What Opportunities Can You Have For Growth Once You Have Passive Income

Hey, it's Mark Pedolski, the land geek with your favorite niche real estate website, the landgeek.com and I am so excited for today's podcast. Selfishly now you're probably thinking, well, you know, are your guests going to be talking about passive income? No, we're not talking about passive income. We're talking about what happens once you have passive income, the opportunities that you have for growth. And so we are going to explore mindset growth opportunities with my friends Alpolsky all the way in Texas, I'm not sure what part of Texas. And Herb in San Marcos, Guatemala, the owner, they're both the owners of the Black Lotus Retreat Center. I can't wait to talk about that. In my experience recently with it Allah. Herb, welcome.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. We are more than excited to be here with you today.

Yeah. So Allah wrote an amazing book that Herb was generous enough to send me called Lost and Found. And in that book is the story of how they met. And it is incredible. So Ala, would you mind just talking about how the two of you met and, and what brought you to San Marcos?

Yeah, I'd love to. So. Well, I don't know if you want the, the version with, with some book spoilers or, or just the version that's kind of on the surface. Well, yeah, and Mark you already know, but we, we met, it's about seven years ago now in Guatemala where Curb currently is. And I, I'm usually in the same zoom window as him, but I'm, I'm currently in Texas just visiting family. So seven years ago, San Marcos in Guatemala, which is on the shore of Lake Atitlan, which has a bunch of different little Mayan villages. And San Marcos kind of got the reputation for being the, the spiritual hippie village. They're all, they're, they all have their different personalities. But if, if you were on any kind of soul searching journey, you go to San Marcos and one of the main reasons was because they, it was kind of the epicenter for cacao ceremonies which I also get into in the book. And Herb and I are big fans of drinking cacao and, and working with it more, more as a plant medicine, very gentle one. And so I had never, I was completely new to all this. Seven years ago I was very much just starting my sp journey having like quit corporate job of, of many years. And so I land on this spiritual teacher's porch or a cacao ceremony which again, I didn't really even know what that was at the time, but I was, I was Open was naturally curious to try. And Herb in, In walks Herb. I mean, there. There were dozens of people crammed onto this little tiny porch. And he. Well, I don't. I don't know how much detail to go into here. I'll give you. I'll give you the, the shorter version. And Herb, feel free obviously, to. To add your version of the story.

I'll add some comments, you know, a little bit more of the truth when. When needed.

Yeah, yeah.

There's always many, many different versions of truth and reality as we know. But the way I experienced it was I'm just surrounded by people from all over the world. We're drinking cacao. And once, maybe 30 minutes into the ceremony, this insanely tall man bun, spiritual looking guy walks in late, kind of interrupts the ceremony, interrupts the show. But it's. It's very clear he's been there before because Keith the. The man who is running things, you know, stops everything. It's like, oh, Herb, welcome back. Good to see you. Let's get you some cacao. And that, that was just my first impression of, okay, this guy comes in late, kind of crashes things. But then he just closed his eyes and seemingly meditated the entire time. And so wasn't until later we. We got connected again through mutual friends and drinking cacao and just, you know, started talking about. Back then it was talking about energy and, you know, all these spiritual topics. And we. This is again where I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna skip over things that are in the books. I don't want to give give away too much unless Herb does. But we, at the time, we just went our separate ways. So we spent a few hours that afternoon getting to know each other. There, There was a connection, but it just like the universe felt it was not time yet. We needed a few more years to get out of our own ways and kind of work. Work through some of our own relationship things and whatnot. So it wasn't actually until two years later, like in the middle of COVID going on, where now, you know, everything was virtual. So even those cacao ceremonies that before you could only, you'd have to be in Guatemala, for they were. They were online. And so we were in two very different places in the world, but got connected again just through. Through cacao and through kind of this global spiritual community. And, and at that, at that point, we were a lot more ready. And so then we, yeah, we ended up just making plans to meet up in Mexico, which back then was one of the few Countries that was open and you could. You could travel to. And so, yeah, we. We converged in Mexico, and five minutes later, Herb decided to buy a hostel. And so we kind of, you know, in. Literally in the first week of dating, he was like, I'm gonna buy this. This hostel.

And now I feel like it's. It's time for me to intervene. So, you know, that was. That was loosely close again, you know, maybe read the book. But yeah, I. I bought a hostel in Mexico and all I just moved in, and I was like, well, you know, it's like a, you know, a stray cat. You feed them, pretty soon they love you, and now, you know, they own you.

Right, Right. So. So, Herb, you're a serial entrepreneur. Walk us through all the different businesses.

Oh, wow. I mean, that. That could be. That could be 15 episodes within itself.

Oh, my God.

And I would actually like to say that important aspect of that is having businesses fail. And, you know, you and I, Mark, we've talked before, like, one of the things about becoming a good entrepreneur is not being a good entrepreneur and doing all the. All the things wrong, all the wrong lessons. And of course, one of the businesses that I started, very, very, very small start, was about 10 years ago, and it was actually in buying raw land, basically every. Every. Everything that you teach. And because I had several other businesses going, essentially what had happened is I was. I was old school, right? I was. I was. I was filling out the envelopes by hand, writing them, sending. I actually sent thousands of letters off, bought some land, sold some land. And I was like, this, this is an amazing business. This is. This is something that I have to do. But to your point, serial entrepreneurs, you know, you got. You got to decide where. Where are you going to put your energy. And I knew for me, you know, that was going to be with teaching something. That's something that I very much love working on, building those businesses out. And some businesses that I still have with one of. One of my business partners, where I knew I really needed to devote some energy to that. So I actually set land investing to the side and told my business partner, listen, at some point, we're going to come back to land investing. I know there's tremendous wealth that can be built there. Everything thing that all. All your listeners already know about, how you can build it passively, how it's such an amazing business model. But. But I didn't have the time and energy to put into that. So, you know, fast forward many years later. Of course, I'm a coaching student with Mark for those of you guys that don't know, but for me, what gets me excited is, yes, a little bit of the spirituality stuff, you know, yes, I got, I got the man bun, the long hair. But specifically in coaching, because this is, this is one of the things that I do as well is, is if there's the part that I call the tactical side of things, which many, many people on this, this, this podcast already know, right, that they've learned. Listening to Mark, all the other guests, it's like, these are the things that I need to do to create wealth. But then there's the other aspect of it that, that's not the tactical, it's the why am I not doing what I know I should be doing? I say I want more wealth, I say I want greater relationships. I say all these things are important for me, but then maybe I choose consciously or unconsciously and not to do that. And really that's where my fun is. Or as many of you guys already know, Mark talks about it is the mindset, right? What's the mindset you need to create wealth not only before, not only during, but even after. Because if, if the, the whole path. And you see this with really successful entrepreneurs. You see them being very successful because they, it's a fear based motivation, right? I, I, I got to make more money for xyz. I can't have this job any, any longer. But if somebody is successful financially, that, that fear that those underlying emotions don't go away just because you're successful financially. So, so my excitement, what the work, that all, and I really do is that journey all through the whole path, the before, you know, why am I not doing what I need to be doing? The in between. This is really hard. I've got a lot of resistance because now I'm doing something I've never done before. And then after I've reached it, I've got to it. But am I satisfied, dude? In my, am I okay? Exactly. Where I am now and where I am now is always changing, right? But yeah, it's, it's very exciting for me to, to see people's inner growth and then how that kind of blossoms out into everything else they're doing both financially and then like all, all of their relationships. And for me, luckily, when I did my inner work, I, I drew all into my life. You know, I have an amazing spiritual relationship where she will tell me, herb, you're in your ego. You may not, you know, cut that crap out. You know, where we can have that really beautiful, honest relationship and we, and we, we can go deeper into that. And as one of my teachers used to say, if you really accelerate your spiritual relationship, you know, get into relationship with someone, if you then really want to accelerate that, work in business with your partner. And that's going to bring up all kinds of things that you haven't yet dealt with. So I'm very fortunate that as mentioned before all and I basically started running a hostel and this six week spiritual residency and was insane. I can't believe she stuck through, through the process for me several years of just doing deep inner work with people. But wow, what a great experience. And then of course as you've heard we've, we've moved to San Marcos. We opened a year long program where people would again live with us for an entire year and work on, do their inner work. So I don't know if I answered your question because I just got so excited that I started talking about all kinds.

No, no, it was a great answer. And alo, as you're hearing herb talk about things, what, what are, what kind of came in into your mind.

It is funny like because we've, this has been our normal life for the last four years together, well more than four years. And it's been like in a lot of ways where we've been helping other people to, to grow to you know, process things that have been holding them back. But then we've also been on that journey ourselves at the same time because I mean we're, you know, there's not just a point where you're done growing as, as you know too Mark. Right. And so you can, you can always go deeper or you know, just kind of get to that next level of your, your own personal awakening, awareness, consciousness, you know, whatever words you prefer for it. And I think what's been, what's been such a gift and then, and also a very big challenge I think for me personally is that yes, we've, we've been doing this together as, as a couple and then also in business partnership. And then you throw on the added, the added challenges of doing it in foreign countries where we are not fluent speakers in, in Spanish, but the hostel was in Mexico and, and then that they're the living retreat centers in Guatemala. And so it's, it's, it really has brought up a lot for me on every level. Financial, emotional, physical, you know, just even dealing with like parasites in different countries and things like that. And so I feel like I must have signed up in this lifetime for the accelerated track of just okay, let's Just throw everything in at the same time.

Give it a really nice way of saying that it's challenging being in a relationship with Herb. So.

So, Herb, you know, it makes me think a lot about my own inner work. And I spent 14 years in. In therapy.

And.

And then I, you know, I did the Darkness retreat. You really were my. My Sherpa and helped me prepare for that. And then I just went through my first hypnotherapy session with you. And even Al is like, mark, you're more sparkly than normal. And I feel great. And so what's interesting to me was when we first started talking about it is that I said, herb, I got a lot of issues. And you're like, mark, let's reframe it. You've got lots of opportunities for growth. I really love that phrase for you guys when you're helping people. And, Ala, I think you've written the book that, that every woman in her 20s and 30s should actually read called Lost and Found. It's sort of this. This spiritual journey, and I loved it. You know, it's funny, like, being, you know, an older man. I really love the book, and I'm like, I know I sent it as a gift to friends. I'm sending it to my daughter, and thank you. It's really so well written and so authentic and so vulnerable and so relatable in so many ways. It's, you know, I thought, oh, you know, she.

She lives with her.

But it's going to be this.

Woo.

Spiritual book. It's not at all. It's.

It's.

It's amazing. And so I'd be curious about when people are seeking spiritually. What's. What do you. What are you seeing that they say one thing, but they're really there for something else. And, and the way I would say it is, like, for example, I don't know how spiritual I am, but I'm doing all these things. And I talked to Herb about this. I'm like, you know, brother, I think I'm spiritual bypassing, and I'm using all this spirituality to not feel. And he's really helping me to expand that. And I have to do probably another four or five more years of sessions, but either way, to Olive's point, like, you never get to that top of the mountain. You can always go deeper. But I'd be curious when, when people are coming to the Black Lotus or Allah, you know, women are reaching out to you, and, and they're connecting with you through the book. What, what are people coming to what are they saying? Like, this is my opportunity for growth. And. And do you guys just look at each other knowing, like, no, this is really what this is. This is the root of the issue.

Oh, I love this question. And I want. I want Herb to weigh in, too. But so, I mean, spiritual bypassing is a topic that, like, we talk about at the dinner table because we're spiritual nerds and we're like, genuinely. It's. It's. But it's fascinating, right? And so I think what. What you're. What you. What you're talking about is, yes, there. There is often, not necessarily a disconnect, but a discrepancy between what we consciously think we want or need and what deep down or for unconsciously or just for our highest good, that we actually need. And that goes at the same time, both for, like, what we want, what we aspire to, and what we're either afraid of or moving away from. And so with spiritual bypassing, like, my. I mean, my own personal experience was that I write about this, of course, that when I was living in New York, like, I actually, I was very into running and yoga and both of those things, they seem super healthy on the surface, and I was using them in, like, the complete opposite way. Like, I. I was literally running away from my problems. That's how I would deal with. With stress and emotions that I just, you know, didn't want to feel. I would push them down, get endorphins from exercise, or I'd go to a yoga class and. And really, rather than, like, kind of sit with whatever was coming up, which, you know, the beauty of yoga, right, it can morph, much like, morph into a spiritual practice versus just a physical one. And I, during the meditation part or Shavasana, like, I would just use that time to fidget and squirm and, you know, not. Not actually deal with, like, all. Again, all the. All those things that I didn't want to feel or look at in my life. And then, so it's. It's something I. I recognize, I think, even more. More easily in others that it can. What can look like, oh, I'm on the spiritual path, or, you know, I. I want, of course, the conscious level. I think everybody wants to be happier, healthier, have. Have more fulfilling relationships and work. But then, like, as Herb mentioned, it's one thing to want them at the rational or conscious level or, you know, say to ourselves, I, I, yeah, I want this, of course. But then if deep. If we, on some level, if we don't have those things yet, then there's a part of us that doesn't want them or is, or is scared of it or just again, is unconsciously either think, maybe thinks we don't deserve it or, you know, just, just kind of putting blocks and obstacles in the way or self sabotaging. So I, I think like, you know, we, we, we've already like, said the word spiritual and spirituality a bunch of times here. So I do want to point out, I think it's like there's so much in the spiritual space that feels like kind of confusing and abstract. And it's what Herb and I actually. And the way that, the way that we teach and we work with people is we, we try to use as, as little like spiritual lingo as possible because it can get, it can kind of get in the way of like when you, when you strip out all the, the Sanskrit mantras and auras and chakras, you off. Like ultimately everyone is kind of seeking the same thing, which is, I mean, maybe like at its most basic level is happiness, love, you know, fulfillment, acceptance. And it's these words that aren't really spiritual. They're, they're just, they're things that I think are a universal part of being human and the things that really drive us. And so, yeah, like, Herb, I'd love to hear what you were adding.

Yeah, I mean, you really nailed it as far as kind of our core belief, what we teach. And especially for the type of person that's going to be listening to this podcast, this is a great example where you can really go in. Some of the people listening, they're already on their journey, already creating passive income. Some of them are in, in the beginning stages of it, and maybe some people are, are further along. And one of, one of our teachers, he, he used to say, it's not about what it's about. And I, I would say if you're building your business, you're building your passive income, you're, you're, you're, you're working on these things. What you. Finances is just one thing of many spiritual relationships. But if you're working on it and you keep thinking the issue, the problem is out there. I'm upset because things aren't going my way. Like, you know, that the sell didn't go through. You know, whatever the case is, the thing that you're working on with your particular business and how you're growing, that now that's an external factor, right? There's things that are within our control. There's things that are Outside of our control. And of course, you have to have good knowledge, which if you're listening to this, I'm preaching the choir. I mean, the language community is an amazing place to get that knowledge. And so many people that are willing to share, to help, to, to, to go through that, that process, but it's really important to look in. And it's one of the things that so many people miss is it's like if I'm not showing up, if I'm not doing the work that I'm supposed to do, if I'm not following the steps or as they talk about the land keep community, I'm not following the recipe or you. There's, there's anger, sadness, something coming up within, or there's just a plain avoidance or to what Mark was talking about, basically a spiritual. Because your business will be a spiritual relationship. I'm moving away from that then. It's not about what it's about. It's not about the VA not doing their job. It's not about that deal not going through. It's about there, there, there's something inside of me that, that needs to look at what, what's going on. Because when, when you're, when you're in a balanced place, whether as all said, you call it spirituality, you call it consciousness, you call it awareness, or just when things come your way that aren't your preference, you'll. And there's not a trigger around it, you'll just go, oh, well, that's interesting. You'll learn from it and move on. But if the, the response to what's coming up is that shouldn't have happened, you know, or maybe there's some sort of a limiting belief, yeah, everyone else can make this kind of money, this kind of passive income, but, but I can't, then that's where the real, the real work starts. Because until we start shifting that either you're going to be successful and not happy or you'll never even be successful because you won't allow yourself to go there. Now, you know, we, we teach meditation, as Mark pointed out. We, we, we do a lot with hypnotherapy within itself. Hypnosis is a very misunderstood subject, but somewhere between 95 to 98% of everything that we do every day is unconscious. It's a pattern that's just firing off. We're doing things. We have, we have mental patterns that are going on and, and we've picked those up through life. Right. You know, maybe from our parents, from our family, the people that we Surround ourselves with and, and one way or one paradigm of looking at improving yourself. You know, a lot of times people think, you know, like listening to a podcast like this, I'm getting tactical information, right, which you are, you're getting great t, you know, understanding. But what's happening at another level is there's a reprogramming of your subconscious mind. You're essentially surrounding yourself with other people who are successful. And it's reinforcing at an unconscious level that this can also happen for me. And Mark and I have had these discussions before where it's like in, in the coaching program, in the mastermind programs, like probably one of the biggest benefits that isn't known at the conscious level, you know, people think that they're showing up for, you know, how to, how do I make the sales copy a little bit better? How do I, you know, get a little better price for a property? How, how do I, you know, make sure my mailings are at the right price? Obviously super useful. But what's happening at another level of communication is we're surround, governing ourselves by people who are successful, who are having the kind of financial success that we want and reprogramming the unconscious in that way so then that we act from a place of wealth. And it's really important. When I say wealth, I mean on all levels. You know, if you're surrounding yourself with people around people that are in healthy relationships and they treat each other with love, like you're going to start doing that in your own personal relationships. If you're surrounding yourself with business people that do really well and, and really successful, you're, you're going to start taking on those beliefs, those kinds of mindset. And I'm, I'm going to make Mark super uncomfortable here right now. Right? We, we all know that wealth, money is a, a tool, right? There, there's, there's people that are very wealth. All agree maybe aren't some of the nicest people in the world, right? And then there, there's, there's people like Mark who genuinely want to give. They, they want to help. They, they, you know, it's not, you know, look at me and my awesome Ferrari out in front of my mansion. Kind of an energy. It's like, look at me, let me help you up the mountain. And, and no, no, none of us are all the way at the top of the mountain, right? But we're helping each other. And the more that we can surround ourselves by those kinds of people. And again, preaching to the choir, everybody on this community that's listening to this podcast knows that Mark is such a loving, compassionate person. Like, he wants to help others. And I'll be honest, like, when I was looking at, you know, there's, there's other people out there that, that's, that sell land that they, they, they, they flip land. And, and they're, they're very successful at doing that. And, and some of those programs might be very good for some people, but for me, it's the quality of people that you surround yourself with, right? The, you know what in, in, in, Like, they give so freely of, of themselves. Like, how can I help? How? You know, I can't tell you how since I'm in coaching. How many students have reached out and been like, hey, Herb, how's your line business doing? Is there anything that I can do to help you? You know, they're not getting paid to do that, but it's, it's, it's the kind of people that you're, you're drawn to. And of course, we could say from a very spiritual perspective, right, we're going to draw to us the, the people that are kind of resonating at that same, same energy. And this, this, this, this is. I, I call, I call him Mark, you know, a hippie in disguise. You guys don't know this, but he, he's got so much woo woo going on around him all the time. I'm trying to talk him into, to growing out a man like me, you know, but he's like, yeah, hey, too much or too much. So anyway, like, whatever resonates for you, right? Like, find the people that you want to surround yourself with, you know, surround yourself with friends, family members, business people that are going in the direction that you want to go. And obviously, if you can't find people that are a few steps ahead of you, you know, and that might be on a level of happiness, it might be in a level of relationships. It might be someone that has gotten to where you want to get in your passive income. But also look at, are they happy? Are they content? Because you don't want to get, you know, to that whatever the magical number of passive income is for you and then find out, well, I'm not happy. No one else around me is happy. And, and to me, that, that is so important. I, I don't want to be wealthy and unhappy, you know, I want to be happy all the way through every step of the way, you know, sure. You know, I have financial goals all and I have financial goals. We, we want to grow our passive income for us, we've chosen to do that through the raw land business, but also through teaching, through, through helping and assisting others, because that's what we love. We love to surround ourselves by other people. There's a. You know what? I'm ready to go to my next stage, my, my next level of growth.

I love that. And Herb is actually helping me. And Herb, thank you for the, for the nice words. I've got chills, but, you know, I'm not uncomfortable. And he's actually helping me expand my emotional range so I can take in his really generous, kind words. But it, it's so true in, in the sense that so many people, and I'll. Maybe you see this, too, is that they won't be happy. I'll be happy when. Right. So when that magical amount of money is in my bank account, I'll be happy. When I get to that ideal weight, I'll be happy. When my spouse starts picking up after themselves, I'll be happy. Happy. Well, you know, whatever it is, it's then. And so, you know, Herb just kind of cut to the, the meat of it, which is every moment can be precious. And it's this, this inner game that you're playing. And, you know, whatever happens out there, great, but you can still be completely at peace and not, you know, joyful with whatever is arising. I mean, look.

It'S.

Bad things are inevitably going to happen to us. We are going to lose everyone and everything. We're just all in this, you know, we're all in the kayak together. I know we feel like we should.

Be in a super yacht.

It just goes smooth. But we're in the kayak. There's so much we can't control. And I think having, you know, someone like Herb in my life and Al in my life to help in those turbulent waters when those things come up so that I'm stronger internally. You're stronger internally when those things happen. It's a priceless gift. And I'm so glad that you guys are doing the work that you're doing. And also the passive income that you're hoping to create in the land business is just going to really help you expand out your influence and your reach to help even more people with the gifts that you, you have. So I'll. I spoke a lot there. What are your thoughts?

Yeah, well, you know, you know, you know, firsthand, I have a lot of thoughts on happiness because I have, like, five chapters in my book just on, on happiness. I, I, Yeah, the, the. I'll be happy when is such a, just. I think it's something we all can relate to in some aspect of our lives that we like. We. And it is of course a complete delusion and illusion. It's like from a science perspective, there's so much research now that shows that humans are terrible at predicting what will make us happy in the future. Like Dan Gilbert, like a Harvard professor, he wrote a whole book just on happiness. And was that Stumbling on Happiness?

Yeah, I love, yeah, I love that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And so, you know, he obviously like, he's all in on, on the research. And I think Herb and I, when we look at happiness, like there is, there is more of that unc. Like what's going on unconsciously as well. And the way that I see it is it's. You can do it with happiness and you can do it with the opposite. You can do it with sadness, depression, you know, things negative emotions or states that we don't want. And in both cases the underlying energy is the same and that we're giving. We're. We're attributing our inside internal state to something external. Right. And so on the flip side, right, when you see you're getting angry about literally anything happening, it's, it's, it's easy to look at, you know, externally and say, oh, like that person made me angry. Right. Or you know, this, this, you know, our government shouldn't be doing that or that there's, there's so. There's so much finger pointing happening. But ultimately it's like the, the only place you ever feel any emotion is inside. So actually it's, it's a, it's arising within. And it, that means the pat. The power to, to change that emotional state is also within. And so you know, on, on the happiness side, like there's like this research fascinated me and it's that we all have this kind of happiness set point. Kind of our, our normal just default for our, our own homeostasis that we operate at. And even with, when people win the lottery, they will return. Like they're, of course they're going to get like a momentary spike, but they will eventually just return to their normal happiness set point. And when people are tragedy like being paralyzed in a horrible accident, like again, something that you're like, okay, that's an extreme. Nope. Like a few years later those people are back at their, their normal set point. And so you know, part, part. So part of that is like we, we've we've kind of been wired a certain way. I wouldn't, I Wouldn't necessarily say it's just because we're born that way. It's like what Herb was mentioning. I think we've all picked up a lot of habits and patterns over years, and so we. We've kind of established our.

Our.

Our mental patterns, routines, even our. Our emotions. There's. There's a lot that's kind of done. Just fires off unconsciously after many years of doing things. And. And. But again, like, the. The positive side of that is none of that is fixed. Like, they. You know, there's research showing that things like meditation can rewire your. Your happiness set point. You can start. Start raising it and then even just be becoming more conscious, more aware of some of the. The negative or limiting beliefs or thought patterns in your own head. Like, I. I noticed that for me. And, you know, can continue to make it more conscious of how. Like, how often really, it's just my own mind kind of, you know, but just be, like, being against myself, right? Like that nobody. Nobody else is out to get me. It really is like the haters are. And so with things like meditation and then just really the practice of being aware of, like, oh, my God, that. Like, that thought that just came up, like, that's not. That's not here to help me. And it's not even true. It's. They're just, you know, they're just thoughts. And even. Same with emotions. I think it's. It's a little easier. Sometimes with thoughts, you're like, well, those are just words. Right. But then, like, especially for, like, I feel my emotions very strongly. And it, like, I eventually realized that even emotions, like, they're not reliable sometimes. Right? Like, it. It'll come up. Sometimes it's a thought that you had that just then creates this. This crappy feeling, and you get kind of. You get caught in that. And all of that, again, is fully within our power to change. Which I, like, I think is. It kind of puts. I mean, it puts the responsibility back on us as well. Right. Rather than kind of blaming the external world for things, you can say, wait a minute, I can. I can change this. It's fully within my power.

Yeah. And I think the smart cut is when someone can help you reprogram the unconscious. And so, Herb, if you could just briefly go over. Because I know I. I think you're right. There's so many myths about hypnosis. I just went through it. I. And I don't know. Al told you. Like, Like, I. I once tapped him. Like, I think it was maybe 10 or 15 minutes after his D. And like, maybe it's an hour after, I'm like, is it normal to feel euphoria after a hypnosis session? And I felt so great. And it's like, to your point, like, my emotional happiness set point got raised, and I'm so looking forward to my next session now to just, you know, keep raising that. But, but, Herb, would you mind just going over some of the. The myths and the realities of hypnotherapy? Yeah.

So the. The first thing I got to start out with is, well, while I am a clinical hypnotherapist, I'm also a meditation teacher. I sometimes surprise people and I say, you know, I've been teaching meditation for over 20 years, not practicing, practicing even. Even longer than that. And from a perspective of somebody that does hypnosis and somebody who does meditation, now, there. There's. There's a lot of types of meditation. There's a lot of types of hypnosis. But most people, when they think about hypnosis from a clinical perspective, they think of things like, well, you know, I want to stop smoking. I, you know, I want to lose some weight. You know, I. I want to start going to the gym more. Which are all useful things for hypnosis. But when we. When we look at it, it's basically how do we either create habits that are more useful for us or how do we break habits that are not serving us? You know, picking up the cigarettes isn't. Isn't. Isn't getting me in the direction that I want. Not. Not showing up for myself and, and doing the work that I need to do on the land business. Like, that's. That's, you know, another example. Example. Right. But then from a meditation perspective, we can say, at least the way that we kind of talk about it, how we work on it. Again, there's thousands of different meditations out there, but at the. The root of much meditation out there are many different forms of meditation is letting go of thought. Or as all I was talking about, specifically thoughts that aren't necessarily of service. Right. Or said from a very hypnosis perspective, we need to break the habit of thoughts, okay? Because they're just. They're just running and they're unconscious. We have so many thoughts that just run through our head all the time, just, you know, off doing its own thing. Right.

So, yeah. But I will say, though, in Lost and Found, I was like, well, her, you know, just walking on the beach with no thoughts. I'm like, what do you mean, no thoughts? Yeah, it was so triggering.

Yeah. Yeah, well, and it is for even advanced meditators. And of course we draw a lot of people to us have been meditating for a long time and everyone on the other side of the scale that maybe they've never meditated at all. But when really advanced meditators come in and I say something that, that can trigger people that have been meditating for a long time, which is my definition and it's very, very simple. The definition between a beginner meditator and an intermediate meditator is how long they can go without a thought. And I'm not talking about a trickling up, observing the thought sort of situation. How long can you go with being fully 100% present here in the moment without a thought? And that is a minimum of five minutes. And, and that's, that's the thing I think that, that you're, you're kind of pointing to is like, that's really triggering especially.

To my meditative heart.

But, but I mean it from the most loving perspective because you know, everyone's heard the saying, right? Where your, your focus goes, your energy goes, right? And one example of this is when you hear people observe the thoughts, they, they mistakenly believe that that means focus on the thoughts. And if you focus on thoughts, thoughts are always going to arise. It's going, going to continue to come up. Now we can get to the point where we can let go of thoughts and even more importantly, let go of thoughts. When you're not sitting on your meditation bench or your pillow or doing your yoga practice, like can you, you have a conversation with someone where you're not already thinking about the next thing that you're going to say. Can you actually hold space and be fully 100% there with that person? Well, to me then meditation and hypnosis become very, very similar. And actually it's such a misunderstood subject because even people that have been meditating a long time don't realize that actually meditation and hypnosis are the same state. How, how we get there, what we're doing, you know, you're, you're relaxing the body, you're letting go of thoughts, you're reprogramming something in your unconscious. And oftentimes hypnosis can be a little bit, I, I don't very careful as a shortcut or hack, but it can, it can allow someone to become more present, more conscious whether they have a meditation practice or their, their day to day practice. And that is the opposite of what most people think or they've seen. You know, Popular society talk about hypnosis. You know, there's this idea that hypnosis is some sort of, you know, mind control or they've seen some sort of stage hypnosis where, you know, oh, you know, have people come in and be like, you're not going to make me bark like a dog, are you? No, we're not going to do that. Matter of fact, what we're going to do is we're going to do the opposite of mind control. We're going to give the control back to your mind so you can, you can think when you need to think, or you can think about the things that you want to think about, not your, you know, your mind just going on a rampage. Do it. Doing whatever it needs to. And to give you an example of why this is so ridiculous, like, if that's the way hypnosis worked, you know, I could hypnotize Mark. I'd be like, mark, you're gonna want to give me your entire land, geek community income, and you're, you know, you're gonna want to do all the work for me. And, And Mark would be like, yeah, sure, yeah, that's a great idea. And it's like, well, if that worked, like, you know, man, our society would be in. In a terrible place. Like, you can't control people like that. What you can do is you can align them with what they already want. And, and this is really kind of what we've been talking about this, this, this whole podcast, right? Is it's like there's things that you say you want, whether it's the happiness, it's the passive income, it's the, the, the deeper relationships. Okay, and you. And you're saying it on one level, but your unconscious is giving you other kinds of feedback, right? Sometimes the example that I use is everybody believes in the golden rule, or 99% of people believe in the Golden Rule. Treat others the way that you want to be treated. Turn the cheek. And we know that at a conscious level, and most of us have even had the experience of somebody does something to us. We even know at the conscious level, it's not about us, it's about them. You know, that it's what they're going through in their life in this moment. And mentally, we can say these things, but when we check in with our body, which is how the unconscious communicates to us, and there's a disconnect between, yeah, it's just them. It's where they're at. And you check in on the body and, you know, I'll keep from cussing on the, on, on the podcast, but your internal dialogue says something else about that person, right? It's like you. Okay, well, there's where the disconnect between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind is. And all the work that we do in hypnotherapy is really, hey, I say I want this thing now. I want to align all levels of my consciousness and being to do that. I want to be happier. I want to have deeper relationships. I want to show up for myself and other people in a better way. Now. That's, that's the work that, that we do. And I'll throw one other thing onto that. Hypnosis in, in, in, in many realms isn't as regulated as it should be. Like maybe in, you know, psychotherapy, you know, these sort of things. So sometimes those hear people say something like, I can't be hypnotized. I, I get this all the time, right? I get people coming in my office. I, I went to hypnotherapist and I, I wasn't able to be hypnotized between the hundreds and thousands of people that I've worked with. That, that's never been an issue. You know, every, everybody can go into hypnosis if they want. Usually what becomes the issue is somebody did like a weekend workshop and now they're calling themselves a hypnotherapist. And that is very different from somebody who spen years working with people, developing their skills, doing lots of training. It's actually how our year program here in Guatemala started is I had a lot of people that I was working with teaching and they said, herb, please, please give us more than the six week residency program. Please, like, like, like mentor us to, to do what, what you, you do. And I was like, you know, like, that's, that's a big commitment. Like, and, and if I were to do that, I want to do everything that I could do to trigger the crap out of you. And they're like, what? I'm like, I, I want to bring up all the unprocessed things that you're not dealing with. Because if you, if you don't do that, then, then you're going to project that on the clients, the people that you're working with. And it, and it kind of started as a joke, to be honest. I said, okay, you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to move in with all ni and you're gonna have to commit your. Of not only working on yourself, but also working on others. And I kind of threw that out as a joke. And before I know it, people are like, signing up. They're. They're like, when. When can we start? Can. Can. Can we come do this? Like, when. When does it start? When. When we started our, our, our. When we finally started it. I said, okay, no more than five people, though. And people kept sneaking into the, to the Live in program. I'm like, you're going to move from. We had people from all over the world, from Europe, from the United States, from all over the place that, that literally said, I'm going to drop everything that I'm doing to move to Guatemala for an entire year and to do this insane program where we're doing meditation, we're doing hypnosis, we're working an hour.

Of meditation every morning.

Our meditation straight up every day. And we, we literally had something. And like, it's such a funny thing just to, to see how much people actually want to work on themselves. Because when, when the program started, day one, I looked around everybody and I said, listen, I don't think all of you are going to make it. Like, it is going to be the toughest program. Like, it's, it's hard, hard doing therapy, period. It's hard learning a new skill set, period. It's hard living with other people in a community because, you know, your own stuff is going to go up and you're going to start triggering people, and then you're going to do all of your inner work on top of that, and you're going to work with other people. Like that. That is like a lot of things that's, that's going to come up during the year and, and everyone's like, okay, we're in on it. And we literally had something that we called Trigger Tuesday, where every Tuesday we would get together and we would start by talking about what triggered us throughout the week. And in the beginning of Trigger Tuesday, it was as all I was saying, you know, a lot of finger pointing. You know, it's out there. You know, she said that, he said that. And, you know, I was, I was really upset when you said this to me, Herb, you know, kind of kind of a thing. But as we went deeper in the process of. It's never about what it's about, it's what's inside. Very quickly, all the students consciousness had shifted to. Wow. I really found myself getting upset that about what somebody else is doing, but I became aware of. That's my own thing. I'm. I'm projecting my, my, my, my own, my own things onto it. So this is a really long way of answering, you know, how do you dispel or kind of talk about, like, what hypnosis is like? Obviously, you know, we spent over a year, every day, eight hours a day, working on not only hypnosis, but higher states of consciousness, dealing with your own stuff, like, you know, all those things. It's a huge, huge subject. But at the end of the day, it comes down to taking responsibility for the. The things that are showing up in your. Your own life, which is another big mistake. Sake. People sometimes have this misconception when hypnosis is like, well, I'm going to come to hypnosis. Herb's going to hypnotize me, snap his fingers, and then, like, I'm going to go to the gym every day. I'm going to, you know, stop smoking cigarettes. And it's like, technically I could probably do some of those things, but I'm not interested in that. Like. Like, if. If those are the kinds of, like, things that you expect to get from a healer, hypnotherapist, like, there, there's other people, people that. That will play that game. What I'm interested in is how can we give the power back to you? How can we empower you to be the kind of person that's always continuing to grow in all aspects of your life and then, like, taking responsibility for that and then a continual improvement. So, in a nutshell, that. That's what hypnotherapy is to me. How can we help you to have more power, more control, to move in the direction in life that's. That's most important to you? And yes, along the way, we're going to find unconscious patterns, you know, old belief systems from our. From our environment or these things that we've. We've picked up along the way that are. That aren't of service anymore. And yeah, we. We got to work at the unconscious level to move. Move those, but that's. That's where. Then it gets exciting because you. You start to learn. Actually, I can make these shifts and understand why in the past, perhaps you didn't, but now you can.

I love that. I love that this podcast has been such a gift. You guys are just gems, beams of light. Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing so much wisdom, and I'm just really excited about the future of working with both of you and growing as well. So many opportunities for growth, as Herb would say. So your mentorship has been amazing, but we're at that point in the podcast now where I'm going to ask you both for a tip of the week. A website, a resource, maybe another book. Luck. I was, you know, thrown out. Stumbling on Happiness, Something Tangible where our passive income listeners can go improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got, Alan? We'll start with you.

So actually the, the book that has. For Herb and I are actually in the middle of reading it together. It's something we like to do as an evening ritual is. I will. I'll read aloud to him. I wish we had like a fireplace or, you know, like something, but it's the Power of Habit and I forget the guy's name is Charles something. Yes. Yeah, that's the one great book. Yeah, it's. It's such a great book. And, and again, because we, we kind of put everything through the lens of like the, the more spiritual aspect or just how it affects consciousness. And so even though it's, it's packed with hardcore scientific research, I think there's a component to all of it that is a little more woo woo as well. That just the right balance of exactly everything. We've been talking about how you can make habits that actually stick that and, and just, you know, replace. Replace ones that you don't want with ones that you do want.

Yeah. He has another book that just came out I think a year ago as well, about like, I think it's like relationships and. Yeah, I can't remember it, but it was good. It was, it was good. Not as good as Power of Habit, but good. Herb, what's your tip of the week?

My tip of the week is Purple socks.

Purple socks.

Yes, that's the purple socks.

So it is Tuesday and I am triggered.

Yeah.

Or at least confused.

Right.

What, what's purple socks? I'm going to explain that a little bit. Paula and I, you know, through our Live in programs, we, we've been teaching, we've been sharing a lot of these things. But this year specifically, we said, you know, we want to expand this out to more people. Like, not everybody can, can move to Guatemala and live with us for a year, which, you know, is reasonable. And I was talking with Allah and I said, you know, how can, how can we share this with more people? And most importantly, how can we give it to as many people as. As we can. People who basically want to do their work, they want to show up every week. They want to essentially build these habits of expanding their consciousness in whatever aspects of life that's important to them.

Them.

And I said, let's create A club that is absolutely free, that anyone can come to and that we can talk about the very things that we're talking about right now. And there, there's, there's something very, very special to me, why we decided to call this the Purple Socks Club. Okay. And that's something if, if you want to learn, you're going to have to come to our Purple Socks Club. Basically what it is, is every Sunday we get together on Zoom. We talk a little bit about meditation. We, more importantly though, we talk about how are you applying this every single day in your own life? And then you're going to come back the next week and you're going to talk about what worked, what didn't, and surround yourself with a group of people that, that they understand. Like the most important thing we can do is, is to work on ourselves and to surround ourselves with the group with that. Now we are also going to throw in a little bit, it's optional. We're going to throw in a little book club with this where we also. We'll just pick one book on consciousness a month and if someone chooses to read it, they can read it. But we'll, we'll talk about the chapters that we read that week and how maybe it's applying in our life because it's so important that we, we don't just read a book. We don't just take the seminar, you know, whatever material we're consuming. But like, how are we imply applying it to our lives? And you know, what, what opportunities for growth are, are, are showing up in that. Right? What, what speed bumps along the way. Can, can, can we look at that?

So I, and wearing. I just want it, I just want to add the. Wearing purple socks is completely optional. It's not required. So it's more of a metaphor that's undecided.

You know, we, we'll see.

I'm definitely signing up for the Purple Socks Club.

Yeah. So, so come to the Purple Socks Club. You can, you, you can, you can find that on our website, theblock lotus.com it's every Sunday. It's absolutely free. Anybody can come that show up and you know, see, see how we can help you to expand where there's literally. We haven't talked much about this on this, but it's, it's love. It's this true spiritual relationship where true love doesn't have any strings attached. You don't love somebody because you're going to get something right? And this, this club, the Purple Socks Club, is a true. No strings attached. Anyone can show up at any time. It's absolutely, absolutely free. There's no sales pitch. It just show up for yourself and show up for, for everyone else. So we love to have you there. It's, it's a community where everybody gets to contribute their own wisdom because all of you guys have your, your own wisdom that you can bring and share with us.

Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of love, I don't know if I'm gonna make Allah uncomfortable. I love you both. Both. And as great as your tips of the week were, they're not as good as mine. I'm gonna give two. The first is going to be Allah's lost and found book. We will have a link to her book on Amazon. It is absolutely amazing. It doesn't matter. Ideally, if you're, you know, a young woman, you're really going to relate to it in your 20s and 30s, searching for love. But really it, it's good. It's, it's a great book for everybody. I highly recommend it. It's a phenomenal read. So smart, so fun, so funny, so spiritually deep and, and so wise. And if you are not into scuba diving, after that book you will be and theblacklotus.com join me. Sign up for hypnosis sessions with Herb. I'd love to hear what your, your breakthroughs have been as I share my breakthroughs as well. And you know, I'm definitely going to be, you know, offering up for our one on one coaching clients. It'll be on me. But I would if, if you are interested and you're listening to this, I will be gifting you one session with Herb. And if you want to continue on that path, path that's on your own. But I definitely would be happy to do that for you. So let me know. And speaking of gifts, if you do me a favor, dear listener, and you send a screenshot of your, of your review of the Art of Passive Income podcast to support@thelandgeek.com I'm going to send you for free olives book. Look Lost and found. So please do that as well. All right. Allah. Herb, this has been great.

Wow. Incredibly generous, Mark. Thank you so much. And I'm gonna slide it in to. We love you too. Like for listeners that don't know all, it teases me all the time. She says, how is your bromance with Mark? And it's going deeper every day.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, look, I'm my, my inner man bun is expanding as, as my heart is expanding and thank you guys so much. It is just. You're just pure joy and just. You guys ready to do this together? I don't know if Allah knows something what we're doing. You ready? Oh, you do? One, two, three. Let freedom freedom.

I. I picked up on it, though.

Take two, Take two.

All right, ready? One, one, two, three. Let. Let freedom freedom ring.

Yeah.

You know, we have to do it a second podcast episode because we didn't even talk about the. The crazy eight pretzel time thing in a bood. That's. That story is insane. We'll have to do that.

Absolutely. All right.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, guys. Enjoy Texas Herb. Be well, and bye for now. Thanks, everybody.

Bye. Thanks for listening to the Art of Passive Income podcast. Are you ready to to learn how you can start building a passive income without renters, rehabs, renovations, or rodents? Schedule a free consultation@thelandgeek.com training let freedom ring.