The School of Greatness - 748 Michael Beckwith: Leave Mediocrity Behind You

Episode Date: January 21, 2019

WHEREVER YOU ARE IS A NEW TARTING POINT. We often think of pain as bad. Whether you’re going through a breakup, getting let go from a job, or making a big move, the experience is uncomfortable. But you need that feeling to truly make changes in your life. It’s how you can adopt new thought patterns and let go of old habits. Think back on your own challenging experiences and how it affected your outlook. You are the person you are today because something made you want to rise above mediocrity. On today’s episode of The School of Greatness, I talk about the mindset of abundance and the power of pain with the founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center: Michael Beckwith. Michael Bernard Beckwith is a minister, author, and founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, a New Thought church with a congregation estimated in excess of 8,000 members. Michael was one of the featured teachers in The Secret and is the originator of the Life Visioning Process, a technique purporting to offer its practitioners a method for putting a stop to being a passive tourist in one's life. Michael knows the power of thought and how it can lead you to the life you’ve always wanted. Once you start asking the empowering questions, the universe will answer you. So get ready to learn how to stay in the flow of life by creating your vision on Episode 748. Some Questions I Ask: What principles is the church Agape founded on? (4:30) What’s been the greatest human challenge in your spiritual journey? (6:00) Why do you think we are here? (21:00) What’s something you procrastinated too long on? (32:00) Why do we block the abundance of love? (47:00) What is the root of racism? (51:00) What questions should you ask when you start dating? (1:00:00) In This Episode You Will Learn: How to deal with the people who tear you down (13:00) Why it’s important to transcend the ego (19:00) The practices of mediocrity (25:00) The questions Michael asks every morning (37:00) About Michael’s spiritual awakening (42:00) How to deal with people who have different beliefs than you (55:00)

This is episode number 748 with Michael Beckwith. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Don't just live your life, then die. Set your own stage. Go for your dreams. Dance your ass off.

Make a fool of yourself. Love as big as you can and allow yourself to get hurt. Play to win and be humble when you fail. Let go of the opinions of others and use your gifts to be in service to people around you. And always remember to grow into the best version of you every single day. There is and only will be one you. There is a reason you are here. Now go find out what that reason is and live big. I am so excited about our guest today, guys. This is going to be a powerful one. And man, I did not want it to end.

It went on and on. We were supposed to stop in about 50 minutes, and I just couldn't stop because every five minutes kept me inspired. I kept learning more and more. And if you don't know who Michael Beckwith is, he is a new thought minister, author of many books, and founder of Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles. And there's a new thought church with a congregation estimated to exceed 8,000 members. And globally, people stream in every single week all over the world. And Michael's done work all over the world with some of the biggest thought leaders, been on Oprah many times. And in this episode, we talk about the scarcity versus abundance mindset. And he blew me away

with what he shared this, how to really attract more abundance in your life, how to come back to your true self when life throws you off course. Also cover how to move from mediocrity to excellence in greatness in life and business. And his answers here, again, continue to inspire me. We talk about the power of ego and how to manage it as you continue to hit your biggest goals and dreams. That and so much more in this episode, guys, make sure to share this with your friends. It will blow you away. It will inspire the people that you share with lewishouse.com slash 748 to make sure to share out the link with Michael Beckwith.

Again, a big thank you to our sponsors. Now let's get into this episode with the one and only Michael Beckwith. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We have Michael Beckwith in the house. Good to see you, sir. Good to see you, Lewis. Very excited about this. I've heard your name for probably, I don't know, 10 years since I kind of got in the online business space and

personal growth area. And I've been doing this podcast for six years and I'm glad we finally got you on. You were officiating a wedding of a good friend of ours, Preston Smiles, a few years ago, and I got to watch you there. And I'm excited to go to Agape soon, since you moved closer to me. Please. And where is Agape now? It's at the Saban Theater right there on Wilshire, right near La Cienega. Okay. Every Sunday, we're kicking it there.

And Agape, for those that don't know what Agape is, you started it when, and what is it exactly? Our first Sunday service was November the 30th, 1986. Wow. So we're just completing 32 years. Wow. Of service. Actually being a strong representation of diversity, inclusivity, spiritual community. I can't believe 32 years for myself. I mean, it's crazy. I don't know. I was a baby then. I was four years old when you started. So that's crazy. You grew up in a church, Methodist church, right?

And then you left when you were a teenager? Yeah. Actually, I was attending Holman's Methodist Church as a child and also another church. And Holman's Methodist Church was where I actually met Martin Luther King Jr. No way. Yeah. And my mother introduced me to him. I shook his hand and I said, Mom, he has such soft hands.

And my mother said, Baby, he does a different kind of work. He's not building buildings. No, no, no. So, yeah, I grew up there. As a teenager, I left that. The paradigm was a little bit small for me, and the teachings were a little dogmatic. Not at home, necessarily, but I went to a congregational church after that. So as a teenager, I left.

It was too much politics. And I was kind of agnostic. I was pretty much agnostic, atheistic. And I remember when I was attending Morehouse College, me and a friend of mine who's now an attorney, we used to go out and convert Christians to atheism. Really? Why? we used to go out and convert Christians to atheism. Really? Why? Because we knew that religion, as it was being espoused, was not the real deal.

And we would break it down and show people how Jesus had nothing to do with this. You know what I mean? That Christianity came a couple of hundred years after Jesus came and left. Made by other men or whatever, yeah. And so it was shocking to me that a few years later when I was attending USC, I had a spiritual awakening in which I could see the presence everywhere in everything. And again, I didn't relegate it to religiosity. I moved more into much more of a spiritual outlook

and began to realize what Jesus was talking about and what Buddha was talking about. And while the great teachers were talking about it, it wasn't about religion. It was about freedom. It was about spirituality. It was about awakened consciousness. It was about the greatness and the beauty and the light that's within us all, of which many people who go down a religious path suffer from a paradigm blindness.

They can't see outside of that particular box. They have a fixed mindset. Right, right. It's a fixed set of rules and beliefs, and you can't expand beyond that. Can't go beyond it. Otherwise, you're wrong, or you're judging yourself. Or you think you're the only one. Right, right, right, right.

Wow. And community is such a big part of religion, right? Yeah. There's a lot of good to say about community. Of course, there's the whole social interaction. There's the service. There's the inspiration. Community assist each other. People that are in some kind of community have a tendency to live longer than other people. There's a stronger support system. So spiritual community is extremely powerful. Yeah.

So when you started Agape, what was the foundation that was based on the principles? Well, first of all, Agape means unconditional love. Again, I heard that in a speech from Dr. King when I was a little boy. Because he's describing in the Greek languages the different kinds of love. And Agape is the love of God operating in the human heart.

It's an unconditional, all-conditional, non-agenda love. It's a total givingness of the spirit. And so having studied in metaphysics, I combined the metaphysics teachings with the spirit of agape love. And then that became the foundation of the rise of our community. And has it been kind of the same principles for the last 32 years, or has it evolved as you've evolved and learned new things?

Well, it evolves because I'm always on the verge of new insights and new revelations, but the principles you can't really change. You know, the principles of oneness, the principles of inclusivity, You know, the principles of oneness, the principles of inclusivity, the principles that we have infinite potential that's within us, within everyone, and that we're here to unlock that, to unleash that, to set that free, and to make a mighty difference on the planet while we're here. The principles that a thought is a unit of mental energy that transmutes itself into perception, speech, behavior, ultimately experience. I mean, these are spiritual principles that no one has a monopoly on. So I think with spiritual practice, you just have greater insight into those principles and you teach them more and more in a much more beautiful and elegant way. What's been the biggest challenge for you as a human being living a spiritual path over the last 30 plus years? What's been the biggest challenge for you as a human being living a spiritual path over

the last 30 plus years? What's been your greatest human challenge? I think just dealing with human beings. We're complicated people, aren't we? I mean, it's the best and the worst in the same package. See human beings that are on the verge of great discovery, you see miracles, you see people coming out of the depths of despair and depression and illness and sickness

and addiction rising. And then you see human beings who will criticize and complain and gossip and attack. All in the same day, you may get the same deal. And so I've learned to not embrace either one of the imposters, which is praise or criticism. I don't run towards praise.

I don't run from criticism. And I just don't deal in that area. I just keep my attention on that which is real and keep moving forward. But as far as just being human, we suffer everything anybody suffers from. There's loss. People die.

All of that is in the human condition. What's been, you know, with all the lessons you've learned, the principles you've, you know, been studying for years, what's been the hardest thing for you to overcome in terms of like maybe a loss or a struggle or a breakup when you were younger or a death of someone? Was there something specific where you're like, man, I know how to get through this, but it took me months or years to fully heal or fully process this? I would say two things. One, my mother passed about six years ago.

And it's not that people don't pass, but it happened suddenly. I mean, it happened within- She was good, and then? Within a couple of weeks. And she didn't tell us. We knew she was a cancer survivor, but she didn't tell us that it had come back. Intuitively, I went over to her house every night after I got off of work. I just started going by there all the time.

And she would say, why do you come by every night? I said, I don't know. I'm just going to hang out with you. I didn't know that it was close. Wow. And then when I was called to the hospital to see her, and it was like, what? You're leaving? And she was like in the bed, and she started talking to her ancestors that were invisible. And I remember her saying,

no, no, not yet. Not yet. I'm going to go home first, and then I'm going to leave. I'm like, you're going to leave? So she went home. Within a couple of weeks, she had passed over. Wow. And it shook my entire family because as the matriarch, she held everything together. So it took a moment to adjust. My father is still adjusting. Really? Six years later? Six years later, man. He went into kind of a reclusive kind of vibe.

Wow. I've been going over there a lot lately, helping him do a lot of things that he's been resistant to because he's such an independent guy. He was a judge, you know. And so the family's just now like breathing. And then right this moment, I've been separated from my wife for the last couple of years, and we're just now moving to the legal stuff.

And that's been kind of difficult. Yeah. How long were you married for? I got married in 2000 end of 2000 Wow so but you know there's a lot of friendship a lot of love yeah a lot of really good stuff we did together sure so I'm not naive to think that people's will to stay together forever particularly with the longevity rate going up and with particularly with people learning their lessons faster. Yeah.

You know, there's a lot of people that are staying together that should be apart. For too long. For too long. Decades, right? You know, so I'm not naive in that sense, but it's an interesting lesson. Do you ever feel a sense of shame or insecurity around teaching certain principles if you're going through certain challenges like this yourself? No, no shame.

If people are looking to you for counsel or advice on relationships and it might look like yours is failing or didn't work out, do you ever feel any? No, because you never let anybody else define your narrative for your life. So I've been married twice. So I haven't had two failed marriages. I've had two successful marriages. The first marriage, I have two beautiful children from it, grandchildren from one of the kids, and it was my high school sweetheart.

Friendship is deep. I mean, I was with her on Christmas with her husband, you know, so it's all family, it's all celebratory. Second marriage, very successful. We produced a lot of music, a lot of programs, a lot of people. So I don't look at those as failed relationships. I look at those as successful relationships. And when that particular form is over, it's over. Some people try to hang on to the form, you know what I mean?

And they cause themselves a lot of issues. Yeah, a failed relationship is one that stays together too long without either shifting or reinventing it or bringing that sense of peace and love together when you stay miserable. Right. I feel like that's more of a failure. It's a deep failure. Even though you stayed together, if there's not love and real respect. You know, you're not growing together anymore. Yeah.

You know, I had a friend of mine that him and his wife were together since high school. It was obvious after a while that they were just to be friends and move forward. You know what I mean? And they would never do it. And he ended up dying. I'm not saying he died from that. But I often thought that, you know, you didn't go for your life. You ended up wanting to live with an image that we were together for

X amount of years and all of that. Why do we hold onto that so much, that image of like, we're going to make it work or it has to look a certain way for us to be respected in our communities or. Because people have a tendency to care more about what other people are thinking about them than what their soul wants. And so they live from, what is so-and-so gonna think of me? What's my mother gonna think of me? What's the society's gonna think of me?

And inside, everyone has a destiny, bright, beautiful destiny. The soul is calling us to greatness, your name of your show, to be great beings, to be great lights, to live fully. And oftentimes people will dim their light in order to fit in to someone else's paradigm and end up with crisis, end up with disease,

end up with prolonged sadness. When if you just step out of that, there's so much life to live, you see. So I think a lot of people are just run with prolonged sadness, when if you just step out of that, there's so much life to live, you see. So I think a lot of people are just run by what others are thinking about them rather than what their soul wants. Yeah, powerful. I think when we shine our light, the challenge is

sometimes there are people that try to take us down. Oh yeah. Right? Listen. So how do we handle that when, you know, doesn't matter how much positivity you try to put in the world, how much good you try to do, if someone's always going to try to take you down, how should we handle that? Well, first of all, we have to be aware that mediocrity always attacks excellence. It's kind of a rule.

No one's attacking a couch potato. Right. No one cares. No one cares. If you're sitting on the couch eating potato chips and getting fat and doing nothing, no one says anything. But the moment you start to walk toward your dream and you start to break habits, you start to change relationships that no longer serve that dream, you start to be talked about.

Now many people are afraid of failure, which really means that they're afraid of being ridiculed. But once you become aware that you're going to be ridiculed if you fail and you're going to be talked about if you succeed, then you're able to put that aside because you know you're going to be talked about either way. No matter what, yeah. If you go forward and you fall,

oh, he went forward and he didn't make it. Or if you go forward and succeed, they'll say, oh, it was luck, whatever they say about you. So once you get out of your mind or become aware that people are going to talk about you either way, then you go for it, you see. And at the end of the day, you are different because you went for it. That you going for it actually brings out latent powers and gifts and talents within you that can't come to bloom unless you go for it. So then when you reach your next mountaintop,

and mountaintops are endless, when you reach your next peak, who's with you are the people that are supposed to be with you or could be with you based on what you have become. Now you go for another peak, and then the people that are supposed to be with you there are with you and all the naysayers. You might shed some people who came with you from the first. Shed the ballast.

Yeah. Some people might come with you to the next mountain, but some people might be left behind, right? Absolutely. You keep your heart open. You never just jettison people out of your life. Your heart is open, but you're constantly growing and unfolding. So I think that when you're going for a goal, it's not just achieving the goal. It's actually who are you becoming on the way to bringing that goal into manifestation.

And then your new becoming, you have a different vibration. And now the people at that vibration are hanging with you. They support, they love, they appreciate you, they cheer you on, rather than tear you down. If you're living in a paradigm of scarcity and lack, you tear people down. If you're living in a paradigm of abundance and opulence, there's enough for everybody, you cheer people on. So your success makes me happy. You know, oh, look what Louis did. Oh, that's great. That's fantastic.

Yeah. I'm not in the paradigm of thinking that because you succeed, there's less for me. I'm in the paradigm of thinking if you succeed, that's a shining example. What he did is possible. I can go do that or something else. I can do what I can do in my life. What's the thing that you're most proud of, of who you've become on all the mountaintops that you've reached?

I think I have just a deep sense of compassion for people. And I have a very deep well of forgiveness. You do? Yeah, where people are concerned. You forgive quickly? Quickly. Nothing sticks. Nothing sticks to me.

I was just recently with a good friend of mine, Cicely Tyson. She comes to Agape when she comes in town. And we were having a conversation. And she was indicating, there were some things that had been done to her recently. And she had no bitterness about it. Really? And she's 94. Wow.

Like someone attacked her or did something wrong by her. Somebody stole some stuff from her. They preyed on her because she's a senior citizen. And she said, I don't have time to let that burden me. I have too much life to live. She's 94 years old. I want to be like that. I don't have time to hold the burden of rancor or resentment.

If somebody says something or whatever the case may be. And I think I've always had a deep well of that. But being with her recently made me know that could go a little deeper. Wow. Is there ever a time to be angry in life? Yeah, I think there's a difference between just anger and righteous indignation. Righteous indignation, we should be indignant when we live in a country and there are people that can't eat. Yeah. so-called wealth and we still have people that don't have universal health care or just the

basic needs that can be provided by our society or the way we treat women or things of that particular nature, I think that there's a righteous indignation that's different from just being angry or living at a high level of pithosity all the time that only sends toxic chemicals through our body temple. So sometimes anger can be a masking emotion for fear. People can actually be afraid and they mask it with anger. So no, I think there's righteous indignation, you know, with time that we need to act, time that we need to make a difference, need to let our voice speak about things that need to be changed.

And what about the ego? You've been, we were talking off camera how you've been, you're a doctor, you've been knighted, served, I don't know, chief. You've got 500 titles of like the highest praise. How does someone manage their ego as they continue to climb in the world? Yeah. Well, we have to understand the evolutionary context of ego. Ego is what protects us as we are evolving as a human species.

It's what protects you so that you're able to survive. So you're able to tell the difference between you and a sable-toothed tiger. You, back during tribalism, you had to be able to have a level of differentiation for your safety. But now we're at the point where we have to transcend the ego's perception of separation. Because right now it's run amok. You know, we're separate from our environment, we're separate from the oceans, we're separate from the rainforest, we're separate from each other because of the color of the skin or nationality or where we were born. So we have to be aware that the ego's first job is to protect. But when that protection starts going to making us feel separate from everybody, then we have to be aware that the ego's first job is to protect. But when that protection starts going

to making us feel separate from everybody, then we have to keep it in check and we have to transcend it. And that's where meditation comes in. That's where prayer, that's where study, that's where fellowship. We're able to transcend the ego so I can see you and I are the same. We may come from different parts of the world, different skin colors, but at the bottom, we're both human. So once with spiritual practice, you don't let the ego go crazy. And it becomes not about me. It becomes about we. It becomes about us, not just my family.

But where does my family end? Does it end with just people who are black? Does it end with people just in the United States? Does my family end just with people in North America? You know, after a while, you realize humanity is your family and you don't want to do anything that's going to be detrimental to anyone on the family, even if it's the rainforest, to anyone on the family, even if it's the rain forest, even if it's the ocean water. And so again, it's difficult for people if they don't have some modicum of spiritual practice

because the ego will just come in, me, me, my, my, greed, stinginess, I'm gonna protect mine, that becomes the frequency. But when you start to grow, you realize it's really a we vibe here. It's not just a me vibe. Right. Two questions. One, why do you think we are here? And why do you think you are here? I believe that everyone has the same purpose. We all have different missions. We all have the same purpose. And I'll say it in different ways. We can say we're all here to reflect the face of divinity, or we're here to reflect the cosmos in a way that only we can.

Everyone is here for that same purpose. And we all have different missions. Some people's mission is to teach, heal, inspire, uplift, to create some level of art that's going to inspire, choreography. We all have different missions, but every mission carries that larger purpose. How is my life reflecting the entire cosmos? Because I believe all of us have the entirety of the cosmos in us, and we're here to discover it, activate it, cultivate it, and set it free. And we're here to discover it, activate it, cultivate it, and set it free. So we're all here to reflect the face of God, just to bring it down.

Not God, not a man in the sky. We're not that naive. Right, right, right, sure. But the presence that is never an absence. So everyone has the same purpose. Some people know their purpose. Some people don't. How do you suggest people discover it if they don't know what it is?

People grow into their purpose two ways. Crisis or insight. Because sometimes when your back is against the wall, you're in a crisis, then you begin to ask different kind of questions. Why am I here? What am I doing this for? Why do I keep doing the same thing over and over?

And then you start to open up that there's something bigger that has your name on it that's calling you. And sometimes people grow through it. They have an insight. They get inspired. Something happens and they're able to see, wow, my life is more than what I thought it was. So I think we grow pain insight. One of my statements is your pain pushes you until your vision pulls you. Wow.

So we're actually pushed by pain until we're pulled by a larger vision. And so unless an individual. Yeah. So what if we're in the middle? What if you're like, well, I'm not pulled by anything. I'm not pushed by anything. I just kind of feel blah. Is it like eventually you're gonna feel pain?

So bad you're gonna be like, okay, I need to step up and do something. Because the universe, which is the out picturing of the intelligence of the presence, is progressive. We're here on planet Earth. The Earth is circling the sun, the sun is moving through its solar system. Every heavenly body has a rotation.

Now, every time there's a complete rotation, the frequency of those heavenly bodies are a little higher. The earth is vibrating higher today than it was 10 years ago. So everything is progressing. So if you're the same person that you were 365 days ago, you're not really the same person. You've actually gone backwards. Wow. Because everything has gone forward. So since everything is progressive, it's creating a level of tension to create a level of uncomfortability and pain for you to grow.

Right. So that blah will become a mess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It'll eventually turn into pain at some point where you're going to say, enough is enough. You know. I got to end this relationship, get out of the marriage. I got to lose the weight. I got to do something to change. The body temple will betray you. Yeah.

Your emotional body will betray you. Something will happen that'll make you say, ooh, what's going on? I better read a book. I better be still. I better go talk to somebody. Yeah. What would you say is your mission then? Basically to help people wake up to the gift of divinity that's within them and to set it free.

How do we set ourselves free? First of all, you have to break the practices, the habits of mediocrity. The practices of mediocrity. What are some of those? Mediocrity means I'm just living a life in which I'm protecting myself. Scarcity, protection. Scarcity, protectiveness, fear, worry drives my life.

And we move into practices in which we ask ourselves, how can I give today? Serve. How can I serve today? How can I share today? If you ask can I serve today? How can I share today? If you ask the question, the universe will answer it. This is a principle that the universe, again, the universe is just the outpicturing of the intelligence of the mind of the infinite. If you ask a question, you'll get an answer.

So if you ask, how can I give, rather than how can I get, then the universe is going to provide not only answers, but ways that you have something to give, you see. And many people are still within the reptilian brain of, I don't have enough. So they're trying to get. So they end up creating a very small package of themselves, rather than a larger package of, how can I be of service, how can I give.

What happens when we give more and are living in service with every action we take? Obviously we're going to do things for us and protect ourselves and pay our rent and have nice things, but when we have the intention of I'm here to serve in my career, my business, my team, my family, my mission is service, what unlocks for us? Now you've opened yourself up that the presence through the universe, which is always giving, it doesn't compromise its nature, it doesn't contradict itself, now finds you worthy, I mean vibrationally worthy, we're all worthy, intrinsically, vibrationally worthy

to express more through you. Door's open, you don't even know we're there. You meet people that you never even heard about. Things begin to open up for you. It seems as if it's magic, but it's not magic. You've come into a vibrational alignment with the way things work. You know, so suddenly you're in a meeting with somebody,

you're meeting somebody, it's a chance meeting, and something opens up for you, and you're able to give your gift, you're able to share something, you're able to bring more prosperity into your life, more joy, more happiness, because you're in alignment. How can I serve? How can I be more giving?

How can I unleash the power that's within me? You see. Now most people, when they're living in the mediocrity, they ask disempowering questions. Like what? Why me? What's wrong? Who's to blame?

Those questions keep you very narrowly focused. Everybody's looking for a scapegoat. It's his fault. It's my parents' fault. Who's to blame? Those questions keep you very narrowly focused. Everybody's looking for a scapegoat. It's his fault. It's my parents' fault. They shouldn't have gotten a divorce. They should have gotten a divorce. This happened, my teacher did this to me

when I was little, whatever. They'll look for a very limiting, they have a very limiting scope of perception. But if you begin to ask an empowering question, how can I share what's trying to emerge in my life? What gift do I have to give? How can I cultivate that gift? The universe would love to answer that question. Because the universe, the universal presence wants you healthy, wants you prosperous, wants you happy. Why? Because it gets to express more through you if you are. It gets to come into its own as you. Now, when you've

limited yourself, then you're wasting energy. That means you're constantly going to the doctor because you're sick. You're constantly bemoaning your fate because you can't have friendships in your life. You're constantly worried about all fate because you can't have friendships in your life You're constantly worried about all that's wasted energy that can be used for creativity You see so when you ask the right questions as you indicated you stabilize your structures first You have a structure of prosperity structure of good health Structure of ego management so you can have good friendships. You mean structure, you mean habits or? We live in life structures. There's a life structure of health, body temple. There's a life structure of relationships, you see. There's a life structure of community,

how you work with others. These are all structures that we stabilize, which means they're no longer liabilities, they're assets. So if you know how to be with other people without tearing people down and gossiping about them and stealing from them, you have a good foundation of friendships. It's part of your community. You take care of your body temple. You're not going to the doctor all the time because you're sick. You're able to, as you say, pay your rent. You're able to have a level of prosperity. Now you're not here just to stabilize those structures. Those structures are strong enough so that you can now give your gift.

Because if you're always focused on stabilizing structures or your structures are in breakdown, you're never able to create and give your gift. Right. So you've got to be able to have the structures down first, take care of your business, I guess let's say. And then you can go beyond it. Yes. Now you're strong enough. Yeah.

You're strong enough to do things that people would say are impossible. If someone's got one of those structures that are broken or maybe they've been struggling with it for decades, maybe it's the relationships, maybe it's the prosperity, maybe it's their health. Maybe it's the relationships. Maybe it's the prosperity. Maybe it's their health. How can they overcome that to fix it or to stabilize it? Two ways. One, you look at the area of your life that's working first.

Because most of the time our focus is on what's not working and the vibration of that. So you take one area of your life that works and you feel into that vibration and then you begin to what I call shape shift. You begin to take that energy and begin to feel that way about the area that's not working. And then you combine that with an articulation of a vision. What would it look like if this area of my life worked? You begin to describe it. Now the law says that you don't describe what you see, you see what you describe. So as you begin to describe what that area looks like,

along with the feeling of an area of your life that does work, now you have the feeling and the description both working. And you have to practice, you have to do that every day. You have to feel it, describe it, feel it, describe it, feel it, describe it. And then that begins to be a new baseline for you, and now you begin to manifest at that area.

Yeah. Obviously you gotta take a lot of action probably in changing certain things, but you've gotta do those, the foundation first. You do the foundational piece, and then what happens is, you're you've got to do the foundation first. You do the foundational piece. And then what happens is you're kind of compelled to do different kind of action. Instead of procrastinating, you realize, oh, I can do this. I can do this one little thing. And that shifts the whole fulcrum of being. What's something in your life you felt like you procrastinated too long on? Maybe something in your life at some point.

Was there anything where you're like, I waited too long to- When I started Agape, I procrastinated. You should have done it 10 years ago or something, right? I did not want to be a public person. Really? I liked my lifestyle. I was a spiritual therapist, so I had private practice. I taught at the university, faculty member, and I ran a prayer ministry, so I had these things going on.

And I would do seminars. I thought that was enough. Yeah, yeah. So I kept being pulled into starting a community, and it was like, oh, I don't want to start a community. And so many things began to happen in my life. Breakdown. Really? Yeah.

That forced me to say, okay, I'm going against the energy here. And then I called some people together, some of my students, some of my clients, some of my friends. I said, okay, I'm compelled to start a community. And I started a vision group to start that so Interestingly enough when that happened, I'll always remember this I used to have a crook in my neck In which I couldn't turn my neck all the way to the right. I had like partial rotation really Yeah, I could go all the way to the left, but I couldn't go to the right and I go to a chiropractor They fix it. It'd be temporarily for a day or two that yeah

The moment I said yes to the vision my neck went pop really I had full rotation. You're like an owl Yeah And I realized that this was a physical manifestation of my resistance Wow And so I look at that at times in my life and I might be resisting something You know, let me just jump into the fire of it. And eventually, things are going to work out. Don't be afraid to jump into the fire. What questions should we be asking ourselves

every morning when we wake up? First of all, when I wake up in the morning, when I turn and get out of the bed, I generally get out of the bed on my left side, I stand up, I put my hands up, and I just go into a sense of gratitude for being alive and awake. I'm just thankful that I exist,

and that gratitude is not attached to anything. I'm not grateful that I have money, I'm grateful that I have help, just grateful. Just being. Just being. Wow. And then I surrender to life. I just surrender my life to life. Now some people can call that God, you can call it love, you can call it, whatever you want to call it, I just call it life. I just surrender my life to life. Now, some people can call that God. You can call it

love. You can call it whatever you want to call it. I just call it life. And then I say, what's my assignment? I ask, what's my assignment? And then I ask for the strength to do whatever my assignment is. So then that's how I wake up. Then I'll go sit and I'll meditate. And then I'll go to the gym. I'll come back and have a longer meditation. And then I'll ask the question is determined by whatever I'm working on that day. So I knew I was coming to see you today. Got in the shower and I was to say, how can I be a bright presence on Lewis' show today? How can I be an instrument of articulation and fluency and love and harmony?

Let that happen. So I just live in that question. And then I let the question answer itself through me as we met at the door. You know, hey, what's going on, man? Like we knew each other for a long time. So there'll be a larger question, and then there's a question that's more pertinent

for whatever's on my calendar that day. The larger question is always somewhere in the vantage point of how can I serve, how can I be an instrument of peace or love, or how can I reveal more prosperity in my life? When we are in flow and like, man, just everything's working, just like manifesting magic everywhere, what questions should we be asking at that time? It's, you want to stay in the awareness of how does it get better than this? Right. But it feels like this is too good to be true.

Yeah. Everything is coming my way. Yeah, but listen, life is infinite. Yeah. So wherever you are is a new starting point. Yeah. That's how it becomes the ground floor Yeah, right. You don't want to like relegate yourself and Protect that that particular spot. It's like and you can ask that question whether things are going good or bad in your perception

You know things are that is things aren't working out. This plan isn't coming together You can ask how does it get better than this? You'll get an answer. If you're in flow, how does it get better than this? And then you stay on the edge of becoming. So you're walking in the state of being and becoming. You're very happy about who you are. The state of being, I'm grateful.

I'm in love with the state of being that I am right now, I appreciate it, and I'm becoming. There's more to me, you see. So if we ask the question, how does it get better than this? The universe will answer it. Yeah. There's definitely some moments where I have breakdowns and challenges and struggles and things like that. But over the last 15, 17 years, I just feel like magic occurs.

Yeah. Magic occurs. You feel that way. I feel, I just. I mean, your energy field is very. Yeah. Very big and it's very beautiful. I feel like there's, when I reflect back and think on it, like, what are the things that I've been doing?

It's the things you're talking about. Every day I'm expressing gratitude all the time. When I wake up, I do a gratitude practice. Yes. When someone calls my cell phone and they get my voice message, I ask them what they're most grateful for and to share first with me

before they ask what they want on the voicemail. That's beautiful. I'm just trying to evoke it out of people constantly. And at night, I'm always sharing what I'm most grateful for, whether I'm writing it down or I'm sharing it with someone. So gratitude has always been a part of my life. Just because I came from a small town in Ohio and when things would happen I was like, oh man, I'm so grateful for this.

The next thing I would focus on is really the vision of what I want to be, what I want to become. I'd focus on that vision, kind of what you were talking about before. Just like, where am I heading? Where am I going? At least where do I want to go? If there's a different plan for me, okay.

But where am I going? Focusing on the direction as opposed to where I'm stuck. Right. What I'm lacking. And then the third thing that I really focus on is just joy. Yes. Like being joy. Just when you came in, I was just

like, open my arms, like, hey, good to see you. And I think when we reflect on those three things, gratitude, a vision of where we're going, who we want to become, and being joyful, we start to attract and create magic, right? That's it. But sometimes we forget those things and we're stuck in our head or we're stuck in fear and anxiety. That's why we call it a practice. Yeah. You practice and when you get off, you come back to the fundamentals. It's like an Olympic athlete.

They get off, they come back to the fundamentals. The warm-ups, yeah. The warm-ups. The steps or whatever it is, whatever your particular area is, you come back to the fundamentals and then you find yourself in flow. When you're not in flow, you come back to the fundamentals, and then you find yourself in flow. When you're not in flow, you come back to the fundamentals. Now, we've all heard the statement from certain parents, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to give you something to cry about. But the universe says, if you don't stop being grateful, I'm going to give you something to be grateful for.

It operates the same way. So you staying in that vibration of gratitude, the universe is looking for something to give you. Oh my God, if he doesn't stop being grateful, I'm going to give him something really to be grateful for. And it comes out of the blue. It comes out of your present paradigm. Like, wow, you didn't even see that coming. Wow. So let me get this clear. When you were a teenager, you changed churches. You left church for a while. Is that right? Or were you always being a church? From the age of 16 to I was a senior at USC, so somewhere in my early 20s.

And so there was a stage where you didn't believe in God? I wouldn't use the word God because the way people taught God was like a man in the sky checking the list twice. You didn't believe in that version of God. No. My thing was more affirmative values. You know, be a kind person. Don't mess with people. Don't steal.

Be loving. You know, I didn't put that on any kind of religion. And it wasn't until I had that. I tell you, when I moved back to LA from Atlanta, attending Morehouse College, I was a part of an organization that wanted to change the world by any means necessary. It was a very revolutionary organization. And I was the propaganda commissioner for this organization.

Really? Yeah. So I'm sitting, and we were closely aligned with the Black Panther Party, and so I was sitting in this meeting. Was this in the 70s? Yeah. Wow. 70s. So I'm sitting in this meeting,

and someone behind me said, if you were to take over the world tomorrow, would it be any different? So I turned around to see who said it, but there was nobody there. Hmm. I know, I heard it. So I'm in the meeting, and it says it again.

If you were to take over the world tomorrow, would it be any different? But it was coming from inside of me. And I said, and it says it again. If you were to take over the world tomorrow, would it be any different? But it was coming from inside of me. And I said, oh, my God. Wow. So I looked around the room. This guy sitting next to me, I said, this guy has a big ego. He always thinks he's right.

This person is very territorial. This person is always contentious. And I started looking around the room, and I realized, if we were to take over the world tomorrow, there'd be no change. So I left the meeting. In the middle of the meeting or afterwards? No, after the meeting, I left. Never came back.

The next week at that meeting, somebody in that meeting shot somebody. No way. In the meeting? In the meeting. No way. They got into an argument. A guy pulled out a gun and shot somebody. No way. In the meeting? In the meeting. No way. They got into an argument. A guy pulled out a gun and shot somebody.

No way. But I wasn't there to be a part of that legal situation. Wow. I enrolled in the USC shortly after that. I had taken a break from... I remember going to USC. I hadn't had the awakening. That was the beginning of the awakening. Right.

And then things began to happen. I started having visions. I started seeing things. I thought I was losing my mind. This was right at the beginning of transpersonal psychology. It wasn't popular the way it is now. You're 21, 22. Yeah, yeah, 23 years old, 22, 23.

And then I had a lot of experience. I would leave my body all the time. Wow. But I didn't know what that was. Now we know it's astral traveling or lucid dreaming. You know, but back in those days, it was very new. Right. And so I started having this dream.

And in this dream, these men were chasing me, three men. And every night, I would wake up right before they would get me. Every night, they were a little bit closer. So one of the things I did, I stopped smoking weed as a good college student. And I said, this must be cannabis sativus. All these experiences and dreams and visions. But they intensified. Everything got more.

When you stopped. Yeah. More brilliant dreams, more visions. And I didn't tell anybody because I was a psychobiology major. So I'm in the psychology department. There's no way I'm going to tell my professor. I'm leaving my body. You're going to put you in a mental hospital. Yeah. I'll tell you a story about that. Matter of fact, I had an internship program. I'll get back to the dream. And we had to go into the mental

hospitals as a part of our internship program to work with the people there, write up our diagnosis and give it to our professor, all of that. So I'm playing ping pong with this guy. He's in the mental institution. And we're talking, and I'm asking why he's there. And he's saying, well, I've had these visions and dreams. And he's describing some of the stuff I'm going through. Wow. We're playing ping pong.

And then I realized for the last five minutes, we haven't been talking. It was all telepathy. No way. Yeah. I put the ping pong paddle down and checked myself out of there. I said, I don't know what's going on with me. So fast forward.

I'm in this dream. Three men are chasing me. And I say to myself, this is a dream. I'm not going to force myself to wake up. I turned around. There was a small tent with all these people lined up to go into this tent I mean thousands of people and I knew every single person in line and I said these guys can't help hurt me that my friends are with me one by one. They turned their back on me. Mmm

Two men held me down and another one plunged a knife in my heart. Holy cow. The pain was excruciating, physically and emotionally. I screamed out, like a blood-curdling scream, and I died. When I woke up, I could see the presence was everywhere. The beauty that's here is beyond description. The love that penetrated every cell of my being was beyond any love. I get emotional. I talk any love that you'll ever experience.

The love of God just poured through my body. The light and the brilliance was everywhere. And everything was different. And from that moment on, I went on a path of discovery as to what had happened to me and the process of integrating that into my life. And then that's led me step by step by step into where I'm at today. If people could only see what's really here. But we have paradigm blindness, the perception is so small,

most people only see a fraction of reality. And it's their beliefs, it's their perceptions, it's what they've inherited from their parents, societal fantasies. When all of this is available, we only see this. What is really here? Is it the presence of abundance infinite joy beauty love sometimes a sound effect we have to do yeah it's just it's just all here and we're using so much energy to

block it why do we block this abundance of love and joy and The ego does not know the difference between transformation and annihilation. It doesn't know that outside of the known, in the realm of the unknown, there's so much good and so much power and so much abundance. It tries to eke its joy out of what's known, whereas our good is actually outside of the known. Matter of fact, it was Krishnamurti that had a book called Freedom from the Known. And I used to go see him live in Ojai every year because he was one that I could listen to and I realized he was authentic. He knew. I could just listen.

I could look at him. And I can go to any spiritual community and I can tell you in five minutes if they know or if they know about it. It's a difference between knowing it and knowing about it. Knowing about it can motivate, knowing it, it's different. Different feeling, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So Krishnamurti, I said, ooh, he knows. Yeah, but so I don't know what question you asked me, but. Why do we block the abundance of love? Yeah, it's just, it's fear. We want to live, we want to basically. Because it's uncertain, right? It's uncertain. Yeah.

We want to control our life within the realm of the known. The good is in the unknown. If I hadn't said yes to Agape, I wouldn't have known all the beautiful people I've met and the things I've got to experience. I had a chance to facilitate the synthesis dialogues with the Dalai Lama four times. Crazy. I got a chance to meet and give Nelson Mandela the Season for Nonviolence Award. I got a chance to hang out with Bishop Tutu as we were inducted into the Martin Luther King order of preachers. I got a chance to run with and hang with Dick Gregory, you know what I mean? And so many beautiful people that have been a part of my life.

I wouldn't have known any of that. I've just gone to the United Nations and speak at special assemblies many times. But all of that would have been locked into potential. You know, and I don't share those things as a brag, I just like, they're just part of my, woo, it's just me, it wasn't about me, it was about the people I got a chance to meet and hang out with.

I wouldn't have met you, you know? We wouldn't have been here. I'd have made it on my couch or. You know, I grew up in a small town in Ohio, predominantly white neighborhood. But my parents had, they had seven exchange students when I was a kid. So I had people from Japan and Brazil and France and Philippines living with us, teenagers, you know, for six months at a time. That would kind of like bring the culture and country to me.

Right. bring the culture and country to me. And then as I started to expand outside of my neighborhood and play sports, I was more of the minority as one of the white people in that context. So for me, I never really understood racism. I'm sure there's moments where I'm judgmental or racist in some ways. I don't even know if I'm aware of it, but everyone to me is a brother or sister, right? Right. It doesn't matter what color right or where you're from just because I grew up with these older brothers and sisters from all over the world, right? Where is the root of racism come from for us? And why is it so hard for us to get past?

Seeing color. Yeah. Well a lot of it's obviously it's learned and why is it so hard for us to get past seeing color? Yeah. Well, a lot of it's obviously it's learned. I mean, you don't see a racist or homophobic baby. So it's actually learned. Wow, okay. And there are people inadvertently or on purpose that teach that because they're living in the perception of they are the other.

They're darker, they're lighter, whatever the other is. They're from that country. Different language. Different language, different culture, different religion, whatever the case may be. So people live in the context of other and they haven't yet matured into realizing there really isn't any other. There's only variations on a theme. It's all music.

You know what I mean? Some's jazz, some's classical, some's R&B, whatever the case may be. Just variations on the theme. So it's not other. It's just we're the same inside, but we get to express. Now, why is that? Because the infinite is infinite. It doesn't repeat itself.

It doesn't do do-overs, and it doesn't make mistakes. So all of us are unique expressions of the infinite. It would be boring. We all look the same. We all look the same. You know what I mean? And we were all the same. I mean, first of all, can you imagine going through eternity being exactly as you are right

now without any growth? No. It's called hell. You know what I mean? So if you can imagine that if everyone was exactly like you or exactly like me and we just stayed the same forever, that's called hell. So the presence, which is infinite, recreated itself after its own image and likeness according to its infinite nature. We have such a variety of beauty and love and joy. And that's what we want to celebrate. And people that are in fear, bigoted, racist, they're mainly living in fear.

And then they promote that fear. You know, oh the Mexicans, oh the Arabs, oh the black people, whatever. You know what I mean? They promote that fear and they end up living in a very small world. How much of a role does religion play in creating fear in each religious community of people that aren't in those communities? It depends on the maturity of the spiritual teacher. Religion itself means, the word means to return to the source.

So religion itself is supposed to be a vehicle that brings people back to the source. Back to love. Back to love, back to connectedness. However, it is sometimes used as a sense of separation, depending on the maturity of the spiritual teacher. So it's supposed to bring you, it's a boat, or a boat or some kind of vehicle

to bring you to an encounter with the transcendent. Once you have an encounter with the transcendent, you can celebrate the growth that brought you there, but you're not trying to hang on to it. So it's like sometimes we'll say things like inadvertently, well, he was a Jewish mystic or he was a Christian mystic. Now actually when a person becomes a mystic, they kind of transcend the boat that got them. There's no such thing as a Christian mystic.

There's no such thing as a Buddhist mystic. There's no such thing as a Christian mystic. There's no such thing as a Buddhist mystic. There's no such thing as an Islamic mystic. Because once you become a mystic, that means you've transcended the boats and you realize we're all one. Right, you've transcended the religion. Religiosity. Yeah, yeah.

And you can still honor. Of course. You honor it. The principles and the foundation. Yeah, you honor where you came from, but you're not trying to convert everybody to that anymore. So religion in its highest practice brings people together The principles and the foundation. Yeah, you honor where you came from, but you're not trying to convert everybody to that anymore. So religion in its highest practice brings people together.

In its lowest practice, it separates people. And you have people that become fundamental, and they'll say things like, this is the path. If you don't walk this path, you're going to hell. That's a very limited perception. Now, how does a person get there? And there's fundamentalism in every religion Yeah, a fundamentalist simply believes That what they believe May or may not be true So they have to convert you because they're afraid they might be wrong, right?

You see but once you know something you don't convert it's like You know two plus two is four. Yeah. So if you go into a room and your teacher is teaching and everybody's talking, no, two plus two is five. No, two plus two is eight. You're going to back out of that room. You're not going to get into an argument because you know two plus two is four. You know the truth.

You know the truth. So you just say, peace and blessings. You do your math and I'll do mine. You know the truth. You know the truth. So you just say, peace and blessings. You do your math and I'll do mine. But if you're fundamental, if you just believe two plus two is four, if you don't really know two plus two is four, but you just believe it and you become a very high believer, two plus two is four, I'm going to virtue.

But then you run into trouble there. Yeah. So our religions take us beyond belief, which we practice, into a deep knowing. And then you have tolerance and appreciation and compassion for people who are stumbling along their path. What if it's a family member that has a strong belief? Yeah. And you're like, gosh, that just doesn't make sense, or that's not the truth, or that's not the knowing. How do you have compassion for someone that's so aggressively, I don't have this in my life, but I'm just curious. No, but it's pretty common.

Right? Where it's like family members or friends or partners, where they're so against a different belief and try to pull you apart. How do you have that type of compassion, or what do you say to those people? Well, first of all, if they're so against something, that means there's fear there. So we have to understand what compassion is. Compassion, I define compassion as the understanding of the lack of understanding. Interesting. Yeah.

The understanding of ignorance or the understanding of lack. Just understand it. You don't agree, not in alignment with it, but your heart stays open and you're blessed. And you realize that you cannot assist an unreceptive mind. You can't convince. You can't convert. You can't do anything. So you just leave them alone.

You just love them. One day, and you live your life so good that you're shining, you're glowing. And then one day, they may ask you, why are you so happy all the time? I just heard that this bad thing happened in your life, and you're still grateful. Yeah. What do you have that makes you strong enough to do that? Now, that's a receptive mind. Now you can go back and say, well you know what,

I wake up every day with gratitude, I'm an appreciation for life. But if you try to teach somebody before they're receptive, they will take what you teach and use it against you. And so compassion means I understand the lack of understanding, but I'm not gonna argue with you. It's gonna let you be. When have you felt the most loved in your life

well besides that moment of the encounter that continues to Undulate through me a lot. I'm very fortunate that I came from an unconditional loving family My brothers and I we could have made the biggest mistake, but there was never any withhold of love Mm-hmm, you know I remember being a parent from my parents. Yeah, I remember being arrested and have made the biggest mistake, but there was never any withhold of love. I remember being arrested. From your parents. From my parents. Yeah, I remember being arrested and my father came to see me, he kind of smiled.

He just loved you anyways. He loved me anyway. My mom was there, I was like, I'm waiting for her, whatever. Not that they didn't discipline or all of that that they're supposed to do, but there was never any withhold of love. So I come from a baseline of love, which I think is very fortunate. Many people don't come from that. There was abuse.

Yeah. There was neglect or whatever. I didn't have that. So I have a strong baseline of love, and I have a strong baseline of inclusivity because my mother was very involved in the civil rights movement. So a lot of the meetings were at my house. Wow. So we had Mexicans, blacks, straight, gay, Jewish people.

Everybody was in my house all the time talking about the next thing we were going to do. We were going to picket this store. We were going to do this or that. So I didn't really have a, I didn't come to a lot of places where I am now through some kind of revelation. It was just part of my upbringing.

So I remember being in junior high school and people were attacking this guy. He was gay. And I was like, what are you guys doing? So what? What's it got to do with you? Are you afraid of him? But that was just in my household. So it wasn't.

So I think the baseline of love of my parents, my grandparents, you know, it was just a part of the deal. So I was always, I probably was more shocked when I went out into the world and can see brothers and sisters who don't talk to each other. You know what I mean? It's like, you haven't talked to your brother in eight years? What happened? You know what I mean?

And that was like... Didn't make sense, yeah. No, like my daughter and my son are like, I don't know how many years apart they are, like nine years apart. they're like best friends. You know what I mean? It's like they just love each other. And I'm always shocked, not anymore,

but it's like, you don't talk to your brother. You don't have to agree with him. Just love me, don't talk about that subject. Yeah, so I think the parental vibration, I'm very, and the more I'm on the planet, the more I've appreciated. Yeah, that's cool. The environment they rose to.

I want to ask a few more questions. This has been really inspiring. I appreciate you opening up. Thank you. When someone is in a relationship that isn't working, an intimate relationship that isn't working, or there's some tension for a few months and there's just seems to be a lot of conflict and when someone is looking to start dating something someone start to get together

both instances you're talking to different people here are you talking about let's just say two scenarios two scenarios you're in a relationship you've been together for a while, but now there's a few months of conflict. Or there's a period of time that's conflicting and you're not sure whether or not you should stay in that relationship. Okay. That's one scenario. One scenario.

And the second scenario is two people meet and they're about to start dating. What should be the questions that you should ask each other when you just meet to see if it's a good fit to come together and be partners? And what should the questions be? You've already been together for a while, but there's some conflict and you're not sure about the future. So in one scenario when people are just meeting, there has to be an understanding of what the intention is.

Is the intention to be in relationship or is the intention just a booty call? Is it just we just want to have fun? We don't want, you know, so depending on what paradigm a person is living in, we have different kind of questions. So if you're interested in a relationship. Let's say you're interested in a relationship. Then the question is, first of all, we have to define relationship. A relationship is what we call a joint participation

in the good of life. It's a participation in something larger. I like that. Okay? That's good. So it's not just, so when we understand that,

then I'm not trying to get my good from you. I'm not trying to get my love from you. And you're not trying to get it from me. We're bringing it to the table. It's like this.

Two fish are swimming in the ocean. And one fish says to the other fish, baby, if you give me what I want, I'll give you all the water you can handle. So they're swimming in water. So we're swimming in love. So I can't give it to you, but I can participate in it, and I can bring that to the table. My loving can bring that to the table.

So that means when people come together, they're actually coming together to grow and perfecting their loving. Wow. It's a much more mature state of being. When we're younger, we actually think, that person can make me happy.

That person can't make you happy. You have to bring happy. That means you have to work on yourself and you bring happy to the relationship. You bring peace, you bring love, you bring forgiveness, you bring compassion. So when people are first coming together, we have to see, are we at the same level in terms of wanting to grow together? Yeah. Okay. And then we're happy. We support each other.

I'm going to support. I'm going to love to the best of my ability. So it's the same question. If a relationship is in breakdown, then are we still growing? Mm-hmm. Or has the growth stopped? Is there a chance to keep the growth going? Are we interested in each other? Are we interested in each other?

Are we interested in each other's growth? Has the path diverged? This person is really more interested in this. This person is more interested in that. Is the growth stopped? If the growth has stopped and we've gleaned the lessons, then we have to look at that. Now, the Western culture of America, America is like a very young country. It's a couple hundred years old when you look at indigenous cultures some of the Native American cultures some of the other cultures thousands of years old

They have renewal for instance in certain of Native American cultures every seven years you renew and you relationship. Yeah, you see Do we have more juice here or do we not now Now, if you don't have juice, there's no fault. There's no like, you culprit here. You don't love me anymore. You didn't do this or whatever. It's like, you know what? We've learned this, this, this, and this. We're both better people.

Let's go another seven. Or it's time to go our separate ways in this form. In African culture, there's a space where the people, maybe this is over, and they'll come to the community, and then they gather with the elders, and the elders will do divination and say, you guys are finished. Wow.

You guys have done your job. You can stay together if you want, but you don't have to. Or they'll say, no, no, no, no, no. You still got a little work to do in this area. You know what I mean? So in the Western culture. So there's no like blame or guilt or shaming or wrongdoing. That's in Western culture.

We're young. We're babies. People think 200 years. Yeah. There's been cultures on the planet thousands of years that have a deeper insight into the unfolding of the soul. Not just getting your house, two kids

and retiring and dying. It's an unfoldment of the soul. This is powerful. We'll have to have you come back on and do a whole thing on relationships sometime in the future. I'm curious, at the end of this year, let's say it's New Year's Eve this year, what would the thing that would make you the most proud

of who you've been, become, or created in this life? Well, I'm always inviting a greater insight into reality, a greater understanding of the awakening process and who I am. So I always want to keep that going. In terms of my personal movement, it's always forefront. You know, I want to be more myself at the end of the year. When I look back at this guy sitting talking to you today,

I don't want this guy to be sitting here. I want another version to be sitting here. When I look at my community, I want Agape community to be more stable. We're in a permanent, temporary place. It means we can be there as long as we want. But I want to be closer to actually building our legacy building and our legacy community where people come from all over the world and celebrate the divine together.

I want to be closer financially where that is concerned. You know, in terms of a goal. Yeah. That's cool, that's cool. This is a question. I want my book to be out too. Okay, cool, yeah. Well you have three books right now that you brought here.

I think I've written seven, but those are three. These are the three that are, yeah, three are here. You got seven books, a machine. One's called Life Visioning, a transformative process for activating your unique gifts and highest potential. Make sure you guys check this one out. I'm going to read this one today. The answer is you. This is going to be a good one. I'm excited because it's shorter. That's why I read that one. And then Spiritual Liberation. So if you guys want to feel free, make sure to get this book as well. We'll have it all linked up on the show notes. This is a

question, one of the final questions that I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So you've written seven books. You're going to have an eighth one this year. I'm sure you'll have 50 books. But imagine it's your last day on earth. Many years from now, you can go as long as you want. Yes.

But at some point, you've got to go. Right. Hypothetically, right? And your physical body anyways. And you've written everything you want to write. You've said everything you want to say. You've said everything you want to say. You've met everyone. You've been knighted 50 times.

You've got a copy. You've got a huge theater that's a forever legacy. You've done it all. You've seen your grandkids grow. Everything has happened. Complete life, right? But for whatever reason, you've got to take everything with you when you leave. I've got to take it with me?

You've got to take your information, your work, your books, your words, your videos, all the content you put out in the world. It's got to go with you. Okay. So no one has access to it anymore. But you get to leave people with three final truths. These would be the three truths or the lessons that you've lived through your whole life. And this was all people had to remember in a written form,

what would you say are those three truths for you? One, fall in love with who you are, with what has been created. You didn't create yourself. There's a presence. There's a presence that created you out of itself. So you have to fall in love with that presence. Two, you have to cultivate that potential that's within you.

You don't want wasted potential. If you have potential, you have to cultivate it. You don't want to leave and realize, you know what? I should have cultivated that. I left it on the table. I left it on the table. I didn't to cultivate it. You don't want to you don't want to leave and realize you know what? I should have cultivated that left it on the table left it on the table. I didn't go for it I didn't even try You see and three you want to live with not how much you've got but how much did you give away? Before you left how much did you give away? I think that's the game That we're being asked to play on the planet right now.

Not how much we can get, but before we leave, how much can we give away? Now if we fall in love with ourselves, activate potential and give its way as much as possible, we'll be in bliss. Because bliss is the function of the activation of potential. Wow, those are great truths. I love those.

Imagine everyone in the world is putting on headphones right now. And everyone can understand English for a minute. Or they hear it in their own language. Exactly, they hear it in their own language. And you get to share one message with the world where people put their phones away. They're not watching TV.

They put on their headphones. They flip on a switch. Mic comes on. What is the message you would share in under 60 seconds for the world and what we're living through right now, what we're going through in this time and age? What would be a message you would say? I would let people know that there's a paradigm that's dying right now. Whenever a paradigm is dying, it makes a lot of noise. So right now, we have the paradigm of greed and hate, separation, supremacy of all kinds

of levels really loud, which means it's at its deathbed. And there's a paradigm that's emerging. The emerging paradigm is a paradigm of unity and oneness, of which now our quantum scientists are now echoing what the mystics have been teaching for thousands of years, that we're all one, that the separation is only in our mind. It doesn't really exist. So I would say stay strong. Don't give in to fear. Don't give in to worry. Worry is mentally and emotionally rehearsing what you don't want to happen, you see. So stay out of worry and fear and realize that we're passing through a phase of a dying of the old and a birthing of the new.

Stay true to the vision of unity. Have conversations about it. Let that be your conversation and watch as you look back at this type of history and the things that we were so afraid of will be in museums. People you'll have kids in museums saying, mommy, do people really hate each other because they were in different religions? Mom, the grandma, you mean people didn really hate each other because they were different religions mom the grandma You mean people didn't like each other because their skin colors were different. Mm-hmm mom Did that really happen? And grandmama was say yeah many years ago

That was the ignorance we were living in but not anymore babe Wow, yeah, that's powerful. I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Michael, because this is just like, for me, this is so awakening for me. You know, everything you've been sharing has been resonating deeply with me. And the fact that you've been living your life in such a level of high service for the last 30 plus years is a great example of what's possible for all of us. We don't have to go start spiritual centers the way you have, but we can do things to live in service every single day with our families, our friends, and the people, the strangers around us.

Absolutely. And so I acknowledge you for showing up the way you did today, for your constant level of service. Everyone I talk to who knows you just says how giving of a human being you are. talk to who knows you, just says how giving of a human being you are. And for showing me what's possible when all the good that comes your way, you don't have to wear a mask and think you're that much better. No, yes. And so I appreciate and acknowledge you for constantly showing up in service and humility and gratitude. It's a great blessing to be with you right now. Man, thank you. Appreciate it. Can I say one shout out? Sure.

My former wife, Ricky Byers, has a new CD that just dropped. It's called My Oh My, It's Time to Fly. It's one of some of her greatest work. I want people to go out and get it, along with my stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. My Oh My, It's Time to Fly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll link it up in the show notes and make sure it's there.

Make sure you guys get the CD. You know, they might like, I have another book called Transcendence, and it's my CD of my music. Perfect. Yeah. Transcendence. Transcendence. Dance. We'll link all your books up. Very good. So you guys make sure you go to the show notes. We'll tell you where that's at in a second. Check out these books, Spiritual Liberation as well. The Answer is You, Life Visioning. Life Visioning, this is the book that Oprah, she picked out of her 30 years of being on TV, she picked 15 books, as she said, were the best 15 books to help an individual solve a problem. And Life Visioning made that 15 cut.

Maybe I'll read this one today then. This is great. I appreciate it. Life Visioning. Very cool. Final question. And you're on social media? Oh, yeah.

Facebook, Instagram, Michael B. Beckwith. Michael B. Beckwith. Twitter, the whole deal. Okay, perfect. And they can go to agapelive.com to actually live stream my services. They can actually see me live. Anywhere in the world? Anywhere in the world. Most of the congregations around the world. Agape Live. I mean, I have a few thousand every Sunday, but most of the people are in Canada, Australia, New York, and they're all around the world. Right. So go to agapelive.com. You can watch it live on Sundays. Right.

If you're in L.A., if you're visiting L.A., people can show up to Agape. If they go to agape.com, is that where it's at? Yeah, they can find it at the Saban Theater. Okay, perfect. Right there on Wilshire and La Cienega. And when you go and you meet Michael, make sure you heard him on the show. Yeah, tell him to come up and say hi. Okay, perfect. Right there on Wilshire and La Cienega. And when you go and you meet Michael, make sure you heard him on the show. Yeah, tell him to come up and say hi.

Let him know. Let him know. Final question for you, Michael, is what's your definition of greatness? The definition of greatness is constantly being superior to your former self. So you're never in competition with someone else. You're only competing with your former self. So you're never in competition with someone else. You're only competing

with your former self so that tomorrow, next year, two years from now, you're actually releasing more life energy than you were two years ago or a year ago. So it's you really becoming

more you on a regular basis. Michael Beckwith. Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate you very much. This is powerful, man. Amen. Appreciate you very much. This is powerful, man. Absolutely. Thank you.

Wow. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I did not want it to stop. It was so inspiring, uplifting, informational, educational,

and continues to break my mindset to think bigger and attract the things I want in my life. If you enjoyed this, please tag myself at Lewis Howes and at Michael Beckwith over on Instagram. Follow him, connect with him, check out his books. It's all at the show notes at lewishowes.com slash 748. Share this with your

friends on Instagram stories, on Twitter, share it anywhere you can because this needs to be seen and heard all over the world. And as Joseph Campbell said, we must let go of the life we have planned so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. Your incredible life is waiting for you. It's your time to rise up, to start thinking differently, to start acting differently so you can attract and manifest magic in your life. You were born to be a magician of positivity, attracting to your life. It's your responsibility to go out there and pursue excellence, to pursue beauty, to pursue joy by being these things. The more you become those things, the more you will attract and empower them in your life.

I love you so very much, and you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you. you