How To Listen To Your Inner Voice | Emily Fletcher

So I'm with Emily Fletcher here, whom I mentioned several times in the book the Code of the Extraordinary Mind. Emily is a friend. She's one of the world's greatest meditation teachers. At least I consider you so. And Emily teaches at her own school, which is called Ziva Z I V A in New York City. And Ziva Meditation is her website. So I've learned so much about Emily, and what I really like about Emily is, is how she demystifies meditation. She demystified so much of this stuff that many people consider woo, woo. And as a result, she speaks at Google, she speaks at Harvard. And today, though, Emily, we're not going to talk about meditation, which I know is your. Is the main thing you teach. I want to talk about a different idea I learned from you, and that was the idea that we occasionally get a calling, and you refer to it as nature. Some people call it your higher self or the universe. Emily uses the word nature. And in the book, I share a story that Emily shared with me about how when nature comes calling, you've got to listen. So, Emily, we want to explore this topic a little bit more. And one of the things I want you to tell us is we want to hear your story of how you listened. Right. Because you pulled off something really remarkable. You went from being a Broadway actress to. To starting a really phenomenally successful business in a relatively short amount of time with no business training whatsoever. How did that happen?

Well, I think a lot of it was timing. I sort of hit meditation right before it became super cool. And as you know, meditation is the most amazing tool there is. And now there's so much neuroscience, you know, backing it up that I think you can't. You don't have to do it, but you can't write it off as nonsense anymore. So that really helped. But a lot of it was really, like you said, listening to nature, what I would call following charm, which is basically listening to that still small voice inside. You know, I was an actress for a really long time, and I was in Los Angeles, and my boyfriend at the time, he and I broke up. And then a month later, he called and said, what I meant to say was, will you move in with me? And I just thought about it and I said yes. And I left my whole life in la and I moved back to New York, and it was the first time I had ever put my personal life before my professional life. And then my career blew up. And so it was a really. I mean, blew up in a good way. So it was a really Good lesson in putting your desires and your personal life before you're like, quote unquote, like goals. So I know that might not sound like specifically like what you're talking about, but it was what I wanted to do. So I actually think that nature communicates to us through our desires. Now, the trick there is that if you're still living a life where you're addicted to stuff, right, where you think that the coffee is going to give you energy, or that alcohol is going to make you happy, or that the money is going to make you happy, then you're still living a life of all my happiness lies out here. And you're dependent on that stuff. Once you start a meditation practice, you start to be more self referral for your happiness versus object referral for your happiness. And once you're in that space, then it's much easier to hear those downloads and to hear when nature comes a knocking. So the way I like to illustrate this is let's anthropomorphize nature, right? Let's say that Nature is the CEO of a company, right? And let's say it has 10 employees, right? And five of them come to work, they're late, they're tired, they're hungover, they're not completing the tasks. And then the other five employees, they show up 10 minutes before work starts. They've completed all their tasks from the previous day. They have all these creative ideas and suggestions about the new project. Like, who do you think you're going to give the raise to? Who do you think you're going to give the promotion to? Who are you going to give your next idea and your next project to? And so if we think about Nature as the CEO and we're all the employees, Nature's looking for people who are awake and on time and taking action and executing to give the new ideas to. So the example that I use is that, you know that nature's just looking for people who are awake and who are willing to take action. And it just has ideas and projects that it wants birthed, right? And so I used to date this pop star back in the day and he used to wake up in the middle of the night and go. And then he would wake up and he'd start writing something down. I'd be like, what are you doing? Come back to bed. And he'd be like, no, I got to write it down. Otherwise I'm going to hear this song on the radio in two months.

Wow.

That was my first sort of window into this. But then I saw this documentary about Michael Jackson, it was this is it. And they were interviewing his manager and he said that Michael Jackson used to call him all the time. At 3, 4, 5 in the morning, he'd be like, michael, what is it? It's in the middle of the night. And Michael would be like, get up, I need you to write something down. And be like, what is it? And Michael would say, fireflies, we need fireflies on the stage show. And he's like, michael, come on, this can wait till tomorrow, can it? They're like, no, write it down. And he was like, michael, let's just do it tomorrow. Be like, no, because if we don't do it, Prince will. And this just cracked me up because I was like, wait, the only guy innovating as fast as Michael Jackson was Prince, right? And so like that was the guy, like nipping at his heels, like he was getting these downloads and he knew that if he didn't take action, if he didn't bring it into the manifest, that nature would just look for the next person who was awake and ready to execute.

I love that story. And I remember after we had this conversation, because I get so many business ideas, but I often put them to the side because I have a business to run. But I started approaching these ideas differently. The next idea I got, I immediately started acting in it. And not going full steam, but acting in it, sharing it with people, building mock ups to see what people thought. And as I did that, the idea just started developing further and further and further. And now we're launching this beautiful new technology which I'm so excited about in the next six months. But I love what you say and I think it's so important to listen to those gut feelings that come to you. You are the chosen one.

Yeah. You are the chosen one. And if you choose not to take action, nature will choose someone else.

So thank you, Emily. Any final words for the people watching?

Yes, just that when you hear that still small voice of intuition whispering, listen and then take action. Because the faster you take action, the more inspiration you're going to get. It becomes a beautiful upward spiral.

That's. I want to add something to that. I remember reading the book Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, right? And Napoleon Hill talks about the idea of baby steps, right? Baby steps. They are so important. And I remember hearing this joke. I can't remember where I heard it, but the joke goes like this. There was a guy who really wanted to win the lottery. So he would meditate every day visualizing himself winning the lottery. Then he started praying to God every day, praying to win the lottery. And then a month passes and a year passes, and diligently, five times, ten times a day, he would meditate, visualize, pray to God about winning the lottery. And then 50 years pass and he's continuing to do this. And one day he's crossing a street and boom, he gets hit by a bus. So he ends up in heaven. He meets God, and he asks, God, what's the deal? Like, I did this every single day, 10 times I asked you to help me win the lottery, and God said, you could have at least bought a ticket. So the idea is that take a baby step. And in Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich, he talks about baby steps. And he says the baby steps show intention. You don't have to know if you're taking the right baby step, just take a step. If you're thinking about starting a company, but you don't have the right idea, well, go and register a company name. That's what I did when I registered Mindvalley. That's a baby step. But here's what happens as you take these baby steps. The next bit of information comes, and then the next bit. And so if this is the goal, your baby step may be off mark, but you start autocorrecting, and soon you hit the goal. So most people are waiting for that straight answer to come. It doesn't come that way. You gotta go with what you get. You autocorrect and boom, you hit the goal. And the baby steps are really, really, really important. You got to act on that inspiration.

Yeah, that's so beautiful. And it reminds me of something else that I always tell people that, you know, when you get an inspiration, people then worry about, well, when is it going to happen? And how should I do it? But the when and the how are not our job. It's the what and the why. What do I want and why do I want it? And if you can get clear on that, and then you take those baby steps, the when and the how take care of themselves.

Right?

But we're trying to control that. Control the outcome or control the timing. When really, it's just you get the download, you take the action, and you autocorrect along the way. And then whatever is meant to show up will show up.

And that is what we mean by living from inspiration. So thank you for joining us for this quick little interview with Emily Fletcher.

Bye, friends.