Blending Technology, Spirituality, and Personal Growth with Mark Bradford

Episode Transcript
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(01:33):
Well, hi there guys, welcomeback to another episode of the
Author Revolution Podcast.
I am really excited to bring toyou an interview today.
Now, this interview is kind offunny because Mark Bradford is
the gentleman I'm going to behaving a word with and he's an
author of both fiction andnonfiction books.
He's also the host of a topfive global podcast known as

(01:55):
Alchemy for Life.
He is a licensed UAV pilot,he's a speaker, a full stack web
developer, just to name a fewof the things.
Right, and our conversation wassuper interesting.
Not only did we touch on hisbooks, touch on, like, the
concept of writing and kind ofwhere he started there and all
of the different things he does,but we touched on so many

(02:15):
different interesting topicswhen it comes to, like, the
nature of reality, how we canincorporate science fiction and
fantasy, like pretty muchscience fiction.
Fantasy was the overarchingtheme of our entire discussion.
We talked a lot about thesubconscious mind and about how
we kind of craft our realities.
So, without further ado, I wantto get right into this

(02:36):
conversation.
There's a lot that we discussand mark does a lot of things,
and in this particular episode,I wanted to make sure that we
were highlighting and touchingon just a little bit of all the
different things that he does.
Now, he is definitely amulti-passionate entrepreneur
and one that I think everyone isgoing to enjoy listening to, so
let's get to it.
Well, hi, mark, welcome to theAuthor Revolution Podcast.

(02:59):
I'm really excited to bring youon the show today.
Before we get started, do youwant to tell my audience a
little bit about yourself?

Mark Bradford (03:05):
The little part will be difficult, but I'll try.

I know I've seen everything that you do.

So, first of all, thank you very much for having
me.
I really appreciate it.
It looks like we have a lot ofreally fun stuff to talk about,
because I'm not the onlyinteresting person here right
now, so you have a lot, too,that's really cool to talk about
.
So I'm an author of nine books.
I have two that are finished.
They're waiting to be published.
I have a podcast with over 250episodes.

(03:30):
I have a pilot's license inwhich I use for aerial
photography.
I created a coaching systemthat I coach people on.
For the last two decades I'vealso had an IT firm that I've
run.
Yeah, stuff like that.
So that's so cool.

Thank you.
Well, let's start with yourbooks, because this is the
Author Revolution podcast, afterall.
So you said you've got ninebooks under your belt, spanning
fiction and nonfiction.
So my curiosity, first of all,is like what inspired you to
come to writing and then whatinspires you to switch back and
forth between genres?

Yeah, so wonderful questions.
The inspiration for writingthere's a tremendous amount of
stuff that happened when I gotdivorced.
So when I got divorced that'sactually the I know the exact
moment that my coaching and myspeaking suddenly sprung into
life.
It was when I took my kids to apsychologist, but I won't, I
won't get too lengthy on that.

(04:24):
I just started writing afterthat and I pushed myself into
the dating field and I, just asI do with everything, I examine
them from this bizarre angle andthen I distill and disseminate
and so forth.
I built a writing site fromscratch and I started writing
books on how all people connectand that started the whole

(04:44):
status game series.
And then I did two other booksand I finally did one that was
about my coaching.
And then the thing thatswitched me over was not under
my control, it was actually awalk in a cemetery.
There's a cemetery nearby myhouse and I often say it's like
a park with dead people.
It's very peaceful, very nice,and I had a very clear mind,

(05:08):
almost blank, and you probablycan relate that that's not
something that would happen veryoften with someone who's
constantly thinking about things.

Right, at least not intentionally.

Yeah, yeah, unless it's like a blow to the
head or something like that.
Right, right.
And so I took a walk in thecemetery and then I heard voices
.
And thank you for not hangingup.

No, trust me, I got some stories Go.

Keep going.
So you have good experiencewith dialogue, so you understand
how that works, that you oftenwould play things in your head.
Well, I heard two characterstalking and I was like this is
really cool.
Okay, I'm listening.
Fine, I got an open mind, Ikeep walking and I'm like this
is the end of a movie, oh my God.
And I was getting like thewhole weight of it.
I'm like this is awesome.

(05:53):
And then I was sad because I'mlike, well, I'm never going to
see this movie.
And then I thought, what if Iwrote this movie?
What if I wrote this?
So then it switched into mewriting a poem and I started to
write a poem, like a sing-songykind of quatrain-y sort of poem.
And then I ran home, sat downand in five minutes I wrote this
poem and I went oh my God,that's an outline of a book,

(06:15):
that's the book.
I'm writing a book now.

How great is that?
That's amazing.

Yeah, and so then I wrote the Sword in the
sunflower, but when I finishedit I realized I was only halfway
done with the poem and I had towrite the sequel to it.

Got it Okay.

Isn't that interesting, how that works.

I love that.
I love the concept.
I mean, I didn't even have thaton our list of things to talk
about.
I love the concept, though, ofchanneling and so like for me
and in our teachings and thethings that we do, like I teach
manifestation, but we have aboard certified clinical
hypnotherapist on board, and soshe and I do a lot of different
other projects, side projects,where we we dive into like Lynn
McTaggart intention experimentsand do a lot of stuff with the

(06:52):
connection, like the power ofeight, and so we've been having
some crazy fun channelingexperiences going on.
So, trust me, I'm good, I canfollow you, no problem.
Oh goodness, that's really cool.
I think the experience of thattoo.
It reminds me so much of how somany authors do get their first
initial like jab of likewanting to write a story, though
, because sometimes you know,they've been telling themselves

(07:13):
for a long time they want towrite a story, they want to
write a story and they don'tactually give themselves
permission to, and then, all ofa sudden, there's there's a
story idea or something thatcomes to them that is more
powerful than their blocks ormore powerful than the
resistance to do it, and theyjust can't not do it anymore.
And then they're off andrunning.

So yeah, it's really fascinating.
You said something very keythere.
I have to interject.
You said they don't givethemselves a license.
That is one of the biggestthings that authors do not do is
they don't give themselves alicense to write because they're
like, well, I should be makingmoney, I should be doing this.
This is frivolous, it's notgoing to work.
I'm not going to be able tofinish this whole thing.
Stop Give yourself a license.
Allow yourself to write.
I have a license to write.

(07:51):
I'm going to write now.

You know, yep, yep, play around with it.
See what happens.
You just don't know what'sperspective of like.
Why am I going for a walk?
And then you bump into someonethat you needed to speak to.
You know what I mean.
But, like in a story, there aremany times where I'm in there
in the middle of writingsomething.
I'm like I have no idea whythis scene is coming to me and
why I need to write it.
And then, three books later,you'll realize oh, you yourself,

(08:22):
as the author didn't evenrealize it.
You know what I mean.

Yeah, oh, totally .
There are so many things behindthis thing.
When you're writing, whenyou're creating a fiction, for
example and I have a very, verycomfortable understanding of the
difference between fiction andnonfiction and how it is to
write one versus another oneOne's a hierarchical arrangement
of thoughts and the other oneis three elements that come
together to make fiction work.
And when you're doing fiction,there's a lot going on in the

(08:48):
background.
There's a lot of subconsciousstuff going on, and for me, all
that subconscious stuff wasfirst of all sort of expanded
upon in the sequel and then,when I wrote the prequel, it was
really all that subconsciousstuff because it was what
happened in the in the thousandyears leading up to the book.

Okay, oh, that's so cool, isn't that neat
when it happens.
Do you find yourself writingthe prequel after the initial
books?
Because I do that myself a lot,where it's like all of a sudden
the prequel will come later?

Well, exactly that's what it was.
So chronologically, it camelater in before.
So yes, it was those two books.
What a great story All done.
But wait a second.
What happened leading up tothat?
Okay, fine, let's go back andI'll tell you what really
happened.

That's so funny .
I love that.
Oh good, Do you like one genremore than the other, or are you
like nope?
I like them both equally, fordifferent reasons.

Yeah, kind of a weird opinion in that I find
that fantasy and science fictionare sort of the same thing.
It's that one isn't justexplained enough.
So when you explain fantasyenough, it becomes science
fiction, like there's a, it'sblurry and and that's what
happened with with the sword andsunflowers, that the.
You could look at the two booksas being fantasy, but it's
really underlying sci-fi and theprequels all sci-fi, but then

(09:58):
it bleeds back into fantasy yeah, I love that.

My first series was like that too, where it's
like it started out and I myselfthought it was fantasy and my
best friend was going, chris,it's on a different planet, it's
, it's science fiction.
And I'm like, no, it's not.

And then I realized it was both.

It was like oh, I was on rebending, I had no
idea Exactly.
Yeah, that's so cool.
I agree with you there, causethere is that fine line, and I
think that's part of the waythat I teach manifestation too,
because of the fact that, like,there are some people that
really attach to the, the wooconcepts for lack of a better
word and then other people theyneed to have a scientific
explanation, and so that's wherequantum physics and quantum

(10:34):
entanglement and you know allthe different things with
neuroscience and neuroplasticity, come in.
It's like all these things andall of a sudden it makes people
like, wait a minute, wait aminute, a minute, there's a
thing here.
Okay, let's talk about this.
So, speaking of that, I lovethis idea of obviously blended
worlds, and you describeyourself as dual brained, so
this plays so well into theconversation we're having.

(10:54):
So how does this particularlyinfluence your writing and your
work in technology?
Because you also work intechnology, you said could you
give us an example of how thisperspective shift typically
takes place for you?

Oh, so what it is is actually true to the word
dual.
It's happening at the same timeand so at least it's trying to,
and that's when.
That's when my brain ishappiest.
Is so if the logistics andlogical part of my brain can get
together with the creative partthat creates things out of
nothing that I still can'texplain.
If the two of them can gettogether and make something,
that's when it's singing, that'swhen it's just happy, and so

(11:31):
for me I mean for me an examplewould be I also happen to be a
full stack web developer.
I didn't know I was called that, but I do.
I can do everything from SQLdatabases and cold fusion all
the way to the logo and all thatother crazy stuff and making it
pretty so, whatever.
But that process and usinglogic in a back end and also
making it pretty so that thehumans can play with it, is

(11:54):
definitely creativity and logictogether.
I've been playing a lot with AI.
I've actually written a numberof articles on AI, and I'm not a
fan of chat, gpt I'm not a fanof what GPT?
I'm not a fan of what'shappening with people trying to
write, but I am a fan of theartwork thing, even though
there's some ethical thingsgoing on with that.
But creating artwork and nowI've been playing with music has

(12:15):
been really amazing, becauseyou still you have to go.
No, I need a logical way toexplain this to this cold thing
to make something pretty andbeautiful out of it.
So that's another way.
Aerial photography is anotherway.
Aerial photography that I do.
I have a pilot's license, so Idid aerial photography and
sometimes it sounds like I'mmaking things up when I talk to

(12:36):
people.

Yeah, it all merges.
It really does.
It all comes together.
It's so cool yeah.

Yeah, and so that's another thing too,
because there's a lot of controland rules and things, but
you're trying to make thisbeautiful thing in which the
thing you used is invisible.
I don't want to know about thedrone, I want to know about what
it sees.
That's what I want to see, sothat's where it comes together.

Oh, that's so cool.
Ok, so you got to take me backto the music thing.
Like, I use ChatGPT.
I train authors on how to useChat gpt for creating their
series, for creating theiroutlines, for coming up with the
plot points, for creatingcharacters, things like that.
I I agree with you that I Idon't think it's quite there to
be able to write stories or evenlike is it necessary?
Because I think we, as artists,we are like, the reason we're

(13:17):
writers is because we havesomething to express, and so if
we're using chat gpt to do itfor us, it can take away some of
that magic, but it can.
It's starting to do it for us.
It can take away some of thatmagic, but it can.
It's starting to do it, like,with the custom GPT.
Is it's pretty great?
However, going back to themusic part, like, what programs
are you using to create themusic?
I'm so interested in this.
This is so cool.

So I keep getting the name wrong.
I just stumbled on it and I'veactually created I've created a
bunch of songs in it.
I think it's like Suno orsomething like that.
I think that's the one that Istumbled on and I found I don't
want to say a backdoor, but Ifound a weird link to it in
which I was able to play with itwithout even like signing on
for now.
But I think I may end up payingfor it to do some commercial

(13:55):
stuff.
But I did a promo for my bookwith it that I thought turned
out it was actually a powerballad hairband kind of promo
for it.
That was just crazy, yeah.

That's awesome.
I love that.
I have not played with any AImusic stuff, but definitely AI
image generation.
In a past life I was a graphicdesigner and so I've got like
that whole experience.
So me doing pretty things andplaying with technology is also
kind of part of my repertoire.
I am not a full stack developeras far as I'm aware, but I do
like technology.
That's so cool, so I love thatyou have like this crossroads

(14:28):
between technology andspirituality too, and this is
something that kind of blendsthroughout everything.
It sounds like that you do.
Could you share how these twopassions kind of complement and
influence each other in yourlife and work Like?
How does that all come togethertypically?

So how does technology and spirituality both
somehow work hand-to-handtogether?
That's kind of like anotherversion of the other question, I
would say well, I think theyboth augment.
I mean, technology is sort oflike man-made stuff that we
created.
It's tools like AI that wecreated that sets us apart from

(15:04):
raccoons and so forth, butalthough they still have the
little hands, they're littletrash bandits but spirituality
is stuff we didn't, that's stuffwe discover, I think, and one
could argue that spirituality iswhat we create, like that.
Spirituality may not existwithout us creating it.

(15:25):
Who knows, maybe you needsentient beings and they create
spirituality, who knows?
But I think those two thingscome together with me because
they give me an appreciation.
I mean, I have an appreciationfor what makes technology work
and half of it shouldn't evenwork, like we shouldn't be able
to do.
What we're doing now, with allthose points of failure just

(15:45):
between me and the internet, letalone the internet and you, and
back down to what you're doing,is just amazing.
You know, and, and and I guessagain that ties it's a callback
to what we said before, in whichyou know is it fantasy or is it
?
Is it is it, is it sci-fi?
And that you know to somebodyjust a few years ago this is
fantasy, this is magic.
Right now, you know, so I thinkyou can extend that and go well,

(16:07):
what else is possible, what'sout there, what is what don't I
know?
And you know, you know the oldphrase of the more you learn,
the more you know that you don'tknow.
You realize how littleknowledge you have, and, and I
think one of the things reallyis feeling that there is
something bigger than you andsomething bigger than everyone,

(16:28):
and I think that's an importantgrounding thing that people
should have.
And you know, it doesn't haveto be brick and mortar, it can
just be a feeling, it can begardening, it can be yoga,
whatever, something that sayssomething else is there and that
we really need to just connectwith.
And so there you go.

I love that Well, and for me it's like it's
so funny because I look attechnology like AI right now.
I had a meditation the otherday where it was like basically
channeled or described to melike how chat GPT, how prompting
chat GPT is no different thanprompting the universe.
So, like when I was asking thequestion, I'm like why, why, if
we're always in the present now,like if now the only thing that

(17:03):
exists, why do we have ourideas of the past and our
concepts of the future?
What's the point of that?
And basically I was given like,okay, think about ChatGPT
Without the context window ofunderstanding what you're
prompting it.
And you just said, hey, chat,prompt me.
A social media post, forinstance, it has no context to
be able to give you the exactthing you're wanting to deliver,
wanting it to deliver.
So you as an individual, inthis present moment, have to

(17:26):
have a context window, your past, to know what it is you desire
for the future, have thecapability of envisioning that
future, so that you can take theinspired action steps and do it
now.
And so it's like a very it's sosimilar to chat GPT and I'm
just like technology andmanifestation, technology and
reality.
It's all kind of merging andblending in my head.
It's just kind of aninteresting concept to be able

(17:47):
to play around with and I thinkI don't know, is it wild, it's,
it's so cool, I think it's justa neat, a neat way to keep
looking at things, like to.
Always, like you said, we thinkwe know something.
Probably, like when we're ateenager, we think we know it
all and then all of a sudden werealize we don't know it all.
The more we learn, the less weknow.
And as you start to do that,it's like you start to layer on

(18:08):
different aspects of knowledge.
It's just so, it's sofascinating and I love that, and
I love being able to takeelements from different things,
so like taking seeminglyuncorrelated objects.
So science fiction, fantasymaking emerge, or technology and
spirituality make emerge, oryou know whatever it is it's so
cool.
Yeah, absolutely, I, I 100 agreewith that.
Okay, so let's move on to yourcoaching system, because this

(18:29):
sounds cool too.
So, alchemy for life it seemslike it encapsulates a lot of
your life philosophy and thethings that we've been talking
about.
So could you explain some ofthe core principles that you
teach in the system and howpeople find this like balance
within the alchemy for life?

absolutely, absolutely so, absolutely.
So I like to think I figuredout what life is made of.
It's not a box of chocolate,it's not sugar, spice and
everything nice.
It's actually, let me see, Ihave this.
So there's a little bottle,it's 3D printed.
I have a better one behind meand so I imagine that life is
made of three things time,energy and resources.
And so I imagine that life ismade of three things time,

(19:03):
energy and resources.
Everything we do uses thosethings in one way or another,
and in some cases we gain energyfrom something that someone
else would lose, energy fromsomething that energizes you
Like.
I like public speaking, becauseI'm crazy, and so that jazzes me
all up.
But other people are terrified,literally.
A few research says that a goodportion of people would fear

(19:25):
death less than they fear publicspeaking.
So clearly, clearly, differentthings mean different things for
different people.
So you have time managingresources.
You wake up, you have yourflask every morning, you spill a
little bit out into yourrelationships, your work, your
passions, your hobbies, exercise, whatever, and then sometimes
you're like oh, it's seveno'clock, wait a minute and

(19:46):
you're out, and so this happensto people.
So we take the time, energy andresources and we map it out into
five facets of life.
So I tried to narrow what lifelooked like and it's five facets
to me and I call that thebalance sheet.
And once we look at that we gooh, that's why I'm tired, oh,
that's why I can't lose weight,oh, that's why I feel empty

(20:07):
inside.
There's nothing in myspirituality column.
There's everything in myproductivity column.
I don't even know anything inmy learning column, like like
you know, what am I doing here?
So I've had people that I, thatI coach.
They look at it and their eyesjust go wide and they're like,
oh, like they, it's like they,they, yeah.
And that's why I say life is agame.
I'm showing you the boardbecause we never see the board

(20:30):
in life.

We just don't.

And now here's the board.

That's so cool.
So do you, your nonfictionbooks?
Talk about them, theseprinciples, so that people can
get a grasp on what they meanand how to implement them?
Or is this only in the Alchemyfor Life coaching?

Yeah, it's completely separate than the
other nonsense that I do.
So, yeah, I did write a bookcalled Alchemy for Life Formulas
for Success, which does explainthe coaching and does show some
examples.
That's also pulled from mypodcast.

Oh good, so good.
What is your podcast called forpeople who are curious to go
find you.
By the way, it's Alchemy forLife.
So yeah, Alchemy for Life.

I'm up to over 250.
I just added a page on mywebsite that lists every, every
one of my episodes, so you canactually go there and hit
control F or command F and thensearch for a keyword if you want
to know something specific.

So that's awesome.
What made you decide to startthe podcast?

That all happened , okay, so I guess I'll go back
to that, that titular moment, asthey say.
So I took my kids topsychologist because I was going
through a divorce and I wantedto make sure they were okay and
I didn't want to be Obi-WanKenobi creating Darth Vader, and
so I don't know what I'm doingright so.
So she said they'resurprisingly well adjusted.
You're doing everything you canfor them.

(21:40):
And I said great.
And then she said but, mark,what are you doing for you?

and I was like what, um?

and I wasn't, I wasn't doing anything for me, I
didn't matter at the time andshe said, mark, you need to take
care of you or there won't beanything left of you for them.
And that's when I went, oh my,and that's when I figured out
what life was made of the fivefacets.
And then I, when I startedwriting all this stuff down, I
was like, oh, this is kind ofcool.
So I decided to start a podcastand I started to figure stuff

(22:09):
out in 10 minute bites, becauseI respected people's time and I
wanted it to only be 10 minutesat a time, because so many
people just ran, ramble me like,oh, just like the self-help
books, and you read the wholething.
You're like, oh, that was apost-it note, that was like one
item right, do you listen tovideos on two times the speed
too?
yeah exactly and you're likewhat?
Or you look at the transcriptand you're like did you say

(22:31):
anything useful?
Yeah, I wanted to give peopletangible bites of stuff every
single episode has.
Okay, thanks, I'll try that.

Okay, thanks, I'll try that so good, that's
really cool I love that.
I think you're right likethere's, there's a that that I
agree.
There's so much waffling, yeah,and I've I've been noticing
like I have a lot of questionsfor you, but I'm like holy cow,
we talk fast and we we get itLike we're there.
I'm like sweet, yeah, Holy cow,yeah, Okay.

I went.
I went back to my default speed.
With you, I typically don'tdeal with people who are at the
same speed I'm at, so I was justlike, okay, I'm just as fast as
her and I don't have to worryabout things.

Yeah, oh yeah.
I talk fast.
All the time.
People are just like.
I used to feel bad about that.
I don't feel bad anymore.
I'm like if you can't keep up,then I'm not for you.
It's just the way it is.
Yeah, okay.
So with your unique experiencesin both tech and spirituality,
do you see potential for tech toaid spiritual growth then in
people?
I am assuming the answer isgoing to be yes, but are there

(23:24):
specific tools or technologiesthat you think can help deepen
the spiritual and practicalpractices experiences?
Whatever?
You know what I'm saying.

I didn't fall asleep.
I'm actually thinking very hardabout this.

I was going to say he's in standby mode, Hang
on and frozen.
My son does that where it'sjust like he just stops and he's
like, but he's thinking.
You can tell he's thinking, butit's like his standby mode on.
That's why we tease him all thetime about that.

Yeah, if you've gotten me to shut up, that means
that you're I'm very impressedby you, because that means I
actually think about what yousaid.
I guess technology I would sayoff the top of my head, it's the
metrics Like, if technology canlike, technology isn't going to
make you appreciate a tree more.
I mean, a picture of a tree isnot the same as a tree, right,

(24:12):
like the smells and sense of it,even a holodeck maybe.
When we get to that part, maybeit'll be okay, like, oh, I feel
better because I spent you.

You know, uh, you know I spent an afternoon in
the holodeck at a beautifulcollege.
When I'm on a ship or whatever,right, how do we know we're not
already on the holodeck come?

on mark, we could be holographic universe.

Yes, mr, yes, mr musk, a lot of people say
that I wasn't talking about muskactually, but okay no, I mean,
he's one of the many prominentpeople who say that we're in a
simulation.

Yeah, I think it's.

Brian Green.
I think I have a book calledthe Holographic Universe.
I think Brian Green's theauthor, but continue.

Yeah.
So other than that and youbroke my whole model because you
said we were in one Continue,continue, yeah.
But other than that, I thinkwhat technology really can do is
measure Like if we can be put,measure like if we can be put,
like if technology can say, okay, my, my, my brain waves, my
delta waves are at this point,ah, that's when I really feel

(25:06):
meditative, you know, and likemaybe you could wear something
on your wrist that monitors thatand you have a little gentle
tapping and you're like, oh, I'mthere, and that'll help you to
kind of get into that meditativemood faster.
Things like that, I think couldbe really helpful.
Um, even even glasses orsomething that would allow you
to see the world in a differentway.
Like let's take all the colorout, let's do this, let's only

(25:27):
focus on, on greens, let's makeyour field, your depth of view,
a little bit different when youlook at things.
Oh, wow, you know infraredspectrum.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah oh, yeah,exactly like, if yeah, so that
you, yeah, exactly see see lifehow like the bees see it, or
whatever, yeah, exactly that'sso cool.

I love the concept that you're talking
about, like the, the tappingliquid of your apple watch, or
something I personally use likea binaural app to be able to get
into like theta brainwave stateto be able to meditate and do
things exactly.
So I do use technology in thatway, where it literally is brain
entrapment, trying to get mybrain waves to close themselves
down, like to slow, becauseotherwise like, as you can tell,
we go fast, right?

(26:03):
yeah, yeah, yeah, so that thegamma function needs to come
down a little bit.
It comes, needs to come down anotch, and then you can kind of
chill out.
Yeah, I mean, they made the god, helmet right.

You have you heard of the god?

helmet?
I haven't, no, it's this okay,so so they.

So they made this helmet that has, like, uh,
various electromagnets in it andthey they found conclusively
over and over again, when peopleput it on and they turned it up
a bit, people said they werehaving spiritual experiences
with it and it was because ofthe electromagnetic interaction
with the brain, and so I canimagine that you can enhance
brain function in some way thatwould allow you to be a little

(26:37):
more creative or whatever.
I'm not a big fan of artificial, so like if it starts to taste
like artificial, I'm not sure ifI want to do that, but I am big
with augmentation of some kind.
I mean, like everything we'resurrounded by augmentation.
I mean you're not living out inthe dirt, you have walls and
air conditioning and all thatstuff, so you know technology is
good.

Well, well, air conditioning is a bit
questionable in this house, butthat's all right.
Yeah, we, we live in what usedto be an old cabin, and so we're
still in the process ofremodeling for the past 10 years
that's what we've been doing alot of remodeling, yeah, so we
don't have central area but wedo have like a couple window.
Like when it gets really bad inthe summer, we have window boxes

(27:18):
.
Oh good, good.
But yeah, I like theaugmentation aspect of it too.
Or like, if you're tapping into, you know a natural element of
yourself, so, like you know,having your apple watch to be
able to track you know yourheart rate and figuring out
where your zones are, orfiguring out you know if you are
in a loud decibel range, youknow all the different things
that it tracks, or having a wayto be able to entrap your brain

(27:41):
so that it can function properlyin whatever it is you're trying
to do.
You're obviously you know whatyour brain function needs to be
to do this thing, but it's yeah,it's very interesting the idea
of it being artificial.
Where do you think the line isthere?
Like, where does that feel foryou?

I think when technology replaces something we
already have and it does itpoorly.

So, like using chat, gpt see if I can speak
today using the Oracle because Icall it consulting the Oracle
at this point, consulting theOracle to write your stuff,
instead of consulting the Oracleto, like, do the brainstorming
session with you.
Like, if you're trying to getit to write and it doesn't have
all the context and have yourbrain, your imagination, then

(28:21):
it's doing it poorly becauseit's not you Right.

Right Exactly, as opposed to using it as like the
encyclopedia Oracle thing.
Right Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting I do.
Have you ever like researchedthe other day?
It was so funny.
I'm like, okay, leave it to anauthor to wonder about the
etymology of the word sideburn,which then led into the
etymology of the word butterfly,like why isn't it flutterby?
Seriously, and ChatGPT had thewhole conversation with me.
It was interesting.

Well, that's what's very cool is you can have
these side secret conversations.
It's almost like talking toyour subconscious a little bit.
It's just like butterfly reallyshould be what a fly is called
and a fly should be what a flyis called and a fly should be
what a butterfly is called, butthey should switch names.

Yeah, I agree with you there.
Yeah, but it's not.
It's so weird.
It's like we have the weirdestway to describe things.

I have to say, as a side note, when I worked on
my sequel, I was hoping that thethree letter government
agencies weren't seeing mysearch history, because what I
had to research for my sequelI'm like, oh my God, this does
not look good yeah.

You need to have a sticker.
You know FBI.
Just you know I'm a writer, Iwrite fiction, okay, so many of
the mystery authors on mypodcast episodes are friends and
stuff.

They're always like that too.

They're like oh , they better not be looking at
the search history.

Yeah, but research is fun though.
Research is really cool becauseit gives you so much texture
and depth to what you're alreadyfeeling and you know, and I I
think that's a big a trap, forfor some authors is like, well,
they'll never believe this orthis isn't realistic.
It's like, how much is reallyrealistic out there?
How much of you know some ofthe most the greatest movies out
there like back to the futureor something like that?
How much, how many plot holesare there in there that you say,

(29:59):
well, whatever it's about thestory, and so forth.

So the characters and everything.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
It's so interesting the waythat that happens.
The believability aspect too.
It's like things only mean whatwe tell them, like tell
ourselves that they mean too.
So like someone who, forinstance, is struggling to write
a story and is not able to getinto the flow of their story
that day.
One person could be like, oh mygosh, I'm so terrible, why

(30:23):
can't I do this thing?
And the next person could belike well, it's just it hasn't
come to me yet, so I'm justgoing to let it go and go with
the flow.
It'll arrive when it arrives,and I'll keep moving on Like
there's.
There's so many different waysto look at it, and so it's about
deciding then, being moreintentional with our thoughts
and deciding and choosing themmore deliberately so that we can

(30:43):
feel better about what we'redoing.
I think, yeah, a hundredpercent on that Absolutely.
Awesome.
So how do you balance thelogical problem solving mindset
required in tech with the moreintuitive, transcendent aspects
of spirituality?
How do you personally like doboth?

I guess.
I guess they're both everpresent, so I don't know if I
you know it's.
It's an interesting.
The question itself needs to bequestioned because it's it's.
It's it's because, sorry to putthat back to you.
No go for it it's like, but Ithink that's one of the
fallacies of civilization isthat technology will move us

(31:19):
away from spirituality.

It doesn't have to.
It doesn't have to, it doesn'thave anything.

It may not have anything to do with moving us,
like you could be the mostspiritual person possible and
you know, get in your, get inyour teleported device or
whatever it.
They don't need it.
They're not opposite sides ofthe same coin, they're.
They're like we said, theremight be the same thing, kind of
like if you look at technologyas science fiction and you look
at spirituality as fantasy,they're the same thing.

(31:44):
We just there's one we don'tunderstand as much as the other,
and one we're able to controlmore, possibly, than we are with
the other one.
So I guess, oh, I just have agiant answer.
That's my giant answer.
I don't have anything specificfor you?

do you have?
Do you have specific spiritualpractices though that bring that
you incorporate each day, thenthat is going to be different
than your tech side.
So I'm assuming that yourpassion for what you do with
your tech company, with thedevelopment stuff that you do
with your writing because a lotof that stuff's technical or
strategic, but do you havespiritual side practices then
your walk obviously through thegraveyard in my aspect could be

(32:18):
considered one, right yeah.
I agree you have things that youdo daily that that would be
more on the spiritual side.

I do and I like your question because I'm gonna
think about it after we're donetoday, because I because it's a
bigger question and it's that isthere a separation?
Do I do this thing to fill this?
Do I do it?
And so I guess, first of all,yes, I, I like to do yoga in the
morning.
I have a good friend who's ayoga teacher.
So, uh, most saturdays let's berealistic not all I do go and

(32:46):
go to a yoga class and I loveshe does the full.
She does the full.
There's kundalini and all theother stuff.
She does the breathing, she the, the meditation and the
movement and I got spoiled byher, because I didn't realize
that that's not all yoga.
Some yoga's only movement, but Ifeel like it should be all of
that.
Um, I agree, I like that.
I feel that, like I said, Ifeel the the this is going to

(33:07):
sound weird and I've never saidthis out loud.
Um, there's a, there's a.

I love that.
I'm here for it.

I'm here.
That's huge.
That's huge coming from meSomething I've never said out
loud.
I just have this almost giddyappreciation of existence that I
can literally be in my in mykitchen getting some water and
like start laughing because I'mlike this is so absurd, like

(33:35):
this, like like life, like in away, life is a joke.
It's just so amazingly hilariousthe stuff we don't know, the
stuff that by me talking to you,I'm so cut off with everything
else happening around the worldright now, like even with with
my friends, family, everythingelse, clients, I'm focused on
you, and for me to think that Isomehow know what's happening,

(33:56):
that I know whatever, or thefact that just chemistry and
physics and gravity and quantumphysics, all that, the machinery
of life, like Carl Sagan said,all that stuff that has to
happen for us to even breathe,like for me to even see you,
like to develop eyes that canmake these monitors and things
work to see through the air,just right, the fact that I've
been breathing, I'm not aware ofit.

(34:17):
Now I am, oh, my god, you knowthat's breathe, breathe, yeah,
anyway, no, um, just just that.
That slams down on me sometimesand I just start laughing like
okay, I get it.
That's hilarious, so it's great, it's just ever, it's
ever-present and I think, okay,so I'll say this is politically
incorrect.
Um, I, I get a big chuckle outof the people who are, who are

(34:41):
totally stringent.
The universe was created andthen, and then the people who
are like no, there's a big bang.
And I'm like how is there adifference between bang and poof
?
That's the literally this isright, it's just a different
word like.
It's like, it's literally thesame thing something poofed into
existence.
And you're saying it happenedthis way.
You have, but neither one ofyou has.

(35:01):
You have so little knowledge onthis.
Just, you know, you're wearingthis little ball, this ball
covered in gases, and we kind ofsort of peer out there.
We're at the edge of a pieplate.
We can't even see behind ourown galaxy because of where
we're positioned.
We're like, we think there'ssome stuff over there.
We're just gonna fill it.
Come on right, like, like, andso when that all rushes into

(35:24):
your brain at once, you're likeoh, oh brain freeze.
Oh, you know, so sorry right,okay, yeah way too long of an
answer.

I apologize, but that's no, that's great
where it?

is for me.

I love that, though.
No, I agree, and it just itmakes me think about.
I don't know if you've everstudied Abraham Hicks or what
happens from esther hicks whenshe channels abraham.
Have you heard of this?
no, I have not abraham hicks isa channeled, like she calls them
beings, because she doesn'tknow like there's multiple, it's
just like an energy that she,she channels.
So her name is esther hicks,but they they've talked for like

(35:55):
40 some odd years about law ofattraction as the, the focal
point for humanity to kind ofstart understanding what is
there trying to create and whythey're here, and so they talk a
lot about that, that giddy partof it where it's like when you
are on point with your purpose,when you're aligned with your
purpose and and basically, inessence, channeling who you
truly are and not kinking thingsoff in and keeping the flow of

(36:17):
creative energy, of sourceenergy, of whatever to come to
you, the better it gets, thebetter it gets, the better it
gets.
The more giddy you get, themore expectant you get, the more
excited you get, the the easyit's because, like when think
about it when you're a kid, likeyou laughed probably all the
time and things were just funnyfor no like, no reason
whatsoever.
And then you become a littleolder and things get more dire
and more serious, more serious,and then, like that, the

(36:39):
combination of like what howmany times kids laugh a day to
like adults is like it's sodivergent and it's insane, but
it's because we kinked ourselfoff from that like flow of
universal energy.
When we get back into it, Ithink that makes total sense.
You're, you're in your vibe,you're in your flow and so the
alignment's there and it's, it'sjust like, of course it's going
to be funny, of course it'sgoing to be like.

(36:59):
This is crazy, this is just howweird is it that we're here
right now, like the evolutionthat had to happen and
everything that had to become athing and that evolution, a
whole new concept but you knowwhat I'm saying Like a whole new
can of worms.

Right, yeah, no-transcript.
And it's just like all of asudden you just you kind of let
go and you're going, you'reguiding it, but the river's
pulling you at the same time,kind of thing I mean it sounds

(37:35):
like the ancient one from from.

Dr, that sounds exactly like Abraham they
talked about that too where somany people are pointed upstream
and the river's pushing you oneway but you're trying to paddle
the other way and that's whyeverything feels so hard.
So when you just let go of theoars and turn around, the boat
will go where it needs to go.

Yeah, but there's some guiding in there too that
you don't realize.
I think there is still somefree will, and that's a whole.
Nother discussion is is theexistence of free will and so
forth.

Yeah, I love that too.
That's a good conversation,because we're so free that we
can choose enslavement.
Yeah, it's pretty wild.
Right, yeah, and we do it allthe time with the way that we
tell ourselves the stories ofwhat we think we get to have, or
how we get to be, or thecreativity we get to bring forth
, or all the things, like theperson we get to show up, as
it's pretty wild.

(38:21):
I agree with you, that's a,that's a good.
That's a good topic too.
We could go down a rabbit hole.

Absolutely yeah Hour.
Four of our podcast today Right.

Oh goodness, I can see we're going to need to
bring you back, mark.

I would love that .

We're going to have to have lots of
conversations, okay, so let'stalk about this one, because
there's so many things, like Isaid, that you do and so many
interesting facets that I had topull like little bits out of
all the different things for atleast this introduction to who
you are.
So you often say that everyonehas a dashboard and gauges that
guide their decisions, so couldyou elaborate on this metaphor
and perhaps share how we can usethe tool to enhance our daily

(39:00):
lives?

Absolutely so.
My very first book was theStatus Game, and, and so
basically I saw when I starteddating that all relationships
were based on one thing yourrelationship with your daughter,
your, your, your, your kids,your, your husband, your peers,
your clients, your boss Allbased on one thing.
And so I wrote about that inthe status game, and so what it

(39:25):
comes down to is this I imaginethat we have a dashboard in
front of us.
It's sort of an invisibledashboard that you wish you
could see and then it's filledwith gauges, like on a car.
Okay, on a car, the biggestgauge is the most important,
it's the speed, that's the thingthat's going to kill you, and
then it goes to the smallergauges and so on and so forth.
On our dashboard, we have a biggauge of the thing that's most

(39:47):
important to us in the peoplewe're trying to find Okay, so
the person you're attracted to.
So this is basically your lovedashboard.
You have two others, you have atotal of three, so the love
dashboard.
You look and you have thisgauge that says, oh, I really
like that.
If there are seven on this,well, I'm done right.
And some people are sort of onegauge dashboard people.

(40:10):
They're like single-minded,like you have your friend Nancy,
who only goes for rich guys.
You have another one that onlygoes for this kind of guy or
whatever, it doesn't care,there's the one that has the
height.
And then she's like well, whydo I keep getting connected to
a-holes?
Oh, because you don't look atthe personality.
They're all seven feet tall.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You focus on that and your gauges change as you
get to know people.
That's why people grow apart,because their gauges shrink and
grow.
The guy who was a had with longhair who played the guitar
naked on the couch is now theguy now that you have kids,
isn't earning any money.
I guess we've grown apart, youknow.
So it's those.
So the gauges change.
So once you start to figure outwhat your gauges are, you start

(40:49):
to go.
That's why I'm attracted tothese kinds of people.
All the time I'm looking for Xand sometimes that looks like
that gauge, but it's not.
I got getting fooled by that orI'm overly focused on that.
We also have another dashboardfor our friends.
We have a third one which isfor us.
So when we look in the mirrorwe go I like that person because
we look at the gauges and we go, yeah, that's where I am and

(41:11):
I've had to make a couple ofhard decisions in the past for
myself and again the divorce andstuff are very difficult for me
.
And I looked at my gauge and myparent gauge was really
important and that's what causedme to do what I did.
So I was happy when I looked inthe mirror and went yep, I
followed through with that.
So it's interesting when youstart to learn these various
gauges on your dashboards, andthat's the way I envision that.

That's super interesting.
It's interesting to me, toothat you said seven out of 10 or
whatever.
Super interesting, it's super.
It's interesting to me, too,that you said seven out of 10 or
whatever, because my husbandand I we have both taken the,
the Clifton strengths, the 34strengths test, if you've ever
looked at that, and literally inthe top 10, we share seven of
the 10 top 10.
So it's it's pretty wild, it'sa.
You know they're a little bitout of order, but they're really

(41:56):
close at the same time, likesome of them will flip flop or
whatever, and but they're reallyclose at the same time, like
some of them will flip flop orwhatever, and I think that's
probably why he and I connect sowell, like because of the fact
that we, our thought processes,are very similar, the way that
we handle different things arevery similar.
We're both very strategic andhigh future and learners and you
know all the other things,whatever it might be.

I would imagine that you also have a very strong
friendship bond with him aswell, probably a bit more than
most couples that you know.

Yeah, I think so too.
We actually met on the Internet, so all we could be was friends
for about seven months.

Wow, okay, so you learned patience as well.
That's cool, but you'redescribing sort of the
difference between the lovedashboard and the friend
dashboard.
The love dashboard you havecertain things that turns your
crank and forth, okay, um, butthey're not necessarily in line
with with you.
That's why opposites attractand all that stuff.

(42:48):
The friend dashboard issomebody who?

who agrees with ?

you, it's somebody that gets you, somebody
that says, yeah, this is whatI'm about, I'm, I'm, I'm picking
up what you're putting down,I'm smelling with your cooking,
so it's, um, it's, it's, it's,it's that sort of thing.
And that's where the friendshipone is, and that's why people
who also have friends that arethat will do something horrible
but like, well, that's Bill.
You know he's kind of like that.
You know he cheated on his life, but he really likes the

(43:11):
Packers.
You know, whatever, right,right that makes sense.
Yeah, so that's kind of how thatworks and that's why that's
different than the loved one.

That's very interesting.
Yeah, I could definitely see it.
There's also an element, though, with like opposites attract,
that I think they're both in inone way or shape or form.
They're wanting the same thing.
Like you know the, the guy whois like, let's go with, find
that place where he feels likehe's supported or seen or

(43:41):
whatever, and the sunshine isjust wanting to like, bring joy
and happiness to everything.
That includes the you knowgrumpy old dude over there.
You know, like so it's like ofcourse it comes together because
people technically want thesame thing even though they're
opposites and, and so you alsoneed to describe what she's
getting out of it.

What she's getting out of it is is, uh,
is's getting out of it isprobably a level of
dependability that she andsteadfastness that she doesn't
normally rely on for herselfbecause she is high energy and
bouncy.
And I have a chapter in, Ithink, the Status Game 2 that
talks about gold diggers,cougars, something.
Oh my, I forgot what it was butit's a clever thing.

(44:17):
Yeah, because they willimmediately smear a dude because
he goes after younger women.
Because you know he wants highenergy, he wants indicators of
health, which a lot of youngerthings, you know, nice hair,
da-da-da-da skin.
That's indicators of healththat are built into us.
But then they'll also say oh,you're a gold digger.
If a woman is interested in aman who's a high earner or

(44:38):
whatever, but she wantsdependability and things like
that, and if those two peoplecan make that work, that's fine.
They're both getting somethingselfishly out of that.
And it's interesting how we'llsay, well, like, you're with him
because he's a good dad, yeah,okay.
So what if he wasn't a good dad?
Well, I wouldn't be with him.
You're with him because he hashigh morals.
What if he wasn't?

(45:01):
I wouldn't be with him.
You know, blah, blah, blah.
But if you say I'm with himbecause he's a higher earner,
well, if what he wasn't, wellthen I wouldn't.
It's the, it's this, it's it.
I know it sounds shallow, butit's the same kind of concept
where that gauge says it has tobe up to this size and so it is
what I say.
I'm not like that, but I say itis what it is and don't beat
yourself up.
If you have a like, just kindof look into that like and make
sure that there's not a gaugebehind it.
You know, because maybe youwant a high earner, not because

(45:24):
you like material possessions,but because you like security
and you grow up with very littlesecurity and your brain, just
like a lot of women, go for tallguys because there's this dad
thing that happens and they also, you know, they hug the guy and
they're really hugging hisstomach because they're so that
you know that the heightdifference they feel safe and
secure with a guy who's tall,even though they may not because

(45:44):
the guy is an irresponsiblejerk, but his literal physical
appearance causes them to saysecurity.

Isn't it interesting, I think, the
concept of how our brainsconnect to these concepts and if
we can become aware of it likethat is how we shift those
patterns.
That's how we can go.
Okay, I understand now why Ilike this thing, but is it
serving me?
And then you can ask yourselfwell, could I, could I believe
something that's going to bebetter?
Could I change this to be justa little tweak that makes my
life easier or makes it likepushes me in the right direction

(46:14):
, versus like attracting thetall guy?
That's an ass.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly, yeah,interesting.

Yeah, and that's the awareness is huge.
That's like the threeprinciples basically with me.
It's like you know, having isdiscover something and then
create an awareness for thepeople that listen to my podcast
or talk to me or work with me.
Is that just giving them thatawareness, like I said with the
sheet, is huge because you can'tun-become aware of something.

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't work like that.
I mean you could, you could gointo denial, I guess.

But it's still going to come back and bite you
in the butt.
It'll be back.
Yeah.
It being in your subconsciousisn't any better.
It is going to bite you?

Yeah, it'll come back.
Okay, so when it comes to, likeyou said, full stack developer
and being a prolific author, howdo you balance?

those two aspects Like how do you, how do you
pull in time for writing andstill being so technical with
all the things that you do, ordoes one influence the other?
Um, I don't think the influence.
I don't think they talk,they're not in speaking terms.
I'm so, um, okay, but but I,what I, what I found with, with
doing with, with realizing thatlife is made of three things
time, energy and resources isthat and I did a podcast on this
it's more often about theenergy and less often about the

(47:25):
time.
A lot of people will come to meand say how do you have time for
all this?
And I'll say no, no, no, no.
How do I have energy for allthis?
Because I, in fact, I didcoaching for someone who I did
some other work for that theycame back to me and they kept
seeing my signature change.
You know, this book is out,this book is out, and they're
like I've been trying to write abook.
I need you to be my book coach.
So I ended up coaching her andit was the same kind of thing.

(47:47):
She'd come home, she'd havethree or four hours, but she'd
watch the Bachelor or she'd justgo and watch trash TV because
she was drained by her job.
So we had to work on her energyduring the day, so that she had
energy to work on her book, andthat's the way that that worked
.

That's super interesting too.
What do you think ofParkinson's law?
Because we teach that oftenabout like how, having that,
like having that understanding,like do you know what
Parkinson's law is?
Okay, so Parkinson's law isbasically that time will expand
or contract, or work will expandor contract to fit the time
allotted for it.
So when we decide so this is.
It kind of goes back to the waythat I teach manifestation too

(48:25):
when we decide or observe aparticle, right, it becomes a
particle, it collapses time.
When we look at it and we decideon something, we can actually
shift how much time it is.
And that's why people are like,okay, I have three months to
finish this paper in school,like whatever, and it's not
until the night before it's duethat some people will sit down
and actually start the thing, orsome people will just do it the

(48:46):
whole time or have it done thefirst week, or you know whatever
.
Everybody kind of decides whatthis time looks like for us, but
it expands or contracts basedon the time allotted for us, and
so when we're trying tomanifest something quickly, for
instance, you have to truly likebe aware of time.
You can collapse it and then,just if you wanted something
tomorrow and you really believedit can happen.
Like your mind-body coherencehas to be in sync then you can

(49:10):
make things like that happen.
But what do you think aboutlike, being like?
Is there an energeticconnection I guess is what I'm
saying to time like where youcan, in your decision moment,
just make that happen?
Is there like a willpowerenough to be able to make it
happen?

So are you.
So are you saying I can exertmy will to, to change, to create
an event or to change theamount of time needed for an
event Both?

because think about any time that you've had a
deadline or anything thatyou've got going on.
Yeah, if, if you decide you'regoing to make it happen and
you're it's going to be done bythat day or it's going to be
done sooner than that, whateverday you decide it's going to be
done by right.
It usually is going to be doneby that day.
But if you're kind of waffling,you're kind of like I'm not
sure if I'll make it happen, uh,that's not enough time.
I don't think it's enough timeto probably go past that

(49:58):
deadline because you haven'tcollapsed it enough or you
haven't focused enough to decidethat no, this is the time that
I'm going to do it right, sowork will expand or contract to
fit that time allotment.
Does that make sense?
But I think there's a level ofwillpower there.

Yeah, I I have like four comments, so the first
one is park, park, parkins.
Parkins's law could be uhapplied to storage space and
also hard drive storage space.
It's the same concept thatit'll expand to fill whatever.
If you get a bigger hard drivejust like a house there's never
too much.
Oh, you have too much space, ohwell, right.
And then I do think I did apodcast called Blind Positivity

(50:38):
and it was about people.
Just that's okay, just bepositive.
It's like, no, you know,there's more to it than that and
there are things at work inyour brain that are happening
that we just don't define.
And that gets right back to our.
I think the theme of thisepisode is science fiction
versus fantasy and how all oflife revolves around that.
But I use the example ofsomeone you know who said I

(50:59):
really want to see butterflies.
You know, I just want to seemore butterflies.
And then they're driving aroundand that's on their brain, and
then they go past the store andthey decide to buy a bunch of
seeds and stuff.
They're doing gardening, butthey end up buying a lot of the
seeds for really pretty flowers,they plant them and then, like
a little while later, like wow,I thought about butterflies and
now I see butterflies.

(51:20):
Well, yes and no, like you didand you didn't, like you did
physical things that made thathappen.
As far as expanding the time, Itruly believe that we have, and
you and I are in our hyperstate right now, and I believe
that we can, because I look atthe time and I look at talking
to you, I'm like man, werecovered some ground.
This is awesome, becauseusually it's not like, yeah,
it's a lot slower than this, andso I'm glad I can keep up with

(51:43):
you.
No, but so I think that you canexpand and contract this energy
to fill it in a certain way.
That's why you know, that's whyI like mindfulness and a walk
in the park can feel differentthan than intense work.
But I also I did a podcast onbeing in the zone and I'm only
mentioning them because it helpsme to catalog and remember no,

(52:03):
I, I totally get it yeah, the,um, the in the zone, and how you
feel.
When you're in the zone andyou're looking, it's like been
an hour and a half and you'relike, oh, and you're just sort
of like singing and your, yourbrain's humming along and it
just feels right and um, or uh.
When you're like, oh, my god,when does the end?
And do we still have to be here?
You know, can we leave yet?
I know we just got here andlike, then you like, you know,

(52:25):
like the watch pot never boils,kind of thing, and stuff like
that.
And then finally, I think I havedone kind of a tricky, naughty
thing with regarding the kind ofthe concept of, well, if I
waffle about and I don't knowwhat I'm doing, it's going to
take forever and I'm never goingto do it, kind of thing I have

(52:45):
said to my brain oh, okay, yeah,we have all this time now.
Yeah, you know what?
I'm just going to sit down anddo this, like I did that with
writing a few times, where I'mlike, yeah, I don't really have
a deadline with this, that'sfine, but I'm just going to sit
here like I'll like out loud,I'll like lie to myself, even
though I know what I'm doing isI'm trying to trap myself into
writing for two hours.
I'm not.
I'm trying not to let mysubconscious know that.

(53:07):
No, just a couple minutes.
Yeah, I'll probably go.

Yeah, just a couple minutes and you know my
husband calls that the 10 minuterule.
When he when there's thingsthat he doesn't want to do but
he knows he has to do it, he'slike I will give, will give
myself 10 minutes, 10 minutes,and if after 10 minutes I don't
want to do it, then I'm gonnaswitch to something else.
And very rarely after 10minutes do you actually want to
switch.
By that point you're in it.
You're like okay, my brain's init, I've got it Like whatever

(53:31):
10 minutes is so long.

I set alarms on my secret listening devices at
all over my house.
I can't say her name becauseshe'll say what do you want?

Yeah, mine will go off too.

Yeah.
So I have, I'll set 10 minutes,I'll say I'm just going to do
this for 10 minutes and I'll belike 10 minutes is long.
It's a long time to like dosome cleaning and things and you
can get some some serious stuffdone doing that, yeah, yeah.
And and I don't know, I don'twant to interrupt questions you
may have, but along the samelines, I don't know if I told
you about the do it to a faultmethod that I created.

(54:03):
I did a talk on that.
Okay.
So do it to a fault is a methodI created for you to take your
mind and hook it into doingsomething that either is tedious
and you don't want to do, it isrepetitious, or something that
is so giant and foreboding thatyou're like I can never do this
right, like writing a book orsomething like that.

(54:24):
Yeah, right, and so soF-A-U-L-T so feeling activity,
universal location, time fault.
Okay, so you hook it to one ofthose things and it just gets
done.
And this doesn't take a month,it can literally take 24 hours
and suddenly it starts happeningand it's the weirdest thing.
So what I did was I did acouple things first.

(54:45):
First, I really didn't likedoing like unloading and loading
a dishwasher and washing dishesand stuff like that.
I didn't really like that and Ilive, I live alone.
So I, when I get a phone callthat's a social call I stop what
I'm doing and I get.
If I can't, right, if I'm inthe middle of working, I can't.
But.
But if I can take a break, Iget up.
I get up.
I can't just sit there on thephone say, yeah, how you doing,

(55:06):
I get up and that the phone callis tied to me getting up and
doing housework.
Okay, if you call me, you makeme do housework automatically.
Yeah, it works, that's just theway it works.
And obviously I try not toclank plates or anything like
that, but I just do it and thewhole time I'm talking I'm just
doing it.
The part of my brain, themonkey brain, is just doing that
stuff.
I did this to the point wheremy son called me once and we

(55:29):
talked and he's an oldwatchwoman like me blah, blah,
blah.
So we talked for a while andthen later that day I went to
unload the dishwasher and it wasempty and I'm like who emptied
the dishwasher?
Like I was like freaked outbecause there's nobody else here
and I realized it was soautomatic that it was just
happening.
And then we had thisconversation one day that was so

(55:50):
long, the entire house wasclean, everything but vacuuming,
because I couldn't do that.
But I was like my God, thehouse looks awesome.

(56:26):
No-transcript, you can do thatwith time as well, and people do
it with time all the time.
It's lunchtime, I should eat.
Well, I'm not hungry.
Well, this is when we eat.
Oh, you know.
So we do that all the time andit's actually a bad thing where
it's connected to time.
So anyway, that's my rambleabout do it to a fault that's
super interesting.

I really like that concept.
My husband does that.
I mean for sure, because whenhis mom calls, his mom likes to
to talk and she's a lovely ladybut she lives in england, still,
like I, I met my husband, hewas in england.
We met online, like I said,twitter back in the day and um,
so when she calls he'll he he'llbe getting like dinner ready,
so he gets everything going.
He does the whole thing Likethen he's like dual, dual

(57:04):
working with things as he'stalking to her.
I'm like for me, I'm typicallyjust always going like.
The only time that I'm notdoing something is when I'm
sitting down to meditate.
But even then, most of the timeI'm sitting like on my
meditation seat and I'm probablymoving, like there's like a
movement or something that'sgoing on Like I can't sit just
by myself Like I can.
I've done it.

(57:25):
But for whatever reason, amovement has to be in place, it
just, it just is.
It's interesting.

Yeah, interesting .

Yeah, that's so cool.
I love that concept.
I'm going to have to.
I have to think more on thatone now.

Yeah, it's one of my podcasts and one of my talks
I gave to you, so you canalways just look it up if you
want to have the longer yeah.

I will definitely put that in the show
notes too, because I think otherpeople are going to be like, oh
, that's really cool, that's,that's a really interesting way
to look at it.
Ok, so what's next on thehorizon for you, mark?

Is there any upcoming projects or books or
new developments for Alchemy forLife that you're particularly
excited about out?
Yes, thank you for asking.
I have two books I finished.
One of them is the third in theseries of the status game.
It's actually the status gamethree, called Beyond Status, and
it actually incorporates boththe books and a hundred page
workbook so that you canactually discover what your
gauges are.
So it's a special way ofquestioning yourself that speeds
up and slows down and tricksyour subconscious into being
honest, and so it's a littlemethod I developed.

(58:28):
So I think it's a really coolbook and I think the cover
turned out really pretty too.
So that's that's.
I'm sitting on that because I'mdeciding on how it's going to
be released properly, Cause Idon't want it to be released out
into the void.
I want a bit more, a bit more.
I don't want to say fanfare,but I want a bit more
interaction with people on thatso they can really get on it.
The other one is I asked myselfa question one Saturday morning

(58:53):
.
I'm sitting on the floor and Isaid, if I could have anything I
want, why don't I?
Like what's stopping me?
Like, if I say I want to do athing, what's really stopping me
?
What is stopping any of us fromdoing that?
And I was like, well, this isgoing to be fairly easy to
answer.
So I sat down and I startedwriting a Google Doc and I was
on the 10th page of it.
I'm like this is a book, Holycow.

(59:15):
So I sat down and I startedwriting and then I did the
hierarchical arrangement ofthoughts and I'm like, oh my God
, I figured it out.
And this has more citations thanany other book.
In my experimental psychology.
This has 46 citations so far.
So I'm citing everything fromFreud's work to the New England
Journal of Medicine.
Just a whole bunch of stuffabout my concepts, and what I do
is I take Freud's pain pleasureprinciple I'm not sure if

(59:38):
you're familiar with it.
So, yeah, he developed.
Yeah, so it's, we either gotowards pleasure or away from
pain period.
That's it.
Everything is that binary, andI figured out the level above
that.
So there's something betweenthat and us doing something.
And then I also did research onthe highest performers, people
who are Olympic athletes, andstuff that, almost without a

(59:59):
fault, every single one of them,no pun intended.
Every single one of them.
It's repetition.
It's if you just repeat it, youget better at it.
But they don't talk about whythey repeated it, Like Michael
Phelps, for example.
Michael Phelps is why peopledon't realize that is that he
suffered from I think it wasADHD, and so he would spend a

(01:00:20):
lot of time in the pool becausehe just felt better in there.
Well, it was that that causedhim to go into the pool.
I mean, granted, his physiologyis like fish-like, I get that.

Carissa Andrews (01:00:31):
He's a merman, it's fine.

Mark Bradford (01:00:33):
He is, yeah, but it caused him to be in there.
So there's a thing behind stuffthat and I call it monsters and
unicorns.
So there's there's.
There's something that preventsyou from doing something
repeatedly, or there's somethingthat causes you to do it all
the time, like you always dothat.
Oh, because of this somethingin your childhood.
What have you?

Gotcha, that's super interesting.
Oh, I'm looking forward to that.
So when, when are these twothings coming out?

All I can say is this year.

Okay.
So, Mark, where can my audiencego to find out more about you,
what you do, all the things?
Because?

like we said, you do a lot.
Oh, thank you.
So just, markbradfordorg isreally the one place if you, if
there's one place to gomarkbradfordorg.

It has all my books, my connection to alchemy,
all the other stuff too.
I love that.
Well, mark, thank you so muchfor being here.
We're going to have to bringyou back.

I appreciate you talking with me?
I would love that.

Yay, well, that's awesome, thank you for
being here.

Thank you so much .
Thank you so much for having me.
It was my pleasure, it reallywas fun.

Well, there you have it, guys.
Isn't Mark amazing?
I had such a blast talking withhim about all the things.
There was so much that he doesthat.
Trying to narrow down just onespecific topic as we brought him
in, it was so hard.
I'm like you know what, we'rejust going to talk about all the
things and see what happens,and so you're welcome.
This is the talk that you gotbecause of that decision, isn't

(01:01:55):
it great?
He was so much fun to chat withand I think this was the perfect
time to air his podcast episodebecause you know, we talked
about the nature of AI, of, youknow, the science fiction with
the fantasy and all the things,and right now we're right in the
middle of Plotober andliterally, as of today, as of

(01:02:16):
the airing of this podcastepisode, I am on day three of
the four books, five days nextlive cohort.
So it's been really fun to see,like, how people are
incorporating and using ChatGPTthis year with their series,
with the way that they'replanning their books and all of
the things.
It's been so much fun and thisparticular live launch has been

(01:02:39):
just amazing, like people havebeen in and out of the
conversations.
We've been having such a blastcoming up with new ways to be
able to use ChatGPT, and I'lltell you, it's evolved a lot
since last year, but at the sametime, the basic principles are
the same.
The prompts that come back havejust gotten so much better,
which is saying something,because last year the prompt

(01:02:59):
returns were amazing.
They were so good.
So it's been an interestingyear to see the evolution of AI
and how large language modelsare helping us, as authors, come
up with some new and incredibleideas.
So if you haven't had access toit yet, if you haven't hopped in
and you're curious about how AIworks, I'd encourage you to

(01:03:20):
kind of perk your ears and staytuned, because I'm going to be
launching a brand new membership.
It's coming out very soon, infact, I'll be announcing it next
week, but I'm going to give youa little hint about what it is.
This particular membership isall going to be about the
strategy side that I've beenteaching for Author Revolution.
So over the past I don't knowsix years somewhere in there,

(01:03:44):
I've been teaching authors froma gamut of things on the fantasy
side and the science fictionside, whatever you want to call
it.
I've been doing both for a verylong time, and so what's come
to me is a direct path,something that I can use to help
you understand.
Number one, what I can teachyou, and, number two, give some
tracks to people who are lookingfor something specific that

(01:04:06):
they're learning, and so thisparticular membership it's going
to be called revolutionaryauthors Weird right, what a name
.
So good, I'll be opening up thedoors on the 14th to everyone
who wants to hop in and join,but this particular membership
is going to include all of thestrategy stuff, so everything
from four books, five days, planyour series, challenge, rapid

(01:04:29):
release roadmap to the newcourses on audiobook creation as
well, and so much more like.
It's going to have a lot ofthings, but the biggest thing
that I want to mention is thatwe're still going to live launch
Rapid Release Roadmap, startingon the 21st, and so it's a part
of this new membership.
It's the only way to get accessto Rapid Release Roadmap at

(01:04:50):
this point if you haven't yetjoined, so what's really cool,
though, is that we're going tobe live launching it.
We're going to be going through, we're going to have calls
biweekly so that we talk about,like, what's been going on and
all the things that you'relearning inside Rapid Release
Roadmap and the reason for thatthis year.
Normally I would do it everyweek, but this year I'm going to
be in Vegas for AuthorNation,and so I'm teaching, I'm doing a

(01:05:13):
presentation, and so I just I'mnot going to have the bandwidth
to be able to do a call whenI'm in Vegas.
So, that being said, we'regoing to do every other week and
I want you to just like reallyget immersed in this process of
learning how to plan out yourfour book series.
Whether you do AI, whether youdo it, you know, manually, and

(01:05:33):
that's fine too.
However, you want to designyour editorial calendar for your
books, I'm all here for it andI'm your cheerleader for it.
But what's also cool is, withthe whole NaNoWriMo thing going
a little bit wonky, like I'm not, I don't have issue.
I don't take issue with NaNofor the stance on AI.
That's never been an issue forme.
But I know that there's a lotof things that have been

(01:05:55):
mismanaged when it comes to thatparticular organization and
while I appreciate all thatthey've done, I have never fully
been just an all-in onNaNoWriMo, the company.
I've loved the concept of the.
You know the 30 days being ableto get your books written very
quickly.
I personally, though, like thesix week sprint better, and I

(01:06:16):
like being able to write fivedays a week instead of all seven
, and I like being able to havea little bit more breathing time
, and so that's what I teachinside Rapid Release Roadmap,
right, and so what we're goingto be doing is, when we kick
things off on the 21st, we'reactually going into a six-week
writing sprint as well, so Ihave a community built inside of
this new membership where youcan come in.

(01:06:37):
It's a brand new communitybeing built, so it's new, but
we're going to hopefully have alot of engagement where we're
talking about how to plan ourseries, how to plan our books,
what we're doing, how we'rewriting, and there's so much fun
stuff that's going to behappening inside of this
membership that I just can'twait to show it to you.
And now, not only are yougetting access to a lot of the

(01:06:58):
content that's already beenbuilt, but I'm also doing
masterclasses every single month, and, inside this particular
membership, you do get access toour monthly masterclasses, not
only the library ofmasterclasses that already exist
, which there are 13 of them sofar, but you get access to all
the new ones that are coming outas well, and this particular

(01:07:19):
month, october.
Now, if you're following yourfuture self, you already know
that this is kind of like ourshadow work month, and so inside
of your future self, we'redoing a lot of shadow work,
meditations and hypnosis.
Now with the revolutionaryauthors.
There is not access to yourfuture self, but there is access
to those masterclasses, and themasterclasses will be touching

(01:07:40):
on shadow work and why it'simportant for authors to kind of
deal with shadow work.
Because as we, you know, gothrough this process.
As we're authors who are inthis creative field, we get hung
up an awful lot on our limitingbeliefs and sometimes that is
just a part of our shadow right.
There's a part of us that wantssomething, that thinks we can't

(01:08:01):
have it, and so when we cantake a deeper look at our shadow
side and incorporate it andenvelop it a little bit more
into who we are, we can releasesome of those limiting beliefs
and move forward.
So that particular masterclassis coming up.
If you want to just hop into themasterclass, you can obviously
do that as well.
I'll have a link for that verysoon going up onto the website.
But otherwise the Masterclassmembership has access to

(01:08:22):
everything and with this new,bigger membership, for people
who want to hop into the coursesand have a community
surrounding the courses, this isgoing to be the way to go about
and do it, because you getaccess to it all.
So I hope you'll check it out.
Things are starting to go up onmy website, so if you're
interested in checking it out,you can definitely do that now

(01:08:43):
and just feel free to kind ofperuse, take a look at all that
this membership is going to haveto offer.
Of course, if you want to justgo straight to the show notes,
you can head over toauthorrevolutionorg forward,
slash 256.
Everything will be listed outthere for you and you can just
click out to check it out.
But in the meantime, I hopethat you'll just think about it

(01:09:07):
because, as we're going forwardwith Author Revolution, from
this point forward all of mycourses are going to be inside
memberships, and the reason I'mdoing that is because I've
learned about myself.
I personally love the communitypart of it.
I love being able to have thediscussions, to do the Zoom
calls, to be able to see yourfaces and actually talk about
all the things that are going on.
And so when I'm doing a courseand it's not a live launch, for

(01:09:30):
instance, it's harder for me toknow how people are doing with
the courses, because noteverybody responds right, not
everybody asks questions, andwhile that's still probably
going to be true in thememberships, because not
everyone's going to want to join, at least you have the
opportunity to.
You have access to me everysingle day.
If you want to, you can askquestions in these communities
and I'm here to support you.

(01:09:51):
So I just like the feel and thevibe of that so much better.
And so we've got these twotracks right now.
Right now it's the high vibeauthors.
Those are for the manifestingauthors, the ones who really
want to dig into mindset, work,manifestation, all the good
stuff there.
And then those who want thestrategy side, the side where
it's like, okay, I need to learnhow to, you know, put my books

(01:10:12):
together.
I need to understand thisbusiness of being an author.
I need to understand how toplan my series or to create a
yearly editorial calendar,whatever the case might be.
I'm here for that as well.
But there will be somethingbrand new coming very soon and
it's going to be a componentthat kind of bridges the gap
between the two, and I can'twait to share that with you.

(01:10:34):
It's something that's been inthe works now for a little bit
of time, and I'm going to bedeveloping that very soon.
I don't know when it's going tocome out.
If I have my way, I would loveto be able to start launching it
in like December, but for sureby January kind of, because I
think it's a very awesome way tokickstart the new year.
But I also know that there's alot of stuff that's going on

(01:10:56):
between here and there, and so Idon't want to lock myself in
just yet.
But knowing me, knowing the waythat I work, there's a very
good possibility.
All right, guys, I hope you'veenjoyed today's podcast
interview.
I hope you've enjoyed all thediscussions that Mark and I had.
He's a great guy.
Definitely go over to the shownotes and check everything out.

(01:11:16):
Make sure you check out hispodcast as well, and I hope that
you take away all sorts of goodstuff from this conversation
today.
So, without further ado, enjoythe rest of your week and go
forth and start your authorrevolution.
Thank you.

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