there we go. Magic formula. M, A, G, I, C. And the magic formula is a mnemonic for what was in that book. And I will. I've talked about this many times, but this feels like a good day to go back over some of these things. M is for map or model. You need to have a map or model. Somebody else who accomplished basically what it is that you want to accomplish in life, preferably starting from where you started. Better still with fewer resources than you have. I mean, one belief that I think is very useful is that there is always someone who did more with less. Always someone who accomplished more than you have with fewer resources than you have. How did they do it? That's what you want to study. The A is for constant action. Once you know what your goal is, you need to break it down so that you can take at least one step every day, just one step. It could be tiny. That whole thing about, you know, 1% improvement, atomic goals, you know, in writing, it's write one sentence a day, simple as that. With your body, it Might be doing three repetitions of each of the five Tibetans. Takes you about 60 seconds to do that. In your relationships, it might be taking some time to visualize your ancient child, the child that you were, the elder. You'll be on your deathbed and allow them to love each other and discuss life and just listen in on what they have to say. The I is intention. That's your goals. Your goals need to be clear. And there are ways to clarify that and technologies for that and go into that. And the C is for character, for commitment, for courage. You have to believe that the steps you're going to take and are taking will take you where you want to go. That there is pleasure connected to. To doing these things that you can and should do these things, that these things are in alignment with your ethics, your being, your core identity. That's. So it's. The trick is that if you would give yourself a score from 0 to 9 in each of these categories. Map or model daily actions. The G is for I'm not sure if I did G. G is for gratitude. You need the positive emotions every day. You need to generate your positive emotions. I is for clear intention. Goal C is for courage, conviction, congruence. The feeling that you can and should do this. Here is the trick, and this is important. My brain did not want to absorb what was in that book because the magic formula works like this. It's map or model times action times gratitude times intention or goal times congruence. Conviction, character equals luck. This is a formula for creating luck in your life, for. For putting your feet on the road to mastery in your life. And what the reason it's a multiplicative equation as opposed to an additive equation is that if you get a zero in any. Any category, you zero out the entire equation. And it hit me like a bomb. The reason my brain had not wanted to absorb what was in that book was because that book was telling me that in order for me to get out of Atlanta and back to Los Angeles, I had to be grateful to be there. It was like, oh, I see it. I can't quite believe it, but I see it. And this is how you looking at this. As soon as I found reasons to be grateful to be there, I began to come up with ideas about how to get out of there. It was the strangest thing. And going back from that, moving back from that a little bit, we are motivated, and animals are motivated. All animals. Anything with a nervous system is motivated by the need to move away from pain. A more complex nervous system will move away from pain towards pleasure, towards joy. And what the Dalai Lama says about human existence is that the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service. Combine these things and you have the possibility of a view of life that is grounded in biological reality of the simplest worm or amoeba, but also connects to the highest spiritual goals. And that is that you first move away from pain. You embrace joy, probably by getting the things that avoid pain at the level of unconscious competence. Just chop wood, carry water, you go from pain to joy. And then when you filled your heart with joy, you automatically begin to empathize with the people around you. Because the thing that stops us from empathizing with other people is fear. So as we, you know, joy and gratitude are antidotes for fear. So anytime you look at somebody who is not connected to service, who cannot love other people, who cannot trust, these are people who first of all are dealing with fear. They're coming from fear. They have not embraced joy. So in other words, in terms of, if we look at the body as having three major energy centers, and this is just a metaphor, it's not literally. You can't cut your body open and find energy centers. Oh please. But the belly brain, the lower section is the warrior. Okay? It is survival. And you can find that immediately. All you have to do to get in touch with your survival drive is try to hold your breath until you pass out. Can't do it. Can't do it. You can take the most depressed, anxious, confused person in the world, stick their head in a bucket of water, and they'll instantly get down to just wanting one thing, that next breath. They will instantly start fighting for their lives. Does not matter, because that's the hard wiring. So if you're saying I'm not motivated to take action, that's because you don't see how that action is going to enhance your survival. You're not in touch with your survival drive and you don't see how it's going to help move you away from pain. If you open your heart to joy and love without having accessed your warrior self, your survival self, you become a target for predators. You're all open hearted, you love everybody. You want to help everybody. Who out there has had the experience of wanting to come to the world with love and help everybody. And we're just all elves together. And you got chewed up and spit out and used like a ridden mule. Raise your hand, raise your hand if you've experienced this. This is reality. You have to trigger your survival drive. You have. If you don't do that, the little kid inside you, it's the child part of you that has all the creativity. That kid inside you is not safe. So if intelligence is problem solving and you have separated yourself from part of you that has the creativity for prop, for solving problems, you have just totally been screwed. And this of course, is what abusers want. This is what oppressors want. They want to separate you from your sense of autonomy. In that sense, you know, dogs are wolves that never grew up. They never discovered their autonomy. There is a way, and I, that I can empathize with libertarians a little Bit Even though I cannot embrace their ideology that societies function at least partially to keep you in a neotenous state, to keep you in a state where you need the society. They want you to be a cell in the body, human, not an amoeba, go off doing its own thing. And there are advantages and disadvantages to this. I get that we need to live together in a society, but we also need to take care of ourselves first. That part of us who is willing to die to protect our integrity, to die to protect our dreams, all we have is the ability to live each breath, to breath with the greatest integrity we can. And to as adults, to recognize that life has limits and that if we embrace the notion that the meaning of our life is partially preparing ourselves for a good death now it's very difficult for people to manipulate us. Very, very difficult. We're prepared to die to protect the child in our heart. The idea that I know who I am and I will be the person that I am at all costs, at all costs, with every breath I will recommit to being the person I am. Take care of the survival. Now you can open the joy. Because the survival part of you, the warrior part of you is watching for predators now. Your child is safe. The warrior part of you is standing at the gate of the playground in your heart where your child is playing. And it stands there like Gandalf on the bridge, saying, you shall not pass. It's awesome. Once you get that right and what happens is your child then becomes really, really alive. And it's like your dog doesn't care if you got a raise, you know, all it cares about is, did you play with him? You know, did you scratch his ears? Do you throw, you know, you throw the ball for him, do you love him? The same is true of that inner child. You don't have to win, but you have to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to give everything you've got to protect that child. If you do those things, then you automatically begin to dissolve the illusion of separateness to other people. You start empathizing with them. You open your heart, you see how everybody wants the same basic things in life. And you start asking then, well, why do some people behave so badly? As you understand yourself better, you begin to learn things like anger is a mask over fear, that you're never angry about anything you want to happen only by the things you don't want to happen again. You know, it's. You don't want it to happen to you or you don't Want it to happen to people that you empathize with. Anger is the way you mobilize fear so that you become a warrior instead of, or a soldier at any rate, as opposed to cowering. Okay, but if you understand that anger is how we mobilize the fear, then you can look at the. You can ask yourself the question. When you see angry people, you can ask, what are they afraid of? And when you are angry, you can ask, what am I afraid of? If I get angry at my son, I'm angry because I want to be a good dad and I want him to have a good life. And there's something going on that is that I believe is interfering with that process. If I'm angry at my wife, it's because our lives are entangled. I'm afraid that she's going to do something and this is going to cause pain. So I'm paying taxes on pain. That hasn't even happened yet. And the 90 day love feast thing that we did last year and that we're doing again right now was about putting her above me to live, to make her happy. And in 90 days, that will either transform your relationship or you will know very clearly this relationship isn't going to work. So you give everything you have for 90 days. And if this is a healthy relationship, it's going to transform because she suddenly is feeling totally secure, which allows her to expand, which means that we're doing that for each other. You know, I'm not doing this. It's not, you know, I will give to you if you give to me. No, no, no. That's transactional. You want to stay out of transactions. You give for the love of giving. And you notice the people who give in return. If they don't give in return, then you prune your little personal bonsai tree. You prune off the people who cannot reciprocate, but you give them 90 days. For 90 days, you give it everything. But then you have respect. In order for me to do for her, I had to take care of myself. Do you understand that? In order for me to give to her, I had to be 100% confident that no matter how she responded, I'd be okay. No matter what she did, I'd be okay. I'd be fine. I could not be doing it hoping that she would change. And the fact is that we were doing great anyway. It wasn't like there were real problems in the relationship. It was that we wanted to move to a higher level. Because I could tell that her book and things happening in Hollywood and so forth were about to take off, and we were going to be moving, moving more rapidly. And I needed to be in a better headspace to be able to cope with this. Because otherwise, if you don't think I've got an ego, if you don't think there's a part of me that looks at the way Hollywood treats her and says, why not me? Where's mine? I write good books. I write good stuff. I've been trying for so long. Oh, God, little Stevie's in there. Little Stevie wants to dance and be loved and have the whole world think, Pat him on the head. Think he's a good boy. I've been trying so hard for so long. Oh, boohoo. Poor little me. That's my needy, wounded, abandoned child. That's the technical term for it. My needy, wounded, abandoned child. I have to take care of that boy. That's my responsibility. And if I take care of him and I create a safe space for him, then my little boy and her little girl can play. And if her adult self is sufficiently awakened and healed to be able to create a safe space for her child, then our adult selves stand at the door of our playground while our little boy and our little girl are in there playing on the teeter totter. And the adults are taking care of the adult business while the kids play. And it's all safe, healthy play. The ability to move back and forth between these different models enables me to look at a complicated situation, and sometimes almost impossibly complicated in a way that allows me to move through them. And sometimes, once you begin to believe in a model, rely on it. You can use it to guide your behavior even if you have insufficient data. And now I'm going to talk about something that happened this week. There's someone who I know I'm going to try to be very careful about how I say this. There's somebody who I know who is. Can be kind of dominant in terms of behavior, conversational patterns, very dogmatic, needs to be right, very clear about what they're doing, and it's okay. This person is. You know, I dealt with this person at. As somebody in the circle of one of the circles that I moved through within the last few weeks. Don't want to be too specific. I had an interaction with this person during which they were very unhappy and they were very dogmatic. They said some things about love that made me kind of shake my head. They were taking an opposite position to everything I was saying. And this person is, I would think, very successful. In one of the three major areas of life and blown out in the other two. Now, I think you might know that my attitude about our lives is that your attitudes, your values, your beliefs, your models are the recipe for creating the person you are. If you are modeling someone or you're looking at someone and you wouldn't want the meal they're eating in life, why would you pay any attention to their recipes? I mean, seriously, abusers, gaslighters, cult leaders, and the like would love for you not to look at their results. Especially they don't want you to look at results in all three major areas. Your physical health and vibrancy, the health of your emotional relationships with yourself and your significant other, your family and your career success. People who are problematic will always have a big hole in one of those three areas. I mean, it's very difficult to keep balance in all three of them, which is, of course, the challenge and the beauty of it, that in order to get it, the idea being that if you can keep all three areas healthy, it's hard to understand how your map could be terribly inaccurate. And that was. This person was trying to attack me at one point. They were saying, I feel sorry for you, Steve. And I said, well, exactly why? Tell me precisely why. No, no, no, it's not my part to intrude. So I just said. And the bell went off in the back of my head. So, you gaslighter, you got nothing. You got nothing. If you can't tell me, if you say you're wrong about what you believe, Steve, if you're polite, then I will ask the question, well, how do you think that my life would be better if I followed your advice? You know, and countless people, you know said, well, Steve, you know, your martial arts would be better if you did this. Your writing would be better if you did this. Your relationship would be better if you did this happens all the time. And I'm so grateful to my teachers who pointed these things out. If they're nasty, then I will ask them a different question. And that question is, what's so great about your life that you think that I should follow your example? What is so wonderful about your destination? You tell me how it is that your map is more accurate than mine. Because we can take a look at what all living things want, which is to move away from pain toward pleasure. All living things that I tend to love the Mexican toast that says health, love, money, and time to enjoy them. I think that we all want some version of physical health, love, and abundance. You know, at the very Least you don't want to be hungry, and you want to roof over your head, you know, sufficient abundance that you're not constantly worrying about that. Is that. That's not a radical concept, is it? So show me. That's nasty. Because people never can. The people. There are plenty of people who are doing better than me, but none of them play those sorts of games, you know, I know them. I just got off the phone with one of them, one of my greatest, greatest mentors. My. My karate instructor, who's in his 80s now, and he's still teaching. And I love him so much that it's, you know, Steve Muhammad. I just. He's. He and Larry Niven are my two father figures. That if you wonder how I am, who I am, it's because I sought. I wanted to know how to be a man. And I. Larry showed me how to succeed in business. And he also has been a great friend in many, many ways. Steve Muhammad, he really kind of showed me, this is how you be a man. And he was powerful, and he was gentle, and he was catnip for the ladies. And quite frankly, you know, a lot of it was that, you know what to be a man. I couldn't figure out what being a man was about, but I could figure out what being a human being was about. And then I could add on to that. I want to be respected by the men I respect and desired by the women I desire. So it's like, how do I do that? And out of that, I realized the wounds that I had, my personality began to fix them. So it's not that difficult to give me advice. I love advice. I love correcting. But you got to show me something, you know, that you have to show me. You know, how do you. What's your epistemology, you know, how do you know what, you know? So now it's. It's. I said some things to this person because I realized that they kind of offended me. They were poking at me. And I actually had a dream that night of somebody talking to me and being very friendly to lure me closer and then stabbing me in the gut. And I said, okay. My unconscious mind knew exactly what was going on in that conversation. So when this person said, I don't want to intrude after saying, I feel sorry for you, I kind of looked at them. I said, well, that's not a particularly courageous response, is it? They did not enjoy it, but I poked at them just a little bit. And then later on, I asked myself a lot of questions. I mean, over the days that followed, I kept playing that reaction back in my mind. And there's another principle that is useful and that is that attacks. Every attack is actually a defense. If somebody attacks you, they're actually defending themselves. So he was coming from fear rather than love.

And.

Had a lot of confusion around that. The concepts that this person had for love struck me as being hugely dysfunctional. And I actually talked with someone who knows this person better than I. And as far as we can determine, after a divorce that took place 25 years ago, nobody has ever seen this person with a partner. They're not happy, their body is falling apart. I was dealing with someone who was in a fearful place. They're seeing their life not working. But they also have the sunk cost fallacy. They've been a particular way for so long that it would be very difficult for them to admit that they were wrong. I remember Charles Johnson was talking, the guy who wrote the Middle Passage, and a dear friend of mine, I co wrote the Eightfold Path with him. And I was talking about the fact that I had been teaching about the three gates that we use to measure the quality of our interactions with people. Before you speak, ask three questions. Is it true? Is it kind? Is it useful? And I actually lost friends because I promoted this idea. People would attack it and attack it and attack it. And I realized that this person is not well. That if a child accused me of being a Martian, would I be offended or would I think this child is not seeing reality? I responded with a little bit of anger. And what is anger? What was I afraid of? It was my ego stuff that I was used to being in an ego competition with this person over the years. And I realized that I hadn't had the time to think through my interaction. But if I had simply followed the three gates that my poking back at them, it was true that they were attacking me, but it was not true that I was at threat. I wasn't in any threat at all. I could have laughed the whole thing off. What I said to them was not kind. I knew that I was dismantling them a bit. And so ultimately it wasn't useful for my growth because I was not on the path. Now I did not have the time to see that. And your first obligation is to defend yourself. So what happened there was reasonable, but it was, it was not the best version of myself. And if ultimately I would like this person to feel love, to feel happy, to walk away from our interaction feeling more healed, I doubt that I accomplished that. I could be wrong. But Even if I'm right, there would have been a better way to do it. If the three basic components that I'm talking about here are the magic formula, the notion of the three gates, and the notion of the three centers. And I think I can take almost anything I want to teach and tuck it into one of those three. I'm always looking for what is the smallest number of things that express this. Ultimately, we're talking about something ineffable, something that can't quite be put into words. But I'm also trying to transfer this knowledge base to my son and to my students and friends. So in the context of the hero's journey, the story that we're telling ourselves about our lives, there is magic if we have models or maps from people who we trust, who have done the things that we want to do. And it doesn't have to be exact. There were no black science fiction writers that I knew of, none that were successful. So I had to look at the patterns that were used by successful black people and successful writers and successful science fiction writers and then say, well, where are they all agreeing? That'll work for me too. That was my approach. And for almost 20 years, Octavia Butler and I were the only black science fiction writers in the world that we knew of. So we were definitely walking is pogo sticking through a minefield is the way I put it, trying to figure out how to create a path through this that would work. So the magic formula works for that. The three centers, belly, brain, heart center, head center, is our way of being sure that we will be healthy. Because one real key to success is simply to become monomaniacally obsessed with one thing until you're one of the best in the world at that thing. But as we all know from looking at lots and lots and lots of successful people, they can do that. They can make of a lot ton of money and destroy their bodies and relationships, or they can have fantastic world class bodies and trash their relationships and their finances. Or they can be loving husbands or moms or whatever, and unhealthy and broke. I wanted all three, and I want all three for you. And I believe that doing that enables you to feel safe enough, that's safe to open your heart. And when you've done that, you begin to share with others. So this time that we spend together on Saturdays is my little way of trying to heal the world, to take the good things that I've discovered in my life and to share them with you. And now, having laid all of that out, comments, questions, or requests. This is the most important part of these meetings. The idea is based on, if you will look at the magic formula. If you breathe five times a day, you can progress by 1% per week. And 1% per week progress is enough to get you anywhere you want to go. The idea being that one hour of time spent specifically working on yourself, talking about these kinds of things. Not the specific discipline, but the part of you're the axe, you're the person who does the things. Work on that. And then your music or your science or your writing or anything else becomes what you're doing. But focus on who is it that's doing the thing, that for every hour you spend on that one hour a day, you can push yourself forward by about 1%. That's part of the theory that we're operating. And I suggest that you perform experiments and test it. But I would like now to have people raise their hands and ask any comments, questions, or requests if you have a win. Something has happened in the last week using these techniques. If you have any questions about them, any challenges about them, anything, I would love for you to push me. Just raise your hands. I'll call on you. And as I've often said, volunteer or you will be voluntold. I will pick you out. And yes, I'm talking about you. So somebody raise your hands or no. Okay. Alexander James Adams. Yeah. You knew I was going to go there. Okay, unmute yourself. I. All right.

So.

Just recently, I, I was able to indulge because I, I don't. You can see what I'm living in. I'm living in an RV here, and so I don't have a lot of finances and capital to work with for indulging. I, I basically spend my money running my music career, making everything, paying the.

Bills, blah, blah, blah.

I indulged a little bit over the Christmas season in buying something for me that was. I, I tell myself it's for research, but it's a toy, and that's really all it is. I, I bought one of the Oct. Oculus.

I've got an Oculus. I love them.

I, I absolutely fell in love with it. And what?

Try walkabout mini golf. Fantastic game.

I, I, I love, I love Beat Saber. And I've got a subscription to Supernatural, which is the fitness thing.

Okay.

Yes. Those are both good.

One of the things that I was really, I mean, immediate was and it's, it, it by, by being very physical with music in my head and incredible visuals and, and physical movement. When I would finish a routine and, you know, they. They explode in, you know, fantastic, you know, imagery and stuff like that. The moment that happened. And I. I would hear, you know, especially in Supernatural, they're like, you know, great job, you know, athlete, blah, blah, blah. The moment that would hit, I would break into tears.

Yes.

And I was trying to figure out what that was. And. And. And I have this.

This. Let me ask you a question. Yeah. They feel like tears of pain or tears of joy.

That's what I couldn't quite identify.

Okay, So I need. Let's drill down on that. It would be reasonable. We all, very few of us, feel like we own our bodies, and our bodies are one aspect of ourselves. So what I would like you to do is to drill down and find the gratitude for being able. Maybe it could be pain, feeling like you lost time in your life, that you got onto the wrong path. Hopefully it's your feeling that you're on the right path now. And for the lost years. I remember Harlan Ellison talking about crying to realize he'd waited so long to find real love in his life, and he was crying for that. It's a joyful thing where he is now. But it's painful because he waited so long to find it. So it could be something like that with you. That feeling, that. That sense of connection. You don't have that sense of connection very often. So when you find it, you're crying about the times when you don't have it. Does that make any sense at all?

Yeah, it does, because it doesn't feel negative. It feels weirdly positive.

But.

I'd like to move past it and get into that place where, like, when you're younger and things happen and you're like, yeah, bring it.

Okay, so your biggest problem, because I know you as a person of real talent. No kidding. You're the real thing. And you've always struggled with money. So I know that you have some bad stuff going on there. For somebody as talented as you to not be able to leverage that, to provide a certain elegance in your life is going to disrupt the connection between the adult part of you, which is taking care of money and business, and the kid part of you, which is the creative volcano that you are. So in looking at that, what we can help you with is set a goal for each of those three major arenas. A goal, A physical goal, like being able to, you know, complete a 10k or something like that, Something measurable. A relationship goal. If you're not in a relationship right now, then it's a matter of creating you Know, maybe the ancient child creating connection with the child part of you and with the Elder who will. You're going to be on your deathbed and allow the wisdom and the aliveness between those two to inform you. So the adult part of you just kind of sits back and listens to the adult, the Elder, the child conversing. But then you need to have a money goal. And this is the thing that's going to kick your ass if you will do that. And then use the magic formula. This. You have a specific map or model of somebody who has achieved what it is that you need to achieve, starting with the resources you have. Daily actions, daily actions every day, give gratitude, give thanks for what you're doing now. The five minute, the five minute miracle. The 60 seconds of deep, slow, diaphragmatic breathing every hour. You could use that to not just breathe, but visualize your blessings, visualize why you're grateful. But you have to bring the gratitude in your life. You must not have a zero in any one of these categories, okay? Clear goals, that means a clear goal for money. And it can be earning 50% more than your best year. You could do it that way, okay? Because that's probably within what it's possible for you to believe. If you say more than that, you probably don't believe it. So you have to believe it. Because the C thing is the congruence, the feeling that what you're doing is in alignment, that you can and should do this. It will bring more pleasure than pain into your life. So you have to be able to believe it's possible. Once you get going with that 1% per week minimum, you can accelerate. But if you'll let me help you with this, you can get started with just those things. But it's going to be hard because if anything has stopped you for as long as this, the only thing that could possibly have stopped you is you. There's nobody else there. There's nobody outside you. It's some war within yourself. And you've got to have peace within yourself. What is the fear? You're going to have to dig in. It's none of our business. This is not about talking about this publicly if you don't care to. But if you will do those things, come back next week. You look for a 1% win, just 1%. Have your map or model take action, feel gratitude, clarify your goals and be sure that your goals and your actions are in alignment with your soul so that this is who you are and you are willing to die on this hill if you will do that. It would be my honor to help you. I've been waiting for you to kind of come to me and ask for help. I've been watching you for a long time, and this context is a way that I can do it. Will you let me help you? Definitely.

That's why I came today.

Fantastic. All right, so that's great. And I need to move on to the next person. Okay, fantastic. It's wonderful to see you, by the way. You know, you're a good. You're a good man and a good friend, and I want the very best for you. Okay, Otis, your time, boy. Here we go. Let me put on my Southern sheriff. Yeah, you. You in trouble, boy. So I was having a live and let die flashback anyway.

Oh, that's a fantastic. Weird movie.

Isn't it, though? Totally. They did things they'd never done in a James Bond movie in that one, because they. They changed it for Roger Moore. He was smoking a cigar for the first time. Right. Photographed in Deluxe as opposed to Technicolor for the first time.

Right. And wasn't that Y Codo was.

Yes, that's right. They introduced elements of the supernatural for the first time. Yeah. But at any rate, so tell me about what's going on in your life, buddy.

Oh, man. I just wanted to say that, like, the last time I talked here, I was, like, just a little bit blocked, transitioning from, like, writing more about myself to writing less about myself and my story.

And.

And I'm just going to say, like, now I'm at, like, week seven on life writing, and I'm about, like, 3,000 words into my third story. And what had happened the last time I talked to you guys, I was.

A little bit blocked.

And what I did was I tried one of your things out. I tried applying the hero's journey to where I was and the goals that I wanted out of this thing. Right. And I just, like, woke up the next day and started writing just like, boom. It just unlocked in my sleep.

Look, man, gaining perspective on your life, knowing how what you're doing today is part of the context of that larger journey, gives meaning to what you're doing. And if anytime you're stuck, what that means is you don't have a clear view of what the next step is, and, you know, a step that you can take in a single day, that will also. That will move you away from pain toward pleasure. That's always true that you're stuck because of lack of clarity or because you think it's going to hurt. But when you're clear on the next step and you're happy to take that next step, nobody's ever blocked.

So.

So, you know, give yourself permission to write sucky prose. You know, I do that. What's your garbage draft? You know, I'm very. I definitely give myself permission to suck in my writing. And it's. It's scary. You know, writing the Star wars novel, I was scared every day because the way I was writing it was a little different. And I didn't. I had to have faith in myself, and it was difficult having faith in myself. You know, the demons in the back of my head would come up saying, you know, can I. Have I lost it? You know, am I too old? You know, am I too. You know, am I not good enough? You know, did I only have a career because of affirmative action? I mean, whatever it is, those. Those demons are there, and they're there in everybody. And a lot of writers and artists will drink and use drugs to get past that barrier, and it works for a time, and then it stops working, and they get themselves into a negative loop. So what I want for you is let me be. Let. Let me provide you with a map of the way I have done it, with the full understanding that you have to modify that map for yourself. There's no way I can give you a map that will be precise to your situation and your needs. However I can. I can introduce you to the con, to some concepts that will enable you to create your own map. Okay? And that's. That becomes a beautiful thing. So if looking at the hero's journey, fantastic map, fantastic magic formula, be sure you don't have a zero in any category. That's all you have to do. Just be sure you don't have a zero. Make sure you're doing your breathing, which interrupts your negative patterns. At the. At the physiological level, it interrupts those patterns. So it's like hitting a circuit breaker. It's hitting the reset button on your computer by asking yourself, what would my life have been had I been raised in a perfect family, in a perfect society, given the perfect resources I need to become the best version of myself? What would that version of me be doing? What kind of body would I have? What kind of relationship would I have? What kind of career would I have? And then you simply set out in that direction. Let's see how close to that I can get. It's a game you take. It's. It's fun. You're having fun in the process. You. Another little principle is you need to believe it's the c. You need to believe that your actions will bring you more pain, more pleasure than pain. You need to have gratitude to do what you're doing. Remember what I said about I had to be grateful to be in Atlanta? Get out of Atlanta. Either don't do something, get out of it, or enjoy doing it. Either get out of it or get into it. So you want to write stories. Take great joy in writing stories. Have so much fun writing stories. Sometimes it's good, evil fun. I will often, often say that I'm having good, evil fun today and take that pleasure because the work is always there. The fear is always there. The issues are always there. This is the reality of the artistic life. It's the reality of human life. It's the reality of animal life, of existence. So if you put your. You don't have to destroy the pain in your life. You don't have to eliminate the fear in your life. You put the pain and the fear behind you and you put the thing that you love in front of you. If you're motivated by pain, the more you do, the less motivation you have. If the actions are successful, if you're motivated by pleasure, the more you do, the better it feels and the more you do. So just creating a pinhole in the wall so you can see where the joy would come from is enough to get you started. A pinhole for you. The reason why we use the Hero's Journey is because it's not only a map of story, it's a map of the process of writing a story. And it's also a map for living your life. And as soon as you've made that connection, that's one of those maps that is hella useful, buddy. Okay. Is there anything I can do for you today?

Nothing much, but I was listening intensely to your, your. Your money talk with the gentleman before, and that was good stuff too.

You know, the. Your problems are always going to hide in one of those three major areas. It's always going to be, you're going to find it in your relationship with your body and your fitness, or you're going to find it in your relationships, or you're going to find it in your bank account. Those are the three big areas. And you can almost always find. When people are blocked, it's almost always going to be in one of those three areas. If you look at yourself and you ask, why am I blocked in those three areas? In one of those three areas, you will come up and you keep digging, you'll come up with answers. And when you come up with those answers, it'll be easier for you to understand other people. When you start seeing through the excuses they make, start being able to predict what they're going to say about themselves, and the results are going to get. A couple things happen. First, you can begin to believe that we are all connected. We all have the same basic needs. The second thing you will understand that you do not tell people what you sussed out about them. You do that and you'll destroy the relationship. People have the right to their privacy. People have a right to their privacy. I. I first realized that I was at a convention in Texas and I was teaching tai chi, and a woman came up to me to ask me if I could. If she could talk to me later. And she was very obese. She actually looked like one very large woman pushed into the middle of another very large woman. And her teeth were rotted out. And in the midst of all this fat was the sweetest face. The sweetest face. And I looked at her and I saw in an instant that she had destroyed herself to keep from being attractive to someone who had abused her. It was so glaringly obvious what she'd done to herself. And later on when we talked, that's exactly what had happened. I wanted to leave that convention. It was just too painful to be there because I didn't have the kinds of resources that I have now to help people. All I could do is I could see the pain, but I didn't see how to give her a way out of the pain. When you solve this stuff for yourself, all I'm asking from people is turn around and make the world a better place. Turn around and help other people find the joy in their life. Help them heal. Yeah. You know, I love talking about the fact. If you like my approach to writing, come to our screenwriting workshop on the 17th of February at www.screenwritingwebinar.com. of course I love money, but this isn't about money. This is about value. This is about life. This is about me. The path of mastery is masters are always learning, they're always doing, and they're always sharing. If I want to be a master like the people who help me, that's the path. So I literally must do this. You guys are helping me master myself by giving me a chance to give away. And I thank you, sir, for receiving from me. That makes room in my life for me to receive a little bit more from others. And you are so welcome here. Thank you. All right, so let's Unpin Otis. And let's take a look and see who else somebody had their hand up and then perhaps despaired that I was going to call on her and disappeared. Who was that? Was that Angelique?

Hi, yes, it's Angelique.

Hello, Angelique.

Yes, hi. Yes. Well, I. You were actually answering it, but I think I was just thinking about the writer's blocks I've been having. I'm grateful to be here. Thank you. I've been listening for some time at other sessions and, you know, when you're talking about, I don't know the. Since I'm new to the community, when exactly what you're referring to when you talk about Atlanta, but I think I'm kind of stuck in the gratitude part where I feel like I'm doing the motions, but it. I don't feel it. And in. And I think there's some resentment and things I'm working through. And I'm just curious, do you have any thoughts there? And it. And it's. Yeah.

Atlanta was about a family emergency that we had to move back there for three years. And it destroyed my life plans. That literally, the plan that I'd had for conducting my life since childhood got blown up because I'd spent 10 years in the Northwest with a different family emergency. And I thought that as soon as I got fit through with that, I'd come back to Hollywood, I would build myself back up. Things didn't work that way. It took me six years to get back on the horse in terms of Hollywood, and I was just starting to get things going again. And then Tanari's mother contracted cancer, and we had to go back there to do the right thing. I was devastated, but I never doubted that I had to do it because this is the commitment that I made to her and to my son. You know, it's like when you. When your values are clear, you could do the most painful things. But what I had to do was find a way to be grateful, to be there in order to access the creativity I needed to get out. It was devastating to me because I had. I wanted to hold onto my anger. I wanted so much to hold on to my anger. I was defining myself by my anger, if that makes sense. And I had to let it go. So if you were in the worst job, I would assume that being in that job would be better than being without employment. So, you know, because otherwise why would you be there? You need the money. The money. The job is bad, but money keeps a roof over your head and food on your table allows you to take care of your kids or whatever else you're doing. So you'd be grateful for that. And that gratitude would give you a space within you to have the creativity to come up with an answer to the question, how the hell do I get out of this job? So I don't believe there's a job where if you spend an hour a day figuring out how to get out of it, you couldn't be out of it within a year. Too many people. You know perfectly well that there are people without your mental resources, without your emotional resources who managed to change jobs. So whatever it is that you're doing, there's always something to be grateful for in life. Let's say people saying, I don't have anything to be grateful for. I've never learned anything in my life. What you know is they're lying, they're lying to themselves. They learned how to walk and talk and ride bicycles and you know this, but they delete all of that. If you say, I've had people say, you say, Steve, you say, you need to find writing mentors. I can't find one I'm looking at, for God's sake, I'm talking to you. You've caught my attention. You know, I'm a world class New York Times best selling writer who worked in Hollywood, this and this. And I'm willing to talk to you as an individual. I would have given anything to have that when I was a kid. But you just deleted that because you need to believe that you have nothing. You know, that's how you justify your failures in life, because you say, I didn't have any opportunities. So you tell me right now, and this is critical, I'm having to be more careful about certain things that I say. So I'll say that I had a client who was going to college and resented going to college, but they were being forced to do it. And I spoke to them and I said, you need to find something that you're grateful for. You need to find something that you're grateful for about going to college. The furthest they could get was, I'm neutral. I said, no, we're never neutral. It's going to be 1% negative or 1% positive or a millionth of a percent negative or a millionth of a percent positive. You get one hair on your head leaning towards the positive because you see, if all there is is pain, if all you're doing is moving away from pain, then you will do the minimum necessary to reduce the pain, at which time the motivation decreases. If you can't see any way to find joy, if that's the core of what life is about, in many ways, moving away from pain towards joy, moving from joy to service. If there's nothing good that can happen, then you might as well crouch in the corner of a burning room because there's no door out of there and just die. And that's what depression is. It's fear. With nowhere to run and no one to fight. There's nothing to do with it, and it just turns on you. So I need you right now. First of all, stretch your arms. Change your body. Because our emotions are created by the way we use our bodies, what we focus on, and the language that we use. So just. Just say all the gratitude I need is within me now. Okay. Oh, you're. You're muted. Unmute yourself, darling. Yes. Yes. Okay, so I want to hear you. All the gratitude I need is within me now.

All the gratitude I need is within me now.

Okay. So all you had to do is make sure to stay out of the zero. Remember? That's the thing. So now you tell me three things that you're grateful for about the situation that you through and right now and the work you have to do.

Well, I am grateful I have a job with autonomy, even if it's.

No, no, no, don't get it to the negative.

I'm grateful that I have a paycheck that helps me support my family.

There you go.

I'm grateful.

Wonderful.

My children are healthy.

Yes.

And I. I'm grateful that I have a vision for the work that I'd really like to do.

Yes. Fantastic. Now, I would like you to ground it in your physical. You're grateful you have the physical energy and aliveness to do it, because one day you won't have that, darling. We only have our bodies for a little while. So if you're grateful for a vehicle that is strong and energetic enough to do what must be done so you can take care of your family. And I love those kids. It's wonderful to watch them grow. And mom is going to stand between them and the wolves, and I will stand at the gate and I will protect them. And I am joyful to have grown up to be the badass bitch who can do that, that you are the protection for your family. You are that. If you can take pride in that, you're beyond the 1% point. You're beyond the one out of, you know. So all you have to do is get to one. And as soon as you get to one, shrink your Ego down. You have got yourself. It's like in a cesspool. There's still clean water. You have to get your ego down. Small enough. Imagine yourself in a little teeny submarine, moving between the turds. There is some. There's. There is clean water in there. Get your ego out of it. Focus on the clean water. Stay in there. And what happens is. Koichi Tohei, in the book Aikido in Daily Life, or Ki, I forget which one it was, talks about the fact that our energy, that we're going into a bad situation, like a meeting, is like this, that we enter into the room. Before we go in there, we extend our key into that room, we extend our life force, our intention, our sense of this is who I am and this is who I'm going to be into that room. Then you go in and you have that meeting, okay? So when you do that, when you start the task In Karate Kid 2, there's this great scene where Mr. Miyagi is being forced to fight to the death. And he finally agrees to do it, but the condition is that his village is set free forever, no matter what the end of the fight, no matter what happens. Because he did that before he ever began the fight, he'd already won. Set yourself up so that just doing your best is victory. Trust the process. If you have a map, you're taking action, you're expressing gratitude, you have a clear goal and you believe that the expression, the daily expression is this is who you are, this is who you are. It's like my, my brother in law, you know, would say, you know, when bad things happen. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to find out who I am. This is the test of your life. You are the hero that is creating the way for your children. You know that a lot of damage has happened to our community, and it is our job as adult to protect our children so they can stand on our shoulders. Our ancestors are watching us, and so are our descendants. You are a link in the chain. And if you are committed to taking care of your family, as I know you are, then you are a sister to me. And I will stand side by side with you. And I will tell you that you have all the strength you need to do this. And your way to discovering that is by finding joy. Joy in the end effort. Chop would carry water. You can, you can curse the need to chop wood, or you can be grateful that there's wood to chop, grateful that you have a house to warm, grateful that your family will be comforted by your strength. There's always, you know, John Belushi killed himself with, with heroin and cocaine, and he was at the top of the world. And there are other people with nothing. I have, I have broken bread with homeless people, people living in grass huts and a hole in the ground. And I also broke bread with the richest man in the world. The basic things that we are, are the same. You are the world. You are all the world. In a very real sense, we're all connected. And you're changing the world by being who you are. It matters. Your tears matter, your laughter matters. Your children matter. And you, you are a warrior. You're the real deal, and I am honored to stand at your side.

Thank you. I really appreciate it. The work I do has been getting a lot of hate mail and threats and things like that. Work in the, the academy. And my area has been critical race theory. And as you know, we're kind of under attack right now. Yes, I do my, my research and all that, but I've been. I own my own personal writing and it's just been really a hard one. Especially when they are going after you.

Yes. So you need. You need to wake up your warrior. You need to wake up the person you know inside you that can bear its teeth and say, bring it on. The worst they can do is kill you and you're going to die anyway. So if you're saying, this is who I am, there is nothing you can do to me that will make me less of who I am. You deal with the fear, and the antidote for fear is gratitude is faith. This is the path you are engaging. Critical race theory would not be necessary if, when you spoke of it, the whole world said, yay. It's like it's a super chicken world in that sense. You knew the job. You knew the job was dangerous when you took it. This is evidence that you're doing the right things. This is the evidence that you're looking for. If you were not getting hate mail, you wouldn't actually be doing any work, would you? You'd be playing it safe. So at the very least, if you're going to feel the fear, do you also take joy and the courage that it took for you to step out there? Are you happy about that? Are you proud of yourself? Because you deserve to be.

Yeah. Yeah, I am.

Yeah. And so what you need to do is to find a role model like Angela Davis, find out how did she keep herself together at a harder time. You know, someone who knows her, reach out to her, talk to her, or talk to the People who know her. Your fear is real. You need the clarity. You need clarity, gratitude and faith. Your path is a real one. It's worth dying for. And you're making the world a better place for the children who worship you and need you. This is the path. We understand each other.

We do. Thank you.

You're incredibly welcome. You're doing the work, sweetheart. That's all there is. The work. You know, I wish that Tananarive was here. She's off being famous author today, but she'll be back. And she. She'll be back next week. And I would love for you to ask her how her mom dealt with her fear of being tear gassed, being thrown in jail, being threatened, bomb threats. This, that. She would be happy to share that with you. And this is the work. Anyone who comes to me knows that. I just love people. I just love people so much. I love each and every one of you guys so much that it is my honor to be here every Saturday for over a year. Here. Never missed a single one. Because I know I'm going to die. I know I'm running out of time. I have to give you what I can now and here, while I can. I'm so blessed. I got everything I asked for out of life and now I'm working on the next set of goals. How do I give more? How do I do more? How do I be more? And you're helping me do it. So come back. Just commit that between now and next Saturday you're going to improve your sense of courage and clarity by 1%. Just 1%. And you can do that merely by breathing five times a day and focusing on what you have to be grateful for. It's these wonderful kids. You know perfectly well you would die to protect those children. Well, the thing about that people don't like to talk about is that also means you'd kill for them. Killing a system. You are attacking a system. You're saying that there is an artificial system that had artificial values and you're going to tear that down. Because in my mind, the real system is one based on. We're. We're surviving, we're protecting each other's children. Let us open our hearts with love and then let us serve in a better world. And the people who are committed to the old world are going to fight you like crazy. But you know something? One definition of success is living is sitting on the. On the riverbank watching the bodies of your enemies float by. Is there anything else I could do for you today?

No, thank you. Really great.

You're really beautiful. I love this conversation. Thank you for the gift of this conversation, darling. Okay. All right, Man. God, I love this work. I just adore it. Who's next? Who's rj burr?

Howdy, Steve. It's been a while.

Hey, how you doing?

Robin Burchette.

Robin, how are you? Yeah, I remember you.

I'm good, I'm good. I. Lots is going on, I would say. On the whole, I've been very successful at balancing the three arenas and I'm 55, I'm healthy. I have a wonderful wife and beautiful children raised to adulthood. My finances are in good shape and I have no goals at all. And I was just looking at that, doing some work with the fire dance stuff. Like, what are my goals? I don't remember the last time I had a goal that I was.

So there's two things. There's two things. Ultimately, the only goal people have is to be happy. Ultimately. So that's your goal, to raise your joy, move away from pain towards joy and service. So you might be at a point in your life where you, what you want is to serve people. But here's the thing. Once you accept that your primary goal is to be happy, then you now know what your secondary goal is. To find a goal. Your goal is to find a goal so you take a meta position on it. So when is your birthday?

February 4th. Next week.

Next. February 4th.

All right, coming up.

So you could try one of two things. There's more things, but just two off the top of my head. One is you're going to say that by my birthday next week. And by the way, happy birthday.

Thank you.

Next week I will have clarity on what I want to do next in terms of, you know, taking my fitness to the next level, taking my marriage to the next level, taking my money making to the next level. You know, with your body, it might be. I'm going to start a yoga class. You know, with your family, you might. With your wife, you might be. I'm going to try a 90 day love feast for you. 90 days. I'm going to absolutely put everything into treating her like the queen she is, making her feel absolutely cherished and loved. You know, just for 90 days, I'm going to think about that every day. Or in terms of money, you might take a look at that and say, either, you know, if you don't need to make more money, you might think, how can I contribute with my money? You know, what can I. What can I do to make the world a better place? With money. So something. But if it's not, if you. If you think that finding that goal is going to take longer than a few days, you know, next week, then you might say, by my birthday in 2026, you might give yourself a year. So you tell me, do you think that you can come up with good goals by your birthday?

Yes.

Great.

Well, then that's great. So your goal is to come up with good goals in all three arenas by your birthday. And would you do me the honor of coming back on and letting us know what your goals are so we can support you?

Yes, I will.

Fantastic. Fantastic. That's great. Is there anything else I can do for you?

No. I will be driving to Vancouver Island Saturday, so I'm not sure if I'll be in. In range, but either this coming week or the week after, I'll definitely check in.

Please do. And I will be happy to talk to you then.

All right, sounds good.

All right. And somebody sent me a direct message, and I did not see it. So anyway, thank you very much. You take care. And it's wonderful to hear your, you know, hear your voice. I'm glad you're doing well.

Thank you.

All right, so let's unpin this, and if. Let's see. Oh, wait a minute. Okay. Facebook message for me. Talking to groups works great. Email works great. Reach out. It is part of my dharma to teach these things. As you can probably imagine, I've been really blessed with the quality of teachers in my life. I mean, seriously blessed. And they trusted me to pass on their teaching. So. Whereas I do talk about the screenwritingwebinar.com and, you know, lifewriting yearlong.com, lifewritingpremium.com and things like that. Because, once again, I love money, but I love teaching even more. And I make most of my money writing, you know, Hollywood and books. The. The money that I make on most of these programs that we sell, you know, frankly, that's sushi money. We're having fun with it. That's toys. I buy toys. I pay the bills with my writing. I buy toys with my teaching. Just, you know, just kind of way of. Ross, my buddy Ross.

Yes, sir. I've heard a couple times you say you love money. I've heard other people say they love money. Here's a quick little turnaround that has been opening doors and windows for me for money to come in through. Money enjoys hanging out with me.

Hey, hey.

Now, I like that it just that tiny little hinge, but the vault doors are swinging.

Well, Ross, you've been Working at this stuff for years. Whatever else you're doing, make sure that you've got your magic formula working. And then follow your own program or follow your own program and make sure you've got the magic formula work. Make sure that you. You have a map that you're following, you know, because I need. I need to know that so I can be sure I can coach you from a distance in that. So. And you have been doing this, and it sounds like you're starting to experience some unexpected good things happening. As long as you understand that the bad stuff will still happen, and you. It'll be a matter of how fast you can recover, how fast you can reintegrate, how fast you can learn, because you are that bitch. That's what Tanario and I say to each other when. When things get overwhelming or somebody offers us an amazing opportunity that's bigger than anything we ever had. It's like, you know, that anxiety comes, and we look at each other and say, we are that bitch. We could do this. So I believe in you, Ross. I believe that you are a good man. I know you're a very smart man. And I figure that you're the kind of guy that could help a thousand people. Yes, sir. And that's why I have given you so much time and energy, because I think I can really multiply myself with people like you. So I'm trusting you, and I believe. I believe in you, buddy. Go show. All right. Is there anything else I can do for you?

No, sir. Just keep on keeping on what you're doing.

I will. You know, I'm aware of the fact that, you know, I've got challenges coming up, you know, got next week. Two weeks ago, I sent in the Star wars book. I have not gotten back a specific opinion on it yet. And you better believe that. My gut is just like, what if she hates it? You know, that's just the stuff, you know, Tananarive is like, you know. No, Steve, I read it. It's fine. But everything that I'm saying to you guys is really a reinforcement of what I say to myself, you know? Also getting ready to go to the Philippines, I recently mixed up some things with my training program, you know, shocking my body to get some higher levels of performance out of it. So I can go there, because I have been told that the young men over there in the Philippines will try me out, you know, if they're going to get frisky with me. So it's like, I have to be like, oh, well, it's. You know, it's just, you know, this. The young lions want to play. Okay, that's fine. And then, you know, so that's my body and it's my career and helping my son, you know, being there, being the father that he deserves and needs, and then honoring this. My good lady wife, you know, who loves me so much and has trusted me with her heart. My life is very full, but I have to stay alive and I have to keep moving in the right direction. So I'm interested watching you because as you succeed, it helps me to clarify what works. And as you evolve your own patterns and then test them with people, let me know what the results are so I can see what you're doing. And that gives me a deeper idea of how we can navigate this path of life together. Okay.

Definitely.

Alrighty. Alright, so, gee, we've only got five more minutes. Who has a comment, question or request? Oh, yes. Jaime.

Hi, everybody. Hi, Steve.

Hello.

I had a fantastic week this week and listening to everybody today, I'm gobsmacked that as I just practice this stuff in my own three arenas. My physical health, my relationship and my finances, the way and the opportunities that are showing up to pass it on and share it. And it's been not only a terrific week at helping other people in all sorts of different arenas of their lives, but yesterday I had one of those days where I took care of Paper Mountain in my office. I sorted out a year's worth of handwritten notes on 15 different kinds of set of communities and subjects. I take all the notes at meetings like this and then they all get mixed in with everybody else's notes and piled up on my desk. I actually got them all filed into their own separate files and then I was able to actually start and finish my taxes. It was a mind blowingly productive, successful day yesterday. And at the beginning of 2023, you asked us to list our goals for 2023 and work towards having the best year ever. Well, I did that and I achieved about half of them. But I found those notes yesterday and I looked at where I am here in the third week of 2024. It's already better than 2023.

Fantastic. Tell me what your objective goal is physically.

Objective goal physically is to attain a healthy weight that will help me avoid prediabetes.

That's not objective. Give me a number.

I'd like to weigh 175 by the end of 2020.

That's an objective measurement. So what. What are you? Well, you. And where are you right now?

I am at about 225.

Okay, good. So you need to lose 50 pounds.

Yeah.

Okay, so what that, what that is is that you can, you can lose between 1 and 2 pounds a week healthfully. So a 1% change in that would be literally losing half a pound a week. Now if you want to lose a pound a week, you could. All you need to do is to integrate some, change some behavior patterns and give yourself joy to find ways to be happy, do things that make you happy, that are connected with that connecting joy to your body and to joy to those healthful disciplines and allow us to support you to, to put that into the mix of what it is that we're helping you with. Because, you know, so. And to be. And I know that this community will support you with, with love and joy. And you be on the lookout for any shame that comes up or guilt or pain. Okay. It's okay to feel those things if and only if your eyes are on the joy.

One thing that happened this week is in just the entertainment scrolling that I do on TikTok and Facebook and elsewhere, I landed on a video of a guy who started his journey a couple years ago, well over £300. And just by dancing through everything, she dropped all of the weight.

There you go.

And I, you know, that is a piece that I'm not doing. I'm already doing the tai chi and the Tibetans and I'm doing all of these things, but it's helping me maintain it. I'm not losing. So I started this week dancing. Just like doing the five minute miracle instead of sitting in my chair. Yeah, I'm moving around the house dancing. I'm putting music on and dancing everywhere all day, every day. And it's made a difference.

Okay, listen, that is, I. Let's give him a hand for that. Dancing through life. See, there's a beautiful metaphor for you dancing through life. I love it. Listen, we're out of time here. I would like everybody to unmute themselves and to say hi, you know, just, just say goodbye to everybody. Let's start these with energy. Let's end these with energy. And I want to send you out into the week to have a fantastic week with absolute commitment to improve by at least 1%. But only 1% is all. That's all that's necessary. Just don't have a zero in any category. And I promise you we can get you where you're going. That's all you have to do is, is just do the smallest amount. Just coming here and breathing will move you forward as Long as you have those goals and you're breathing, your unconscious mind will automatically begin to choose actions from the thousands of options that you're offered every day that will move you in the right direction. It's called the reticular activating mechanism. It's like you buy a red car, suddenly see red cars everywhere. When you're clear on your goals, remember your brain is a problem solving mechanism. You're clear on your goals, and you break your old patterns. You're going to start looking for new things to do to move you in the right direction. So this is your framework. I'm going to save this message that Alexander Adam sent to me, and I'm not going to call you, but you. What you can do is you can go over to Facebook and you can Facebook me, and we can try. We can try video call over on Facebook. All right, so let me close this out today because I've got to jump back into Star Wars, I think. Or am I going to take some time off today? You know what? I've been doing the same thing I did last time, which is to have I use speech fly and I have the Snoop Dogg voice reading my book to me. If so, if a Jedi is saying for shizzle at some point, I've taken things a little too far. All right, love to see you again next week. Take care. And I close this as I always do, with the Sanskrit expression that means that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste. Come to our screenwriting workshop. Do not let money stop you. We have ways to, to. To get you into the workshop at reduced prices, whatever you can afford, we'll do it. Because what we want is a fantastic group to have a fantastic amount of fun. Www.screenwritingwebinar.com Take care and have a great week.