January 16, 2025 • 43 mins
In this episode of From Crisis to Justice, Parag Amin hosts Tim Shields, an accomplished author, writing coach, and literary collaborator who transitioned from a corporate career in marketing to helping others unlock their potential through intention, awareness, and storytelling.
Tim’s journey from corporate marketing to becoming a published author and trusted collaborator to figures like Dr. Joe Dispenza provides valuable lessons for entrepreneurs and business owners. This episode is packed with actionable insights for aligning your goals with your purpose, fostering resilience, and avoiding costly missteps.
Key takeaways include:
- Harnessing Intention: How setting clear goals and aligning with purpose creates business breakthroughs.
- Overcoming Fear: Practical strategies to build trust in your decisions and overcome limiting beliefs.
- The Power of Awareness: Why understanding your personal and business values is essential for success.
- Tools for Business Growth: Tim’s daily gratitude and intention exercise and how it applies to navigating challenges.
If you’re a business owner, entrepreneur, or leader looking to level up your mindset and align your actions with your goals, this episode is for you.
Learn more about Tim Shields:
Website: https://www.therealtimshields.com/
Learn more about Parag Amin:
Business Law Firm: https://lawpla.com
Personal Website: https://paraglamin.com
Follow Parag:
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paragaminesq
📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@paragaminesq
💼 LinkedIn:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Welcome back, everybody.
To the From Crisis to Justice podcast.
I'm your host, Parag Amin, and
(00:44):
I'm joined by a very special guest today,Tim Shields.
Since walking away from a corporate careerin marketing and advertising in late
2015, Tim has made a living as an author,
writing coach,editor and literary collaborator.
A quote from Dr.
Joe Dispenser about Tim's book titled
(01:07):
A Curious Yearand the Great Vivarium Experiment
is an honest, vulnerable,transformational travel odyssey
into the heart and soul of a manusing the power of gratitude
and intention, no matterwhere the reader is in their life.
A curious year in the Great Vivariumexperiment
(01:28):
is a story about the magicthat occurs in awakening
to the unlimited potential of your life'sjourney.
Welcome, Tim.Thank you so much for being on today.
Thanks so much for having me.
So tell us what made you shiftfrom this corporate career,
seemingly
relatively traditional career in marketingand advertising into this journey of you
(01:51):
becoming an author, a writing coach,
editor and literary collaborator?
Well, I never actually wanted to beto be in the corporate world.
I decided I wanted to be a writer at 17,and I started keeping a journal
and I wanted to be a writer so bad
I started asking to be usedas an instrument of peace.
And somehowI thought coming out of college,
somebody was just going to pay meto travel the world and write about it.
(02:15):
A little uninformed there.
So, you know, I startedI was in New York City
and I was kind of chasing the dotcom bust era, chasing IPOs and everything.
And I moved to Seattleand I was there for 19 years.
And, you know, you got to make a living.
And I wound up working with Microsoftand T Mobile and all these corporations.
And I think in 2015,I got the opportunity to help Dr.
(02:39):
Joe Dispenser. Edit his blogs.
And then about nine monthsin, he was like, What would you think
about helping me with my new book,Becoming Supernatural?
And I was like, Watchhow fast I quit my job.
So I quit my 9 to 5 and pretty muchhave been doing this ever since.
It wasit was a pretty big fast break to have.
(03:00):
And what gave
you that courage to make that leap?
I mean, because it was in alignmentwith my passion
and, you know, like I've been
quietly working on my craft for years,you know, writing
terrible screenplays and starts of booksand everything like that.
But, you know,there was on the human level,
(03:22):
I was full of doubt and impostersyndrome and, you know,
everything else that goes along with that.
But kind of at the soul level,I knew that writing was my calling.
And from kind of a younger age,
I sort of I knew that I was a little bit
I was a deeper thinkerthan most of my contemporaries.
And so, yeah, when I had the opportunity,
(03:44):
it was funny because I was at this momentwhere I was either going to go, actually,
this was the second bookafter Joe spend it, but
I was,you know, trying to figure out what to do.
And I was about to gomaybe I was interviewing Google
and thenbut I didn't really want to do it.
And then this other opportunity came upand that was it.
(04:05):
I just moved into thatand that became my new path.
And it certainly hasn't been an easy one.
But, you know,I think out of all the arts, writing
is probably the hardestbecause it's a long man's game.
So you have to live a lot of lifeexperience to have something
significant to write about, I believe. So,
(04:26):
yeah, absolutely.
And so when you say it was,it was your calling.
How did you know it was your calling?
Well, you know,I had a my sister's boyfriend.
I probably was ten years oldwhen I met him.
He was like 19.
And he was this super bright light,brilliant guy,
good looking, smart,athletic, had an incredible memory.
(04:49):
And he was the first person that ever madebeing smart look cool to me.
And he was an aspiring writer
and he was like, If you want to write,you got to start keeping a journal.
And then at 17,I went to a Grateful Dead concert,
not really knowing what I was doingand took a pretty big dose of mushrooms.
And I would say I kind of experiencewhat I would call
(05:10):
now, like unity consciousness.
And and it was just I was like,whatever this thing is
that we're involvedin, in life, it's so much bigger than us.
And I just wanted to learn about it.
And, you know, I was at a young age.
I was writing about time and spaceand dimensions.
And, you know,I think the next kind of revolution
(05:30):
is the spiritual revolution,
because we've we've chartered,you know, the external world.
And the next one is the internal world.
And I think that's where a lot ofI think that's where we're going.
I believe that's where we're going.
Yeah. And so can you expand on thata little bit?
Like, what is unity consciousness?
Well, you know, it's
(05:51):
we livein this world of fear and separation,
and it's the controllingmechanism of the world.
But I think that people are waking upto something greater
and if we can let go of the fear,we can move in to kind of
the next evolution of our species,
if that makes sense.
(06:11):
So it makes sense.
So are you saying that Well,let me back up.
Do you think that
fear is innate?
Meaning like all humans are bornwith some level of fear?
I mean, I think fear is programing,conditioning, like we come into this love,
(06:32):
we come into this worldthat's just a little ball of love.
And then we have you know, that's sort ofthe first stage is our family.
And then we move out into schooland society and everything else.
And then,
you know, we get wounded along the wayand then we start to protect ourselves
and then we close ourheart off from other people.
So I don't think it's innate.
I think I think it'spart of the human experience.
(06:56):
But I think
if you want to achieve anything,whether you're a writer, an entrepreneur,
a lawyer,you have to at many points in your life,
you have to jump over that line of fear
and you have to move into surrenderand trust
in sort of that internal guidance systemthat's calling you
to something bigger and greater.
Yeah.
So how would you separatethese two types of fear?
(07:16):
I mean, there's the type of fearthat can literally keep you alive.
For example, let's sayhandling a poisonous snake in the wild
for sure versusthe fear of public speaking.
Yeah, well, I would say obviously
the fear of a snake or a tiger iswhat has propagated our species
(07:37):
and not made us foodto greater to larger species.
But I think the fearthat we all have occurred in our
youth, I call themour core wounds are the soul and
it's like if you don't do thatinternal inventory
to find out where all these things happenand occur throughout your life,
(08:00):
if you're in a business meetingor in an argument with a, you know, your
your wife or your girlfriend or something,and that that core wound gets triggered,
you're going back at these this personas like the fourth grader,
but you're unaware of itand you're at you're you're an adult, but
you are acting out of this wound,which is a fear.
(08:24):
So you have to
you have to become very aware of wherethese things happened in our life.
And then that is where sort of liberationto step into the greater version
of yourself occurs.
I believe when you don't jump out at that
dangling carrot of the emotionand you are your self-regulate
and you are aware of who your are being,where your programs are coming from,
(08:47):
and why you're responding to a situation,the way you're responding and
so whatdo you think is the common denominator
then that you found holds backmany people?
I think it's three things.
It's fear, trauma and limited thinking.
So I got in my new work,which I'm in the process of
updating my book proposalfor a literary agent.
(09:08):
I kind of created this new modelof self-actualization.
So if you think of self-actualization
in the tip of a triangle in Maslow'shierarchy of Needs, it suggests you've
reached some pinnacle or ultimate statefrom which there is no deviation or fall.
But I would say that self-actualizationis actually a model of concentric circles.
(09:29):
So it's a dynamic state of expansionand contraction.
So if you think aboutall of these concentric circles
and you'reyou're existing at this one circle,
which is a level of consciousness,and these circles
are all made up of tiny dotswhich are possibilities in your life.
If you want to get to the next goal,the next level of consciousness,
(09:49):
whatever, you have to overcome that chasmto get to the next level.
The circle.
And I would say you have to overcomefear, trauma or limited thinking
and it's almost likewe've all been so ingrained
into this because it'sa part of our human experience.
But I think the growthand the liberation occurs
(10:10):
when you make that jump,when you surrender and trust
into something that's bigger than you,and you have to really trust
your internal vision.
And do you think that's the keyto overcoming fear, trauma
and limited thinking,or is there some other team or other team?
You know, I'm not a psychologist.
There's a lotof there's a lot of keys. But
(10:32):
again, I think it comes down
to like self-awareness and
trusting your own life.
I mean, it'staken me years to trust my own life.
And I've tried to get off this ridingtrain a bunch of times.
And every time I was like,I just want a more secure path.
I'm going to go to Amazonand make a ton of money.
And then every time I was rightthere, life just put me
(10:52):
right back on the riding train.
And when I kind of surrendered to that
and I was like,All right, this is this is it.
This is my calling. I'm going for it.
Like doors just started to open.
So I think when you, you know,in this new work, I said,
when you you act in the alignmentof your mind body and spirit
in right actions, right thinking,right language and right feeling,
you become like the boring machineand matter conformist your will
(11:15):
and the boring machine being the thingthat tunnels through mountains.
So as you start into this alignmentwith your higher calling, your dream,
whatever serendipity and synchronicitystart to show up in your life
and they become this guiding pathand that's where you got it.
You surrender and trust.
Like, okay, this doesn't reallymake sense, but this thing showed up.
(11:39):
This thing showed up.
I call them breadcrumbs.
Like a breadcrumbis something that leaps out of your leaves
into your internal awarenesswith a registering force.
Maybe it's
you see something that doesn't make sense,or you have a conversation with somebody
at a bus stop or something, and on its ownit kind of means nothing.
It's just curious.
But then they start lining up and thatstarts to become the guidance system and
(12:04):
the greatchallenge, I think, of life is trusting
that guidance system,which ultimately is trusting yourself
well.
Do you think the guidance system alwaysleads you to the right path for yourself?
It it it always has.
When I don't trust myself is when I godown the wrong path or I get in trouble or
I meet a lot of resistance and, you know,it's just like going into a dead end
(12:27):
and you just got to turn aroundand go back out
and sort of start moving in a new pathand keep your awareness open and
and just keep moving towardswhatever that dream or goal is.
Yeah.
And there's an aspect that I referto as kind of like the two paths.
So like the one internal sense of this
is the right thing to do,even if it's a hard thing to do.
(12:49):
Yeah.
And that many times requiresfar more discipline
to follow that path because you know,that's the right path for you.
Then the alternative path,
which many times your brainmight try to trick you and say, Look,
just go down this path, it's easier,there's less resistance.
Why do you think there's that at one?
(13:10):
Do you do you agree or disagree?
And two, if you do agree,why do you think that is?
Like, why is it that on the one handthere's this internal conscious knowledge
of what the right path isand yet there's some form of resistance
that's trying to guide youtowards that easier path that
(13:31):
most of
the time, you know, is not the right path.
Well, the one path that's not the rightpath is about fear and security.
And then the right path requires,like you said, discipline and commitment.
I mean, I've wanted to be a writer for 30or 30 plus years now.
And it's it's definitely not an easy path.
(13:54):
It's not a secured it's not a secure path.
But I mean, I get to work with someI just kept I call it dream tethering.
So I'm like attached.
I'm tethered to this dream in the futureand it's like this energetic bond with it.
And when you get into that alignment,it starts pulling you forward.
And again, that's where the serendipityis in synchronicity show up.
(14:17):
Yeah.
And soI've heard and read in some of the Dr.
Joe Disbands his work and I know he talksa little bit about this idea of like
quantum mechanics and to some extent
I don't think he uses this phrase,but this is how I think about it.
The the Law of Attraction idea.
Yeah.
So there's that.
There's like thatmetaphysical quantum mechanics.
(14:40):
You attract the type of energy your vibeattracts, your tribe kind of thing.
And then on the other hand,there's like the more
practical or just almost like
common sense type approach of like
I'm generally going to findwhat I'm looking for.
(15:01):
Meaning like if I look around the room,if we, if any of us look around the room
that we're in right nowand we try to look for the color green,
we're more likely to findthat color green around us.
Then if we're looking for the color green.
But then we happen to spot red,I feel like it's less likely
(15:22):
to necessarily register
in our minds simply becausewe're not really actively looking for it.
So how do you how do you think about this?
Is it is it like the quantummechanical idea or quantum physics idea,
or are we talking about a lotjust on a practical day to day level?
If you're looking for it, you'remore likely to spot those opportunities
(15:43):
just like, you know, if you'relooking for a black mustang on the road
because you just got one, you know, you'remore likely to spot more black mustangs.
I don't know that somehow metaphysicallymore of them
have been attracted to you in that momentsimply because you're thinking about it.
Yeah, well, I mean, Dr.
Joe decent dispenser would say sort of
the thought sends a signal outand the feeling pulls it back.
(16:06):
But, you know,if you are focused on that green car
or something like that, thenthat is where your point of awareness is.
That is what.
And so you could in some regardsjust say your awareness is more broadened
or you could be pulling that to you.
I mean, we have to go much deeperinto quantum physics and all that. But
(16:29):
you know,
like it's like I said, that dream tether,if you're focused on that dream, then
that is where your point of awareness isand you are moving towards that.
And at the same timeyou are pulling that towards you.
That's my belief and my experience.
Okay.
And what kind of principles
(16:50):
can entrepreneurs applyregarding consciousness and intention
as it relates to to business challengesor navigating life in general?
Well, I'll tell you, some of myone of my biggest
one of my biggest lessonsis actually getting a lawyer.
I was trying to do everything
by myself for years and,
(17:12):
you know, it just wasn't working.
And I signed some bad dealsand I lost some some money around it.
So, you know,
I think that it's really importantto get the right a team around you.
So, you know,whether depending on what you're doing,
the lawyer, the social media,
the literary agent, you have to have
those people who are, you know,
(17:36):
fighting for you or,you know, I'm blanking on the right word.
But, you know, at least for you,what's that?
At least looking out for you.
Yeah, they're going to bat for youand they're looking out for you.
Yeah. So
that that's been in the last year.
Probably the biggest lesson I've learnedand it's it's changed things.
(17:58):
You know, I feel much more secure, likehaving a lawyer and going into contracts.
And I was very avoidant of social mediabecause I just didn't
want to deal with it.
And I have a team to deal with that now,so I just have to record it.
And you know,
in my businessand probably the music business as well,
(18:20):
it used to beabout the quality of the work.
Now it's about followers.
It's almost like everything'sabout followers.
So I call it the crap, the crap culture,the pop culture crap machine.
So it's like elevating the wrong voices
and, you know, putting less talentedpeople, etc.
up, perhaps because that's notthat's not across the board.
(18:42):
But in a lot of cases,you know, giving some,
some influencer a book deal or somethingwhen they have nothing to say or add to,
you know, the quality of anybody's lifeor anything like that.
So, I mean, another thingI think is that it's important when you're
when you're
dream tethering or in the dreamor creating anything,
(19:02):
if you are in alignmentwith some sort of service aspect
that, you know, again,
for lack of a better word,the universe is conspiring for you
to a greater degreebecause it's not just about
the individual, it'snot not just about the ego, but you're
trying to bring somethingbetter to the world.
(19:23):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I mean, I think that
humans, the vast, vastmajority at least are hardwired
to want to be of service to other peopleand to other living beings.
Yeah.
And I think that
we get a lot of our self-esteem,a lot of our energy,
sense of well-being, howeveryou want to phrase it, a lot of that
(19:48):
feeling, good
aspect of life from being of service.
But then yet on the flipside,we see a lot of
people spewing hate and negativityand somehow there's there's
also a lot of those out thereand there's a lot of people
that gravitate towardsthat and follow that.
Can you try to help us make sense of thatout of the two lines or square?
(20:13):
I would just say that they are at it
again, for lack of a better word,at a lower level of consciousness.
And I think you just have to maintainyour high level
of consciousness,connection, love, unity, service.
And, you know,you have to be the living example.
And it's like the metaphor.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
(20:35):
If if you stay at that level
and you're kicking ass in lifeand all this stuff,
people are going to be like,What are they doing that I'm not doing?
And then you become the example.
And then they start asking you,What are you doing?
And, you know,
I'm amazed at all the people that are likeasking me about meditation now and
spirituality and stuff like that.
(20:57):
And I think it's it's
a good sign that there's a new awakeningsweeping across the planet.
We're still we're still a long ways off,but I think we're
at the start of something new.
MM Yeah, yeah, I agree.
I think a lot of people are muchmore conscious about it in terms of
intentionally trying to either meditateor be spiritual or whatever
(21:18):
it is, be one with the universe or
be at peace with each other.
So what kind of kind of lessons
can you canyou share from your, your travels
and how that might influence decisionmaking under pressure that
we can all learn from?
(21:39):
Well, my first book, A Curious here
in the Great Vivarium Experiment.
Basically, I had a decade of sick parentsand when my mother
passed away closing that decade,I bought a one way ticket to India.
And I was just doing thisgratitude intentioned exercise.
Somebody had told me to do it.
I was I was I thought I was readyfor my mother's passing.
(22:02):
And then it was likethe rug was swept out from under me.
And I was very lost and kind of scared andthis woman said, okay, you're a writer.
I want you to do this exercise.
I want you to write downfive things you're grateful
for and five things you want to create.
And you're going to findthat the things that you create today
are going to be the things you're gratefulfor in the future.
And that actually created the storyarc of the book
(22:23):
because I just bought a one way ticketin India to find the story,
and I was just writing things down like,I want to be of service when I travel.
And I wound up volunteering for this guy
who's
like the grandfather of environmental lawin India.
He's won the equivalent of two NobelPrizes in grassroots environmentalism,
sued the state of India over 20 years tocreate a Green Zone around the Taj Mahal.
(22:44):
Every Friday for a bunch of years,the Supreme Court of India held
special casesfor the voiceless people of India.
So I was I remember driving to the airport
with my 12 year with my sisterand my 12 year old niece in the back.
And I almost had a breakdown.
I'm like, what am I doing?
I bought a one way ticket to Indiaon a continent of 23 billion people.
(23:07):
I didn't know anybodyand but I just had this intention
that I kept putting out thereand everything unfolded out of that.
And I thinkthe biggest thing that I learned
and I try to remind myself all the timeand I tell other people and this
comes down to surrender and trust,but when you jump, the net appears.
But when you're standingat the edge of that,
(23:29):
looking down into the abyssof the unknown, it's terrifying.
But that is where you learn.
That's where you grow.
The the growth is in the unknown self.
You know everything about thispresent moment, about your past.
But if you want to moveinto a new dimension of your being,
you have to move into the unknown.
You have to jump into the unknown self.
(23:50):
And again, when you jump, the net appears.
I mean, it's happened to me so many times.
I volunteered at orphanage in India.
I mean, in Tanzania, I tried to do my owntravel show in Europe, done
all sorts of crazy things,
because as a young man,I knew that if I wanted
to have big things to write about,I had to have big experiences.
(24:10):
But it wasn't without like fearand sometimes terror.
Every time I was on that planegoing to another country
and having no idea what was ahead of me,but I made the decision.
I jumped into it and everythingjust unfolded exactly how it was supposed
to actually far betterthan I could have ever imagined it would,
because I took the chanceto jump into the unknown.
(24:33):
I love that.
So the more you dothat, jumping into the unknown
does the easy is it the easier it getsor is it hard every time?
I mean, I think it's hard every time.
But then you have this body of lifeexperience behind you.
So then you kind of develop the trust.
So you come up against the fear,you come up against that line,
but you look back and say,okay, well, historically speaking,
(24:57):
throughout the course of my life,this is always worked out in a better way
than I could have ever imagined it.
So as the more bigger jumps you make,the more you trust
and trust in who, who,who's building this net when you jump,
that's going to be I think it'sI think it's trusting in yourself.
I think it's trusting in sort of the
(25:19):
the abundanceand generous nature of of the universe
or God or whatever the quantum field,whatever you want to call it.
But I think itI think it begins with trusting yourself.
And that's a hard thing.
I mean, that's somethingI've been trying to master for years.
And if I had to distill my workinto two pillars, it would be in surrender
(25:40):
and trust, because that'swhat I'm trying to master in this life.
Because, you know, wanting to be a writeror a voice of generation or something is
pretty, pretty big mountain to go up.
But I said in my first book that,
you know, the first book is kind ofabout the dream of the 17 year old self.
It's the self actualization of memoving into the the writer and within me.
(26:04):
And I said, the dream of the 17 yearold self is like shooting
a grappling hook out of the future
and if you're
strong enough, focused enoughand determined enough to stay on the line,
you're going to get where you want to go.
But the external environment is alwaysgoing to try and knock you off the line.
And then at the end of the day,the external environment is just a mirror
to your your internal environment.
(26:27):
Yeah, I love that.
And can you just briefly maybeexplain what you mean by that
in terms of the external environmentbeing a mirror center?
I mean, if
you know, I,
I despite the fact that I've takenall these huge leaps and jumps,
I kind of always thought of myselfas like a fearful person.
(26:48):
It's probably like the projectionof my mother's love,
which was in a sense protectionin fear upon me.
So I took all these risks to kind of,
you know,swing the pendulum in the other way and
where was I going with that?
The fear, right?
(27:08):
Yeah.
So, so we were talking about the worldbeing a reflection.
Yeah.
So it's like if you were always looking
for protectionand fear in your external world, then
that's what's going to show up and that'sbeing projected from your internal world.
If you have an abundant mindset,
if you are joyful, if you whatever
(27:32):
that more positive quality is, that iswhat's going to show up in your world.
And I, you know, through Dr.
Joe De spends his workand my own personal work, it's,
you know,
systematically alteringthat little fear mechanism.
Like every time you sit down to meditate,you quiet that voice.
And I, you know,I move into the future of what I want
(27:53):
to create and manifestwhen I'm meditating.
And you do that through the feeling.
So it's it's almost like you feelthe event ahead of the event.
And that's kind of what pulls it to you.
You feel the outcomeof that future of that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So what do you think is the differencebetween an abundance mindset of there's
(28:16):
plenty of everything to go around foreverybody on the one hand,
and then also this ideaof not being wasteful, meaning
let's say somebody thinks likeopportunities come around every day.
I don't need to take advantageof the opportunity today that's at my door
today because another advantageor opportunity will come around tomorrow
(28:37):
and then the next dayand then the next day.
So, yeah, why should I act nowif the world is truly abundant?
Well, that is that
that's why you have to be really in touchwith your sort of internal navigation
system, because I think, you know,the more aware you are,
the easierit is to spot the real opportunities.
(28:59):
And I've been very judicious aboutwho I've worked with over the years
and I've gotten, you know,
long, long periods of timewithout a paycheck writer.
You know, you get paid in bulk.
And so I've actually, you know, causedmyself some some uncomfortable times.
But if I'm not passionate about,you know, working with somebody and I'm
(29:23):
just taking it for a paycheck, thenI'm not going to deliver my best work.
And that is, you know,even if I'm a ghostwriter or, you know,
I just have a with byline, that is mewho is who's putting this out there. So
this happened.
Have you ever heard of a guy named Dr.Zach Bush?
No, He's he's a very incredible,incredible human being.
(29:47):
He's like a triple board certified doctorand probably one of the global
thought leaders on our microbiomeand how it relates to our soil systems.
He's really big on regenerative farmingand everything like that.
And I heard him on a podcast
and I was like, Who the hell is this guy?
I got to work with himand I kind of reached out
to a couple of peoplethat could have known him
(30:08):
and and knew him,and it just didn't work out.
But I just
kept writing it, my intention journalthat I was going to work with this guy.
And at some pointI got invited to this little research
at this little research
gathering at UCSD,and there was only 14 people there.
And I knew Zach Bush was going to be thereand I was stalking him,
(30:32):
you know, like a cheetahstalking a gazelle on the Serengeti.
I'm like, Where is he?When's my right opportunity?
And we were walking to the labat one point and he said, so
how are you involved in this?
And I said, Well,I start stumbling over my words.
And then I said, Well, I was
trying to come up with something clever,but I have nothing right now.
And my friend Hillary said, Well,he was Dr.
(30:52):
Joe dispenses writer and editorand he and Zach was just like, Really?
Are you available?
And like, my jaw dropped.
By the time we got to the lab,he asked me for my number
and, you know, I just helped himcomplete his his first book.
He's this
triple board certified doctorwith the soul of a poet and a mystic.
(31:14):
One of the most eloquent peoplehe could take you from the mitochondria
to the furthest reaches of the galaxyin 20 minutes.
And you're like, What just happened?
But my mind is completely blown.
You'redefinitely going to be hearing a lot
about him in the next couple of years.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
I'll I'll check it out right after,right after this podcast.
So there's this writing exercisethat you do daily.
(31:37):
It's five things you're grateful for andthen five things you want to accomplish,
you want to create.
So I literally write down todayI am so grateful
for and I write down five things,or I might write more than that.
I just kind of do it in a paragraph.
You can do it number two if you want.
But and then I, I say todayI intend and create
(31:58):
and I just write that downand I close the book
and I don't ever thinkI don't think about it again.
But I've had so many peoplewho've read the book
and reached out to me and they said,You're not going to believe what happened.
And I say, Yes, I do,because it happens to me all the time.
I thinkit's just a really powerful exercise.
I do it with my coffee or teain the morning.
(32:19):
It's one of the first like on most daysI'll meditate and then I'll
have my coffee and my tea and
and Ijust do that exercise and I mean, what,
what better way to start a dayand then to move into gratitude
instead of fear or jumping into the news,which is nothing but fear porn.
And you know, just thinkthat you just take a moment to pause
(32:41):
and what am I grateful forin my life right now?
Okay, what do I want to create in my life?
So it's a I encourage everybody to try.
It is. Yeah.
There's one other thingthat's kind of wild that I started doing,
and I did a little Instagram post about itand I've had multiple people
reach out to me before I go to bed.
(33:02):
I say
I choose to awaken in my highest timelineand then when I wake up in the morning,
the first thing I say isI awaken in my highest timeline
and I've had multiplepeople start to do it and reach out to me.
And you know, in one regard, you could
you're your programing,your subconscious mind and your sleep.
(33:24):
And the first week I started doing it,I got a new literary agent.
I wound up
just I just woke up and
I said, okay, I'm in invest in this thing.
And I liquidated some Apple stock and
invested in this thingright before it kind of started to pop.
And yeah,I don't know, maybe maybe in the follow up
(33:46):
book to dream tethering,I'll figure out the mechanism. But
like, I like I always tell peoplethere's intention goes so far,
but most of us are just kind of movingthrough the program.
We're checking off the boxesof what we're supposed to do every day,
and we're not actually thinking about whatwe really want out of our lives.
100% agree with that.
And one of the best analogiesI've heard used about that is
(34:10):
if somebody came to you and said, Hey,I want to build a house,
you said, okay, well,how many rooms is that?
It's going to have me. So I don't know
how many
bathrooms is the room going to haveor about the house going to have?
I don't know the blueprintsabout this house,
how you intend for itto look when it's completed?
Well, I don't know.
(34:30):
I don't have that.
And it's funny because it seems so crazy.
Any one of us,if somebody came to us and said, yeah, I'm
going to build a house,but I don't know how many bedrooms
it has bathrooms, it has what it evenlooks like, how many stories it is.
And I certainly do not have blueprintsoutlining any of that would be like,
Guy's nuts.
You don't even need to know anything
about architectureor construction to say like this.
I don't knowhow you're going to build this house,
(34:52):
but when it comes to life and intention,seemingly, it's
just so overlookedand it's such a weird thing
because we're not building a houseor building something far more important,
which is our life.
You to have that intention to createand design what it is that you want.
But we're never taught that.
And somehow, for whatever reason,that really isn't innate until somebody
(35:14):
at some pointexplains that or has written that,
and then you see it and you say,Well, wow, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Yeah, that is brilliant.
I've never heard that before, but it'sjust gets right to the point like that.
Yeah.
So let me ask you, when you saybefore you go to sleep, when you wake up
and you say, I intend to wake up in myhighest timeline, is that what you said?
(35:37):
I choose to awaken in my highest timeline.
I choose to awaken in my eyes timeline.
So what is your highest timeline?
What does that mean?
I mean, my highest timeline is the lifeI designed for myself
and where I want to go.
And, you know, that's that's the right
things, right people, the serendipityand synchronicity is showing up.
(35:59):
The right agent.
I just got this new literary agent and
my former literary agent was, wasI didn't even realize
kind of what a legend he was,but he put Eckhart totally on the map.
And Neil O'Donnell, NeilDonald was he's worked with Neil Young.
He did the dummy series
and he totally got what I was doing.
(36:20):
I had all these conversations before him.
He got what I was doing.
He picked me up like that,and I was working with this other guy
and he said, No,
you really got to take this meetingwith this big London literary agent.
And so I did,
and it took me four monthsto get a meeting with her
(36:40):
and then three months for herto get back to my proposal.
And she turned me down.
And so then I went back to my otherliterary agent who is an older guy,
and he said, Oh, well, I'm sick right now,but I'm going to be better next month.
And he kept saying, this And then I thinkit was July 22 or something.
He said, I'mgoing to be better by September.
(37:01):
And then he passed away a year agoin December.
So I've had a bunch of meetingswith other literary agents,
and this is right around the timewhen I said the highest timeline
when I started that exercise.
So I got this other meetingwith this literary agent.
And when I started the meeting,I said, Well,
my former agent, Bill Gladstone, and sheshe was like, What did you just say?
(37:24):
She's like, I started my literary careerwith him 25 years ago,
and I had actually been like asking Billfrom the other side
to just guide meto the right literary agent.
So yeah, again,intention there, there is such a,
a bigger field of reality and possibilitythat we are taught,
you know, throughout evolutionwe've been focused
(37:48):
because of survival on the three world,which is the threat.
But there is this entireother realm of energy
which we're just startingto really uncover through quantum physics.
You know, we,we lived in this Newtonian paradigm for
the last 200, 300 years, which is now
we understand how a jet can flyfrom New York to L.A.
(38:08):
in five, 6 hours and whatever.
But, you know, the quantum fieldis greater umbrella structure within
within which the 3-D reality works.
And the quantum field is just in a field.
And it is an endless field of energy.
So when we start to learnhow to tap into that,
(38:30):
we become far more powerful creatorsthan we think we are.
And that I think that is what the bigone of the big revelations
of this spiritual revolutionthat's happening right now is,
oh, we're so much more powerfulthan the diminutive little boxes
that society and governmentand everything else put us into.
(38:50):
Yeah,And so I've done some reading on quantum,
so I have a very simple graspof what it is.
But for somebody whomaybe hasn't read anything about it or
would like to
learn more about it, can you canyou explain that what you mean by that?
What is the quantum field?What is what is quantum physics?
And what what is that idea?
Well, the quantum field is,you know, this unlimited field of energy.
(39:14):
And it's you know, it's Einstein said
the field is the solegoverning agency of the particle.
So we are in the particle statewhere physical matter.
So the field,if you think about it, you know,
well, I'll just say like abovethe speed of light is nothing but energy.
And then below the speed of lightyou have the division.
(39:36):
So above the speed of light,the energy is just the wave.
But then when it breaksthe speed of light, it turns into matter.
So the energy and the particleare the same thing.
They're just two in two different states.
So as that energy slows down,
you you have the third dimensionof reality in which we we're in.
(39:57):
But there are all these other fieldsand dimensions of reality
within the one which we're living in.
And you're saying you
access that through intention and emotion.
Yeah.
And, and I think I think getting still,
you know, and blocking outthe external world and tuning in to,
(40:17):
you know, justI mean as simple as taking fiber
10 minutes, setting an alarm and just tuneinto the energy of your heart.
And then I just kind of expandthat field around me.
Yeah, I love that.
And do you think it's important goingback to the idea of writing things down,
how important is the writing processversus just thinking it or saying it?
(40:40):
I thinkI think writing is pretty important.
I think writing and languageis very important.
The language that we use
not only in our external world,but in our own internal world,
you know, I said like language is kind of
it takes this amorphous
idea and concretize is itso that we have it
(41:01):
takes the ideas and the feelings of lifeinto something communicable.
And, you know, I think that intentionin that language is sort of the
the forging is the force that forgesthe particle into physical reality.
I know that sounds probably I'm way too
into my book right now, too,to condense it into more simple language.
(41:23):
But, you know, it's just it's again,
it's the thought in the signal,the thought sense of
the thought sense, the idea that feelingpulls it back.
That's the most simplistic way,I think, to do it.
And those are sort of two halvesof intention.
Yeah, And I think you have to believeit's true when you write it. Yes.
(41:43):
Yeah, Yeah.
And when you do that,you know I'm guilty of it too.
Sometimes I just dothe gratitude intention exercise
as something to check off, you know?
But when I'm really more present, I
get into that feeling
because that feeling is sort of the
(42:03):
I mean, I don't know how elseto explain it, but, you know, it's it's
sort of the carrier wave that interactswith all the other possibilities.
So when you feel it,you're starting to pull that into you.
So most of us are operatingout of unconscious programs.
And, you know,so that's what we're pulling.
Again, the fear and lack.
We're operating
(42:24):
out of the unconscious program of fearand lack that we learn from our parents.
So that's whatwe're pulling into our world.
So you've got to you've got to becomereally aware of those those internal
programing conditioning and switchthat and continuously dream tether
with the thought and the feelingand the writing right language, action,
(42:44):
feeling and thoughts to pull that thingto you.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to the listeners,I hope this is helpful, revolutionary,
maybe even in your thinking or the wayyou're seeing life and experiencing life
and so check out Tim's websiteif you want to learn more.
And as always, thank you so muchfor joining today and listening.
And if you found this helpful,make sure you like and subscribe.
(43:05):
So you knowwhen the new episodes are dropping.
Thanks so much for being here.
Hi, I'm Parag Amin.
Welcome to my podcast.
From Crisis to Justice.
As a lawyer and entrepreneur, I'mpassionate about helping small business
owners successfully navigate situationsthat can kill a business.
As a kid, I watched my dad's dreamsof being an entrepreneur were destroyed
by an unethical businessman, and I don'twant that to happen to you or your family.
(00:22):
That's why I started my law firm.
I want to protect and defend businessowners and their legacies from crisis.
Welcome to From Crisis to Justice.
Welcome back, everybody.
To the From Crisis to Justice podcast.
I'm your host, Parag Amin, and
(00:44):
I'm joined by a very special guest today,Tim Shields.
Since walking away from a corporate careerin marketing and advertising in late
2015, Tim has made a living as an author,
writing coach,editor and literary collaborator.
A quote from Dr.
Joe Dispenser about Tim's book titled
(01:07):
A Curious Yearand the Great Vivarium Experiment
is an honest, vulnerable,transformational travel odyssey
into the heart and soul of a manusing the power of gratitude
and intention, no matterwhere the reader is in their life.
A curious year in the Great Vivariumexperiment
(01:28):
is a story about the magicthat occurs in awakening
to the unlimited potential of your life'sjourney.
Welcome, Tim.Thank you so much for being on today.
Thanks so much for having me.
So tell us what made you shiftfrom this corporate career,
seemingly
relatively traditional career in marketingand advertising into this journey of you
(01:51):
becoming an author, a writing coach,
editor and literary collaborator?
Well, I never actually wanted to beto be in the corporate world.
I decided I wanted to be a writer at 17,and I started keeping a journal
and I wanted to be a writer so bad
I started asking to be usedas an instrument of peace.
And somehowI thought coming out of college,
somebody was just going to pay meto travel the world and write about it.
(02:15):
A little uninformed there.
So, you know, I startedI was in New York City
and I was kind of chasing the dotcom bust era, chasing IPOs and everything.
And I moved to Seattleand I was there for 19 years.
And, you know, you got to make a living.
And I wound up working with Microsoftand T Mobile and all these corporations.
And I think in 2015,I got the opportunity to help Dr.
(02:39):
Joe Dispenser. Edit his blogs.
And then about nine monthsin, he was like, What would you think
about helping me with my new book,Becoming Supernatural?
And I was like, Watchhow fast I quit my job.
So I quit my 9 to 5 and pretty muchhave been doing this ever since.
It wasit was a pretty big fast break to have.
(03:00):
And what gave
you that courage to make that leap?
I mean, because it was in alignmentwith my passion
and, you know, like I've been
quietly working on my craft for years,you know, writing
terrible screenplays and starts of booksand everything like that.
But, you know,there was on the human level,
(03:22):
I was full of doubt and impostersyndrome and, you know,
everything else that goes along with that.
But kind of at the soul level,I knew that writing was my calling.
And from kind of a younger age,
I sort of I knew that I was a little bit
I was a deeper thinkerthan most of my contemporaries.
And so, yeah, when I had the opportunity,
(03:44):
it was funny because I was at this momentwhere I was either going to go, actually,
this was the second bookafter Joe spend it, but
I was,you know, trying to figure out what to do.
And I was about to gomaybe I was interviewing Google
and thenbut I didn't really want to do it.
And then this other opportunity came upand that was it.
(04:05):
I just moved into thatand that became my new path.
And it certainly hasn't been an easy one.
But, you know,I think out of all the arts, writing
is probably the hardestbecause it's a long man's game.
So you have to live a lot of lifeexperience to have something
significant to write about, I believe. So,
(04:26):
yeah, absolutely.
And so when you say it was,it was your calling.
How did you know it was your calling?
Well, you know,I had a my sister's boyfriend.
I probably was ten years oldwhen I met him.
He was like 19.
And he was this super bright light,brilliant guy,
good looking, smart,athletic, had an incredible memory.
(04:49):
And he was the first person that ever madebeing smart look cool to me.
And he was an aspiring writer
and he was like, If you want to write,you got to start keeping a journal.
And then at 17,I went to a Grateful Dead concert,
not really knowing what I was doingand took a pretty big dose of mushrooms.
And I would say I kind of experiencewhat I would call
(05:10):
now, like unity consciousness.
And and it was just I was like,whatever this thing is
that we're involvedin, in life, it's so much bigger than us.
And I just wanted to learn about it.
And, you know, I was at a young age.
I was writing about time and spaceand dimensions.
And, you know,I think the next kind of revolution
(05:30):
is the spiritual revolution,
because we've we've chartered,you know, the external world.
And the next one is the internal world.
And I think that's where a lot ofI think that's where we're going.
I believe that's where we're going.
Yeah. And so can you expand on thata little bit?
Like, what is unity consciousness?
Well, you know, it's
(05:51):
we livein this world of fear and separation,
and it's the controllingmechanism of the world.
But I think that people are waking upto something greater
and if we can let go of the fear,we can move in to kind of
the next evolution of our species,
if that makes sense.
(06:11):
So it makes sense.
So are you saying that Well,let me back up.
Do you think that
fear is innate?
Meaning like all humans are bornwith some level of fear?
I mean, I think fear is programing,conditioning, like we come into this love,
(06:32):
we come into this worldthat's just a little ball of love.
And then we have you know, that's sort ofthe first stage is our family.
And then we move out into schooland society and everything else.
And then,
you know, we get wounded along the wayand then we start to protect ourselves
and then we close ourheart off from other people.
So I don't think it's innate.
I think I think it'spart of the human experience.
(06:56):
But I think
if you want to achieve anything,whether you're a writer, an entrepreneur,
a lawyer,you have to at many points in your life,
you have to jump over that line of fear
and you have to move into surrenderand trust
in sort of that internal guidance systemthat's calling you
to something bigger and greater.
Yeah.
So how would you separatethese two types of fear?
(07:16):
I mean, there's the type of fearthat can literally keep you alive.
For example, let's sayhandling a poisonous snake in the wild
for sure versusthe fear of public speaking.
Yeah, well, I would say obviously
the fear of a snake or a tiger iswhat has propagated our species
(07:37):
and not made us foodto greater to larger species.
But I think the fearthat we all have occurred in our
youth, I call themour core wounds are the soul and
it's like if you don't do thatinternal inventory
to find out where all these things happenand occur throughout your life,
(08:00):
if you're in a business meetingor in an argument with a, you know, your
your wife or your girlfriend or something,and that that core wound gets triggered,
you're going back at these this personas like the fourth grader,
but you're unaware of itand you're at you're you're an adult, but
you are acting out of this wound,which is a fear.
(08:24):
So you have to
you have to become very aware of wherethese things happened in our life.
And then that is where sort of liberationto step into the greater version
of yourself occurs.
I believe when you don't jump out at that
dangling carrot of the emotionand you are your self-regulate
and you are aware of who your are being,where your programs are coming from,
(08:47):
and why you're responding to a situation,the way you're responding and
so whatdo you think is the common denominator
then that you found holds backmany people?
I think it's three things.
It's fear, trauma and limited thinking.
So I got in my new work,which I'm in the process of
updating my book proposalfor a literary agent.
(09:08):
I kind of created this new modelof self-actualization.
So if you think of self-actualization
in the tip of a triangle in Maslow'shierarchy of Needs, it suggests you've
reached some pinnacle or ultimate statefrom which there is no deviation or fall.
But I would say that self-actualizationis actually a model of concentric circles.
(09:29):
So it's a dynamic state of expansionand contraction.
So if you think aboutall of these concentric circles
and you'reyou're existing at this one circle,
which is a level of consciousness,and these circles
are all made up of tiny dotswhich are possibilities in your life.
If you want to get to the next goal,the next level of consciousness,
(09:49):
whatever, you have to overcome that chasmto get to the next level.
The circle.
And I would say you have to overcomefear, trauma or limited thinking
and it's almost likewe've all been so ingrained
into this because it'sa part of our human experience.
But I think the growthand the liberation occurs
(10:10):
when you make that jump,when you surrender and trust
into something that's bigger than you,and you have to really trust
your internal vision.
And do you think that's the keyto overcoming fear, trauma
and limited thinking,or is there some other team or other team?
You know, I'm not a psychologist.
There's a lotof there's a lot of keys. But
(10:32):
again, I think it comes down
to like self-awareness and
trusting your own life.
I mean, it'staken me years to trust my own life.
And I've tried to get off this ridingtrain a bunch of times.
And every time I was like,I just want a more secure path.
I'm going to go to Amazonand make a ton of money.
And then every time I was rightthere, life just put me
(10:52):
right back on the riding train.
And when I kind of surrendered to that
and I was like,All right, this is this is it.
This is my calling. I'm going for it.
Like doors just started to open.
So I think when you, you know,in this new work, I said,
when you you act in the alignmentof your mind body and spirit
in right actions, right thinking,right language and right feeling,
you become like the boring machineand matter conformist your will
(11:15):
and the boring machine being the thingthat tunnels through mountains.
So as you start into this alignmentwith your higher calling, your dream,
whatever serendipity and synchronicitystart to show up in your life
and they become this guiding pathand that's where you got it.
You surrender and trust.
Like, okay, this doesn't reallymake sense, but this thing showed up.
(11:39):
This thing showed up.
I call them breadcrumbs.
Like a breadcrumbis something that leaps out of your leaves
into your internal awarenesswith a registering force.
Maybe it's
you see something that doesn't make sense,or you have a conversation with somebody
at a bus stop or something, and on its ownit kind of means nothing.
It's just curious.
But then they start lining up and thatstarts to become the guidance system and
(12:04):
the greatchallenge, I think, of life is trusting
that guidance system,which ultimately is trusting yourself
well.
Do you think the guidance system alwaysleads you to the right path for yourself?
It it it always has.
When I don't trust myself is when I godown the wrong path or I get in trouble or
I meet a lot of resistance and, you know,it's just like going into a dead end
(12:27):
and you just got to turn aroundand go back out
and sort of start moving in a new pathand keep your awareness open and
and just keep moving towardswhatever that dream or goal is.
Yeah.
And there's an aspect that I referto as kind of like the two paths.
So like the one internal sense of this
is the right thing to do,even if it's a hard thing to do.
(12:49):
Yeah.
And that many times requiresfar more discipline
to follow that path because you know,that's the right path for you.
Then the alternative path,
which many times your brainmight try to trick you and say, Look,
just go down this path, it's easier,there's less resistance.
Why do you think there's that at one?
(13:10):
Do you do you agree or disagree?
And two, if you do agree,why do you think that is?
Like, why is it that on the one handthere's this internal conscious knowledge
of what the right path isand yet there's some form of resistance
that's trying to guide youtowards that easier path that
(13:31):
most of
the time, you know, is not the right path.
Well, the one path that's not the rightpath is about fear and security.
And then the right path requires,like you said, discipline and commitment.
I mean, I've wanted to be a writer for 30or 30 plus years now.
And it's it's definitely not an easy path.
(13:54):
It's not a secured it's not a secure path.
But I mean, I get to work with someI just kept I call it dream tethering.
So I'm like attached.
I'm tethered to this dream in the futureand it's like this energetic bond with it.
And when you get into that alignment,it starts pulling you forward.
And again, that's where the serendipityis in synchronicity show up.
(14:17):
Yeah.
And soI've heard and read in some of the Dr.
Joe Disbands his work and I know he talksa little bit about this idea of like
quantum mechanics and to some extent
I don't think he uses this phrase,but this is how I think about it.
The the Law of Attraction idea.
Yeah.
So there's that.
There's like thatmetaphysical quantum mechanics.
(14:40):
You attract the type of energy your vibeattracts, your tribe kind of thing.
And then on the other hand,there's like the more
practical or just almost like
common sense type approach of like
I'm generally going to findwhat I'm looking for.
(15:01):
Meaning like if I look around the room,if we, if any of us look around the room
that we're in right nowand we try to look for the color green,
we're more likely to findthat color green around us.
Then if we're looking for the color green.
But then we happen to spot red,I feel like it's less likely
(15:22):
to necessarily register
in our minds simply becausewe're not really actively looking for it.
So how do you how do you think about this?
Is it is it like the quantummechanical idea or quantum physics idea,
or are we talking about a lotjust on a practical day to day level?
If you're looking for it, you'remore likely to spot those opportunities
(15:43):
just like, you know, if you'relooking for a black mustang on the road
because you just got one, you know, you'remore likely to spot more black mustangs.
I don't know that somehow metaphysicallymore of them
have been attracted to you in that momentsimply because you're thinking about it.
Yeah, well, I mean, Dr.
Joe decent dispenser would say sort of
the thought sends a signal outand the feeling pulls it back.
(16:06):
But, you know,if you are focused on that green car
or something like that, thenthat is where your point of awareness is.
That is what.
And so you could in some regardsjust say your awareness is more broadened
or you could be pulling that to you.
I mean, we have to go much deeperinto quantum physics and all that. But
(16:29):
you know,
like it's like I said, that dream tether,if you're focused on that dream, then
that is where your point of awareness isand you are moving towards that.
And at the same timeyou are pulling that towards you.
That's my belief and my experience.
Okay.
And what kind of principles
(16:50):
can entrepreneurs applyregarding consciousness and intention
as it relates to to business challengesor navigating life in general?
Well, I'll tell you, some of myone of my biggest
one of my biggest lessonsis actually getting a lawyer.
I was trying to do everything
by myself for years and,
(17:12):
you know, it just wasn't working.
And I signed some bad dealsand I lost some some money around it.
So, you know,
I think that it's really importantto get the right a team around you.
So, you know,whether depending on what you're doing,
the lawyer, the social media,
the literary agent, you have to have
those people who are, you know,
(17:36):
fighting for you or,you know, I'm blanking on the right word.
But, you know, at least for you,what's that?
At least looking out for you.
Yeah, they're going to bat for youand they're looking out for you.
Yeah. So
that that's been in the last year.
Probably the biggest lesson I've learnedand it's it's changed things.
(17:58):
You know, I feel much more secure, likehaving a lawyer and going into contracts.
And I was very avoidant of social mediabecause I just didn't
want to deal with it.
And I have a team to deal with that now,so I just have to record it.
And you know,
in my businessand probably the music business as well,
(18:20):
it used to beabout the quality of the work.
Now it's about followers.
It's almost like everything'sabout followers.
So I call it the crap, the crap culture,the pop culture crap machine.
So it's like elevating the wrong voices
and, you know, putting less talentedpeople, etc.
up, perhaps because that's notthat's not across the board.
(18:42):
But in a lot of cases,you know, giving some,
some influencer a book deal or somethingwhen they have nothing to say or add to,
you know, the quality of anybody's lifeor anything like that.
So, I mean, another thingI think is that it's important when you're
when you're
dream tethering or in the dreamor creating anything,
(19:02):
if you are in alignmentwith some sort of service aspect
that, you know, again,
for lack of a better word,the universe is conspiring for you
to a greater degreebecause it's not just about
the individual, it'snot not just about the ego, but you're
trying to bring somethingbetter to the world.
(19:23):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I mean, I think that
humans, the vast, vastmajority at least are hardwired
to want to be of service to other peopleand to other living beings.
Yeah.
And I think that
we get a lot of our self-esteem,a lot of our energy,
sense of well-being, howeveryou want to phrase it, a lot of that
(19:48):
feeling, good
aspect of life from being of service.
But then yet on the flipside,we see a lot of
people spewing hate and negativityand somehow there's there's
also a lot of those out thereand there's a lot of people
that gravitate towardsthat and follow that.
Can you try to help us make sense of thatout of the two lines or square?
(20:13):
I would just say that they are at it
again, for lack of a better word,at a lower level of consciousness.
And I think you just have to maintainyour high level
of consciousness,connection, love, unity, service.
And, you know,you have to be the living example.
And it's like the metaphor.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
(20:35):
If if you stay at that level
and you're kicking ass in lifeand all this stuff,
people are going to be like,What are they doing that I'm not doing?
And then you become the example.
And then they start asking you,What are you doing?
And, you know,
I'm amazed at all the people that are likeasking me about meditation now and
spirituality and stuff like that.
(20:57):
And I think it's it's
a good sign that there's a new awakeningsweeping across the planet.
We're still we're still a long ways off,but I think we're
at the start of something new.
MM Yeah, yeah, I agree.
I think a lot of people are muchmore conscious about it in terms of
intentionally trying to either meditateor be spiritual or whatever
(21:18):
it is, be one with the universe or
be at peace with each other.
So what kind of kind of lessons
can you canyou share from your, your travels
and how that might influence decisionmaking under pressure that
we can all learn from?
(21:39):
Well, my first book, A Curious here
in the Great Vivarium Experiment.
Basically, I had a decade of sick parentsand when my mother
passed away closing that decade,I bought a one way ticket to India.
And I was just doing thisgratitude intentioned exercise.
Somebody had told me to do it.
I was I was I thought I was readyfor my mother's passing.
(22:02):
And then it was likethe rug was swept out from under me.
And I was very lost and kind of scared andthis woman said, okay, you're a writer.
I want you to do this exercise.
I want you to write downfive things you're grateful
for and five things you want to create.
And you're going to findthat the things that you create today
are going to be the things you're gratefulfor in the future.
And that actually created the storyarc of the book
(22:23):
because I just bought a one way ticketin India to find the story,
and I was just writing things down like,I want to be of service when I travel.
And I wound up volunteering for this guy
who's
like the grandfather of environmental lawin India.
He's won the equivalent of two NobelPrizes in grassroots environmentalism,
sued the state of India over 20 years tocreate a Green Zone around the Taj Mahal.
(22:44):
Every Friday for a bunch of years,the Supreme Court of India held
special casesfor the voiceless people of India.
So I was I remember driving to the airport
with my 12 year with my sisterand my 12 year old niece in the back.
And I almost had a breakdown.
I'm like, what am I doing?
I bought a one way ticket to Indiaon a continent of 23 billion people.
(23:07):
I didn't know anybodyand but I just had this intention
that I kept putting out thereand everything unfolded out of that.
And I thinkthe biggest thing that I learned
and I try to remind myself all the timeand I tell other people and this
comes down to surrender and trust,but when you jump, the net appears.
But when you're standingat the edge of that,
(23:29):
looking down into the abyssof the unknown, it's terrifying.
But that is where you learn.
That's where you grow.
The the growth is in the unknown self.
You know everything about thispresent moment, about your past.
But if you want to moveinto a new dimension of your being,
you have to move into the unknown.
You have to jump into the unknown self.
(23:50):
And again, when you jump, the net appears.
I mean, it's happened to me so many times.
I volunteered at orphanage in India.
I mean, in Tanzania, I tried to do my owntravel show in Europe, done
all sorts of crazy things,
because as a young man,I knew that if I wanted
to have big things to write about,I had to have big experiences.
(24:10):
But it wasn't without like fearand sometimes terror.
Every time I was on that planegoing to another country
and having no idea what was ahead of me,but I made the decision.
I jumped into it and everythingjust unfolded exactly how it was supposed
to actually far betterthan I could have ever imagined it would,
because I took the chanceto jump into the unknown.
(24:33):
I love that.
So the more you dothat, jumping into the unknown
does the easy is it the easier it getsor is it hard every time?
I mean, I think it's hard every time.
But then you have this body of lifeexperience behind you.
So then you kind of develop the trust.
So you come up against the fear,you come up against that line,
but you look back and say,okay, well, historically speaking,
(24:57):
throughout the course of my life,this is always worked out in a better way
than I could have ever imagined it.
So as the more bigger jumps you make,the more you trust
and trust in who, who,who's building this net when you jump,
that's going to be I think it'sI think it's trusting in yourself.
I think it's trusting in sort of the
(25:19):
the abundanceand generous nature of of the universe
or God or whatever the quantum field,whatever you want to call it.
But I think itI think it begins with trusting yourself.
And that's a hard thing.
I mean, that's somethingI've been trying to master for years.
And if I had to distill my workinto two pillars, it would be in surrender
(25:40):
and trust, because that'swhat I'm trying to master in this life.
Because, you know, wanting to be a writeror a voice of generation or something is
pretty, pretty big mountain to go up.
But I said in my first book that,
you know, the first book is kind ofabout the dream of the 17 year old self.
It's the self actualization of memoving into the the writer and within me.
(26:04):
And I said, the dream of the 17 yearold self is like shooting
a grappling hook out of the future
and if you're
strong enough, focused enoughand determined enough to stay on the line,
you're going to get where you want to go.
But the external environment is alwaysgoing to try and knock you off the line.
And then at the end of the day,the external environment is just a mirror
to your your internal environment.
(26:27):
Yeah, I love that.
And can you just briefly maybeexplain what you mean by that
in terms of the external environmentbeing a mirror center?
I mean, if
you know, I,
I despite the fact that I've takenall these huge leaps and jumps,
I kind of always thought of myselfas like a fearful person.
(26:48):
It's probably like the projectionof my mother's love,
which was in a sense protectionin fear upon me.
So I took all these risks to kind of,
you know,swing the pendulum in the other way and
where was I going with that?
The fear, right?
(27:08):
Yeah.
So, so we were talking about the worldbeing a reflection.
Yeah.
So it's like if you were always looking
for protectionand fear in your external world, then
that's what's going to show up and that'sbeing projected from your internal world.
If you have an abundant mindset,
if you are joyful, if you whatever
(27:32):
that more positive quality is, that iswhat's going to show up in your world.
And I, you know, through Dr.
Joe De spends his workand my own personal work, it's,
you know,
systematically alteringthat little fear mechanism.
Like every time you sit down to meditate,you quiet that voice.
And I, you know,I move into the future of what I want
(27:53):
to create and manifestwhen I'm meditating.
And you do that through the feeling.
So it's it's almost like you feelthe event ahead of the event.
And that's kind of what pulls it to you.
You feel the outcomeof that future of that.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So what do you think is the differencebetween an abundance mindset of there's
(28:16):
plenty of everything to go around foreverybody on the one hand,
and then also this ideaof not being wasteful, meaning
let's say somebody thinks likeopportunities come around every day.
I don't need to take advantageof the opportunity today that's at my door
today because another advantageor opportunity will come around tomorrow
(28:37):
and then the next dayand then the next day.
So, yeah, why should I act nowif the world is truly abundant?
Well, that is that
that's why you have to be really in touchwith your sort of internal navigation
system, because I think, you know,the more aware you are,
the easierit is to spot the real opportunities.
(28:59):
And I've been very judicious aboutwho I've worked with over the years
and I've gotten, you know,
long, long periods of timewithout a paycheck writer.
You know, you get paid in bulk.
And so I've actually, you know, causedmyself some some uncomfortable times.
But if I'm not passionate about,you know, working with somebody and I'm
(29:23):
just taking it for a paycheck, thenI'm not going to deliver my best work.
And that is, you know,even if I'm a ghostwriter or, you know,
I just have a with byline, that is mewho is who's putting this out there. So
this happened.
Have you ever heard of a guy named Dr.Zach Bush?
No, He's he's a very incredible,incredible human being.
(29:47):
He's like a triple board certified doctorand probably one of the global
thought leaders on our microbiomeand how it relates to our soil systems.
He's really big on regenerative farmingand everything like that.
And I heard him on a podcast
and I was like, Who the hell is this guy?
I got to work with himand I kind of reached out
to a couple of peoplethat could have known him
(30:08):
and and knew him,and it just didn't work out.
But I just
kept writing it, my intention journalthat I was going to work with this guy.
And at some pointI got invited to this little research
at this little research
gathering at UCSD,and there was only 14 people there.
And I knew Zach Bush was going to be thereand I was stalking him,
(30:32):
you know, like a cheetahstalking a gazelle on the Serengeti.
I'm like, Where is he?When's my right opportunity?
And we were walking to the labat one point and he said, so
how are you involved in this?
And I said, Well,I start stumbling over my words.
And then I said, Well, I was
trying to come up with something clever,but I have nothing right now.
And my friend Hillary said, Well,he was Dr.
(30:52):
Joe dispenses writer and editorand he and Zach was just like, Really?
Are you available?
And like, my jaw dropped.
By the time we got to the lab,he asked me for my number
and, you know, I just helped himcomplete his his first book.
He's this
triple board certified doctorwith the soul of a poet and a mystic.
(31:14):
One of the most eloquent peoplehe could take you from the mitochondria
to the furthest reaches of the galaxyin 20 minutes.
And you're like, What just happened?
But my mind is completely blown.
You'redefinitely going to be hearing a lot
about him in the next couple of years.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.
I'll I'll check it out right after,right after this podcast.
So there's this writing exercisethat you do daily.
(31:37):
It's five things you're grateful for andthen five things you want to accomplish,
you want to create.
So I literally write down todayI am so grateful
for and I write down five things,or I might write more than that.
I just kind of do it in a paragraph.
You can do it number two if you want.
But and then I, I say todayI intend and create
(31:58):
and I just write that downand I close the book
and I don't ever thinkI don't think about it again.
But I've had so many peoplewho've read the book
and reached out to me and they said,You're not going to believe what happened.
And I say, Yes, I do,because it happens to me all the time.
I thinkit's just a really powerful exercise.
I do it with my coffee or teain the morning.
(32:19):
It's one of the first like on most daysI'll meditate and then I'll
have my coffee and my tea and
and Ijust do that exercise and I mean, what,
what better way to start a dayand then to move into gratitude
instead of fear or jumping into the news,which is nothing but fear porn.
And you know, just thinkthat you just take a moment to pause
(32:41):
and what am I grateful forin my life right now?
Okay, what do I want to create in my life?
So it's a I encourage everybody to try.
It is. Yeah.
There's one other thingthat's kind of wild that I started doing,
and I did a little Instagram post about itand I've had multiple people
reach out to me before I go to bed.
(33:02):
I say
I choose to awaken in my highest timelineand then when I wake up in the morning,
the first thing I say isI awaken in my highest timeline
and I've had multiplepeople start to do it and reach out to me.
And you know, in one regard, you could
you're your programing,your subconscious mind and your sleep.
(33:24):
And the first week I started doing it,I got a new literary agent.
I wound up
just I just woke up and
I said, okay, I'm in invest in this thing.
And I liquidated some Apple stock and
invested in this thingright before it kind of started to pop.
And yeah,I don't know, maybe maybe in the follow up
(33:46):
book to dream tethering,I'll figure out the mechanism. But
like, I like I always tell peoplethere's intention goes so far,
but most of us are just kind of movingthrough the program.
We're checking off the boxesof what we're supposed to do every day,
and we're not actually thinking about whatwe really want out of our lives.
100% agree with that.
And one of the best analogiesI've heard used about that is
(34:10):
if somebody came to you and said, Hey,I want to build a house,
you said, okay, well,how many rooms is that?
It's going to have me. So I don't know
how many
bathrooms is the room going to haveor about the house going to have?
I don't know the blueprintsabout this house,
how you intend for itto look when it's completed?
Well, I don't know.
(34:30):
I don't have that.
And it's funny because it seems so crazy.
Any one of us,if somebody came to us and said, yeah, I'm
going to build a house,but I don't know how many bedrooms
it has bathrooms, it has what it evenlooks like, how many stories it is.
And I certainly do not have blueprintsoutlining any of that would be like,
Guy's nuts.
You don't even need to know anything
about architectureor construction to say like this.
I don't knowhow you're going to build this house,
(34:52):
but when it comes to life and intention,seemingly, it's
just so overlookedand it's such a weird thing
because we're not building a houseor building something far more important,
which is our life.
You to have that intention to createand design what it is that you want.
But we're never taught that.
And somehow, for whatever reason,that really isn't innate until somebody
(35:14):
at some pointexplains that or has written that,
and then you see it and you say,Well, wow, yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Yeah, that is brilliant.
I've never heard that before, but it'sjust gets right to the point like that.
Yeah.
So let me ask you, when you saybefore you go to sleep, when you wake up
and you say, I intend to wake up in myhighest timeline, is that what you said?
(35:37):
I choose to awaken in my highest timeline.
I choose to awaken in my eyes timeline.
So what is your highest timeline?
What does that mean?
I mean, my highest timeline is the lifeI designed for myself
and where I want to go.
And, you know, that's that's the right
things, right people, the serendipityand synchronicity is showing up.
(35:59):
The right agent.
I just got this new literary agent and
my former literary agent was, wasI didn't even realize
kind of what a legend he was,but he put Eckhart totally on the map.
And Neil O'Donnell, NeilDonald was he's worked with Neil Young.
He did the dummy series
and he totally got what I was doing.
(36:20):
I had all these conversations before him.
He got what I was doing.
He picked me up like that,and I was working with this other guy
and he said, No,
you really got to take this meetingwith this big London literary agent.
And so I did,
and it took me four monthsto get a meeting with her
(36:40):
and then three months for herto get back to my proposal.
And she turned me down.
And so then I went back to my otherliterary agent who is an older guy,
and he said, Oh, well, I'm sick right now,but I'm going to be better next month.
And he kept saying, this And then I thinkit was July 22 or something.
He said, I'mgoing to be better by September.
(37:01):
And then he passed away a year agoin December.
So I've had a bunch of meetingswith other literary agents,
and this is right around the timewhen I said the highest timeline
when I started that exercise.
So I got this other meetingwith this literary agent.
And when I started the meeting,I said, Well,
my former agent, Bill Gladstone, and sheshe was like, What did you just say?
(37:24):
She's like, I started my literary careerwith him 25 years ago,
and I had actually been like asking Billfrom the other side
to just guide meto the right literary agent.
So yeah, again,intention there, there is such a,
a bigger field of reality and possibilitythat we are taught,
you know, throughout evolutionwe've been focused
(37:48):
because of survival on the three world,which is the threat.
But there is this entireother realm of energy
which we're just startingto really uncover through quantum physics.
You know, we,we lived in this Newtonian paradigm for
the last 200, 300 years, which is now
we understand how a jet can flyfrom New York to L.A.
(38:08):
in five, 6 hours and whatever.
But, you know, the quantum fieldis greater umbrella structure within
within which the 3-D reality works.
And the quantum field is just in a field.
And it is an endless field of energy.
So when we start to learnhow to tap into that,
(38:30):
we become far more powerful creatorsthan we think we are.
And that I think that is what the bigone of the big revelations
of this spiritual revolutionthat's happening right now is,
oh, we're so much more powerfulthan the diminutive little boxes
that society and governmentand everything else put us into.
(38:50):
Yeah,And so I've done some reading on quantum,
so I have a very simple graspof what it is.
But for somebody whomaybe hasn't read anything about it or
would like to
learn more about it, can you canyou explain that what you mean by that?
What is the quantum field?What is what is quantum physics?
And what what is that idea?
Well, the quantum field is,you know, this unlimited field of energy.
(39:14):
And it's you know, it's Einstein said
the field is the solegoverning agency of the particle.
So we are in the particle statewhere physical matter.
So the field,if you think about it, you know,
well, I'll just say like abovethe speed of light is nothing but energy.
And then below the speed of lightyou have the division.
(39:36):
So above the speed of light,the energy is just the wave.
But then when it breaksthe speed of light, it turns into matter.
So the energy and the particleare the same thing.
They're just two in two different states.
So as that energy slows down,
you you have the third dimensionof reality in which we we're in.
(39:57):
But there are all these other fieldsand dimensions of reality
within the one which we're living in.
And you're saying you
access that through intention and emotion.
Yeah.
And, and I think I think getting still,
you know, and blocking outthe external world and tuning in to,
(40:17):
you know, justI mean as simple as taking fiber
10 minutes, setting an alarm and just tuneinto the energy of your heart.
And then I just kind of expandthat field around me.
Yeah, I love that.
And do you think it's important goingback to the idea of writing things down,
how important is the writing processversus just thinking it or saying it?
(40:40):
I thinkI think writing is pretty important.
I think writing and languageis very important.
The language that we use
not only in our external world,but in our own internal world,
you know, I said like language is kind of
it takes this amorphous
idea and concretize is itso that we have it
(41:01):
takes the ideas and the feelings of lifeinto something communicable.
And, you know, I think that intentionin that language is sort of the
the forging is the force that forgesthe particle into physical reality.
I know that sounds probably I'm way too
into my book right now, too,to condense it into more simple language.
(41:23):
But, you know, it's just it's again,
it's the thought in the signal,the thought sense of
the thought sense, the idea that feelingpulls it back.
That's the most simplistic way,I think, to do it.
And those are sort of two halvesof intention.
Yeah, And I think you have to believeit's true when you write it. Yes.
(41:43):
Yeah, Yeah.
And when you do that,you know I'm guilty of it too.
Sometimes I just dothe gratitude intention exercise
as something to check off, you know?
But when I'm really more present, I
get into that feeling
because that feeling is sort of the
(42:03):
I mean, I don't know how elseto explain it, but, you know, it's it's
sort of the carrier wave that interactswith all the other possibilities.
So when you feel it,you're starting to pull that into you.
So most of us are operatingout of unconscious programs.
And, you know,so that's what we're pulling.
Again, the fear and lack.
We're operating
(42:24):
out of the unconscious program of fearand lack that we learn from our parents.
So that's whatwe're pulling into our world.
So you've got to you've got to becomereally aware of those those internal
programing conditioning and switchthat and continuously dream tether
with the thought and the feelingand the writing right language, action,
(42:44):
feeling and thoughts to pull that thingto you.
Yeah, absolutely.
And to the listeners,I hope this is helpful, revolutionary,
maybe even in your thinking or the wayyou're seeing life and experiencing life
and so check out Tim's websiteif you want to learn more.
And as always, thank you so muchfor joining today and listening.
And if you found this helpful,make sure you like and subscribe.
(43:05):
So you knowwhen the new episodes are dropping.
Thanks so much for being here.
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