Firedance Show, 12-9-22

Yeah, that's all good. That's all good. So let me remind my son that he's in there playing video games and sometimes gets a little loud and boisterous.

I've got my keyboard here.

Oh, before we get started here, is there anything that anybody wanted to. Wanted to say? Just. We make sure that everyone has their chance. You know, just raise your hand. We'll figure out the technology on this. As the group grows, it'll be more important that you guys, you know, type questions or whatever into the chat and that my co hosts let me know that there's somebody waiting or raise your hands or whatever it takes. We want to make absolutely certain that we're serving you. You know, that's. That's what this is all about. So if you have any comments, questions, or requests, hit me with.

Scott's hand is up.

Huh?

Scott's hand is raised.

Whose hand was raised, Scott? Oh, yes, Scott.

I don't know if you've had a chance to see some of the messages I left last night, but I do have some questions concerning certain area of transition.

But, yeah, ask me during the. During the thing. The real answer that I will reiterate is that all of the postures are frozen moments in time. The flow is more important. So the Seven Star is a transitional checkpoint. In one way, it exists exactly as you say. In another way, it doesn't exist at all. We just freeze it there to give you a moment of reference. So. So that's the fancy way of saying sometimes I'm, you know, sometimes I don't care. You know, it's, you know, but. But the fact is, that's a perfect question. You understand? That's a. It's a perfect. That's exactly why I love doing this live, because all I can do is operate from inside the truth to the best of my ability to tell the truth or to know the truth. That's all I can promise you. I can't promise you I'll always tell the truth. I promise you that I always care about the truth. And you know, I will. I will do. I will do my best at that. Anyway, it is now 12 o', clock, and we are here with the Fire Dance podcast. You know, what is this? Is it a podcast? Is it a mastermind? Is it, you know, the Steve show? You know, it's. It's an opportunity for me to talk with my friends. You know, it's an opportunity for you to ask me anything you want to on any subject that is germane to the question of life. As I have expressed these things. I don't think that there are bad questions. I do think that there are questions I might not want to answer, but there would be no inappropriate questions as long as you are sincere, you know. And the fact is that you could be sincerely silly. There are times when some silly questions work really, really, really great. But at. Welcome. I'm Steve Barnes. I'm a novelist, husband and father. Actually, if I was to put it in the order of importance, I'm a husband and father or father and husband, and ecstatically so. I love that part of my life. I truly, truly, honestly do. I'm a writer. I just got to hang out with my mentor, Larry Niven, yesterday, and it. It's so wonderful to me. He is my spiritual father in terms of writing. And to still have my father in that sense is a blessing beyond. Beyond anything that I can. That I can say. The. To be able to tell him how. How important he has been in my life and to thank him once again. To a certain degree, what I do here and on Facebook and other places and is a way of saying thank you to Larry, of saying thank you to Steve Muhammad who created me. The two of them. Larry opened the door to the career that. That the little boy inside me wanted when I was a child. And Steve Muhammad showed me how to be a warrior so I could protect that child. As you can still, you can tell, that little kid is still pretty much alive and well inside me. He's a happy little boy because I've spent my life doing the things that he wanted to do to a huge degree. So if. If the path of mastery, and we've, we've talked about that to a certain degree, this, these discussions every week are about mastery. There are three different arenas in which I want you to be on the path of mastery. One of them is your physical body. One of them is your career. Whatever it is you choose to do with your life, especially if you want writing. I mean, if you want writing, I'm all over that. I can help you with any part of that. And your relationships, relationship with yourself, your relationship with your family, to be able to find the love of your life, whatever that mastery exists in all three of those arenas. I'll answer any questions about that. And to a certain degree, this is your time, and I am honored to be able to serve. So let me take a look and see what's on the agenda today. Okay. The agenda today is really kind of getting ready for 2023. But before we get into that, I would like everybody to unmute yourselves and say hi to each other. Hello. Hi, everybody.

Onions on your sneakers.

And I promise that this will be a little bit more PG rated. PG 13. I'll try to be more careful about that. We had a little glitch, like last week's. Not a huge glitch. No big thing. But it's very important to me to respect the group. You know, you are teaching me how to teach you. You are teaching me how to communicate to you. You know, I. I just want to be able to sit here and be as, you know, kind of spontaneous as I can possibly be. But I can dial that up or down depending on. On the audience, depending on who's there. But I'm seeing Megan Lancaster. Hello, Megan. And Clarissa and Dennis and Leo and Ross and Kurt and Linda and, you know, Scott and just, just. I'm so glad that everybody's here. And of course, my. My beautiful, wonderful wife Tananarive Du is my co host and she's kind of doing. Doing tech stuff so that I can just. I can just flow. So like I said, I. I'm getting ready for 2023. It's going to be an extraordinary year. It's looking like the last couple of years were wonderful opportunities. I almost felt guilty about it. Because of the pandemic, we were able to focus on the home, focus on our son, focus on our writing, our career because there weren't a lot of distractions. We weren't running all over the place. But coming out of the pandemic, the world is starting to expand. Things are changing. And so we are looking at the new opportunities and asking questions about what is it we can do to move our lives forward? What is it that we can do to serve people more? What is it we can do to take care of each other more? So one of the things that is true is that the next, the first four months, or let's say call it this, first six months of next year looks like it's going to be amazing. I mean, it looks like we're going to have all these career opportunities and all these things going, but it's going to require a tremendous amount of focus, a tremendous amount of energy, a tremendous amount of integrity in terms of protecting ourselves emotionally as individuals. And also in terms of my relationship with Tononore, my relationship with Jason, my family, my relationship with my daughter Nikki. You don't want to move your career forward, but damage your emotions, damage your body, damage your relationships. So how do I do that? Well, first of all, I have to admit that the Possibility is there. I have to admit that I want to move my life to the next level. Who here is willing to is interested in moving their life to the next level in 2023, raise your hand. Next level. In terms of your body, in terms of relationships and your happiness and in terms of that money. Okay. You know, it's just like, you know, I. I think that, that it is perfectly, it's perfectly cool. Let me, let me, let. I've got a person here. I need to. Another person. I need to make a co host and then I'll be with you. Okay, great. So if you want to raise yourself next year, if you want to get to that next level, then this is exactly what I want. What I want us to do is to be a mastermind, to be able to talk with each other. If there's somebody else in this group who says something you like, if you chat and you talk about your interest and you see somebody talking about an interest that's similar to yours, reach out to them right here. Get their contact information. Start connecting with them. Outside this, you know, none of us make it alone. One of the steps of the hero's journey is allies and powers. Once you have determined where you want to go, accepted the challenge, and you have looked at the path that is necessary to get there. Road of trials Then it's a matter of finding the right allies who can help you either educe the abilities from within yourself or teach you the abilities. Learning. Larry Niven was one of my allies. You know, I did not have the knowledge to shape my career. So I asked a bunch of different writers, one after another, you know, you know, could you help me? Could you help me? Larry was the one, thank God, who gave me a chance. And I will love him all my life. You know, that was a deal. I had nothing to offer him other than my hard work, honesty and loyalty. That's all I had. And as a result of that, it does not matter how busy I get in Hollywood. Larry was my mentor. Larry gets. Gets access to my time. I will work with him. I will play with him no matter what. The same thing with Steve Muhammad. I don't need these people anymore. But I do need to be true to the path. I need to be true to the little boy inside me who looked out at the world and said, is there anyone who will help me? Is there anyone who will help me find my dreams? And a few people said, yes, all these people, there's no way I can pay them back directly except by being in integrity with the path that they showed me and always acknowledging them. And I will acknowledge them publicly. To anybody who asks, how did I become the person that I am, it is because these people helped me in the same way that I'm trying to help you. So I'm trying to mark out a path. But there's also the idea that it gets lonely. You might have noticed that if you try to change yourself, if you try to improve yourself, people around you will start acting funny. They'll start wondering, do you think you're too good? You think you're better than I am? They don't feel comfortable. Sometimes they'll actually try to drag you down. If you can find people who will cheer you on as you're pulling away from them, that is an amazing human being. That is an amazing human being, and you should treasure them. So you. Most people, it's going to be a little bit that crabs in the barrel thing, you know, if you are pulling ahead, you make them wonder why they're not pulling ahead or they don't believe they can pull ahead. You're making them reconsider their own lives in some ways that they're not comfortable with. And so they might try to test you. I often get the feeling that people who, you know, accuse me of being of toxic positivity and things like that, what they're really saying is, I wish I could be like that. Let me see if I can tear you down. Because if I can't tear you down, maybe you can be the teacher that I'm looking for. That's how I choose to look at it, that it's actually a positive thing when people do that rather than a negative one. So I am just grateful to have the opportunity to lead, just like I've been grateful to have the opportunity to follow. And I'm grateful to have the chance to do this every day of my life and once a week to reach out to you. So let me talk about. I wanted to tell you a story. We're developing a rhythm with these conversations. Jasmine, you're wearing a mask. We're not here. We can't make you sick. Oh, you're around other people. Oh, unmute yourself. Oh, I can't hear you, darling. There you go. At school. Oh, you're at school. Okay, well, mask up. Stay safe. Okay, good. So it's. I believe that it's a positive thing to have goals they're too big. That are goals that inspire you. The goals that will force you to find out who you are. It's the notion that the only way you know, how far you can go is by going too far. So by choosing a large goal, a goal that's bigger than you are at the moment, it's another opportunity to discover who are you. So some years back, I was planning to write a book called great sky woman. Betsy Mitchell at time Warner asked me if I would write a couple of books set in prehistoric Africa. And so I said, huh, I can do that. I'd like to do that. I would need to go to Africa to do that. I would need to actually see the territory that I was. Was working in. And I came up with a couple plots and the plot of the first book involved to climb up kilimanjaro to see the gods that supposedly live at the top. So I said, okay, I'm going to climb kilimanjaro. So I did some research into it, and one piece of research suggested that if you can climb 3,000ft in three hours, you are fit enough to climb kilimanjaro, which I think is 17,000ft or something like that. And so we were living in the northwest at the time, and there was a mountain in the Columbia gorge called dog mountain, and dog mountain is exactly 3,000ft. And it was a hiking destination. So we would drive down to the Columbia gorge and climb dog mountain. My good lady wife tananarive, and my daughter Nikki and myself would do this. And it took, you know, we kind of timed. How long did it take us to get to the top? You know, I think the first time we did it, it took us four hours, and then it took us three and a half. And then it took us three hours and 10 minutes. So it was clear, okay, this is in the right direction. We're going in the right direction. But I also noticed something else, that my daughter Nikki was having a problem psychologically. It was the fatigue and the. The burden, as well as I think she was starting to ask herself whether or not she really wanted to climb kilimanjaro with all that. That implied in terms of the temperatures, because you go all the way from desert to snow when you're climbing kilimanjaro. And I could tell that she was not comfortable. And so I. I wanted. I decided that to not climb kilimanjaro on our. On the research trip. And so instead of that, we did a photo safari. It was very nice. We got to climb on kilimanjaro just a little bit. We spent, like, half a day on kilimanjaro, but mostly we were just traveling around through the veldt and looking at lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. Well, no lions. And we actually saw lions and rhinos and leopards and, you know, all the hippos, all the basic big game in Africa we saw. And it was great. But I did. I did regret not climbing Kilimanjaro, and I did regret the feeling that my window of opportunity for climbing, it was starting to close. There was a point at which it made sense, and there's another point in my life where it would not make sense. So years passed. Many years passed. Then about five years ago, I was invited to be keynote speaker at a writers conference in Washington state. And I looked at when I was supposed to be there, and the weather would be okay and the timing would be okay. And I thought, you know something? I could climb Dog Mountain again. I could just go by myself, and I could see whether or not dog, you know, how long would it take me to climb it. And if I can climb it and feel good doing it, that maybe I could plan to go to Africa by myself, go to Tanzania by myself, and climb Kilimanjaro. I don't have to drag Tananariv and Nikki along with me. I could just do it. So I flew in a day early and stayed in the motel overnight with my rental car. I drove up the Columbia Gorge to Dog Mountain, and I started climbing and was great. I mean, a lot of. One of the things I've noted about Dog Mountain is you start climbing, and there are a lot of people around you. But then as you begin to climb it, the crowd thins out until by about two thirds of the way up, you're by yourself. Then you get a little bit further up, and you start meeting people coming down from the top. And. And it's really interesting that the people coming down from the top who made it all the way up to come back down, they look tired but happy, and they are so welcoming. They're saying, you know, keep going. You're almost there. You can really do it. It's so interesting that the people who actually accomplished something were eager for you to accomplish the same thing, and they were encouraging and so forth. So I kept going. I feel like, yeah, I'm feeling good, I'm feeling strong, and I made it all the way to the top in about three hours and five minutes. So I'm sitting up there, and I'm thinking, this isn't bad. You know, I can do this. And people are having picnics up at the top and stuff like that. There's a flat, grassy area up there. And so I can look down on the river way down below me, and the cars look like little tiny dots, you know, little ants. And it felt great. And then I started back down. And that was when the nightmare hit because my body was totally exhausted. I had not realized it. Climbing up, but you're using a different set of muscles. Going down, going up. And I had blown everything. I mean, all the glide I could choose. I could barely walk. I felt like an old man. I could barely balance myself. I'm like, what in the heck is going on here? I'd never felt anything like that before. I had never. My body had never reacted like that at all, ever. And I felt like it felt the ground was so far below me. And no matter how long I walked, no matter how long I kept going, the ground never seemed to get any closer. I'm taking one step after another step, and I'm like, oh, my God. I'm grabbing plants, plants for balance. It's like, what is wrong with me? And I finally got all the way to the bottom, and I looked up at the top and I realized I was not fit to do this. My basic level of fitness was enough to get me up there. I would have to train very, very hard. I could probably get things to the point where I could climb Kilimanjaro. What I could not do was climb Kilimanjaro and have fun doing it. And I realized at that moment my window of opportunity for climbing Keeley had closed. And I had to be honest about that. You know, why would I spend thousands and thousands of dollars to travel around the world when I could pretty much know that by the second day on that mountain, I'd be thinking to myself, what the hell have you got yourself into, Steve? So there was some grief attached to that. There really was, because that's the feeling, oh, God, you know, I'm getting old. You know, I just. It's like, I've got it. I've got to be honest about this. I've got to be. Got to be realistic about this. Then three years ago, I found out about a. Or four years ago, I found out about a Filipino martial arts conference in Manila. Week long, intense, with experts from all over the world. And I love the Filipino martial arts. How many of you are familiar with Filipino martial arts? Kali escrima, sikuran patatouk. It's beautiful stuff, and it's extremely sophisticated. I think I had more fun training in that than anything else I ever trained in, just in terms of it being appealing aesthetically. So I Thought, what would it take for me to go to this workshop and really feel comfortable doing it? And I thought. I took a look and I evaluated my fitness and so forth. And I thought, yeah, I could have fun. I mean, a friend of mine told me about going and training in the Philippines. Said it was the most intense physical experience he'd ever had. And he had trained for months and gotten his fitness up really high and so forth. So I took it very seriously. But I. But I thought, I think I can do this. And so I planned to go. I had everything worked out. I had a traveling buddy worked out. And then Covid hit, and then Covid hit, and I listened to the initial reports, and I looked at a map of China and the way the cases were starting to sparkle on there, and I looked where the Philippines were, and I said, you know something? I don't like the direction that this is going in. And I could easily see that if it keeps going this way, if I went over there, I could get quarantined there. I do not want to be quarantined in a foreign country. You know, just. Are you kidding? That I could see how that could turn into a nightmare. And so I had to give that up. But there wasn't going to be another such workshop for four years. So it's like, once again, it's the. Damn it, you know, that window is closed. I wanted something that would allow me to test myself, but I also didn't want to be stupid about it. Then about four weeks ago, the guy who ran the workshop sent me a notification that their next one is going to be in 2024. And I looked at that. I looked at the calendar, March 2024. It's like, well, that's 16 months from now. 16 months from now. And I looked at myself, I said, how do I feel? What would it take? Where am I right now? And I realized that three years ago, when I thought that this was the end, I was assuming that by the time another four years had passed, my body and mind would have change to the point this would no longer be as much fun. But I realized right now I could use this as a challenge. I could use this as a challenge to force myself to a new and higher level of efficiency and effectiveness. So I asked myself a question. Does this make sense? And here's where I wanted to tie it into our lesson for today. There. We've talked about the chakras, the seven energy centers in the body. Let me see. Yeah, I've talked about that. And they are the Most sophisticated model of human evolution, what I call self directed human evolution that I know of. You go from core survival to sexuality to power to emotion, to communication, intellect to spiritual transcendental ascendance. But it's also possible to look, to group these together into three arenas, what we call the three energy centers. Okay. And once again, these are conceptual structures. They're ways of looking at something. You know, you can't cut somebody's body open and find a chakra inside them, you know, so don't, don't worry about that. Or can you? No, you can't. But the three energy centers are a great way of looking at things from, for a number of different reasons. So back here on this chart, if this is the belly brain, the heart center, the head center. So the head center would be the brow, Anja and Sahasarara, intellect and spiritual transcendence. The heart center would be anahata and Vishni, the heart and communication. And then the belly brain would be the first three chakras, Muladhara, svastn. See, whatever, whatever they are, I can't, I can't run this and remember Sanskrit at the same time. Oh, okay, I did it. So but you're talking about core survival, sexuality, which is genetic survival. So personal survival, genetic survival, tribal survival. So you know, power, sexuality and, and personal survival. So I have talked about the three gates, which in Buddhism and in Sufism and I believe that there are some Greek philosophers that talked about some similar things. So nobody knows where it really came from. All we can trace it back is we can trace it back a couple thousand years. That's the best we can do. The idea is that your words and actions should pass three filters, especially your words. The first one is, is it true? To the best of your ability, you should avoid saying things that are not true. You should have great certainty because your character and your reputation will rest partially upon whether or not people believe that you are an honest person. Is it, well, what the classic Buddhist structure is, Is it true? Is it, is it useful? Is it necessary? Is it kind? I change that a little bit and it'll help you understand why. So I go from is it true? To is it kind? I ask that this is the body and this is the heart. Here. Is it kind? Am I considering the feelings of the person that I'm speaking to? It is not always possible to respect their feelings, but it should always be desirable. You should always care about that. There will be times when you cannot manage to do that. That is true. But did you care about It. Do you try to avoid contexts in which you cannot be kind? I mean, there are situations, you know, mugger, you know, you can't necessarily be kind to a mugger physically. You might have to deal with that situation which might require something unpleasant to happen, but you should take no joy in it, and you should avoid such circumstances. And you should do all in your power to avoid that if possible, if you want to adhere to the three gates. And then is it useful? Not. Is it necessary. It is not necessary for me to eat ice cream, but it is useful if I want to be happy. Yeah, absolutely. Who likes, who likes dessert? Anybody like dessert here? Anybody like dessert here? Say yes if you like dessert. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, absolutely. It's not necessary, but it's good. And if the Dalai Lama said the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service, then, you know, eat that ice cream as long as you understand that it has to be in the correct proportion with the good food that you eat and with the activities that you do so that it does not damage you. So I anchor, is it true to the physical body? Because the physical is your primary test for whether something is true in the world. The heart, is it kind. The head, is it useful? The question of the head then is, you know, intelligence is problem solving. Wisdom is knowing the right problems to solve, is directing that attention. It's solving the right problem problems. Who here knows really, really smart people who are completely tied in knots and can't get their lives together? Yeah, you know, who has been one of those people who sees one of those people in the mirror sometime? I know I have been absolutely there 100%. I ain't saying nothing to you that I don't say to myself. So something that is useful, if, if, if Earl Nightingale said that success is the progressive realization of a worthy parsing that then it's like you need to have a goal, something that you want to intend to do. It needs to be worthy. You ask yourself, what is this goal going to accomplish? Who am I going to become in the process of having this goal? And then progressive. I can't. If my goals are big, I can't achieve that goal today. What I have to do is I have to, you know, how do you eat an elephant one forkful at a time? I have to divide my goals into small enough bites that I can. I know what I can do today. If I just take care of today. If I could just do this today. I'm taking one step toward my goal. I can see how that is the progressive realization of a worthy goal that I get to feel like today is a success. If I feel that today is a success, I feel joy. And according to the Dalai Lama, I have fulfilled the purpose of life. If I feel joyful, then tomorrow when I ask myself once again, I hit the wall and I think, why am I bothering to do this? This is just. I can't do this. I have the memory of having had a happy, successful day yesterday. And success builds on success. If you can make the pieces, the daily pieces that you do, steps toward the thing that you want. That even if you could only take one step toward the mountain, let's say that you're in a pea soup fog and you can only see two steps in front of you. So take one step, and then the two steps you'll be able to see will take you a little bit further. Take one more step, one more step, one more step. And how do you stay along the proper path? By following mentors who have already been there. You study what it is that they've done, and you ground this stuff in your body. What you don't want to do. What my spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy said is you can awaken the kundalini. The kundalini is supposedly. It's a way of conceptualizing what happens when the full flow of human mental and physical abilities manifests. And you can feel it. Sometimes that kundalini rush can happen when you're really aligned and really kind of overwhelmed. What he said is that you can awaken the kundalini from the bottom up. In other words, first wake up your body, then your heart, then your mind. Or you could awaken it from the heart out. Wake up your heart, then wake up the body, then wake up the mind. But never, ever, ever from the top down. There are too many people who are brilliant and they have wonderful ideas, but they neglect their bodies. And the Hawaiian huna say that the body is like a black bag where you store all your unprocessed emotions. Your head can have all of the theories it wants to have about life. You can delude yourself as much as possible. But if you're telling yourself that you're going to walk five miles and you don't, it doesn't matter what you say about it. Your body knows you didn't do it. You either do it or you don't. The mile is there. It doesn't care what you think about yourself. It doesn't care who you are. It doesn't care about your history. It doesn't care about Your race, color, gender, pronouns. It doesn't care about any of it. It's just a mile and it's there. And you either walk it or don't. And if you walk it, you. Your body has to go through certain changes physiologically, anatomically, in terms of your nutrition, in terms of your training, in terms of your mind. Gravity doesn't care. Okay, so start. I would suggest the safest thing for you to do is to make sure you have a minimum physical practice. Minimum physical practice. The Tai Chi that we use in fire dance is such a minimum physical practice. Another minimum physical practice that I want you to take a look at. And this is going to take me just a second to paste this properly. I want to make sure that you. That you've got this. Okay, I'm going to put this into. Put this into the chat is the Five Tibetans. Let's hold on for a second. There's some comments in the chat. I want to make sure I'm not getting too far ahead. Pavlomi conditioning. No, Baskin Robin saw the story about the girl trained herself to be happy using a clicker. That's right. So read this chat. It's got good stuff. Truthfully, joining this call is my one thing for today so far. Fantastic. Glad to have you. So, in the chat, I'm going to put a link right there. Boom. That link is to something called the Five Tibetans. The Five Tibetans. I've been experimenting, asking myself, well, if I'm going to try to go to. I'm going to try to go to the Philippines in March of 2024, where does my body need to be? Where does my mind need to be? Who do I need to be? What is the minimum that I can do that would prepare myself? Because we're also about to enter an extremely busy period of life. Tananarive and I are about to step into the career opportunities we have been waiting for for decades. Tananarive, would you. Would you unmute yourself and just make a comment just so they know that you're here and I'm really here.

Yes. You know, fingers crossed until the paperwork is signed, but all indications would seem to be that January and February will be very good.

That's right, yeah. So how do we. We've already started talking about how we can address these challenges and still be good parents. How do we address these challenges and protect our health and fitness? How do we address these challenges and stay connected with each other? That is critical. I will not sacrifice my family and I most certainly will not sacrifice the connection I have to this magnificent woman in my life. What kind of fool would I be? There's no amount of money that's worth one of my wife's hugs. Just, you know, forget about it. So does I. When people talk about their goals, they can't keep their goals. They're not motivated to keep their goals. Invariably, one of the basic ways to look at this is that your. Your goals are outweighed by the pain associated with the change or the action. So one of the ways you can get over that is by connecting your goals to, to the body, the heart, and the mind. So I asked myself, in terms of Manila, is it true that this would be a good experience and would it be a good experience for the entire entirety of my life? In other words, how is this good for my family? How is this good for my career? How is this good for my body? I'd have to make sure it passes all three. In terms of my heart, is it kind to myself, to my family, to the people I meet along the way? Will I expand as a human being? Will I be able to give more to the world? And then in terms, is it useful? Well, I'm telling you, one of the things that you need in order to achieve at a new level, and we're talking about bumping yourself up to the next level of efficiency and effectiveness. One of the things you need is a goal that inspires you to be more than you are and then a path to get there and then mentors to help you get there. And if you got that, then the rest of life is just chop wood, carry water. It's that thing about, you know, how do you become a master? You find a valid path and a valid teacher, and you, you do the minimum amount every day and you stay on that path until you've got gray hair. You know, that basically that's it.

That's.

That's what you're doing. So, yeah, what Ross Mercury said, plus one. Good. That's right. Just all you have to do is be just a little bit better. You know, you don't have to be perfect. Just one more step. Just one more step. Just one more step. So if there are these opportunities that are about to come, one of the things I can promise you is it's going to be scary. I'm going to be afraid of this. It's going to be the chance for me to fail on a huge level. It's going to be confrontational. It's going to be the chance to have dreams that I thought That I might not have the chance to get in this lifetime, that that window had passed. But it looks like that window of opportunity is coming back around again. So there are very real questions that I ask myself. Can I do it? You know, is there enough left of me to do it? I mean, just. Just being honest with you, those voices in my head, they're there. So if I can do this big goal and I can do it in alignment with my obligations, everything that I know says my energy will go up, the refinement of my energy will go up, and I will be a better person, a better husband, a better father. I'll be able to work longer, work harder, I will be happier, and I will look at this opportunity as a blessing. And looking at it as a blessing means that I will increase my sense that life is a joyful place. Place and just filled with opportunities. So that's where I am kind of today. I like to kind of share with you what's going on. So before we get into some GONG exercises and answering your comments, questions, and requests about these things, do you have. Well, actually, yes, I'd like to answer, see if you have any comments, questions, or requests about anything I've covered so far. So put your hand up if there's anything that you want to ask or in chat. Okay? Because if there isn't, then we will talk about GONG now. We talked about. Okay, there isn't right now. Great. So we talked about the Constant Bear exercise. I'm going to move this out of the way. And remember, the Constant Bear is just that slinky exercise where you're moving from one side, turning my hips, which turns my shoulders, and I sink to the right. Turn my hips, turn my shoulders, sink to the left. This exercise is so great because you can do it while you're standing in line at the bank. You know, it could just be this much. Nobody will notice you. But that means that you don't have any wasted time. Anytime you're thinking, this is taking a long time, you can actually turn it into a time where you're learning how to connect with your mind and body at a deeper level. But there's another. There's tons of exercises, but there's one that I want to show you that's called Circling Hands and Circling hands. Remember, the things that you do with qigong is you want to focus your mind, your eyes, your breath, and your movement all at the same time. Your mind, your eyes, your breath, and your movement all at the same time. So I'm standing here, and I'M relaxed, head held as if by a string from above, right? And I raise one arm, my right arm, and I'm watching it and I'm timing it with my breathing. Okay? Then I raise the other arm. And they should be as much as possible. It should feel like your arms are floating in the air. So it opens, inhale, closes. I'm watching, breathing, moving. What can I relax? Open, close, exhale, open, inhale, Close, exhale, open my eyes, my breath. I'm thinking about it and I'm moving as smoothly as possible. And I'm timing the inhalations and exhalations to the movement, the opening and the closing. You can do it this way. This is a different exercise, but it's not terribly different from, from the. I think it's called a bird's wing. I forget what it's called, but it's just like, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Same idea, right? I mean, get how that's the same idea. Now you take that into Tai chi and you get. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. See that? Inhale, exhale, expand, contract, expand, contract. With every step, every movement, every action, that sense of expand and contract, expand a little smile on your face and contract. Feel the balance in your feet. These movements are so beautiful. And just spending five to ten minutes with them every morning, or if you're going to distribute it through the day, remember that the efficiency experts will say that if you take a five to ten minute break every hour, you're going to vastly increase the quality of your work. A pomodoro technique, a little pomodoro timing cube says that you work for 25 minutes and then you take a five minute break. Okay? So imagine if during your breaks you're specifically working on something that you want to do, that you're working on your breathing, you're working on your balance, you're doing something. So like what I'm planning to do in terms of getting ready for Manila is during my pomodoro breaks, you know, I'll be playing with a stick, you know, just having fun, just, you know, just moving and playing and having a good time. This stuff is so much fun that if I'm working hard for 25 minutes and then I stop, I pick up a stick and I just play with it. Breathing, moving, having some fun. By the time I sit back down again, I'm feeling energized and I'm feeling, hey, you know, this is good. So finding ways to integrate movement, breath, attention, Vision all at the same time is what we're about. That's the game that we're playing in. The morning ritual is simply asking you to take 10 to 20 minutes, five to 20 minutes every morning, at least six days a week to breathe, visualize, flood yourself with positive emotions. Visualize your mentors, the path in front of you. Visualize what it is you need to do today and see, see how it fits in with your long term goals, which fits in with your destiny, how it's going, you know, the people that you love and are grateful for in your life. Every morning, as I've mentioned before, I give thanks to the people who love me and trust me. My daughter Nikki. My son Jason. My beautiful, brilliant wife Tananarive. My sister Joyce. I just allow myself to feel connected to the people that I love. So I know I'm part of a, a network, a web of association. I'm not out there by myself. I'm part of something. So, okay, in the lecture time to answer questions. We had one from, I think Scott, he was wondering about, let's see, it was Scott, unmute yourself and. Yes. So ask your question.

I had been reviewing modules 10 and 11 and comparing them to your old fire dance video from way back. And I was noticing that there were certain places where it looked like you were going, particularly after Embrace Tiger, return to Mountain. There were times when you were going directly into a push rather than putting in a seven star. And another time there was a seven star going into the push. And I was just wondering.

That's a great observation. I love that observation. You caught me. Okay, so this is what he's talking about. So there's the moment I'll do this barefoot, Embrace Tiger, Return to Mountain. Is this movement here? Okay. Then you shift here. And he says that there are times I go from here to here to there. Right. But then there are other times when I'll do this. And I neglected this. Okay, he noticed that. He caught me on that. So what's going on is the individual movements, the labels for the individual movements are frozen moments in time. They are checkpoints. So if, if I go from here to there, that's different from going here to here. This is implied. At this moment I have my balance, checkpoint focus. And now I do this. So I could do it very mechanically. I could go, Okay, or I could really kind of kind of flow it out. And I'm just kind of flowing through it. Both are correct. But in an ideal world, you're, you're finding those moments and you're asking yourself, what am I doing? The seven star position. The seven star position is to focus you. So I'm here, and I say, where's my balance? Where is my balance? Is my hand at center line? This hand. Now it's also at center line, touching my pulse point. This reference point right here is a frozen moment in time. And it is very important. But it is possible the flow is more important than the poses, Vastly more important. What's important to get the health benefits, you're moving through a series of joint mobility drills that are patterned in a very specific way that can then be applied to martial arts or can simply be viewed as a series of power positions or could be considered as reference points for flow. And the physiological flow can then be used to teach you how to access or recognize psychological flow and other activities. So being able to flow when I'm writing or to be able to give my attention to my son if he has an issue and I have to be present and not try to interject and solve his problems instantly, but to feel what's going on, I have to be present with him. Okay? And so it's. The answer is that if I was doing the form, specifically for form, I would take every single one of those movements. But there are also movements within the movements. There are definitely times when I'm doing something here and then I'm doing something here, and then I'm doing something here and then I'm doing something there. But all I talk about is, now we're going to do single whip. Okay? So that's exactly the kind of question that I like. Okay, great. So did somebody else. Did I answer your question, Scott? Okay, great. So what other questions do we have here today? Yes, Clarissa. Do you believe in writer's block? And if you do, how does. Is it useful? Is it kind? Is it true? Enter into that. God, I love you, lady. This is great. This is. This is great. So writer's block. Tenon Reeve and I define writer's block differently. Writers. I define writer's block as the inability to do anything that stops you from completing your writing and publishing it. Okay. In other words, moving your career forward to be on the path of mastery. So for me, it isn't just not being able to write. It's not being able to finish, not being able to submit it for publication, not doing the research that you need to keep getting better, not learning constantly about the market. And, you know, because, you know, you're letting fear stop you at some point. I. I'm afraid to write. I'm afraid to finish. I'm afraid to submit, I'm afraid to resubmit. You know, I'm afraid. I don't care about money. I just want it to be art and other lies. So it's any of those things. So tananarive. Sweetheart, would you say something about writer's block, please? Sure.

That is a great question, because writer's block is something that we all experience. Or at least I won't speak for Steve.

Steve? No.

Well, Steve machine, he writes all the time, every day.

But I'm not a machine. I'm a garden. You're a garden.

But in any case, it took me seven years to write the novel that I have coming out next year. And typically, I would have answered this question by saying writer's block is a lack of research because you're frozen on the page. Like in historical fiction, for example, maybe I don't know what a living room looks like in the year 1950. So it's like that white screen in the Matrix, the original Matrix, when there's just nothing there. That's just one version of it. What I learned with my. My novel the Reformatory, is that for me personally, sometimes writer's block is that it is emotionally too difficult to engage with the work. It's based on real life, family history. I have a great uncle who died at the Dozier school in the 1930s. So even though I fictionalized it and I'm giving it a better ending, I mean, it's not really a spoiler, but it kind of is. Sorry.

Oh, don't need to bug in the book now.

Even so, it was no fun to be in 1950.

Darn you.

It was no fun to be in 1950. It was no fun to be writing about this young boy at a reformatory. So, yeah, I found every excuse. Oh, I got to work on a script. I got to. And those things were all true. Yes, I did have a. Something that we were getting through school. Yes, I did have screenplays. I was trying to learn how to write, but. But seven years it dragged. And more recently, I noticed it when I was proofreading a short story collection I have coming out next year called the Wishing Pool. At the same time, I was writing a new short story and I was really bumping up against what Steve often talks about writer's block, as is a confusion between the flow state and the editing state. Because when I was literally editing my finished stories that have already been through a round of edits have already been edited by previous editors, part of me was like, oh, my God. How can this new story measure up? You know, it's like even after all these years, I was feeling like my new lame little story did not feel and sound like my finished, about to be published story, republished stories. So I was finding ways not to work on it, you know, And I'm pretty vigilant about it. I mean, I'll do my sentence a day. It's rare that I won't do at least a sentence, but the kind of page quotas, the kind of momentum I want, it's just. It's a head game. And really, to me, the only solution to it is to just sit down at the keyboard and we do pomodoros. I mean, if I can trust myself to just do it, I'll do it. But a pomodoro is that I set a timer for 25 minutes, and for that 25 minutes, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not going to check my email. I'm not going to go on over to Twitter. And if. If I inevitably do find myself over at Twitter, I might start my pomodoro over again or add a couple minutes to it, because it's like, no. And shut down that Twitter tab and just do it. Because the reality of it is, writing will not hurt you. Anything that you write can be edited. There's no risk.

First graphs should be garbage. Just get it out there. One of the things you have to remember is that the part of you that writes is a shy little child. The part of you that edits is a master's in literature. If you let the masters in literature beat up the little kid who's just trying to tell stories, I've got this story. And then say, well, that gerund is wrong. This plot. I've seen this plot before in your first drafts. You're going to kill that little kid. You're going to shut down the most precious creative part of who you are. So the notion that writer's block is a confusion of two separate states of mind. The editing state, where you know, the flow state where you are writing, and the editing state, where you are judging what you have written. These pieces, these parts of you must be separated. When you are flowing, just flow. When you are editing, just edit. In other words, you could write it. Two completely different desks. This desk is just for flow. Or you can wear it. You can have two different hats. I'm going to put on this hat. I'm in a flow state. I'm a kid. Yay. I'm just going to visualize what happens in this scene. I'm going to. I know the images that would need to happen. I'm going to sit here, roll my eyes up so that neurologically I go into flow state and I'm just going to type. I'm just going to describe what I see. That's all I'm going to do. Just describe what I see. Just type, type, type, type, type. No concern about spelling, grammar, nothing. Just get it out. And our process says you write one sentence a day. There is never an excuse for not writing a sentence a day if you don't write a sentence every day. You know that the problem is not tactical. It's not about time, it's about your emotions. And it is very useful to be able to separate out. I'm too busy to do this. I'm do this from. I'm scared. I am scared. If you can just say, I am scared. So I'm stopping myself. At least you're telling the truth, right? Is it true? You're through the gate. You're through the first gate. You're telling the truth. I'm scared. I'm scared about these opportunities next year. I'm scared about going to Manila and in 2024. Good. Because I can be honest about that fear now. I can use that fear to drive me toward excellence because my commitment to my family, to the world, you guys, you know, I know that you're looking at me and kind of, if I can make these things work, maybe you can try them, you know, So I have an obligation, and I have an obligation to that little boy inside me who started this journey, who just wanted to tell stories and be loved. And I love that little boy. Every morning when I wake up in my meditation, I visualize that little boy. And I actually will sit cross legged and hold hands with him and look at his eyes and say, am I doing okay? Are you happy? And he will talk to me. He talks to me. He says, yeah, dad, you're doing great. Or dad, you know you shouldn't have done that, or, you know, dad, don't worry if when you meditate, it all looks like a bunch of junk in there. You're just getting some old stuff cleared out, you'll be fine. I love you for trying. He's really there. Because that little kid is always still inside us, waiting for us to slow down and listen to him, listen to her. Everything that you're looking for is already inside you. All you have to do is find the part of yourself that already, for instance, knows what mastery Is. And as I've said, every single person here has mastered some things. You mastered walking, talking, riding a bicycle, making love, whatever it is. Once upon a time, you did not know how to do those things. And then those things were as natural as riding a bicycle or walking. Looking at the process by which you mastered anything, you understand the process of mastering anything else. I have to find a path. I have to find models. I have to keep working on it. I have to. I have to be able to resist fear. I have to be able to resist pain. I have to be able to resist doubt. The party say, you'll never learn how to ride a bicycle. Ever, ever, ever. You're just going to fall down. You're too clumsy. You're too this, you're too that. And then one day it was, look, mom, no hands. That process is exactly the same thing you're going to need for anything else in your life. And the entire fire dance is learning how to focus on your long term goals, short term goals, what you need to do today, the role models that you need, the people who could just easily accomplish what you want. For me, my writing role models are Larry Niven, Octavia Butler, and William Shakespeare. Between the three of them, ain't no problems. You know, one of the three of them. And then all you have to do is research them and then bring them into your imaginary space. And if you're having a problem, you sit very, very quietly by yourself and you bring them into your mind and into your heart. And I say, octavia, what would you do? What would you do here? And she'd probably say, you're going to research more, Steve. You haven't researched enough. This isn't the truth. You're not thinking deeply enough, Steve. You're not being honest, Steve. You're trying to be clever, Steve, don't worry about being clever. You'll run out of clever. But you'll never run out of the truth. Because she used to say stuff like that to me. So you bring role models who could solve your problems into your space and you dance with them for five to 20 minutes. That's all that that thing is. And every day you work with it just a little bit more. I forget whose question that was. Clarissa, did. Did that answer your question, sweetheart? You did. Thank you so much. Thank you both. That was amazing. We love this. Great. We love you guys. We love people who are on this path with us. Oh, God. Let's see. I do not see. Megan Lancaster says, I do not envy those of you whose work is done on A computer. When I put my foot down on the sewing machine pedal, I'm in the flow. Have to pay close attention or I'll sew through a finger.

You know, hey, with us, the best thing that happens is you wake up and it's like two hours later. It's like, oh, I've been writing for two hours. That's the feeling. And that's the other thing I'll say about writer's block is that even if it is just a sentence a day program that we talk about in Life Writing Premium, it might just feel like typing. Like, you just like, okay, I'm going to type the sentence. I'll type the sentence tomorrow. But at a certain point, it's like an ember that catches fire and it leads to those flow moments where maybe Friday afternoon is my sweet spot. And it's like, boom, I'm to the races. Four pages, five pages. Without even thinking about it.

That's what you want. You find the flow because you have been in the flow countless times. When you're driving on the freeway, you're getting ready to fall asleep, you know you're dancing and you don't realize you've been dancing for an hour. It's happened. Just think back over your life. It is. Flow is the last stop of ordinary mind. You know that there is. There is focus, and you're aware that you're there. And then there's a point where the subject object, relationship disappears, and you're just there. You step through the page. If you're writing, you're just there. You're moved into the danger zone where the dancer becomes the dance. Okay? And that's what you're looking for. And you ask, when. When I have people doing tai chi, I will usually end the session having them close their eyes. And I will say something of the following to them. I'll say, look back over the last hour that we spent together with any activity. There is a bell curve of excellence. There were moments in the last hour where you were more present than other times and other moments where you were less present. I want you to ask the most trusted part of your consciousness to gather up the moments when you were totally engaged or more engaged and as if they were pearls that you are slipping onto the strand of your consciousness. And you will take this and store it in the most precious and sacred part of your heart. And you will ask that deep part of you to notice during the day when you are behaving in flow, when you're acting with excellence and integrity, with your goals and your path. And you store those like additional pearls, like diamonds that you're gathering. And you will eventually hit a critical mass where you will expect to spend more time in this new state than you spend out of that state. And that is when you are stepping through another door to mastery. You are stepping through into a place that has no words. There are no words for some of the things that I'm really talking about here. All I can do is dance around them. I can talk about this model, this perspective, this experience, this, this, this, But I can't talk about the thing itself. The dow that can be named is not the true down, but it is possible to point a finger at the processes. You know, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. I am not important. But the path is okay. It is if you the finger pointing to the moon. If you pay too much attention to the finger, you'll miss the moon. So these techniques, these things, you take a boat across the river, but once you get on the other side, you leave the boat behind. These things that I'm talking about are ways to touch, to express the ineffable. And if you will pay attention to these things and try these things and what we're begging you to do, as you can notice, I pull from a thousand different disciplines. Many, many different disciplines, many, many different teachers. And you can do what I did. You absolutely can do what I did. What we're hoping you're going to want to do is to keep joining us on Fridays where I can ask answer these questions. I will answer any questions you have. Join the group on Facebook, leave questions on kajabi. How can I help you be brothers and sisters with me on this path. Most people do not take the time to do things like this. If you're this kind of person, I am begging. I'm praying that you're going to be part of it. We have join this community if you possibly will today until midnight tonight. Got $10 off of the off of the Fire dance program www.firedancetaichi.com. if you put in the secret code dog all in caps. Put in the secret until midnight Tonight, put in dog D O G and you'll get 10, $10 off every month. That's www somebody type that into chat. That's right. Thank you very much, sweetheart. And also type in the code word in caps dog D O G. So more comments, questions or requests while we're here before I kick you guys out for the weekend. So Nicole says how. Okay. How might I approach these steps when my Mind, heart isn't clear yet on what I want or where I want to go. Oh, my God, I love this question. It feels like patience is key. Exposing myself to positive content, gathering tiny pearls. But I've not taken the time correctly in the past 53 years. You're doing it now. You're doing it now. What I can promise you 100% is you have met people who are going to be as sincere with you as they can be, as honest with you as they can be. I hope you can feel my sincerity. I really do. There are people who are on this call who have known me for decades. And I am the same idiot I have always been. I'm Megan. You know, is this pretty much the guy that I am? I mean, seriously? Meg's no. How long have you known me, Meg? 40 years. Yeah. Unmute yourself. Unmute yourself, sweetheart. You muted. Yes.

38 years.

You know, this is just who I am. It's all I've got. If you like what you see, you'd like me better if you got to know me better. But if you don't like what you see, you'd hate me even more. So what you need to know is it feels like I'm a very long way down. Am I being wasteful by trying to go slow and tiny? It feels like a think out, but also more. That feels too much. It feels paralyzing. So what you do is the first step. Your first goal is to, if you will, embrace what the Dalai Lama said, the meaning of life is to be joyful and of service. So your goal, you've got a goal to be happy and to expand that happiness into the world. Now let's be more specific. Your goal then could be to find a goal. A goal to find a goal so that by you say, if you say, by my next birthday, I will know what it is I want to do. And meanwhile, I'm going to be happy. I'm going to help the people around me. I'm going to learn 1% per week. The 1% minimum per week. It is never too late. You could be on your deathbed. It would not be too late to begin to breathe every hour or once every three hours. Breathe. Visualize the path in front of you. Visualize being happy and healthy and being able to help the people that you love. Everything that you've learned up until this point is just getting started. We are all just getting started. When I tried Kilimanjaro, and then that didn't work. And then I tried Manila, and that didn't Work and that feeling, you know, you get, those voices in your head, you're getting too old, Steve. You can't do this. Why are you expecting so much from yourself? You know, I've had people ask me that, why do you have goals that are so high? Aren't you afraid of being disappointed? No. What I'm afraid of is that at the moment of death, I will see clearly what I could have been in the world. And if at the moment of death, I realized that my fear and my cowardice stopped me from going for it, that would be. It's too late. But if at the moment of death, I realized, you know something, my goals were bigger than my abilities, I just shrugged. It's been a great ride. I've had a wonderful time. I've helped a lot of people. It's like, where's the downside there? So I would rather aim too high and then aim to be. Aim to earn my way into the company of the people who could help me do it. And when I came to Larry Niven, I didn't have writing skill to offer him. I mean, although I had done my work, I was. I was a baby writer, you know? But what. What I could offer him was working my ass off and absolute loyalty. I will be a good padawan. You teach me, sensei. I'm really. That's. When I look at that, I think that that's really been my advantage is I will go to people, empty my ego out, and say, teach me, sensei. I did that with Steve Muhammad. I went to him and said, I would like to learn karate. He said, we would like to teach you karate. I said, I have to tell you, I don't know how to fight. He said, that's okay. We do. And with Tananarive, I've told this story how I got down on the floor. You know, it's like I saw her. I saw her energy. I saw who she was. And I realized if I am appropriate for her, if I could be good for her. This woman is my destiny. If I could be good for her. And so I looked around the room, and I saw two seats away from me, a woman with a baby on her lap. And I looked at her, and I said to her, excuse me, ma', am, can I borrow your baby? And I borrowed her baby and literally got down on the floor in front of Tananari and played with the baby in front of her. I was saying to her, look at me. Take a moment, please. Give me a chance to show you who I am.

You better Believe I noticed.

I had to humble myself completely because I knew that the man, the path I was on up until 24 hours or 48 hours before that moment, was not the path to being a man who could be worthy of a woman like this. But I believed in my heart that I could be. That there was something inside me that if I could bring it out, would be worthy of this. But I had to humble myself there with the martial arts, with the writing. Humble yourself before your dreams. Fill your cup with the ideas, the people who can help you. As I said, there's nothing special about me, but I am talking about this path of growth as honestly as I possibly can. And if you'll join us on that path and let me help you, I just will promise you I'll give you 100% of what I've got every week. We'll give you everything we've got. We will help you in every way that we can. So it's over at Firedance Tai Chi.com and use the code DOG for 10 bucks off. Nicole said. I'm so grateful, I risk blurting. Will this be available to listen to again? Yes, I'm recording it. I will post it on YouTube. Striving for goals you can't reach. I'm so grateful, I risk blurting that question out at the end of the hour. Thank you. I want questions from you guys every week. I want you to test me. I want you to push me. I want you to challenge me. I want you to make me prove that I'm telling you the truth. Prove that I am who I seem to be, that the path is what I say it is. Because if I cannot handle those challenges, I do not deserve your trust. It's as simple as that. So are there any other comments, questions, or requests before we close today? I want to make sure that everybody has something that will get them going. And then we'll see you next week. But is there anything else today?

Double check my question privately to you and chat.

Okay, hold on. Let me. It's $10 off. It's 10.

The.

The. The dog coupon at www.firedancetaichi.com, which is good until midnight tonight, is for $10 off. You know, and we will keep trying to make those deals. We're trying to make things.

That's a big discount. That's why I was asking, because, yeah.

It is a big. Is that every month it's $10 off? That's right. Forever. Okay. Huh.

I just wanted to make sure.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, you're welcome and the. The deals will change from time to time. You know, that's. That's. That's what you do. But the quality, My commitment is every week to get better and better and better at delivering to you. And so I would like to thank you for being here. Thank you for taking care of each other once again. Reach out to each other, help each other, ask for help. Don't be afraid to ask me any questions you want, because the only reason I'm here is to help you. If I cannot help you, I do not deserve your time, energy, or money. As simple as that? As simple as that. The only reason, you know, if, you know, really needy people who need this process and are dead broke, reach out to me and let me know about it. Because just like we give away money on Facebook, every year, we give away thousands of dollars on Facebook. People donate, and we give it back out to anybody's need. You can. You can send me a personal message on Facebook. And we try to send, you know, 50 to $100. Just people ask for it, because there are people who have surplus, and there are other people who have a little bit of a need. And those of us who can give should give if we can, if we feel that connection. This is the work I've been waiting to do my whole life, and I finally have a structure to do it. I'd like to thank Michael Ormes, who's on there. Michael. Oh. Who helps support the tech stuff. This is going to keep growing and growing and growing. I want to make sure that the people who are the core can continue to reach me. You have questions. No matter how many people are on here, I want a thousand people in this group, you know, in the program, so I can. That's. That's enough to be able to be able to affect and change the world. You guys are here first. I never will forget that. And I'll always want to take care of you. So I'd like to close it out today with the Sanskrit expression that says that the divinity within me salutes and acknowledges the divinity within each and every one of you. Namaste. Take care. Have a wonderful, wonderful life.