Know Thyself - E114 - Preston Smiles: The Freedom Frequency: How To Realize You’re Already Abundant

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

Preston Smiles reveals how to overcome the labels that limit us and create a life of alignment, abundance, and fulfillment. He shares this through the lens of his personal journey: growing up in "lack mentality", being labeled as a special needs kid, and eventually beginning to question it all.He discusses the pivotal moments that woke him up from this limited view of reality and caused him to transform his life - going from being a surf instructor to a multi-millionaire.He reflects on the true meaning of 'spiritual millionaire' and how we can heal our relationship to money and manifest effortlessly.He explores key themes such as how worthiness and identity shape our reality, the healing process of clearing, cleaning, and claiming, and how relationships serve as a powerful container for personal growth.André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books___________0:00 Intro2:19 Abundance as Our Natural State 4:33 Being Labeled as a 'Special Needs' Kid14:10 The Advice That Changed His Life21:17 Turning Points that Opened His Eyes30:02 How to Rewire Our Reality From the Nervous System36:24 Worthiness & Identity Shapes our Reality44:12 Clearing, Cleaning, and Claiming53:17 Relationships as a Container for Growth1:02:07 Finding Freedom in Commitment1:07:24 Discerning if You Should Stay or Go1:10:37 Redefining the ‘Role’ of a Man1:15:52 The 7 Laws of Abundance1:23:13 Releasing Attachment while Manifesting1:32:47 Becoming Resourceful and Starting Today1:38:39 Conclusion___________Preston Smiles has helped thousands of people become the best versions of themselves with his enormously popular videos and speaking engagements all over the world. Unapologetically Himself, Preston Smiles is the epitome of someone who’s committed to the work and to humanity. As a Personal Freedom Coach, Multi-Millionaire Conscious businessman, father, husband, experiential speaker, and author, Preston Smiles is force to be reckoned with on the personal growth scene.New Book "Spiritual Millionaire" https://prestonsmiles.com/book?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaag98CSfXtXS13ENWZ_QDQ_4WQHEdssCE9tfEosZHK39sJI1m51hlbuNEs_aem_Zr533bYeq0yIr9RayejOcQInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/prestonsmiles/Website: https://prestonsmiles.com___________Know ThyselfInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/Website: https://www.knowthyself.oneClips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKgListen to all episodes on Audio: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927André DuqumInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/

Right now, all of us have something we've sensed, something that's calling us. I believe that what we seek is seeking us, that what you want wants you. Who we say we are, we spend the rest of our lives trying to prove. So many people come into my work and they'll say, I'm just shy. And I'm like, that's not who you are. That's who you became. And I'm glad you did because it kept you safe. But do you want to keep it?

The current identity that you have is not yours. It is a well-crafted mask. And the worst thing we could do to ourselves is to continuously live a life of default. Bro, I was a surf instructor living with my mom. I'm now a multi-millionaire. And how I even got there was by doing this over and over and over again. And that is we all buy in to materialism, capitalists. And yet, can you play the game from a full heart?

That to me is what makes me a spiritual millionaire, not based on what's in my account, but based on what's in my consciousness. When you can meet seemingly limited scenarios with unlimited love and consciousness, you win forever, period. Hey, everyone, welcome back to know thyself. Our guest today is an author, a teacher, a leader, a father, a husband, somebody who really spreads love and has helped countless people over the past decade plus reach their full potential. This conversation is going to be wide encompassing, but I think really helping us arrive at home within herself and receive the fact that we are worthy of an abundant, prosperous life. Preston

smiles, thanks for being here, man. Let's get it. Yes, sir. Thank you for having me. Thank you for choosing to step in the way that you have such that, not just myself because I watched the podcast, my wife watches the podcast, but all the other people who get to be blessed because you said yes. That's a big deal, bro. Thank you. So thank you. And I, I receive your thank you because I'm awesome as hell just like you. Yes. I'm so excited. This conversation is going to be, I think, really impactful for a lot of people just because

of how you decide to show up and who you be and how you show up. So thank you for the reflection. I want to just start by asking, do you think that abundance is our natural state of being? I do. I do. and the reason for that is I have these beautiful children that I've watched coming onto the planet in this perfect form. And even as recent as like 12 hours ago, you know, at 5 a.m., my son was in there screaming, Daddy, Daddy! And I watch how, and that was the two-year-old.

I have four-year-old twins. I have a two-year-old and I'm a six-year-old. And I watch how they navigate and ride the waves of the human experience and none of it sticks to them. And because none of it sticks to them, because they haven't been programmed and conditioned socially and historically because they haven't been programmed, it's like they are just walking, talking abundance bundles. And they have enough.

abundance of poop and an abundance of tears and an abundance of joy and like the wonder of discovering a world is fantastic to me bro i'm i like i'm blown away by all kids and animals and humans but my kids give me a break bro it's crazy so good i fully agree with you and i think that if abundance is our natural state of being and we come in you know we have our genetic programming we have maybe some of say, karmic stuff that we kind of come and printed with. But abundance is our natural state of being. And you say like there's abundance of really just the fullness of life from the full spectrum, you know, what's natural has not become normal for so many of us. And the process of deconditioning into realizing who we actually are that is in alignment with freedom and abundance

is the journey of being human. And I know for you, you've had quite an incredible journey being human, starting back, you know, where you grew up in an environment that, by all standards should have informed you because of the environment that you were in and the people that you were around to not be living the life that you're living, you know, right now. And so I want to start far back. How did being placed in special needs inform your psychology? How did that label become your limit? Yeah. First of all, thank you for doing your research. And I'll say that from this current perspective, I feel like I was entrusted with that label. I was entrusted with that trauma,

entrusted with the shame. And I say that, and I can say it now in hindsight, because that's what's awesome about humans. We have reflective consciousness. In hindsight, I can look back and go, ah, I wouldn't be able to reach into the depths of compassion and empathy that I currently can without having an experience of the one that I did. And so I believe that all of us, there's four aspects of what it means to be human. And I'll answer your question, but I'm going to teach a little bit inside of it

because I'll make it about me. So there's four aspects of what it means to be human. First one, we're biological beings. We know there's a lot going on in these bodies. Second one, we are linguistic beings, right? We build worlds with our language. without the distinction of door and door knob getting out of this room would be very challenging. But the moment I have a distinction in the language for door and door knob, world's open to me.

The third one, and this is the one, is we are social and historical beings, born into beliefs and interpretations. And so my mom and dad, very early, they moved out of Compton to Harbor City, California to give us a better life. And although they moved addresses, their consciousness, the way that they were socially and historically programmed didn't change that much. And so my mom's trauma and shame and pain and all of her beauty and joy and creativity was transferred. and I was held in that. My dad's trauma and pain and shame and demons were all there and all of his beauty and his artistry and his love was also there

and I was raised in that. And so while our address changed physically, internally, they were very much still the same. And so very early on, my mom, and she's apologized for this, my mom is amazing. She is so beautiful and such a good person. My mom and dad used to argue about whether I was special.

Like there's something wrong with him kind of thing. And given that I have children now, my kids are four. My parents started arguing about whether I was not okay around two. And by the time I was, I think seven or eight, they decided to take me out of the normal class with all of my friends and put me in a special needs class. with Down syndrome, children, and things of that nature. And so from a social and historical standpoint,

the beliefs and interpretations that I was born into was that I was lower than everybody else. The story I made up in my 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old consciousness was that I was not like everyone else. I was special in my messed-upness. And what's interesting about that is who we are, say we are consciously and subconsciously we spend the rest of our lives trying to prove and so that was a

like a snapshot a program in my mainframe now the fourth level of consciousness for those of you tracking is we are quantum beings right and so that's the buddha nature the christ consciousness that's that moment when the mollie hits and you realize that there's nothing else to do that's that moment in the mushrooms or the ayahuasca or that moment in church where you're like you get the holy ghost and you get that there is nothing other than God all of those inform how we are as humans and i got so messed up that i hit the bottom and from the bottom there's so much possibility i had plenty moments and i'm sure we'll get to it but i want to leave space for you to you to you know, probe.

But there's been so many moments from that that have shaped why I am the type of coach that I am, why I believe in abundance the way that I do, why I wrote a book called Spiritual Millionaire and like to defy all the odds and to use the laws of the universe in our favor, bro, there is nothing better than that once you get it.

I think a lot of people can relate being labeled early on by society, parents, whole figures, whatever it is. And we just don't really have the depth of understanding, like is the reality that there are many different types of intelligences from intellectual, emotional, kinesthetic, musical. Like there's so many different ways in which the beauty of intelligence of life shines through us all uniquely. I'm just curious, what did they uniquely see in you that made them think that you were neurodivergent? and being raised in an environment where a lot of people had, like, autism or Down syndrome, and you didn't. What would, like, what was the reason for that? So the LA Unified School District, uh, shout out to them. I've hated you for quite a while, but I've come to forgive and for, not forget, but I forgive.

Um, they were very quick to label me because they put me through some test. I wasn't keeping up. What they didn't know at that time was that I was dyslexic. So there's dyslexia. And they didn't understand that interpersonal skills is an intelligence. They didn't understand that how I was with other beings was absolutely amazing. And so they tested me and they told my mom, okay, he's Einstein level over here. But all of these areas, he's like a toddler.

So your son is seven, eight years old, but he's testing like a two-year-old over here. And because they didn't, this is 1986, 87, they didn't really do too much more. I became like a throwaway kid, another statistic, put them in the system. And you know what's beautiful? My mom told this story the other day to a friend and I didn't remember it until she said it. She said when I graduated from elementary school, I got an award, like a kindness award or something. and all the autistic Down syndrome kids stood up and cheered so loud for me. And she said it was one of her proudest moments because the teachers told her that whenever

somebody bullied them, whenever somebody was, you know, trying to take advantage of them or making fun of them, that I would go and fight those kids and like, you know, step in. And it's stories like that that make me say I was in. trusted. I was gifted by being put in that space. It didn't always feel that way, obviously, for a long time, like a long time. I didn't feel like I belonged. And belonging is one of the core most important pieces to all of humanity. You want to hurt somebody? Make them an other. Separate them. Solitary confinement. The worst thing you could do. That. Yeah. So then take us a little bit the journey as you started to realize that there was a label put on you and wasn't an intrinsic

reality like we're all unique beings and intelligence is coming through you differently how looking back now connecting the dots do you think that informed you to serve the way that you're serving now and how it unlocked your empathy and skill sets and different things so children adapt right all of us are reaching towards the sun and we reach towards our parental figures and anybody else for love because we want to belong. And so out of an adaptation, because my parents were really stressed out and had a lot going on, I became an out-of-the-way kid, right? Some people have depressed parents, they become cheer-or-upper kids. Some people have violent parents. They become, you know, shy, better seen and heard kids. We all adapt. And so I adapted by not having many needs. I learned how to

get my own needs met. I learned how to fill my own cup. And then from there, I gave from the overflow, right? And so as a child, home wasn't necessarily safe for me. But when I got outside with my friends, I felt free. And again, going back to interpersonal skills and navigating, I grew up in a neighborhood with like 100 boys. And so we would be biking and jumping fences and fighting and throwing rocks and doing stupid stuff. And when I was 11, I joined a local gang, if you may, and I started smoking weed. And I had one of the most pivotal moments of my life. It still reverberates at my head to this day. My dad caught me and my friends smoking weed. And instead of hitting me or punishing me, he sent my friends away and he said, I want you to spend the next 20

four hours thinking about whether you want to keep doing that. I'm like, I'm 11, so I'm like, what is, what do you mean? And he's like, because you told me you want to be like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. But if you do what the boys on the corner are doing, if you do what the gangsters are doing, then you're going to have their life. So I want you to think about whose life you want. Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson or the gangsters on the corner. And I went to speak and he said, no, no, no. We'll talk tomorrow. So he let me sit in it for 24 hours. So 24 hours goes by. My dad and I sit down. He asked me and I say, yeah, I don't want to do that. I want to be like Michael Jordan. I want to be disciplined. He says, that's beautiful. And then parents, listen to this. This was genius

of my father. He said, you know what, Preston? You're a leader. And you're such a leader that if everybody else is going left, but something in you says go right, you will do it anyway. Because that's who you are. And then he just left me in it. Like left me. Now watch this. Fast forward to 15 years old. I had this best friend named Scott and Rudy. And I had this best friend named Scott and Rudy. And we would get in this Rudy's blue astro van and we would go to liquor stores throughout L.A. And by the way, side note, I've went back and paid for all that I'm about to tell you right now. So we'd go to different liquor stores and we'd walk in as 15 and 16 year old kids and grab as much alcohol as we could, walk to the counter, pretend like we're going to pay

and then run out. Right. So I tell you know, I've done like I've done like 50. of these, right? And so fast forward to this particular night where Scott calls me. He's like, yo, we're going to do the thing. And something, I couldn't even spell intuition, but something said don't go. Like literally don't go. And I was like, ah, I think I'm a chill, man. He was like, oh, don't be a beep. I'm like, no, I think I'm a chill, bro. And he's like, bro, come on. My dad's voice pops in my head from 11 years. year's old. You're a leader. If everybody else is going left, but something in you says go right, you choose that. I hang up the phone and within one hour of hanging up that phone, my best friend,

Scott, and everybody else in that van was shot. And Scott was shot in the head and died. So that for me, after moving through the survivor's guilt and all the other, like, why did I say no? I didn't say no the day before, the day before, the day before. Why was I saved? What was that voice? It was like all these things coming forward, right? Because it was actually the intuitive hit first, then my dad's voice second. Something said, don't go.

Now I'm going to tell you two more stories later on that connects all of this. but the work in all of this is receptivity. Somehow, some way in my 15-year-old consciousness, I was open enough to receive a message. Don't go. I didn't. And my friends all got shot. And so that was one of the first big, like, oh,

there's something else going on here. And it gave me spaciousness. I got to go, like, okay. So this whole thing could be gone. in a split second. There's more to life than being a 15 year old kid. And so I got to like peek into the veil of like what is what's really happening here. Whoa.

Man, I got chills. That's wild. Yeah, bro. That is so wild, man. And just like the following, like that's a traumatizing thing to go through as a kid when your friends get killed. Like what, where did you go from that? I'm just curious immediately how to process that. I didn't.

I didn't even cry. I didn't even cry. I'll never forget my mom, I was in the backseat of her white Camry, Toyota Camry in 1990. She drove the next day with me to Scott's house. And as we turned the corner, my window was down. As we turned the corner,

we could hear his mom wailing. My baby, my baby. They stole my baby. They took my baby. Oh, man. you want to talk about heartbreak. As a parent now, I'm like, oh, that is a grief that nobody ever should touch. Damn, getting emotional.

Just thinking about it. As a 15-year-old, I had already been beat out of the big boys don't cry stuff, so I didn't even know how to access the tears. I just ran. I ended up going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I went to an all-white high school and had a completely different experience, but the same experience, which even further solidified

that we were living in the Matrix. Such a trip, bro. There's so many important things I could highlight within all of that, man. First, just the intuitive hits where there's intelligence that we all have access to, but sometimes we lose access to. And that reinforcement your father gave

as a set point, like, it's so amazing that he gave you the space for you to make the difference. decision and it wasn't top down. It was bottom up. He allowed that to happen, which is incredible. Who knows if you didn't do that, if you would be here today, you know, which is just wild to think about. I think of those four realities from biological to the second linguistic and how the linguistic prisons that we create, more that are created for ourselves very young, become the reality that we think is possible. The people that we think we can hang around, the amount of money that we

think we can live, the type of woman or man that we can attract as a partner, all of it. And as this podcast, the intention I really wanted to help in weaving today is helping people access more of the true freedom of themselves as the quantum being. And raise your, of course, which I've heard you share. Yes. And so as we start to dive deeper into this process and excited to hear more how your story weaves into this all, but you started to eventually get out of this linguistic programming. And I would, I would love for you to tie into your wisdom with your story as how you started to do so. And as the, you know, veil started to lift and he started to see your kind of reality in the matrix for what it was. Yes. How you went from that reality to where

you are now, which is an incredibly abundant, happy, loving father, parent, and husband and creating, you know, a very fulfilling life. Yeah. Yeah, man. It's a trip, bro. Um, here. Here's what I'll say. I teach this all the time to my students and it's that there's only two games ever happening. The outside end game, which essentially states if my outer circumstances are affirming that I'm doing good, then I feel good, right? If I got the right amount of likes, if my booty looks perfect, if, if, uh, you know, my bank account looks a particular way, if my wife or girlfriend or boyfriend looks at me and compliments me, then I feel good. That's the outside in game. The second game, and it's the one I do my best to play always,

is the inside out game, where we get, understand, and experience that each of us is a unique emanation of the most high, whatever name, That is for you, here to reflect and reveal God's love in only the way that we can. So here's my philosophy. I don't believe in a God that makes mistakes. I don't believe in a universe that makes mistakes. I don't believe in a Jesus that makes mistakes. Whatever name is most potent for you, I don't believe that there is a single leaf

blowing on a tree outside of this room, that is a mistake. And if that's true, then nowhere I've gone and nowhere I will go will ever be wrong or bad or anything other than an expression of God. So what we do as humans is we put them in little compartments. And we say, this is the good compartment and this is the bad and this is the, duh. For me, it's all one compartment because my belief is that God is like electricity. Electricity literally never says no. It always says yes.

And electricity only has one question. And that question is, do you have the infrastructure to plug up this iPhone? Do you have the infrastructure to plug up this Tesla? Do you have the infrastructure to plug up this city? Because if you do, yes. Have you built a body? that can hold it. So I teach my students and I've taught myself

to build a somatic body, Soma, meaning the wisdom of the body, build a somatic body that can hold everything we say we want and then some. So the work has worked me in such a way that I've understood, like I've told my students, people will come to me and say, oh my God, I'm depressed, like how do I get out of this?

And I'll say, okay, I hear you. hear you on the labeling of you are this. And what's the last beautiful thing you saw? I saw this little cute puppy at the playground today. I'm like, okay, perfect. If the puppy can be cute and beautiful, and the rainbow can be beautiful and astonishing. And the giggle of the baby can be,

then how how can you see that and not understand that you are that too because the same god the same creator that made the puppy that made the rainbow that makes the planets rotate is you too that would be like saying hey this branch on this side of the tree is wrong bad dirty and ugly and depressed and this side is beautiful it's all one and the only thing that's in our way is the distortion that there's there's something other than God happening. I literally don't think there's anything other than God happening. And you understand, like, if I stand in front of a mirror and I do the robot, the only thing that that mirror can reflect back to me is the robot.

And whatever it reflects back, if I choose to see God in it, I won. I won. Somebody cuts me off? God. something doesn't go my way God something does go my way God

because the my way is limited right it's so limited so I had a heart condition come up at 25 I was working at Abercrombie and Fitch

with my shirt off standing in front nice one of those guys and I literally was forced it sometimes right it's the whisper the tap and the two by four yeah the whisper was you know

all the other moments the openings I read the autobiography of Malcolm X when I was 21 and then I started surfing that summer that was like a whisper like hey there's more there's more than what you perceive in your black boy paradigm

right what if you let go of black and black people don't black people don't serve, black people, what if you let go of that paradigm linguistically and open yourself to what if you're infinite? So that was a whisper. I had a skin condition come up. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

No doctors could figure it out, they just gave me steroids. They said, you're allergic to the sun. All of this was my body, three-fold beings, body-minded soul. Three-fold beings, body-minded soul, were at our most powerful when all three are aligned. So now fast forward, my heart. This was the two by four. This was my request of the universe.

And we're going to get into this in a minute. But I have a belief that one of the laws that people don't understand is the law of opposites. So if I ask you to explain left, you'd have to figure out and have a contextual field for right. If we wanted to figure out up, we'd have to know what down was. And so anytime you declare something in the universe, it gives you a contextual field to understand what it's not. And so I requested internally, spiritually, to have the biggest, most expansive, most abundant, most dope life I possibly could.

And the universe said, perfect, I got you. Watch this. Shook me, the body. Try to figure everything out with the mind. you mess with the body, you're gone. You mess with the heart, you're really gone. So the heart condition comes up. I get so scared and so sick

that I make a decision to go cold turkey on everything. I became an angry vegan overnight. I denounce my religion. I freaking went down the zeitgeist rabbit hole. I was that dude that was like sifting through stuff and it was like voraciously reading and taking stuff in. I was two years younger than you are right now.

And I just went off the deep end and then as the information and the things started to sort of recalibrate, my skin cleared up. The heart condition went away. People in L.A. started going, hey, Preston is on some other stuff and whatever it is, it's amazing. You've got to talk to them if you're having any problems. And I became a influencer and a life coach before those things ever existed. Before there was any money involved, there was no Instagram, there was none of these things. literally doing this just because it helped me and I wanted to help other people. And that parlayed into me choosing to make a YouTube channel called Questions with Preston.

And a lot of things took off from there. There's a lot more to the story, but I'm talking a lot. So I want to leave space, but sorry. Yeah, no, that means don't be sorry. That was amazing. We'll keep unpacking this. And there's a few things that I want to unravel here. there is what we're speaking to the linguistic prison that we kind of create for ourselves is often

referred to as a psychosibernetic like a mental set point and inner thermometer that we believe that if we do uh you know if we're a set point is at 70 degrees and we start doing 74 then the AC kicks on and brings us back down and some sort of self-sabotaging behavioral compensation yes and if it gets too cold and it gets to 68 and we're used to 72 the heat will get will get ignited. I haven't worked out in five days. I normally work out every couple of days and we'll get into action. And we all have a set point and the set point is completely made up, right? And so we can just make up a new set point. Yes. But the process of raising that set point does go deeper from the mind to the body, from the linguistic, the biological. And as you examine how the nervous

system is playing in all of this, because the mind will get you to a certain point, right? But then there realities that our body has believed to be true. Yes. That if we don't deal with, we'll continue to define our destiny. And so share about the power of the nervous system in regards to all this. Yes. So the body's a living library that stores everything we've ever been through. And in real estate, they say location, location, location, right? Like, we want to create energetic real estate in the body. The more spaciousness in the body, the more opportunity for feeling and experiencing more joy, right? A lot of people pop pills and do Molly and all that stuff because they want to feel more joy. What if you could, what if that was your set point, right?

You could feel more sensuality, more anger, more sadness, just more aliveness when we start to clear the body, right? So in my work, as I have a workshop with my wife called the Bridge experience, we help people move through trauma. and deep levels of shame, which translates from a biological standpoint as stuck energy, right? Unprocessed energy. So what happens as humans is we go about our day and we have moments that big moments sometimes like shock trauma, like accidents and earthquakes and people dying and being abused. I was working with somebody recently whose mother never told.

told her, she loved her. Like just never, right? That's a form of trauma, right? And that particular woman wasn't processing that trauma. She was stuffing it. This is what we do as humans, right? We stuff, we stuff, we stuff, we stuff. And so if the body doesn't have its opportunity

to complete itself, going back to my kids, my kids asked me for a cookie yesterday, I say no. I said, please get up a cookie. I want a cookie. And they go through this process of anger and sadness and they feel their feelings, which is the body processing the whole thing. It doesn't get stuck on them because they don't let it get stuck. What happens is we get into high stress situations and we go the amygdala in our brain

fires off the reptilian part of our brain fires off the amygdala and we go into fight, flight, freeze or appease, which is an extra one. And that's not wrong or bad. That comes with the car. Where humans get thrown off and where the nervous system gets locked up is after we are out of said danger. Right. After we, after it's over, after the fight is over, after the moment where the sexual abuse is over, after the fear response, you're safe now. if we don't give the body the signal that we are actually safe,

then that gets frozen in the body. And it becomes like stuck energy. I'm sure you've seen this before where you meet some people and they're just like, there's so much. And I'm, you're okay, bro? I'm fine. Everything's fine. And you're like, I'm pretty sure you're not fine.

There's a lot going on there. And so what we do in our work is we allow people to come into our workshop and give them opportunities. to clear that. And the more they clear those things, there are like literal big time influencers and people you would know if I said their names who have come to our workshop didn't have a period for 17 years and day three period. We've had people come to our workshops who couldn't have children and we're doing IVF and all the kind of stuff like that. They come to our workshop. They clear the trauma. They clear the stuff that's been in the way, the lies and the secrets and the blood

that's still on their hands that they thought they got rid of. They clear that. They release it. Get pregnant. There's so many, I won't call them miracles. It just makes sense that if I'm clogged, right? If, like I get colonics sometimes. Have you ever done one of those?

I have, yeah. Yes, right? So you've seen what happens where water gets pushed into that 15 feet of intestines. and over time, there's gook on the sides of the intestines. And so the water is like an internal shower that starts to clear the space, the more spaciousness, the more flow. Everything is circulating.

So when we talk about circulation and money and all of that stuff, it's also the circulation of emotions and clearing trauma and moving stuff out of the body. I love this quote actually from Steve Boe that says, God's gift to us is more talent and ability than we will ever use in a lifetime. And our gift to God is to develop and utilize

as much of that talent and ability as we can in this lifetime. And we all want to seek our full potential. That's our innate, that's how life moves. The tree wants to grow as high as it can if it has the proper environment. And as we're exploring this biological reality, like our identity, if the container,

if the pot is too small for the plant to grow, it will never grow bigger than the size of the pot will allow. Yes. And so worthiness is something that is inherently weaved with our identity and is in our body, right? And so how do you think we will always just receive what we inherently believe we're worthy of and our identity will allow space for? That. So you hit the nail on the head. Identity is the biggest, some of the biggest work that any way we can do from a psychological perspective. because and the important piece to understand in it is the current identity that you have is not yours. It is a well-crafted mask that was used as a safety strategy from childhood.

So many people come into my work and they'll say, I'm just shy and I'm like, that's not who you are. That's who you became. And I'm glad you did because it kept you safe. But do you want to keep it? Going back to social and historical programming, You can't disown that which you have never owned. The work is to own. Ah, my thought process around women, relationships,

how a man should or shouldn't be. I was coaching a friend this morning. And she was like, he took four hours to text me back. And I'm like, I hear you. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And notice that this is the pattern. This is what's stamped. in your consciousness from childhood.

This is the spaciousness right here because what imprisons us also points to our freedom. The very thing that has us riled up, Eden, text, Eden, text, Eden, text, that's the freedom point right there. Right? So I said, just pause for a moment and ask yourself, is what you're believing

and what you're making up about him and yourself, is it yours? And if it isn't, do you? you want to keep it because you have a choice. She wrote back, thank you so much. Just all of us when it comes to identity, because it's so easy to talk about identity with like success and X, Y, Z.

And yes, those things are important. But to me, the biggest identity work is in the nuance of everyday life. Right? It's noticing, and I'll speak to something, sometimes I'll be somewhere I'll never forget this. This was probably seven, eight years ago.

I was somewhere at a retreat and somebody lost their iPad. And they were like panicking at first and they were like someone stole it, someone stole it. And they kept saying that. And every time they said it, I started noticing that I was the only black person there. And I watched this insidious inner critic and inner roommate come up and go, they think you stole it. They think you stole it. And then I felt all this guilt and shame.

And like, then it became an opportunity for me to go, okay, but why are you even identifying with this? You didn't steal it. Right. So I interrupted the pattern of the identity of the guilty one or the lowest one in the room or whatever the case may be. And I reclaimed my seat at the table. So to me, the biggest work in all of this outside of nervous system work, and they all connect,

right mind, body, soul all connects. The soul knows everything it needs to know. It's the mind and the body that oftentimes aren't on the same path. And so interrupting and creating spaciousness from what has become and of course is one of the biggest ways to change the identity. What has become and of course? Yes.

Meaning it's just... So like in the example of the friend I was texting this morning. It's just that point. It's what you, yeah. For her, of course, I text you, you text me right back. Yeah. That's an of course, right? So what I challenged her to do was to create distance from what she believed was true and a fact and all of that stuff because it was affecting her body, right?

It's like a loop, right? The more she believed, he's ghosting me. He doesn't like me. he used my body. All these stories that she's running through is creating tension in the body. And when we're in our stress state, we aren't creative.

And the fruit doesn't belong to the tree. The fruit belongs to the ecosystem. So my job, your job, is to tune into those talents, those gifts, and to give them out and to give them up. But I can't give them up if my tree is stressed. Right? I stagnate if my tree is tight.

And so creating spaciousness from the inner critic, creating spaciousness from what has become of course. Like, bro, I was a surf instructor 11 years ago, living with my mom. I'm now a multi-millionaire with multiple houses and all the different things. That is awesome and interesting. And how I even got there was by doing this over and over and over again.

Wait, what is money? Why do I care? What am I? How do I relate to it? Just creating spaciousness around, well, of course you do it like this and of course as this and of course as this. My wife and I, you know, we had a really rough patch a couple years ago. And I had so much resentment towards her.

She had so much resentment towards me. And both of us were operating out of our righteous, of course. Like for me, I'm like, I do the dishes. I take care of the kids. I do this, I do that, I do more, and it's never enough, right? This is like anybody who's married will be like this, right? And yet, what I was missing, what I was missing, is that those things do count and matter.

However, what she was needing and desiring was more of my heart and presence. And while I was in that resentment, we couldn't get to each other. while I was in that counting, look, look what I did. I did one more than you. We couldn't get to each other. And so the very thing I was counting as why I'm a good husband was actually creating distance and keeping us far from each other. Now watch this.

The reason why I was counting and making my case was because because nobody came to save me when I was in those classes. because nobody intervened. I learned and I created an identity that nobody's coming to save you, bro. You take care of you. If they hit you, you hit back just as hard, if not harder. And so I was still operating out of an old identity

inside of a marriage. And the moment that I could catch that and create distance from it, then I went, oh, it's my actual distinct honor and pleasure to love her. in such a way that her, she heals. It's actually my distinct honor and pleasure to understand what she endured, not just by having our four children, but having a menstrual cycle since 13 years old. Like it's my pleasure and my honor and my duty to love her and help her heal her nervous system because she's given me all of these gifts, these beautiful children and this amazing home.

and it shifted my perspective and my identity as a husband. A couple of things I want to pick up on there, man. There's some really good stuff here. As we desire to create the life that we want and reveal that, you know, abundance is our birthright and all of these things. And so many levels you're pointing to on the mental, physical, spiritual level, we will only receive a reflection in the external to the degree we've given our internal permission to have life force.

energy. Like how much life force energy have we allowed in our system? And if we're like a hose and God is running through this hose, if there's crinkles in the hose and turns in the hose, it's not able to flow properly. And so the process like you're speaking to is the clearing of that, right? And that's on many different levels. I feel like to effectively do that, responsibility is a huge thing. Yes. And part of taking responsibility is clearing your name and your history where there's these energetic cords that you that still exist. You mentioned briefly earlier how those times when you would rob alcohol and different things with your friends, you went back and actually paid all those many, many years later. And so talk about how if we want to become clear individuals and become a

vessel for the most high, the most good to flow through us, then we need to make space for that. And if we have all these tabs open, like browser tabs on our computer of our life, if we don't close those, then we don't have as much space for new tabs to be open. And so talk about cutting those cords, closing those tabs, making amends, taking responsibility. Yes, bro. You are nailing it. So even in my book, I have a chapter in there about clearing, cleaning, and claiming, right? So it is extremely important if we want to be the most available for our gifts to be given to the world,

for us to start to clean, right, up our side, our space. Now, there's a myriad of ways to do so. One of them is to make a list of all the people and scenarios. One still hasn't forgiven, right? Because that's the energetic cleaning that needs to happen. That's an amazing takeaway for everybody to do, yeah. So you make a list, and one by one, You're just to the degree that you can, right?

There's no divine teachers sitting over your shoulder going, no, that's not good enough. Just to the degree that you can find forgiveness for the person who molested you. To the degree that you can find forgiveness for the government or whatever stories or things you've made up, just as much forgiveness as one can receive and give, that will create space, energetic space, right? I'll have my students do clearing conversations where I'll say, okay, is there anyone who you have withheld from, anyone you still have energy with, anyone that, let's say, a roommate that didn't pay an electric bill in college, and you left slamming the door and you never spoke to them again,

wherever there are cords, right? you know the umbilical cord gives us life cutting the second one is where the game changes because the second one usually holds us back and one of the biggest chords to cut is with our parents right you must in my opinion divorce your parents not physically you can still have parents and love on them and all that stuff but one must cut the cord of their expectations cut the cord of of how of proving, right? That was me. I was trying to prove that I was better than my dad since 13.

I had to cut that cord and decide that whether I was better or not, I had to set him free and set me free so that I could give my gifts. So make the list of who you need to forgive. Make another list of anyone you need to clear with that's still on the planet. Maybe not. Maybe it's a letter to the person who abused you. Maybe it's a letter to the bullies. I know so many people and have worked with.

with women who have amazing bodies. And yet what you wouldn't know is that they hate their bodies. That is a reaction. It's the driving force. Yes. It's a reaction to the bullying that occurred when they were chubby in ninth grade. So it's figuring out what still has us and cutting as many of those cords as humanly possible. and then clearing space and from that space claiming declaring right we we say we're going to go to

to the top of that mountain and yes to that to that mountain but there's really something more beautiful at play and it's what aspects of me do I need to call forward in order to even get on that mountain where do what parts of my identity do I need to work on and step up and step in and what seat do I need to claim in my queendom and kingdom in order to even be the type of person that could be on that mountain, right? That's the whole point of walking and going somewhere. I spent eight days in the woods, four of them.

I only drank two gallons of water. I was by myself, no tent. And I sat in those woods and had revelation after revelation, after revelation about us. And it's been so healing to, declare and decide what's next and not be attached to it. And there's something sexy about that. I'm sure a lot of people can attest when somebody doesn't want you and doesn't need you,

there's something about them. You're like, oof, what are you doing? There's that energy. And that's how the universe works, right? When you're in having consciousness, it just mirrors back, right? Talk to me more about that time in the woods, because I think a lot of us romanticize, seeing other people's highlight reels on social media and all the things, but often the way to get what we want is through the mud. It's through

the uncomfortable things that we don't want to do that makes space for eventually having what we do want. Yes. So it takes courage to let go, period. Bro, so much courage. It takes courage to give me an example. I was in Hawaii last year with my wife and we're at the pool and this beautiful Asian couple and their two kids come and the two little girls run and jump in the water right and they're playing and splashing

and the dad because their little girls starts to scurry over and the mom too and so the dad comes in and he's like watching the girls but the mom the girls are now in the middle of the pool the mom gets in and she goes ah

and she's so cold right and it was so interesting to watch they're all in the same pool but having two different experiences. 30 minutes later, she's still hanging on to the side of the pool. Cold. And like the, the virus of the mind, how many of us are still hanging on to the side of the pool, swimming in a idea when we're missing what's possible in the middle of the pool. You can't hang on to the side and swim. Got to give it up. It takes courage to go under. It takes courage to allow.

It takes courage to let somebody in your heart again after it's been broken. I say it all the time. I had my heart broken once by this interesting person, beautiful soul. And my heart broke, but it fixed my vision, right? Broke the heart, fixed the vision. And the vision was actually a heart vision. I got like, oh, okay, I only wanted her because it supported the narrative and the tom. and Jerry sort of cat and mouse thing that we were doing where I was the attic chasing the next high.

So it fixed my vision. It helped me understand that I get to be high on my own supply. I get to fill my cup all the way and have it runneth over in such a way that I become a beacon, a light, a vessel for God's love. And whoever comes in that space will be of the same ilk and energy because that's what I am. Bro, two years later, three years later, I met my wife on a blind date. She was next to my date. And it blew me away.

And instantly, I was like, that's my wife. I knew it from the moment I saw her. And I met her in the most full place I'd ever been. Yeah. Man, I mean, who knows what would have happened if you didn't meet her when you were in that energetic place, you know? And, man, I just think, I would actually love to explore that because I know you have such a powerful dynamic together and how you both show up and, you know, help individuals and couples.

And I'm just curious, was there a death of the perception of your old self when you went from being this bachelor to becoming a married man? And talk to me about that transition. And I'd love to like unravel some perspectives you have and maybe unpopular opinions around masculine feminine dynamics too. Absolutely, man. There's so many things. I'll never forget on our wedding day, somebody walked up to me and they said, happy wife, happy life. And I almost like snarled at them.

And I was like, happy me, happy her, right? And I'm like, nah, right? And there is, I'll say this, especially my generation, I'm quite a bit older than you. We were called the Latsky kids, right? the least parented generation in like 100 years. And so TV raised me. Homer Simpson and married with children and a little bit of the Cosby Show

and that like G.I. Joe's raised me. And so Hollywood has depicted marriage and relationship in a particular way. And so many of us starting with Disney have bought into this sort of fairy tale idea that when you find your person, all your problems go away. But it's actually the opposite. When you find your person, that's when all your stuff gets mirrored. That's when all of your wounds get like expanded and you can see them. I thought I was the dopest person in the world until I met my

wife. Then the jealousy and the anger and the like all that started to show up. And I'll never forget, I tell this story in my workshop often around social and historical programming because we started living together, I think it was 2015, 2014, 2015, and we had this apartment in Venice Beach and I used to surf all the time in the morning, so I would never be with her in the mornings. But this particular time, there was no waves. And so I, for like a week, I'd wake up with her and we used to do this thing called a snuggle alarm where we'd wake up. The first alarm was for us to find each other and snuggle. And then 30 minutes later was when we'd actually get up. And this really cool, hilarious thing happened where we would go brush our teeth together. And

she would put like Colgate commercial type toothpaste on her thing. And you ever been with somebody and they do something that makes you cringe on the inside. Sure. It's like, I love this woman. I want to marry her, and I want to drop kick her right. Every time she'd squeeze the toothpaste and then do that thing, I'd be like, that's $8.

That's $8 right there. I'm going to have to buy new toothpaste tomorrow. It's over. And this is all happening internally, bro. I'm not saying anything to her, but it's happening, right? And so my body is going into this, you know, like fear, stress response every time we brush our teeth together.

And I had a moment where I was like, oh, this isn't mine. My mom, an accountant, epic woman, one of the most loving, epic humans you will ever meet. My mom grew up in a scenario in Watts, California, where she didn't eat all the time, where there's like eight people in one tiny house. And so she said, if I ever have kids,

I'm moving my kids out of the ghetto. and I'm making sure we never go back to that. And she did that. My mom nailed it. The issue was that she made us think that we were always poor and one paycheck away from living on the streets. And so the consciousness of scarcity was living in my body. When I was 10, she'd say, do you want $5 for lunch?

And I'd say, no, just give me two. I was that kid. No, I'll just take two. No, I'll just eat one sandwich. I don't need chips like that, right? So it's like the scarcity thing. So now fast forward, I'm a, you know, 34-year-old man with this woman that I want to marry.

And every time she puts the toothpaste on, I want to murder her. And so this is some of the, it's a death. It's a dead. It's a melding of the consciousness. And she had, of course, in her body around toothpaste. And she had an abundance, of course. while I had a scarcity, of course, around toothpaste and shampoo and the things, like she'd do, she'd wash her hair, and she'd put like 90% of the bottle in her hand.

I'm like, what are you doing? This is going to cost us. Now, the second piece of it is in the way society is set up, men feel and have been taught and shown that a part of your worth is in providing. Now, how we're shown is providing is financial. Providing is strength and financial. And so every time she was using the shampoo or the toothpaste, even though she had more money than me, in my mind, that was me who was going to pay for that.

And so it's all these constructs that we needed to break and look at and re-look at and choose for our marriage, not outside. This is what other people have handed us. What do we want this to be? What is our marriage? By the way, that story I told you about us, we got a divorce two years ago, an energetic divorce.

We burned the rings. I went and bought a new ring. I proposed again. And we've been together 11 years, but we divorced ourselves from that old relationship. We no longer chose that one. And we chose back in with our new set of vows and our new understanding of what

this was going to be. It was like an immediate divorce remarrying situation? No, it took some time. It took some time. But we stayed together and we still loved each other and we still were moving through it. But and that relationship had reached its expiration.

Who you were being for each other, for yourselves? That, that. And I think you know this, but statistically, people who have kids usually there's 67% of people who have children break up within the first year of having that child we have four of them for four chances yes there's lots of opportunities like 260% or something exactly and yet we're still here and not just still here we're thriving bro i i love that woman with every fiber of my being and it is literally a oh man it is

such a beautiful thing to grow with somebody. Right. I know what gets glorified is this like young, you know, polyamorous, conscious, like, oh, we bang everybody and we go to Burning Man all the time. And like, yes, that's awesome. In some communities. In some communities. A lot of places in the U.S. in certain niche spiritual polyamorous communities. Yes. I'm making this fun. Yeah, yeah. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but like there is something so beautiful about two people getting to know each other in the most minute, interesting way and then letting go of who you thought that person was, even from the day before. I say that all the time. The moment I think I know my wife, our relationship is over in that moment because there's no space for her, for growth,

for creativity, for her womanhood to show up differently. When we were having a hard time, I had her frozen in her history. And even the history wasn't true. It was partially true. It was from my lens, from my perspective. And my, what's that thing in your brain that filters things in and out? My reticular activating system

was creating problems where there were none. Dude, relationships? Top-tier, best workshop you can ever do. I did ayahuasca 31 times in Topanga. Right? Just get in a relationship. That's the same as I was, guys. If you stay in.

Okay, maybe we talk about I'll ask a little bit. But I do want to ask, man, because as a man, and this obviously applies for all the women out there that are listening that deal with men, there can be this perceived death of autonomy with commitment. Meaning if I choose to be in this monogamous relationship, which we perceive as we're going to be with each other forever, then all of these options die. I lose my sense of freedom.

And there can be a flipping on its head where you perceive freedom actually opening up when you've decided and you've committed in a way where you commit to the depth of life and the mirrors that show up in relationship, which is much harder, one might say, than meditating in a cave, you know, or being able to do whatever you want.

And so I just want to hear your perspective on that shift of perceiving freedom differently. And instead of having the options to do whatever, or whatever, like finding the face of God in all things. That. So, um, you said it. So I'm going to tap on it. I did a mushroom ceremony in 2007 in Joshua Tree.

And there, everywhere I looked, I felt and saw God. And I came back from that ceremony. And I decided that I was going to try that without the, plant medicines and I'd do alarms so I'd set three alarms a day every time the alarm went off I'd see the face of God right and and and I try to hold it for as long as I could fast forward to relationship it is very easy to look outside of one's self it is very easy to take the wide road of the next shiny object.

What's more beautiful and freeing is to get to know someone in such a way that you re-meet them on the hour that you can see truly, like see yourself, God, and the whole world reflected in this being. Like to really open and feel and generate with another being is miraculous. And for me, I think about it like this.

Out of 8 billion people currently, this is the person that gets to take care of, ignite, push, pull, caress, cajole my name. nervous system, my deepest wounds, my deepest fears. This is the person that the universe has chosen for me. And there's so much beauty and freedom that gets unlocked when you're not scanning for the next person or the next thing to get. Right. Because for many people, it is very challenging to beat their biology, right? Although you and I are these conscious beings, we still have dicks.

And those dicks, the reptilian part of our brain will still fire off and see stuff and want to engage in it, right? The hunt. Well, there's a freedom from that into a different kind of hunt.

And for me, it feels like I get to be a heat-seeking missile for continuing to help open this being, that then opens my children, that then opens everything, everything gets opened by way of the connection. And, yeah, ultimately, there's way more freedom.

And you think about it from this perspective, this is for all the nerds out there who are wanting, like, success. I think it's like 90% of the millionaires and the world all are married. It's like a big statistic. like most of them are married, and a lot of them attribute their success

to not having scattered energy. When you can lock in with this one person and rediscover them and grow with them, it creates spaciousness for the other stuff that wants to be looked at and loved on. That's what's true. Yeah, that makes sense. That skill set of commitment and devotion

translates to business building, to scaling teams, to working through the difficult moments, all of it. It's like the best training ground. Let me say this, though. That's true. I also am not a proponent of staying together forever just because.

Yeah. Right? I think that's also a thing that we've been sold. Right. If I meet somebody and we dance for 12 days, God. If I meet somebody and we dance for 12 decades, God. There's no place where God isn't and it's all a win. And it's especially a win if you get that.

But there's the discernment piece of like when things get tough, how do you know when it's time that the dance is over or if it's time to you know take up tango find a nude dance style you know and like I guess that's that's an individual decision but like when you face those really tough moments in relationship how do you decide it's time to keep dancing I got you so I've been coaching people on this quite a bit couples will come to us and they'll be at the end or at the edge and I'll say perfect here's what we're going to do. You're going to leave at the top. Right now you're trying to leave at the bottom. Right now you're trying to leave when it's when it's hard. Get back to the top. Suspend the the tie of I'm right. No,

I'm right. And both of you team up to get yourself to equilibrium. Get yourself back to shore. Right now you are out in the ocean three miles out and you're doggy paddling. right you two float your way back to shore by way of having fun creating new memories like get locked in about getting back to the top and then once you're on the shore on the top if you look back and go yeah I don't know if we wanted this then that's it but again most people are not dealing with their actual partner not the adult they're dealing with the nine-year-old in the tantrum they're dealing with the 13-year-old. They're dealing with the person who was abandoned by their father or mother who's projecting in such a way that you can't actually see what's going on. So somebody has to be

the adult in the room. Our job when we meet each other is to help heal our nervous systems. Why? Because we're social beings. We're born from a womb, straight out into hands, community, other people. The trauma happens with other people. and the healing will happen with other people. So we stick together. We become the adult in the room. We get our way to the top and then make a decision as to whether you want to stay together or not.

That's super potent. And yeah, I've seen that happen so many times throughout previous relationships. And, you know, I think there are a select where it's just so toxic and you need to have that space, right? Of course, there's that. But to come together and view the understanding, neuroses as a thing that you as a team are facing instead of facing each other and going on that

journey and then making the decision from joy if something's still in alignment with you like that's a really important thing I wish all couples could be reminded of yes because that's also a challenge to see if you can get there you know and then consciously uncouple or whatever you know if you want potent potent man anything else you want to reflect on as your your own journey as a man And you know, you briefly mentioned the societal conditioning of what it means to be a man in terms of the strength and providing financial security, all of these things. There are so many things that go into what it means to be a man of integrity, a man of devotion, to be the container for the household and show up. But I'm just curious, what do you feel around as a man in their masculinity, like how you relate to that? So, I won't call this an unpopular opinion. I just don't think many people talk about it.

And that is, all of us have blood on our hands. What I mean by that is all of us have things we feel shame around. Things that, there's things I did when I was 21, when I was 25. There's things that I've done to other people that I still feel a certain type of way around. And to me, the gift of manhood and how one leads themselves and their family and their community and their clients is by going first, right? It's the adage. Leaders not only know the way, they go the way and show the way. The game is to be the demonstration of it. So for me, it's creating a culture of two things, a culture of apology and ownership

and a culture of celebration. I have learned to be quick to own. Oh my God, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. I see how that could hurt you. I've been quick to out myself and say, hey, I did that too. I'm sorry. I know how that feels. To me, a lot of what we've seen in the past is boys raising boys. And now we're getting to a point, thus people like yourself, where the offspring of the boys raising boys are becoming conscious men faster.

and the conscious man part is not that you always do it right and it's perfect and you nail it, it's that you are in ownership and repair faster and are willing to celebrate self first, right? But others, because what we celebrate and others gets repeated. And so being generous and creating a culture of celebration of my brother, my sister, my children, just that and then owning the shame and the guilt. And I'm going to speak to something. I'll get even more specific about this. I've been coaching for a long time.

And I'll say if I've coached or held through workshops, let's say 10,000 men, I'd say the overwhelming majority of them have been sexually abused and also done some. version of that drunk. The overwhelming majority of them have masturbated to porn quite a bit and have guilt around that. The overwhelming majority of them have this fear of being outed and seen because there hasn't been up until now a space in our society for the wild man and the killer.

there's a killer in me and there's a wild man and because i'm willing to face off with that and go oh yeah he's in there and he's crazy right i'm the most dangerous person in our house and i own that from love i own that i i i i give myself the space to be that and i've said this before and i know it offends people sometimes but i believe that a bunch of well-meaning and i'll say that twice well-meaning, beautiful mothers, raised these boys in such a way that they beat out all the parts of the masculine that wounded them.

But little boys who then become teenagers and all that stuff, they can't beat their biology. And so what they do is they get good at hiding. They get good at wearing masks. They get good at becoming chameleons. And so you have these nice guys at church, these nice guys in the community,

and yet they have this shadow that they haven't ever been given an opportunity to do it healthy. So it comes out through porn. It comes out through sex trafficking. It comes out through harming others and themselves. And so to me, the integrated masculine is somebody who is an ownership of themselves

and that part of themselves. Right? You can't say you're peaceful unless you can be violent and then be peaceful. Right? That's a whole different game. Right? Somebody comes in my house.

I got weapons. These ones and weapons, right? And I know how to use all of them. That's what makes me peaceful. Yeah, the peace born out of conscious choice rather than incompetency. And I think as men, we need to face off with that primal aspect of ourself

or else it distorts and perverse into all those different manifestations, you know? Man, so good. So much to keep diving into. All this ties into the kind of overarching thing, of becoming self-actualized, seeing that in the reflection of what we want to create in the external world, your new book, which is coming out, Spiritual Millionaire. Congrats.

It's nice. Looks royal, like the purple. Yes, sir. Yeah, man. Just tell us maybe a little bit about the journey. You have seven laws of abundance as well, right? Is that framework in there in that book in particular? It is.

It's unlocked the seven inner laws of abundance and money. What are the seven laws? Do you care to run us through that? I'll run you through a few and save the rest. We've been speaking to quite a few of them. One of the laws is the law of mastering the mind, right? Super straight down the middle. The difference on how I approach mind is all through identity work.

So I have a lot in there about identity and moving through the mind by way of opening space up for the identity. I have a law in there called the law of patterns and practices. And that is about noticing the patterns and creating not just 10x thinking, but 10x action. And choosing, the law used to be called the law of F around and find out. But I changed it to patterns and practices because there's so much more in there. We spoke about one of them, which is the law of yes and the divine mind, which is the universe God is always saying yes

and there's no way out of that yes we're always manifesting there's no point when I'm not manifesting it's how we use that that determines what the manifestation looks like there is a lot in this book there's a law called the law of rhythm and flow which is about understanding the rhythms of our life and how those things work

there's the law of the ant and the elephant where I speak to how, even from a quantum space, an ant and an elephant is exactly the same in the eyes of consciousness, the universe, God. And so what we tend to do as humans is we celebrate and look for elephant moments, and we skip all the ant moments. And the ant is just as powerful as the elephant.

And so small hinges swing big doors, right? These learning how to celebrate and live in ant moments actually creates elephant moments. And so there's a lot in this book, man. I spent many years in the field, right? Moving through the parts of me that didn't believe I was worthy of the type of abundance that I experienced right now to be able to write this book. One of the things that I teach and I think is super important for people to understand

is all of us are using the law always. that shirt that you have on Andre this one that I have on these microphones everything in this room was ours and yours 30 years ago before you were ever on this planet that shirt was chosen for you you and that shirt had a divine contract the only thing that would have blocked that is your energetic no to it but because you created it of course you created you created a yes like Oh, yeah, of course. The shirt found its way. And you weren't anxious with the shirt on its way.

I believe that what we seek is seeking us. That what you want wants you. And so, for instance, I live on four acres, have the big house, all the stuff. That house was built in 2005. They didn't know they were building it for me too. Right? This, I don't know.

This was in India somewhere. Whoever did it. Really dope, by the way. I need to find out where in India. Whoever did it, right? The die, all of it. We all say, I said yes to this. So the game then would be to go,

can I say yes to the next thing that I want? Because it wants me. What I'm seeking is seeking me. None of it matters and all of it matters. Right? The richest person in the cemetery is still the richest person. And they're in the cemetery, just like all of us.

So, okay, there's this idea that there's a past, present, and future. Many of your guests have spoken to this. I used the sort of visual of if we were to drop some crumbs right here of cookies. And an ant over there sensed that there were crumbs over here. to the ant the cookies would be in the future because it can't see them but to you and i taking the standpoint the the the view of god we go no no it's not in the future it's in the now it's all in the now and so that ant doesn't know the exact weight and size and color of the cookies but it senses something something's got it going. What you seek is seeking you. What you want wants you. Something's got the

ant going. It doesn't know if it's cookies or chips or chicken, but it senses it. Catch this. This is us. Right now, all of us have something we've sensed, something that's calling us, right? And so the ant may go on that journey. You can go on the journey two ways. They can go on the journey from scarcity and lack and got to get there and, oh, I got to rush, got to move so fast. Got to get there. Got to get there. or I can go going, it's done. Let me have some fun now. There'll be a point. We'll have our divine meeting and I'll make it.

That's the invitation for all of us. Every single bit of it, there was a point where I desired to have a G-Wagon. And I felt it. I was like, yeah, yeah. I want a dope new G-wagon. and I could feel the part of me that was like, ah, is that excessive, you have kids, that's a lot of money, it's $200,000, et cetera, et cetera, all the story, right?

And then I went back to the ant and the cookies. It's like, bro, what you want wants you? The G-wagon, the Ninja Turtle, the bike, the shirt, the pants you got from Target, all the same in the eyes of God. In the quantum space, none of this matters. when I was sitting in the woods there was different ant mounds everywhere

and these ants didn't necessarily interact with these ants and this spider over here that I named Leroy never interacted with Jesse the other spider that I interacted with over there they all lived in their own ecosystems and yet if there was a storm

or somebody walked by and stepped on it they're gone that's us. Every single one of us is marching towards death. Every single beat, every single minute, every single moment. We are one step closer to that day, that moment, that time where the lights go out and we go into nirvana and do this all over again. The process of realizing you're worthy and what you're seeking is seeking you. Yes. In many ways for us to achieve something, we kind of have to have expected its possibility of arriving in the first place. I see this with a lot of like CEO friends or people who achieve a lot, it can sometimes take away the joy and celebration of achieving

things because in order for it to come in a way you already had to make it in a course. I think as we're doing this clearing work and everything you're speaking to is so potent, so powerful, it's important to remind people to release the attachment to the form in which something may manifest. Because there are so many different forms of how abundance shows up and richness of relationships and the material houses and all the things. And just, I would love for you to share any thoughts there. Yes.

And because, man, it's actually so funny. Two days ago, I was going on a walk around my neighborhood, my morning walks. I do listening to a podcast you were doing and preparing for this. And this older lady was just like raking the leaves. And I was walking by, take off my head. I was like, hey, how's it going? She's like, hey, what are you listening to? I'm like, a podcast.

You're like, a podcast on what? It's like, abundance. And she's like, abundance. It's all around us. Look, I'm breaking it up right now. She got it. And I was like, yes, you got 100% in the freedom and joy. And so beautiful.

That's so good. I love that. Yes. So you've had plenty of guests on here who talk about mentally and emotionally rehearsing, right? So I won't go too deep into that, but I do have a lot of that in the book. What I think is important is, catching the part of us that deifies or demonizes whatever we're manifesting. Because if I make the G-Wagon this big thing,

then the G-Wagon owns me in that moment. Then that's my God. But if I treat the G-Wagon the same way that I treat, you know, this glass, it's like, thank you, God. I will definitely use this while I'm here. Look, I get to have water. right look I get to drive but I drive faster right I don't hold any of it that's the work is to not hold any of it too precious and it's actually like a paradox because you don't want to hold it precious but

you do right you don't want to make getting on the top of kill and minjaro the end all be all and that's the moment when I'll feel full or x y and z but you do at the same time it's like I will be a yes to all of life and all of its forms right here, right now in such a way that I experience overwhelming pleasure and whatever else is here in abundance. It's a liveliness. So it's an illusion. Like the we all buy in at some level to materialism, right, and capitalism. Right. You could have bought a different microphone, but sure is running the show. right now, right? So we buy the best microphone, right? Or we buy the best Gucci purse, or we buy the best surfboard, right? Like all of these things, we're all playing the game.

And yet, can you play the game from a full heart? Can you play the game in such a way that if the thing went away, your happiness would stay? To me, that's the biggest piece. Expectation is awesome. My mantra is this or something better. Like, do your thing, God. Some people with a manifestation, they're like, I have vision boards, an X, Y, and C, I don't really do that, right? I do affirmations in the form of living and seeing the beauty. Every day I walk out of my office, from my house to my office, there's like 10 butterflies. The dragonflies are here. The cicadas just went away. I noticed the clouds. I noticed the rain. I see the trees swaying. That's abundance. That's abundance, too.

right there's peace everywhere we just got to look for it that to me is what makes me a spiritual millionaire not based on what's in my account but based on what's in my consciousness right when you can meet seemingly limited scenarios and situations with unlimited love and consciousness you win forever period Oh, so good, man. I think so many of us, when playing the game of materialism, need to see the fruits of the end of that game to realize we're actually in pursuit of the feeling behind the things in the first place. And to not demonize or deify, like you said, the possessions, but just to not be possessed by the possessions. And the Bhagwaggyzha has this saying, detachment is not having no thing, and having no thing, have you.

that and and and there's so much freedom and enjoying with consciousness with mindfulness the fruits of our labor the things that we purchase these are all toys these are things that we can use to amplify these cameras the studio is very expensive to put together and I think that often in spiritual communities also money can be this thing that is demonized that is like programming like is the root of all evil it doesn't grow on trees all these things when in literally it does grow on trees It does. It actually does. And yeah, man, I think so much times when we just put things and we label so much significance around it

for the better or for the worse, we're limiting ourselves from accessing the abundance of it. One more piece around that, right? One of my favorite quotes comes from the Gnostic Gospels of Thomas and reads, if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. But if you do not bring forth,

what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. when I first read that, I thought about it in the macro, right? Like, ah, if I don't bring forth this message, if I don't bring forth this art, if I don't bring forth this thing, like I thought about it big, right, macro. But then as I sat with it longer, I'm like, ah, this is moment by moment. This is like daily. If I bring forth what is within, no matter what it is, right?

if I allow what is to be in such a way that I celebrated it gives its life-giving, life-affirming, it will save me in that moment. But if I stagnate, if I hold, if I hoard, in that moment, it will destroy me. Well, okay, then that means that life in some ways is about stacking moments. How many moments can I bring forth what is within me in such a way that it is or What if we actually believed truly and felt that everything we said or did was of God? Like how would you walk? How would you talk if you actually believe that so many people don't?

I know they don't because I didn't. And now I do. I don't believe in a God that makes mistakes. I think that if a rainbow can be astonishing, then so can an Andre. If I can be blown to pieces by the giggle of a baby, then I get to have that same experience when it comes to me. And, ooh, last story I'll tell, because I know we're round in the corner. I used to have this dog named Spirit.

She was a pit bull, Wymer Rainer. and I would take spirit to the dog park and we'd go through our little thing because I had her really well trained and I'd have her sit and all the dogs would come and some of them would and some women and then I'd snap my fingers

and then she'd get up and start going and she'd run around the park and then there'd be a point where she would find herself around certain dogs and those certain dogs they would sniff each other's butts and do the thing and they'd be like

yeah yeah yeah let's do it yeah yeah and they sniff each other's buds. And then there'd be other dogs. And I'm like, huh, why don't those dogs interact? What is that? And what I think is beautiful about it and like the metaphor for me in that moment

was like, some people just aren't your people right now. Right? Trust. Whose butt do you want to sniff? Right? Is it, is it Andres? Let's sniff Andre's butt, right? If that's what's happening, let's go with that.

Because if you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. Oh, so good. I don't know if that's good. It's good to me. It's so good to me. No, I mean, it's the best. I also love that quote from the Gospel of Thomas. It just rings so true.

And you see, like, I forgot who said, you know, the graveyard is one of the wealthiest places where all ideas are buried. And it's a place where people often did not bring forth what was within them. And we all know people that, whether they're past or they're still here, they're living in that recycled conditioning of what other people have programmed them to believe is possible. Yes. And yeah, man, I think where I'd like to kind of end this conversation is that you've come from very challenging at times situations. and I think it's important to hear people that haven't just come from privilege that have reinvented themselves over and over again to come and arrive at this place. I think in the realization of that, you understand how resourcefulness is much more important

than resources because you can't choose what cards you're dealt, but you can do a lot from there. And we've seen some of the most incredible figures throughout history have been dealt some pretty difficult hands, you know? And they've used that to refine themselves. and ignite them to be who they want to be and inform so much. And so I just wanna breathe some patience in our path

and any thoughts and reflections that you have around resourcefulness and taking kind of one foot in front of the other and the journey of our life of self-actualization. Yes. So one of the things that I teach and I've done for myself is ask myself, is this life default or design?

And I look at it. And I look at each area, right? Spirituality, is this default or design? Am I X? Because, like, that's what happened, right? I read the autobiography of Malcolm X. I went to my mom and I said, why are we Christian? She said, oh, because Mama was.

And I said, well, why was Mama? And she was like, because Mama was. And she was like, because slavery. And I was like, done. Now I've come full circle and I love Jesus. I'm not a Christian. But the point is, it's like, we get to design a life because you only get this one like this one.

And the worst thing we could do to ourselves is to continuously live a life of default. Just what is given to you. Now that's one. Number two, so many of us want to be important to other people. And I think the most important people to be important to is our families. There's this idea that I need to be known and infamous. Think of the school shootings and the different things that happen.

People want to be known for something. You want to record everything and they want to be the next Elon and the next Steve Jobs. And my thing is like, if you're going to be. if you're a janitor, can you clean those toilets in such a way that it feels like you are gifting us with your entire life force? I just want to take the stigma off of trying to be like stupid rich. It's like yes, more than enough, yes to money, I'm a yes to money. I think that the more abundance, especially when it comes to money, the less time we spend in survival. I do think money is important, but I think how we get there and the amount is relative and subjective.

This book is called spiritual millionaire. I don't believe that everybody needs to be a millionaire. I think that there's something important about loving your life as it is. I think there's something beautiful about loving your partners and your friends and the person at your local coffee shop in such a way that if that was your entire world and social media didn't exist, those people would know you, really. The third thing that I will share here is that I've found is that people have a really hard time asking for help. All my rich friends ask for help a lot. All the friends that I have that would identify as poor try to do it by themselves. If you are truly understanding what this thing is and the interconnectedness and the interdependence of it,

you would for sure understand that a part of the receiving is allowing other people to support. You don't have to know, you just have to know the knower. The knower will tell you where the next step is. Last, it's really good to be alive. All you have to do, all of us, is make that choice, repeated internally, externally, and then ask one question. It's the one I ask myself all the time. I ask the universe, what would you have me do? What would you have me say next?

Who would you have me bless? Who would you have me receive from? Just questions. Powerful questions lead to powerful answers. Always. Powerful, my man. I think that journey can often lead us to a place where our will merges with the divine will, and then we just show up in a way in which life needs us most.

And so I just want to say I'm proud of you, Preston. I'm proud of you for who you've become today and how you've shown up and how you've said yes to that intuitive hit since you were young. And how you show up in service is just amazing. And I think our community here at Know This Health is going to really resonate with you and your story and your wisdom, so just thank you. I really do. Thank you. I thank myself, I'm pretty dope. And thank you. Again, for those you who made it this far in the interview, this dude is exactly how he is and how you perceive him to be on camera. He's like that off. He has a huge heart, and for the 27 years you've been on this planet, bro, you're walking around like a thousand-year-old.

You've got wisdom for days. And I'm also, extremely proud and I understand what God is doing through you. I see it. It's in the fruit, right? The fruit is here. So hell yes to you choosing to do this the way that you have. And, you know, I had Blue on my podcast and we had a conversation, which we'll talk about off camera. But I'd love to. But I'd love that you two even knew each other for, you still do, but you get what I'm saying. I love when really awesome people find each other. And this is for me one of those moments as well. I've known you from afar.

Now I feel like I know you more. And there's going to come a point where I want you on my podcast. And we're going to flip these. And I'm going to ask you a million questions because clearly you have downloaded some of the wisdom of the ages, bro. Hats off. Thank you. So much, for our fully received.

I appreciate you. I'm so grateful to wake up and do what I love and serve in that journey. And yeah, beautiful. We did it. Preston will link everything. Everybody can find Preston's information. Where to find his book.

Everything will be linked down in the description. Any last words where people can find you or anything before we close out? At Preston Smiles on Instagram, YouTube, Preston smiles.com forward slash book if you want spiritual millionaire. And I love you. I love you. I truly do. If nobody tells you today, I'm super proud of you.

It is not easy being human, and you showing up here with your time and your attention means something. You are doing the work, and you get to let that land in your body. You are beautiful beyond measure. Oh, I'm grateful for you, man. Everybody, thanks for tuning into this episode and know themselves. Until next time, be well. See you next week.