May 9, 2024 • 51 mins
Have you ever considered the dynamic balance between a warrior spirit and a peaceful heart?
In this episode, I welcome the esteemed Dan Millman, whose remarkable journey from world-class athlete to revered spiritual guide unveils the intricate dance between the serenity of the present and the dynamism of action.
"Faith is the courage to live your life as if everything that happens does so for your highest good and learning. Like it or not."
Dan Millman
With Dan, we explore life's unexpected lessons, the pursuit of purpose, and the delicate art of harmonizing the vigor of a warrior with the tranquility of a sage.
At 78 years young and still performing perfect handstands, Dan's philosophy is a testament to the power of embracing action over fear, fostering courage in every aspect of life.
This episode goes beyond mere reflection; it's a call to personal growth through deliberate choices aligned with the natural laws of life.
Our conversation delves into the profound notion that life is the ultimate classroom. Every hardship you encounter, every experience, serves to refine your character and deepen your wisdom.
Dan shares his vision of a world where your spiritual journey is a unique a fingerprint, on a path of joy and discovery. Join us for an episode that promises not just enlightenment, but transformation as you learn how to live with a peaceful heart and a warrior spirit.
Contact Links - Dan Millman
Website
Book: The Law of Spirit
Life Purpose Calculator
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
In this episode, I'm speaking to a best-selling
author of 18 books and formerworld champion gold medal
athlete, dan Millman, about howyou can transform your life with
a peaceful heart and a warriorspirit.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There are times we need a warrior spirit just to
roll up our sleeves and marchinto life and deal with the
challenges that naturally arisein everyday life, as a form of
spiritual weight training.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the James Grant from podcast
Super Soul Model series, where Ihelp people tune and tap in to
their natural state ofwell-being.
This week's guest is abest-selling author of 18 books.
His first book, way of thePeaceful Warrior, was released
as a movie back in 2006.
And he's also been a formerworld champion athlete, stanford
University gymnastic coach,martial artist and professor at
(00:59):
Oberlin College, and his latestbook, which was released in 2022
, peaceful Heart Warrior Spirit,is this week's guest, dan
Millman.
Welcome to the show, dan.
Thank you, james.
So, dan, for those of who maynot know about your work or may
not know about the Way of thePeaceful Warrior, which is
probably your most famous book,which started this whole process
(01:19):
going, tell us about yourjourney from being an athlete, a
world-class athlete, into nowbeing a spiritual teacher.
You know how did that allevolve and what got you into
writing in the first place.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, it's easy to reverse engineer or to look back
.
We can understand life lookingbackwards, but we have to live
it forward.
So, taking a retrospective, Inever, ever, would have guessed
that as a 10-year-old,discovering an old trampoline at
a summer camp and lovingjumping up and down and trying
new tricks would lead toscholarship, to college, world
(01:56):
championship and all thatfollowed.
I think in my case it was aprocess of disillusion in the
positive sense of freeing fromillusion.
I noticed this made me happyfor a little while, but then it
wasn't that satisfying.
I moved on and then that, and Ikept searching and I guess when
(02:19):
I shattered my right thigh bonein about 40 pieces in a
motorcycle crash, as I writeabout in the book and is shown
in the film, even though Ididn't drive that recklessly,
nor was my sex life quite asactive as depicted, nonetheless,
(02:39):
at that point it shook me up.
I started asking biggerquestions.
I recognized my own mortalitybecause, as we know, when we're
in our 20s we think we'rebulletproof and we know
everything.
And so it was a humblingprocess, some life lessons in
(03:00):
one fell swoop, and I began toexplore what is this inner world
, what am I here for?
And asking bigger questionsabout my purpose and that led to
a search that I write about, asyou mentioned that culminating
book, peaceful Heart, warriorSpirit.
It's the true story behind thestory of Way of the Peaceful
Warrior and the-year spiritualsearch, uh, with four very
(03:25):
radically different mentors.
So many people have read mybook or seen the movie and think
, oh, I learned a lot from thisold service station attendant
and then I started teaching, butit was a much longer process of
preparation so you know, manypeople know struggle finding
their purpose and direction.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And how did you find your purpose and direction?
Was that just something thatcame out as a result of having
that introspection?
You know how?
Did that give us a guidelineabout how to look within and
find our purpose, Because a lotof people find that tough.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
In my own case.
Many times we gain wisdom bymaking mistakes, and I made many
mistakes.
I really hadn't a clue about mypurpose or direction.
I was a psychology major incollege.
It was almost serendipity.
There was nothing else reallythat interested me.
But I didn't pursue thatacademically beyond my college
(04:35):
years and I had no idea.
I sold life insurance.
For three months I was going todo flying trapeze in the circus
, but that really the travelinglifestyle, didn't work.
I was married very young and wehad a baby on the way, so that
wasn't going to work.
And then I just fell into thiscoaching job at Stanford, which
reflected my background and myskills.
(04:58):
So in my own case there's notrail of breadcrumbs.
I can't say from my experience,I learned this.
But in the Peaceful Warriormovie that you mentioned,
there's a trail of breadcrumbs.
I can't say from my experience,I learned this.
But in the Peaceful Warriormovie that you mentioned there's
a scene in which my character,dan, follows Socrates, the old
gas station lieutenant played byNick Nolte, up this big hill
(05:18):
and at the top Dan has this sortof revelation and he says
Socrates, I just realized it'snot the destination that makes
us happy, it's the journey.
Well, there's a certain wisdomin that, because most of our
lives are spent on the journey,not just reaching one
destination after another sotrue, but without a destination
in mind, there is no journey.
(05:40):
We just wander around.
So I believe we're hardwiredgoal seekers, human beings.
I would even define success asmaking progress toward a
meaningful goal.
To me that is success, not justreaching the top of the
mountain, and I define everystep of the way as a success,
every bit of progress we make,because we cannot control the
(06:01):
outcomes in our lives.
I've learned that.
But we can control our efforts,and by making a good effort
over time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So meaning action.
So action along the way isgoing to give us that feeling of
purpose if it's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yes, and if we look at our lives, what has brought
us to this present moment iswhat we've done over time, not
just what we've thought, orwhether we had positive thoughts
or negative thoughts, not justwhat we felt.
Somebody came up to me after atalk I gave once and said Dan, I
feel so inspired.
I said don't worry, it'll pass.
Yes, so true isn't it the?
(06:40):
inspiration comes and goes,motivation waxes and wanes.
So, yes, there is in thisapproach to living.
I teach that I call thePeaceful Warrior's Way.
It's focused on what we do.
Barbara Rasp, a writer, oncesaid the lesson is simple, the
student is complicated.
And to simplify our life, wecan focus on what we need to do
(07:03):
in each moment in line with ourgoals, rather than how can I
change my thoughts and how can Ifix my emotions so I can live
wisely and well.
As it turns out, we have lesscontrol over our thoughts that
arise in our field of awarenessmoment to moment.
We have less control over theweather that passes.
You know the emotions that passthrough us, like changing
(07:25):
weather.
They come and go and change allthe time.
But we can spend a lot of timewith techniques and methods to
try to fix our emotions and ourthoughts so we can live well,
rather than and it is a form ofliberation focusing on what do I
need to do right now.
In fact, the most controversialthing I could say possibly
(07:46):
right now is that I do notencourage my students, seminar
attendees, I do not encourageanyone to feel happy or loving
or peaceful or kind or confidentor courageous.
I encourage people to behavethat way.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, I love that word behave because when I break
it down, you've got you know,you I think Neil Donald Walsh
was talking about it as be, have, do, and he's just.
It was a lovely book, but Iremember taking the word behave
and just go be have.
So you've got to be that personto have that experience.
(08:26):
So what would that?
How would I behave to be andhave that now.
So I love like breaking theselittle words down and and I love
your, I really I was intemporarily inspired by the way
of the peaceful warrior to useyour palm less, and then I was
like applying a lot of thethings.
That was congruent in my ownexperience when I had a car
(08:48):
crash and I had to wake up and Iwalked away pretty much
unscathed, and so did my friend,and we were lucky that we
walked away because, quitefrankly, that that was a
complete goner and that made meask the right questions, which
resonated with your motorbikestory, albeit I wasn't in
hospital.
I was in hospital asking thebig questions at the age of 19
(09:09):
and I was like, wow, okay, whoam I?
Why am I here?
What's my purpose?
Because what I'm doing is I'vegone down.
I've gone down a very ominousroad that is not taking me where
I want to go and I feel deeplyunfulfilled and discontent.
But that's a nice wake-up call,if's there.
But I never forget when we metin London years ago, dan.
You did this talk in London wayback when I think it was about
(09:32):
2005.
And I just started meditating.
I'd been spiritually awake fora little while because I'd had
this car accident a while and Iwas asking some deeper questions
, but now I was feeling a littlebit more in tune with my soul,
my body, for for sure, because Iwas working out and doing
things right.
And then you popped into mylife and you did this one thing
at this seminar.
I don't know if you, uh, you'llever remember, if it's
(09:55):
something that you did all thetime.
You stood up on stage in Londonin front of about I don't know
three or four hundred people,and you put your hand on this
table and this table was wobblyand do you remember this?
So, for all the listeners youknow, tuning in, dan just got up
on the stage.
I remember you wearing blackpants, black t-shirt and you
(10:18):
were like, hey, let me just seeif this works.
And you put your hand on thetable and it was a very wobbly
old table and you got up and didthe most perfect handstand,
held your balance and dismountedfrom that wobbly table in a
perfect handstand, whilst youwere totally still and
(10:41):
dismounted with such grace andas you dismounted with grace
this was your opening thing toeverybody, by the way and you
said, after you dismounted withgrace, you'd gone.
Life is about balance.
And I was like, wow, yeah,that's so true, because even
when the world around you iswobbling, if you can maintain a
(11:04):
state of balance, you're goingto be okay, and that's not only
for your body, but that's alsofor your mind, and I think that
that sort of really applies towhat you're saying, which is,
you might not feel this way, butyou can act this way.
So what are you going to act,to do to bring a little bit more
balance to your life?
So I was just wondering couldyou expand on that a little bit,
(11:25):
because I love that teaching.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I'd be happy to Thank you, James, for reminding me of
that.
Yeah, it's been a kind of athing to get people's attention.
I'll often do it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
You get people's attention when you show them
something right.
You show people like, hey, thisis possible.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yes, yes, and now I'm 78.
I'm still doing the handstand.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You're still doing the handstand.
You're still doing it, yeahyeah.
Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
But yes, it was a point to make.
Sometimes I joke with theaudience and I go let's see
Deepak do that.
Yeah, because I know Deepak andI've met Neil as well and the
different teachers.
We each have our differentviewpoints.
But here's the thing If someonewas afraid but they noticed a
(12:11):
little toddler walking in themiddle of a busy traffic, street
, cars whipping by, they mightbe terrified to run out into
that street, possibly get hit.
But they find themselves doingit.
So while they're feelingterrified, they behave with
courage, and in fact we can onlybehave with courage when we're
feeling terrified.
Otherwise it doesn't takecourage.
(12:32):
And so they're feeling one wayand behaving another, and in the
same way we can.
If we're feeling shy, we canstill walk up to somebody and
say hello, I find youinteresting and would you like
to have coffee or tea sometime.
They can still do that.
It may be difficult becausethey're feeling shy, but they
(12:54):
can still do it, and that is,again liberating.
Someone can say a kind wordwhile feeling irritated.
Again, it's counterintuitive,it's not easy to do, but that is
a liberation from emotions,from waiting for the right
emotions or the right thoughtsbefore we act, and so in fact
(13:15):
I'd like to.
Actually, I'd like to sharesomething with your listeners
yeah, please do, yeah, toprogress toward your goals.
Please choose one of thefollowing two methods.
First method one find a way toquiet your mind, create
(13:38):
empowering beliefs, raise yourself-esteem and practice
positive self-talk to find yourfocus and affirm your power to
free your emotions and visualizepositive outcomes so that you
can develop the confidence togenerate the courage, to find
the determination to make thecommitment, to feel sufficiently
motivated to do whatever it isyou need to do.
(14:00):
Maybe that's familiar to manypeople, that process.
Or the second method which Irecommend is you can just do it,
because life always comes downto what we do moment to moment.
To someone who and it's notalways easy someone who, let's
(14:22):
say, is an alcoholic, it's justsaying stop drinking would be
facile.
They may need to go through aprocess, join AA, do all kinds
of things between here and thepoint where they actually stop
the behavior of bringing alcoholto their lips.
(14:44):
So it comes down to that.
Whether it's a short process ora long one, our life will be
determined by what we do overtime.
That emphasis on action.
See, neil, I love Neil, but hisidea of beingness I really, I'm
like a hobbit.
You have to show me things.
(15:06):
I don't understand whatbeingness is.
Even if someone is simplysitting in meditation, they are
doing something active.
They are focusing.
They are attending to thethoughts, the passing emotions,
letting it go, focusing on thebreath.
People in meditation areactively doing something, when
it appears they're just being.
(15:26):
So I don't know what just beingis.
Maybe it's existing, butwordplay is fun, but it has to
match reality and it comes downto what we do and there's no way
to get off that hook Now.
We're only responsible for whatwe have control over.
If there were a storm outside,you or I wouldn't be responsible
(15:47):
for the storm because we can'tcontrol the weather.
If we could, then we'd havesome responsibility.
So if people start to realizethat they don't have any actual
ability or control by their willover what emotions they're
feeling in any given moment orwhat thoughts pop into their
awareness, thoughts happen to us.
We don't say I think I'll thinkthis thought next.
(16:10):
Random thoughts just come intoour mind and so we're not
responsible for the thoughtsthat appear in our awareness.
We're not responsible for what.
We're not responsible for thethoughts that appear in our
awareness.
We're not responsible for whatwe're feeling.
We are responsible for the onething we can control, which is
our behavior and our responseand our response to what happens
.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I remember before, you know, before, when I used to
drink a lot, drink heavily.
I've got to get out of thisloop of lunacy that I put myself
in and you know, my listenersprobably heard this story many
times, but it's quite nice to bereminded of, because what I did
was like I saw three signs tolearn how to meditate inside of
one week.
I mean, I'm just grateful I got.
(16:50):
I saw these three signals and Ihad the awareness to go hey,
these are three things tellingme.
You know, for the first time inmy life, follow this, james,
follow it.
And so I began a tmtranscendental meditation
technique, which I learned overa course of a weekend and within
four months I completelystopped drinking naturally and I
(17:12):
changed my diet naturally to aplant-based diet.
So I became vegetarian and,yeah sure, I could feel my body
was wanting this.
I'm not saying this is foreverybody, but this is just how
I broke free of that addiction.
I broke free of the beingnessthat I was before and it was
taking that action that wasinspired and it happened
(17:35):
naturally as an offset.
I'm a firm believer thatsuccess is just a series of good
choices that you make and, youknow, luck and good fortune just
comes from a series of makinglots of little good choices, and
I think that you clarify thatquite nicely in way of the
peaceful warrior and actually insome of your other work which I
loved, was, you know, talkingabout the, the, the spiritual
(17:58):
laws in the natural laws, um.
So I'd love you to expand on acouple of things for, like some
of the audience, if you could,of like some of the natural laws
that you think people shouldreally pay attention to, just go
, you know, because people don'tnecessarily say we've talked
about action and you talkedabout law of action in one of
your, your books, but is thereanything else that you you think
, hey, people really need tolisten to this because they may
(18:19):
oversee it if they're strugglingwith purpose or direction.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Sure, we can loop back to balance, because I
actually didn't address thatquestion directly and let me say
that we're hardwireddifferently.
I've come to recognize each ofus has our own process.
There are some people, forexample, that when I was
teaching gymnastics, learnedback somersault quicker than
others.
But I also noticed that thosewho take longer to learn it
(18:46):
often learn it better than thosewho learn it faster.
So each of us needs to respectour way of learning and our way
of living.
So each of us is different.
I wish I could say change to aplant-based diet, which I more
or less have myself.
I'm still vegetarian.
My wife and I went for 50 yearsnow and I learned TM as well,
(19:07):
way back when.
It's like the McDonald's ofconsciousness.
It's accessible to everybody.
It's a beautiful method, alovely method of meditation,
mantra meditation but in yourcase that worked.
I wish I could tell everybody.
Just, if you have a drinkingproblem, meditate and eat
vegetarian and it'll you won'thave it.
But it's different fordifferent people, of course, and
(19:29):
you acknowledge that in yourtotally.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And I would always say, if this I like, I've always
been totally non-pushy toeverybody.
My whole family is verydifferent.
You know, very differentlifestyle to me.
Even my friends, to a certainextent they're like James, what
are you doing?
It's like, yeah, I've justlearned, started meditating.
Um, I've let go of a lot ofthese habits that don't serve me
any well.
It's like my life kind ofdepended on it.
(19:51):
But I'm not pushing it on you,I don't want you to do it.
This is just kind of what'sworking for me and I feel that
there's a great liberation beingable to own it for yourself,
even though it's going to becompletely different for
everybody.
And I recognize that and I waslike look, this is just the way
of james, you know, you say theway of the peaceful.
I'm like this is way of thejames and this is just how he's
(20:11):
rolling right now.
And they go are you going todrink again or maybe don't know,
are you going to eat meat again?
Maybe I don't know.
You know, I was just like areyou going to eat fish?
Maybe I don't know.
So I just leave it there.
And you know, 20 years later,maybe I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well, I like that, and that, I don't know, is a
beginner's mind.
It's an open curiosity to whatlife brings us, and one of the
tenets of this approach toliving that I teach is that
there's no best book, no bestteacher, no best philosophy or
religion or diet or system ofexercise.
(20:47):
There's only the best for eachof us at a given time of our
life.
Life is an experiment.
We have to find out what worksfor us.
But in terms of these spirituallaws and the law of balance,
which is the first law in mylittle book called the laws of
spirit, I really love this book,guys.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I'll make sure you've got a link to it.
This is one of like.
This is one that seems a littleoff-piste for most of Dan's 18
books, but it's actually one ofmy favorite because it's got
such depth and content that youcan use every single day, so I
have it playing in the car fromtime to time.
That you can use every singleday, so I have it playing in the
car from time to time.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, so I enjoy it, but anyway, tell us about it.
Well, the law of balance can beapplied physically.
In fact, it can help us to cutour time of learning in half,
learning any physical skill.
And the way the law of balancecan be stated is that anything
we do, we can overdo or underdo.
Some people talk a little toofast, others a little too slow.
(21:41):
It's hard for people to followthem.
Some people eat fast, somepeople eat slow.
There's no one balance foreverybody.
Like what is balanced exercise?
Well, it depends if you'regoing to training for the
Olympics or just want to be ableto walk up a flight of stairs
without getting winded.
So we each have to find our ownbalance.
But that principle, the way itworks, is most of us tend to
(22:05):
undercompensate, because whenwe're used to doing it one way
whether it's talking too fast,eating too fast, whatever that
feels normal to us.
So it feels strange to changethat.
So we tend to undercompensate.
And the example I give is ifyou were learning to hit a
(22:26):
cricket ball or a baseballdepending on what culture you're
from and you kept missingbecause you were a little child.
Let's say you're just learning,but then somebody notices that
you swing on one side, let's sayin baseball you swing too low.
Every time you keep missing theball because you swing below it
.
You might want to tell thechild swing higher, but they
(22:49):
will undercompensate, they'llswing a little higher, a little
higher.
Finally they may hit a pop-upfly.
But if were to tell that child,make sure you miss it the next
five times, but make sure youswing too high in trying to
swing too high, they're probablygoing to connect with the ball
(23:10):
much quicker.
If they shoot in basketball, ifthey shoot and they notice they
shoot mostly, they miss the hoopto to mostly to the left.
Instead of trying to correctand shoot for the basket shoot
too far to the right In archery.
If you shoot high and to theleft, shoot low and to the right
(23:30):
the next one.
So by working both sides wefind center and that applies to
anything in life.
Working both sides, that's howyou actually apply the law.
It's not just abstract thinkingor ideas or theories.
It's something you can apply ineveryday life.
And this, as you know, from thelaws of spirit, that little
book, this ageless woman sageteaches me these laws.
(23:54):
We're up in the mountains doingdifferent things and that's how
I really anchor them in in howthey can be applied in everyday
life.
So that I hope, addresses thisquestion of balance.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, I just wanted to add one more thing that
people can do.
You know, if they're doingsport, like next time you're out
in nature, get a stone and tryand hit a tree, and you'll know
where the stone is going, andthen just completely go on the
other side and then you'll seewhat dan's talking about.
And I love to do this exercise,just to keep reminding myself
(24:30):
if I'm in balance or out ofbalance, because we're always
out of balance perhaps in somearea.
Every day, you know, every dayyou might be out of balance.
Today I was like I was feeling alittle low on energy.
I've been traveling, I've beendoing this, that and the other,
lots of work, lots of interviews, speaking to clients, and it's
been great.
But then I found my energy abit lower.
So I was like you've got totake a nap, james, take a nap,
(24:51):
slow right down.
And then I was like right, I'vehad a nap, I feel great.
Now you need to pump some bloodthrough your heart off you go
for a run.
So I went and did sprinttraining up and down a hill,
came back, I was like wow, I amback again.
This is just applying thatbalance that dan is talking
about and only you can tell,like the audience, only you guys
(25:11):
can tell what you need to do,uh, in order to stay in, and I
love Dan's application and justbeing reminded of the law of
balance.
I mean it's so powerful.
So, your teachings of, likepractical wisdom, is there any
other spiritual insights thatyou'd love to share?
(25:31):
Or something practical andanother physical exercise other
than balance that you think, wow, people should, really could
not should, but could be awareof that.
Maybe some people don't thinkof that would really help them
enjoy a great quality of life.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I hope your listeners appreciated that what you just
said not should, but could,because it would be very useful
for all of us to change the wordshould.
You should be this way, Ishould be this way to, I could
be this way.
It's much less judgmental andit's more realistic as well,
because most of us we think weknow how life should be, but we
(26:12):
really don't.
It's unfolding in a sense ofmystery.
It's evolving.
So we need to trust our processand, even though I hinted at it
before giving that example oflearning a somersault that we
have to respect our own way oflearning and living.
Speaking to young people today,many of them are depressed
(26:33):
because they're looking onsocial media and everyone else
seems happier than them, thepeople.
They see their pictures.
They're showing their best self, they seem to be having more
fun or traveling more and thatsort of thing, and that comes
from comparing ourselves toother people.
It's a profound disrespect forour own self.
Sir Walter Raleigh once said Icannot write a book commensurate
(26:58):
with Shakespeare, but I canwrite a book by me.
And so each of us has torecognize our story is our
treasure, our own story, ourlife.
It's like a novel being writtenand we don't know what the next
chapter is going to be.
You certainly didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
No, I didn't.
At these various points in yourlife no, and you know, dan, one
thing that I really appreciateabout you, you know, like
conversing with you before youcame on the show before, when we
were like writing to oneanother, me being in spain and
you being in, uh, brooklyn youalways wrote at the end until
then, until then becomes now.
(27:37):
Tell me, now it's now and nowit's now right.
Tell everybody a little bitabout that, because I think that
was a really beautiful way ofunderstanding life, sure, and I,
and I think that you know you,you.
This is why I really appreciateyou and appreciate your journey
and appreciate your story andappreciate your last book, um,
(27:59):
that I think the audience willmassively appreciate.
Well, but I just really like tojust bring that home for people
until then becomes now.
Tell us about what you mean bythat.
I know what that means, butit's quite nice to hear it from
you, because I never heardanyone said that before and when
you wrote that on every singleone well, that's, that's the
thumbs up on the other one, Iwas like I really like the way
(28:20):
Dan's saying that, because it'sfun, it's truthful and it's got
a depth of wisdom.
That is like, yeah, that's soright.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
That's a Millman original, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
A Millman original.
You can take that.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And it comes from the realization.
You know most people roll theireyes when they hear about
living in the present moment.
Because you know, we've read Behere Now, ram Dass, power of
Now.
We've read my book.
It goes into the present moment.
But there's many realizationsI've had since then.
Any physicist will tell you youcannot grasp the present moment
(28:56):
Because if I say the word now,from the time I intoned that n
sound to the ow sound, a millionnanoseconds have gone by.
Which nanosecond is now?
So when teachers like mesuggest attending to the present
moment, we're really sayinghandle what's in front of you.
(29:18):
Attending to the present moment, we're really saying handle
what's in front of you and theway time works.
It's a paradox because timeseems real to most of us and in
the conventional world it isreal.
We set up a time to link uphere for our conversation.
So time is a functional thing.
We know we're going to be doingsomething this evening perhaps
(29:40):
or tomorrow, and yet from atranscendental view, there is no
time.
And here's an example.
Let's say I was sitting on theshore of a river and I was, and
you were in a boat and you'remeditating, you're doing your TM
in a boat and you're sittingvery still and you're coming
down from what appears to be thepast, passing in front of me,
(30:04):
what appears to be the present,and then moving on in that river
of time into the future.
But from your perspective, youare sitting in the eternal
present moment, absolutely still.
And so that's the paradox oftime.
Conventionally speaking, it'sreal, but transcendentally
speaking it's an illusion.
(30:25):
All we have is the presentmoment, the present moment, the
present moment.
So when I write, until thenbecomes now.
Well, until then, we've allheard that phrase, but it will
become now.
And here we are in this now andnow.
Life is like a motion picturewith many frames One frame,
another frame, another frame.
They all come in front of us inthe present moment.
(30:46):
That's all we have.
What we call the past doesn'texist anymore, except in the
neural impulses in our brain wecall memory.
And if someone said to me butwait, dan, I know the past
exists.
Here's a picture of my fifthbirthday party Well, all that's
actually happening in thatmoment is someone is showing me
(31:06):
a photographic image of a memory, but it's happening in this
present moment.
Past is past and the future isour imagination.
We can get up and we have theability to plan our day, to say,
oh, I have to run this area,and then we run that area.
But memory is not so accurateas we've learned and what we
(31:31):
imagined happening that day.
If we wrote down everything wethink is going to happen and at
what time it changes, it simplydoes so.
We don't want to become tooattached to the plans.
So memory and imagination arewonderful human capacities, but
we are often lost in the pastand future.
And if we want to quiet our mind, the best way to do it is focus
(31:52):
on what's happening right now.
If we were sitting in the sameroom right now, james and I
tossed you my keys and saidcatch, you'd reach for them with
a cat-like awareness.
You would not be thinking aboutwhat happened yesterday or
what's going to go, you're goingto do tomorrow.
You would be pure awareness Inthe present moment.
There is only awareness whenwe're thinking about anything,
(32:13):
it's from the past or the future.
So by focusing on what's infront of us, that's our moment
of sanity, that's our moment ofpower.
That's our moment of sanity.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
That's our moment of power, that's our moment of
reality right now so you saidsomething that I really liked in
that is, like, don't beattached to certain things, um,
but at the same time, you, youknow, like when people are, you
know, struggling to find theirpurpose and direction, they're
trying to attach to theirpurpose and direction.
(32:40):
So how can we find orientation,or how does one find
orientation in that?
And, by the way, I've writtenall these questions down, and
I'm just thinking my ownquestions instead of yeah,
that's great.
That's why I like these, so hereI am with you and I'm like
going well, this is james, thisisn't you know, stuff that I've
really.
Oh yeah, let me ask dan this.
(33:01):
I was like well, thesequestions are going right out
the window.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, feel free anyway.
Yeah, but taking up that idea,we can have an aspiration in
this present moment.
In fact, one of my books,another small book like the Laws
of Spirit, it's called the FourPurposes of Life.
And you know, when I waswriting that book, james, a
friend of mine, said I don'tneed to read your book, dan.
He said I know the purpose oflife it's learning to love.
(33:26):
I mean, whatever the question,love is the answer.
And I went well, that's a goodpurpose.
And another friend said, no, no, the purpose is realization,
enlightenment.
And I went well, that's reallya good purpose too, for humanity
.
But another friend said no, no,that's all philosophy.
He said our purpose isreproducing, keeping the species
(33:46):
going.
So they're all right, they'reall correct.
But just as we divide the daysof the year into four seasons or
the points on a compass intofour primary directions, by
looking at our life through fourpurposes, it helps make more
sense out of it.
I'm not going to go into thatright now.
I'm just going to say the firstpurpose is learning life's
(34:07):
lessons.
There's a lot more to thatTwelve courses in the school of
life and so on.
But the next one is our careeror calling.
Sometimes they're the same,like in my case, maybe in yours,
but sometimes they're separate,which is fine.
We have a career that makes anincome, and then we have a
calling or mission or hobby,whatever it is that we love to
(34:29):
do in our spare time.
The third purpose is a moremysterious one.
I don't know if you've read mybook the Life you Were Born to
Live.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, is that the one with all the?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
life path numbers.
The life path numbers.
Right, I'm intrigued to knowwhat number you are.
What number are you?
Uh, mine's a 268.
It describes my life path, um,and I can say a lot more.
I mean we can do a whole hourjust on that life path material,
um.
But it's my second most popularbook.
It has been over.
We do another show on that, dan,because you know, I think that
(35:02):
people would really love to toto know about that, but because
there's so much depth in thatyeah, well, in the meantime, let
me just say that anyone can goto my website, peaceful
warriorcom, and look at the lifepurpose, find your life purpose
, and there'll be a calculatorthey can put in their date of
birth and they might, might, seea sample, a taste of some core
(35:23):
issues in their life, andthere's much more, of course.
It deals with relationships,finances, health and so on, and
so it's an extensive system and,again, it's been read by well
over a million people, maybe two, and it's kind of scarily
accurate.
Yeah, it is.
It's quite accurate.
I don't know exactly how itworks, I can't say how adding up
(35:45):
the numbers of one's date ofbirth can give valid, reliable,
accurate information, but itseems to work.
And there are many numerologysystems and none of them make
any sense really, and yet it canbe very useful as a tool.
But the reason I mentioned thefour purposes is the fourth
purpose.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
The first one was the , so let's just go to recap.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Learning life's lessons.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Learning life's lessons.
Number two was career.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Number three was and number three is the life purpose
.
The life path system.
Yeah, and that's another kindof life purpose, another
approach, right path system.
That's another kind of lifepurpose, another approach.
But the fourth purpose isperhaps the most important and
the most manageable, because wemay not know our cosmic purpose
ultimately, but we always knowour purpose in the present
(36:34):
moment, like, for example, mypurpose is very clear in this
moment, sharing with you andyour purpose is very clear, and
your listeners, in this moment,their purpose is clear.
So we always know our purposein that moment.
Otherwise we're not living onpurpose.
Robert Byrne once said thepurpose of life is a life of
(36:56):
purpose.
When I watched my granddaughterhere in Brooklyn when she was
little, crawling across thefloor, she wasn't crawling just
to get a workout, she wanted herbig brother's toy, a sparkly
toy.
So that's why I say we'rehardwired goal seekers.
So in this moment we can have aplan, in this moment we can
(37:18):
have a goal and we just canhandle you.
You know that that analogy it'sit's uh, everybody's heard it,
but it's beautiful that we'relike cars driving at night and
we can only see as far as ourheadlight beam.
But we can make the wholejourney that way?
Sure so, if we focus on ourpurpose in each moment, we're
(37:40):
living a purposeful life, andthat can lead to progress toward
our goals.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Which is another way of like saying you're building.
You know, like I have thislittle analogy that I like to
use is that, as I've started thepodcast, like five years ago in
November, it was say somethinglike that, and I remember just
thinking, well, I've got tobegin.
I don't know how to begin, butI have this calling.
I've had this calling for along time and I've not listened.
(38:09):
So I was like, right, james,how many times does it take for
you to really listen?
I feel like my inner guidancewas saying you've got to do this
.
And I was like, no, I'm notgoing to do this because I don't
want to share this information.
And like my inner being was,well, you're going to share it
because you have a gift.
And I'm like, well, why me?
(38:29):
Why does?
Why does the world need anothercoach?
Why does it need anotherteacher?
I was like, well, you have away of explaining it like nobody
else, because your story thisis what you were alluding to at
the beginning, dan, which Ireally appreciate and I hope
Someone in the audience or allof you take this is your story,
is your treasure map, right?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
because there's not a single story on the planet
exactly like yours or mine orany of your listeners.
That is our treasure.
Yeah, and yes, it does take acertain hubris, but also, yes,
it does take a certain hubris,but also an inner calling to
share with other people.
You know, andre g once saideverything that needs to be said
(39:10):
has already been said, but itneeds to be said again because
no one was really payingattention.
Yeah, I mean.
Each of us beautiful analogy,right?
Each of us has our own way ofexpressing our own wisdom and
sharing it with others.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So if one is listening, someone's listening
in and they're going.
Well, what's my purpose anddirection?
Well, your purpose and yourdirection, if you're listening
to what Dan is sharing, is likeunfolding your own story.
Having a look at your own storyand noticing some of the
mistakes you've made.
Now you've come back from thatand using that to uplift other
(39:48):
people in some way will thensort of give you the headlights
about the next step, and thenthe next, and then the next step
and to trust that.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
to trust that rather than the fear of missing out.
And other people are getting itand I'm missing out.
Somehow Nobody is missinganything.
As somebody once said, everyonehas the best seat.
I think it was John Coltrane.
A musician said everybody hasthe best seat in their own life,
which is the front seat.
(40:17):
The front seat.
And as somebody else once said,be yourself because everyone
else has already taken.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I love that one that one, and something that I really
liked that you said at thebeginning, dan, was you said I
think the theater roosevelt saidthat is that you know
particularly some of the younglisteners listening in because I
like to feel like I'm a bridgebetween you know different
levels of demographics, and yousaid that comparison is the
(40:48):
thief of joy, and I think it wasTheodore Roosevelt who said
that, something, somebody likethat and and I remember you know
, like it is true, it's like weall do compare, particularly
when you're younger, but realizethat you know your mistakes and
you're the front, you'resitting in the front seat of
your own life and, although mylife challenges may be coming
(41:10):
onto your lap without yourpermission, sometimes you just
realize it's going to serve youreally well as you pass through,
as that storm passes throughand I can say that from one of
you know several of my ownchallenges that I've gone
through and, as you, you know,go into your book and your
stories.
You're like I've gone throughthis, this and this and here I
(41:32):
am and you become a lot moreopen to life.
And I guess my last questionthat I wanted to really ask you
today was just about trust,because I think a lot of people
find trust, trusting insomething greater, trusting life
, trusting the universe,trusting your inner guidance.
You know that it's going totake you in a direction, because
(41:53):
some people feel like theydon't have control.
So how does that trust bringback that sense of control, what
you can from your perspective,because I really love the way
you put it down right well,here's how I would put it.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Uh, I view daily life as a form of spiritual weight
training that's a really justalready.
That's just like bang, have someof that you know, if we don't
lift enough weights, we don'tget any stronger.
Now I do not recommendfractures as a method of
spiritual growth.
No, I do not.
(42:32):
We don't have to suffer inorder to grow.
However, many of us have noticedthat lessons repeat themselves
until we learn them and if wedon't learn the easy lessons,
they get more dramatic to getour attention.
So we can see daily life as aschool, our classroom and in
(42:54):
fact, daily life is guaranteedto teach us everything we need
to learn and to evolve as ahuman being.
People were evolving beforebooks and before seminars.
But sometimes people say well,dan, why do you write books and
teach seminars?
Because a good book or seminaror any communication can remind
us of some things and help us tolearn more easily, more
(43:19):
gracefully, the lessons ofeveryday life.
But our daily lives?
We need to start to trust thatAdversity is a part of life.
In fact, sometimes I askaudiences raise your hand if
(43:43):
you've ever experienced thatthat's.
That's a whole other thing.
But but most people canappreciate that they're a little
wiser and a little stronger forhaving gone through that
difficulty.
Sometimes digging our way outof a dark hole can give us the
strength to climb the mountain.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
That seems apparent in your case yeah, one thing I
just wanted to sort of leave ona high was something that you
well, I just I took an idea thatyou said once and I and I hope
the audience, can take loads oflittle ideas that dan and I have
shared today.
But I really love dan's take on, do the physical stuff to get
(44:22):
the real understanding.
You know so, when you wereshowing the balance, like you
showed the balance of the, ofdoing the handstand because of
your experience on a wobblytable, and that to me just shows
you can be centered in a wobblylife experience.
And one thing that I chose todo shortly after we met was I
(44:44):
decided that I'm going to go anddo a skydiving course.
So I went and did a skydivingcourse and the purpose of me
doing that was, number one,because I thought it'd be fun,
but number two, I thought it'dscare the living daylights out
of myself as well, because themind would say no, but the
body's actually going to go.
Sorry, the body says no, butthe body's actually going to go.
Sorry, the body says no, butthe mind's going to go, I'm
going anyway.
(45:05):
So a friend of mine and I cameover from hong kong.
We went and did this like freefall university, uh thing, uh,
several years ago, and we wereboth petrified doing it.
But we're like, we've got to dothis, and the reason why we
were doing it well, at least my,my case, I can't speak for him,
other than he thought it wouldbe fun was because in my mind, I
(45:26):
thought, if I can land out of aplane pulling my own cord many,
many, many, many, many, manytimes, then I can pretty much do
anything.
I put my mind to Now you didn'ttalk about that, but this an
idea that james suddenly thought, well, this would be a good
idea, and so it didn't matterwhat I set my mind on.
(45:47):
It was like I will stand and doa long term goal, it doesn't
matter how long it takes.
So in my case, you know, one ofmy missions is I want to help a
billion people with enjoying agreater, uh, healthy life,
happier life, wealthy life andgreater fulfillment.
Time doesn't matter how longtime it takes, right?
(46:09):
So I've started.
So it's like, right, I put mymind to it.
I know I can do it.
I've jumped out of an airplane.
I'm still here.
I survived a car crash, Isurvived alcoholism, and here I
am still chipping away brick bybrick, and I just love the way
you put it on.
You know, just turn up youraction.
(46:29):
What are you doing?
Because that's the only thingyou've really got control on
when you're moving towards yourpurpose.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Spiritual life begins on the ground, rooted like a
tree.
A tree can't grow branches andleaves and extend to the sky
until they put in deep roots.
So I do believe in physicallygrounded, physical training.
Enlightenment may be a bodilyexperience and it may be that
meditation sitting in meditationdoesn't just quiet the mind.
(47:01):
Maybe it quiets the body, andwhen the body is still, the mind
tends to follow.
So I believe that our practiceis physically grounded in the
way we approach everyday life.
You know, a man wrote to mesoon after Way of the Peaceful
Warrior came out and he read itand he said Dan, now I really am
(47:22):
interested in spiritualpractice, but I have a wife,
three children, a full-time job.
How can I find the time?
And he came to understand thathis wife, his children, his
full-time work were his primaryspiritual practices.
Yeah, and they will demand moreand develop us more than
sitting in a cave and meditating.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I know because I've done both okay, I did one
christmas I did instead of goingto my family, who were living
in sweden at the time.
Um, instead of going to seethem, I said I'm going to
meditate this christmas.
I remember this, right, I satthere and I was like, okay, I'm
(48:03):
bored, now I'm bored.
I was like it was a real.
I was like, okay, I'vemeditated.
Now I've not gone to see myfamily, I've stayed in england,
which is where I was living at atime, and I've missed out on
that two weeks of being with myfamily celebrating because I
want to sit and meditate.
And I was like I won't do thatagain.
So I never did it again, but Ihad the experience, you had the
(48:25):
experience you learned thelesson right lesson, which is,
you know, being around peoplecan sometimes be a really
beautiful thing yeah, well, ramdas also said you think you're
enlightened.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Go visit your family, yeah, yeah, and also the
training itself.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, yeah, and you, like, I have a really great
relationship with my familybecause I don't judge them.
You know, I try not to judgethem and I know that you're
different from me, but I loveyou as you are, not as the way I
want you to be, but just as youare, and I found that that gave
me a lot of peace.
You know, if we look back toyou know your new book, peaceful
(49:05):
Heart, that gave me a peacefulheart thinking that way.
You know, and the warriorspirit is I don't need to change
you.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah, and that brings up the whole idea of peaceful
warrior.
You know people often ask mewell, where did you come up with
that term?
And actually I was teaching amartial arts course at Oberlin
back when, based on myexperience with Aikido and Tai
Chi, and so part of the coursewas Aikido and part was Tai Chi.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
One was Japanese, one was Chinese, but both from the
Orient right, exactly, both fromAsia, and they have a certain
approach.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
And I was going to call it for the school catalog
the Way of the Warrior.
But then I went, you know, thatdoesn't quite fit, because both
of these are receptive martialarts, they're not aggressive
martial arts.
And I said, and then I had alight bulb moment, I went why
don't I call it the way of thepeaceful warrior?
And that's when the term firstcame up.
But the reason that termapplies to every one of your
(49:57):
listeners and you and me.
It's not some exclusive club.
We're all peaceful warriors intraining because all of us are
seeking to live with a peacefulheart among, with more serene
heart, a more, more equanimityin the midst of the chaos of the
everyday news.
And but there, and as youacknowledge, there are times we
(50:20):
need a warrior spirit just toroll up our sleeves and march
into life and deal with thechallenges that naturally arise
in everyday life as a form ofspiritual weight training.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, I really like that.
You know, for people who thinkthat you don't know if they're
on a spiritual course or aspiritual awakening or whatever,
don't worry, you are, becausethat's happening exactly.
You're just on it, whether youlike it or not.
You know, dan, it's been a realjoy speaking with you.
Thank you so much for sharingyour wisdom.
(50:52):
This week's super soul model isdan millman.
Thank you, dan, you're verywelcome.
Thank you, thanks for tuninginto this episode and if you've
enjoyed this or any of theothers, please remember you can
support the show, and yourcontributions do allow us to
keep bringing you the bestguests.
In the meantime, till the nextepisode, I wish you green lights
(51:14):
all the way.
In this episode, I'm speaking to a best-selling
author of 18 books and formerworld champion gold medal
athlete, dan Millman, about howyou can transform your life with
a peaceful heart and a warriorspirit.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
There are times we need a warrior spirit just to
roll up our sleeves and marchinto life and deal with the
challenges that naturally arisein everyday life, as a form of
spiritual weight training.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello and welcome to the James Grant from podcast
Super Soul Model series, where Ihelp people tune and tap in to
their natural state ofwell-being.
This week's guest is abest-selling author of 18 books.
His first book, way of thePeaceful Warrior, was released
as a movie back in 2006.
And he's also been a formerworld champion athlete, stanford
University gymnastic coach,martial artist and professor at
(00:59):
Oberlin College, and his latestbook, which was released in 2022
, peaceful Heart Warrior Spirit,is this week's guest, dan
Millman.
Welcome to the show, dan.
Thank you, james.
So, dan, for those of who maynot know about your work or may
not know about the Way of thePeaceful Warrior, which is
probably your most famous book,which started this whole process
(01:19):
going, tell us about yourjourney from being an athlete, a
world-class athlete, into nowbeing a spiritual teacher.
You know how did that allevolve and what got you into
writing in the first place.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Well, it's easy to reverse engineer or to look back
.
We can understand life lookingbackwards, but we have to live
it forward.
So, taking a retrospective, Inever, ever, would have guessed
that as a 10-year-old,discovering an old trampoline at
a summer camp and lovingjumping up and down and trying
new tricks would lead toscholarship, to college, world
(01:56):
championship and all thatfollowed.
I think in my case it was aprocess of disillusion in the
positive sense of freeing fromillusion.
I noticed this made me happyfor a little while, but then it
wasn't that satisfying.
I moved on and then that, and Ikept searching and I guess when
(02:19):
I shattered my right thigh bonein about 40 pieces in a
motorcycle crash, as I writeabout in the book and is shown
in the film, even though Ididn't drive that recklessly,
nor was my sex life quite asactive as depicted, nonetheless,
(02:39):
at that point it shook me up.
I started asking biggerquestions.
I recognized my own mortalitybecause, as we know, when we're
in our 20s we think we'rebulletproof and we know
everything.
And so it was a humblingprocess, some life lessons in
(03:00):
one fell swoop, and I began toexplore what is this inner world
, what am I here for?
And asking bigger questionsabout my purpose and that led to
a search that I write about, asyou mentioned that culminating
book, peaceful Heart, warriorSpirit.
It's the true story behind thestory of Way of the Peaceful
Warrior and the-year spiritualsearch, uh, with four very
(03:25):
radically different mentors.
So many people have read mybook or seen the movie and think
, oh, I learned a lot from thisold service station attendant
and then I started teaching, butit was a much longer process of
preparation so you know, manypeople know struggle finding
their purpose and direction.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And how did you find your purpose and direction?
Was that just something thatcame out as a result of having
that introspection?
You know how?
Did that give us a guidelineabout how to look within and
find our purpose, Because a lotof people find that tough.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
In my own case.
Many times we gain wisdom bymaking mistakes, and I made many
mistakes.
I really hadn't a clue about mypurpose or direction.
I was a psychology major incollege.
It was almost serendipity.
There was nothing else reallythat interested me.
But I didn't pursue thatacademically beyond my college
(04:35):
years and I had no idea.
I sold life insurance.
For three months I was going todo flying trapeze in the circus
, but that really the travelinglifestyle, didn't work.
I was married very young and wehad a baby on the way, so that
wasn't going to work.
And then I just fell into thiscoaching job at Stanford, which
reflected my background and myskills.
(04:58):
So in my own case there's notrail of breadcrumbs.
I can't say from my experience,I learned this.
But in the Peaceful Warriormovie that you mentioned,
there's a trail of breadcrumbs.
I can't say from my experience,I learned this.
But in the Peaceful Warriormovie that you mentioned there's
a scene in which my character,dan, follows Socrates, the old
gas station lieutenant played byNick Nolte, up this big hill
(05:18):
and at the top Dan has this sortof revelation and he says
Socrates, I just realized it'snot the destination that makes
us happy, it's the journey.
Well, there's a certain wisdomin that, because most of our
lives are spent on the journey,not just reaching one
destination after another sotrue, but without a destination
in mind, there is no journey.
(05:40):
We just wander around.
So I believe we're hardwiredgoal seekers, human beings.
I would even define success asmaking progress toward a
meaningful goal.
To me that is success, not justreaching the top of the
mountain, and I define everystep of the way as a success,
every bit of progress we make,because we cannot control the
(06:01):
outcomes in our lives.
I've learned that.
But we can control our efforts,and by making a good effort
over time.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
So meaning action.
So action along the way isgoing to give us that feeling of
purpose if it's meaningful.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yes, and if we look at our lives, what has brought
us to this present moment iswhat we've done over time, not
just what we've thought, orwhether we had positive thoughts
or negative thoughts, not justwhat we felt.
Somebody came up to me after atalk I gave once and said Dan, I
feel so inspired.
I said don't worry, it'll pass.
Yes, so true isn't it the?
(06:40):
inspiration comes and goes,motivation waxes and wanes.
So, yes, there is in thisapproach to living.
I teach that I call thePeaceful Warrior's Way.
It's focused on what we do.
Barbara Rasp, a writer, oncesaid the lesson is simple, the
student is complicated.
And to simplify our life, wecan focus on what we need to do
(07:03):
in each moment in line with ourgoals, rather than how can I
change my thoughts and how can Ifix my emotions so I can live
wisely and well.
As it turns out, we have lesscontrol over our thoughts that
arise in our field of awarenessmoment to moment.
We have less control over theweather that passes.
You know the emotions that passthrough us, like changing
(07:25):
weather.
They come and go and change allthe time.
But we can spend a lot of timewith techniques and methods to
try to fix our emotions and ourthoughts so we can live well,
rather than and it is a form ofliberation focusing on what do I
need to do right now.
In fact, the most controversialthing I could say possibly
(07:46):
right now is that I do notencourage my students, seminar
attendees, I do not encourageanyone to feel happy or loving
or peaceful or kind or confidentor courageous.
I encourage people to behavethat way.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, I love that word behave because when I break
it down, you've got you know,you I think Neil Donald Walsh
was talking about it as be, have, do, and he's just.
It was a lovely book, but Iremember taking the word behave
and just go be have.
So you've got to be that personto have that experience.
(08:26):
So what would that?
How would I behave to be andhave that now.
So I love like breaking theselittle words down and and I love
your, I really I was intemporarily inspired by the way
of the peaceful warrior to useyour palm less, and then I was
like applying a lot of thethings.
That was congruent in my ownexperience when I had a car
(08:48):
crash and I had to wake up and Iwalked away pretty much
unscathed, and so did my friend,and we were lucky that we
walked away because, quitefrankly, that that was a
complete goner and that made meask the right questions, which
resonated with your motorbikestory, albeit I wasn't in
hospital.
I was in hospital asking thebig questions at the age of 19
(09:09):
and I was like, wow, okay, whoam I?
Why am I here?
What's my purpose?
Because what I'm doing is I'vegone down.
I've gone down a very ominousroad that is not taking me where
I want to go and I feel deeplyunfulfilled and discontent.
But that's a nice wake-up call,if's there.
But I never forget when we metin London years ago, dan.
You did this talk in London wayback when I think it was about
(09:32):
2005.
And I just started meditating.
I'd been spiritually awake fora little while because I'd had
this car accident a while and Iwas asking some deeper questions
, but now I was feeling a littlebit more in tune with my soul,
my body, for for sure, because Iwas working out and doing
things right.
And then you popped into mylife and you did this one thing
at this seminar.
I don't know if you, uh, you'llever remember, if it's
(09:55):
something that you did all thetime.
You stood up on stage in Londonin front of about I don't know
three or four hundred people,and you put your hand on this
table and this table was wobblyand do you remember this?
So, for all the listeners youknow, tuning in, dan just got up
on the stage.
I remember you wearing blackpants, black t-shirt and you
(10:18):
were like, hey, let me just seeif this works.
And you put your hand on thetable and it was a very wobbly
old table and you got up and didthe most perfect handstand,
held your balance and dismountedfrom that wobbly table in a
perfect handstand, whilst youwere totally still and
(10:41):
dismounted with such grace andas you dismounted with grace
this was your opening thing toeverybody, by the way and you
said, after you dismounted withgrace, you'd gone.
Life is about balance.
And I was like, wow, yeah,that's so true, because even
when the world around you iswobbling, if you can maintain a
(11:04):
state of balance, you're goingto be okay, and that's not only
for your body, but that's alsofor your mind, and I think that
that sort of really applies towhat you're saying, which is,
you might not feel this way, butyou can act this way.
So what are you going to act,to do to bring a little bit more
balance to your life?
So I was just wondering couldyou expand on that a little bit,
(11:25):
because I love that teaching.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
I'd be happy to Thank you, James, for reminding me of
that.
Yeah, it's been a kind of athing to get people's attention.
I'll often do it.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
You get people's attention when you show them
something right.
You show people like, hey, thisis possible.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yes, yes, and now I'm 78.
I'm still doing the handstand.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
You're still doing the handstand.
You're still doing it, yeahyeah.
Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
But yes, it was a point to make.
Sometimes I joke with theaudience and I go let's see
Deepak do that.
Yeah, because I know Deepak andI've met Neil as well and the
different teachers.
We each have our differentviewpoints.
But here's the thing If someonewas afraid but they noticed a
(12:11):
little toddler walking in themiddle of a busy traffic, street
, cars whipping by, they mightbe terrified to run out into
that street, possibly get hit.
But they find themselves doingit.
So while they're feelingterrified, they behave with
courage, and in fact we can onlybehave with courage when we're
feeling terrified.
Otherwise it doesn't takecourage.
(12:32):
And so they're feeling one wayand behaving another, and in the
same way we can.
If we're feeling shy, we canstill walk up to somebody and
say hello, I find youinteresting and would you like
to have coffee or tea sometime.
They can still do that.
It may be difficult becausethey're feeling shy, but they
(12:54):
can still do it, and that is,again liberating.
Someone can say a kind wordwhile feeling irritated.
Again, it's counterintuitive,it's not easy to do, but that is
a liberation from emotions,from waiting for the right
emotions or the right thoughtsbefore we act, and so in fact
(13:15):
I'd like to.
Actually, I'd like to sharesomething with your listeners
yeah, please do, yeah, toprogress toward your goals.
Please choose one of thefollowing two methods.
First method one find a way toquiet your mind, create
(13:38):
empowering beliefs, raise yourself-esteem and practice
positive self-talk to find yourfocus and affirm your power to
free your emotions and visualizepositive outcomes so that you
can develop the confidence togenerate the courage, to find
the determination to make thecommitment, to feel sufficiently
motivated to do whatever it isyou need to do.
(14:00):
Maybe that's familiar to manypeople, that process.
Or the second method which Irecommend is you can just do it,
because life always comes downto what we do moment to moment.
To someone who and it's notalways easy someone who, let's
(14:22):
say, is an alcoholic, it's justsaying stop drinking would be
facile.
They may need to go through aprocess, join AA, do all kinds
of things between here and thepoint where they actually stop
the behavior of bringing alcoholto their lips.
(14:44):
So it comes down to that.
Whether it's a short process ora long one, our life will be
determined by what we do overtime.
That emphasis on action.
See, neil, I love Neil, but hisidea of beingness I really, I'm
like a hobbit.
You have to show me things.
(15:06):
I don't understand whatbeingness is.
Even if someone is simplysitting in meditation, they are
doing something active.
They are focusing.
They are attending to thethoughts, the passing emotions,
letting it go, focusing on thebreath.
People in meditation areactively doing something, when
it appears they're just being.
(15:26):
So I don't know what just beingis.
Maybe it's existing, butwordplay is fun, but it has to
match reality and it comes downto what we do and there's no way
to get off that hook Now.
We're only responsible for whatwe have control over.
If there were a storm outside,you or I wouldn't be responsible
(15:47):
for the storm because we can'tcontrol the weather.
If we could, then we'd havesome responsibility.
So if people start to realizethat they don't have any actual
ability or control by their willover what emotions they're
feeling in any given moment orwhat thoughts pop into their
awareness, thoughts happen to us.
We don't say I think I'll thinkthis thought next.
(16:10):
Random thoughts just come intoour mind and so we're not
responsible for the thoughtsthat appear in our awareness.
We're not responsible for what.
We're not responsible for thethoughts that appear in our
awareness.
We're not responsible for whatwe're feeling.
We are responsible for the onething we can control, which is
our behavior and our responseand our response to what happens
.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
I remember before, you know, before, when I used to
drink a lot, drink heavily.
I've got to get out of thisloop of lunacy that I put myself
in and you know, my listenersprobably heard this story many
times, but it's quite nice to bereminded of, because what I did
was like I saw three signs tolearn how to meditate inside of
one week.
I mean, I'm just grateful I got.
(16:50):
I saw these three signals and Ihad the awareness to go hey,
these are three things tellingme.
You know, for the first time inmy life, follow this, james,
follow it.
And so I began a tmtranscendental meditation
technique, which I learned overa course of a weekend and within
four months I completelystopped drinking naturally and I
(17:12):
changed my diet naturally to aplant-based diet.
So I became vegetarian and,yeah sure, I could feel my body
was wanting this.
I'm not saying this is foreverybody, but this is just how
I broke free of that addiction.
I broke free of the beingnessthat I was before and it was
taking that action that wasinspired and it happened
(17:35):
naturally as an offset.
I'm a firm believer thatsuccess is just a series of good
choices that you make and, youknow, luck and good fortune just
comes from a series of makinglots of little good choices, and
I think that you clarify thatquite nicely in way of the
peaceful warrior and actually insome of your other work which I
loved, was, you know, talkingabout the, the, the spiritual
(17:58):
laws in the natural laws, um.
So I'd love you to expand on acouple of things for, like some
of the audience, if you could,of like some of the natural laws
that you think people shouldreally pay attention to, just go
, you know, because people don'tnecessarily say we've talked
about action and you talkedabout law of action in one of
your, your books, but is thereanything else that you you think
, hey, people really need tolisten to this because they may
(18:19):
oversee it if they're strugglingwith purpose or direction.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
Sure, we can loop back to balance, because I
actually didn't address thatquestion directly and let me say
that we're hardwireddifferently.
I've come to recognize each ofus has our own process.
There are some people, forexample, that when I was
teaching gymnastics, learnedback somersault quicker than
others.
But I also noticed that thosewho take longer to learn it
(18:46):
often learn it better than thosewho learn it faster.
So each of us needs to respectour way of learning and our way
of living.
So each of us is different.
I wish I could say change to aplant-based diet, which I more
or less have myself.
I'm still vegetarian.
My wife and I went for 50 yearsnow and I learned TM as well,
(19:07):
way back when.
It's like the McDonald's ofconsciousness.
It's accessible to everybody.
It's a beautiful method, alovely method of meditation,
mantra meditation but in yourcase that worked.
I wish I could tell everybody.
Just, if you have a drinkingproblem, meditate and eat
vegetarian and it'll you won'thave it.
But it's different fordifferent people, of course, and
(19:29):
you acknowledge that in yourtotally.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
And I would always say, if this I like, I've always
been totally non-pushy toeverybody.
My whole family is verydifferent.
You know, very differentlifestyle to me.
Even my friends, to a certainextent they're like James, what
are you doing?
It's like, yeah, I've justlearned, started meditating.
Um, I've let go of a lot ofthese habits that don't serve me
any well.
It's like my life kind ofdepended on it.
(19:51):
But I'm not pushing it on you,I don't want you to do it.
This is just kind of what'sworking for me and I feel that
there's a great liberation beingable to own it for yourself,
even though it's going to becompletely different for
everybody.
And I recognize that and I waslike look, this is just the way
of james, you know, you say theway of the peaceful.
I'm like this is way of thejames and this is just how he's
(20:11):
rolling right now.
And they go are you going todrink again or maybe don't know,
are you going to eat meat again?
Maybe I don't know.
You know, I was just like areyou going to eat fish?
Maybe I don't know.
So I just leave it there.
And you know, 20 years later,maybe I don't know, we'll see.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Well, I like that, and that, I don't know, is a
beginner's mind.
It's an open curiosity to whatlife brings us, and one of the
tenets of this approach toliving that I teach is that
there's no best book, no bestteacher, no best philosophy or
religion or diet or system ofexercise.
(20:47):
There's only the best for eachof us at a given time of our
life.
Life is an experiment.
We have to find out what worksfor us.
But in terms of these spirituallaws and the law of balance,
which is the first law in mylittle book called the laws of
spirit, I really love this book,guys.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
I'll make sure you've got a link to it.
This is one of like.
This is one that seems a littleoff-piste for most of Dan's 18
books, but it's actually one ofmy favorite because it's got
such depth and content that youcan use every single day, so I
have it playing in the car fromtime to time.
That you can use every singleday, so I have it playing in the
car from time to time.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, so I enjoy it, but anyway, tell us about it.
Well, the law of balance can beapplied physically.
In fact, it can help us to cutour time of learning in half,
learning any physical skill.
And the way the law of balancecan be stated is that anything
we do, we can overdo or underdo.
Some people talk a little toofast, others a little too slow.
(21:41):
It's hard for people to followthem.
Some people eat fast, somepeople eat slow.
There's no one balance foreverybody.
Like what is balanced exercise?
Well, it depends if you'regoing to training for the
Olympics or just want to be ableto walk up a flight of stairs
without getting winded.
So we each have to find our ownbalance.
But that principle, the way itworks, is most of us tend to
(22:05):
undercompensate, because whenwe're used to doing it one way
whether it's talking too fast,eating too fast, whatever that
feels normal to us.
So it feels strange to changethat.
So we tend to undercompensate.
And the example I give is ifyou were learning to hit a
(22:26):
cricket ball or a baseballdepending on what culture you're
from and you kept missingbecause you were a little child.
Let's say you're just learning,but then somebody notices that
you swing on one side, let's sayin baseball you swing too low.
Every time you keep missing theball because you swing below it
.
You might want to tell thechild swing higher, but they
(22:49):
will undercompensate, they'llswing a little higher, a little
higher.
Finally they may hit a pop-upfly.
But if were to tell that child,make sure you miss it the next
five times, but make sure youswing too high in trying to
swing too high, they're probablygoing to connect with the ball
(23:10):
much quicker.
If they shoot in basketball, ifthey shoot and they notice they
shoot mostly, they miss the hoopto to mostly to the left.
Instead of trying to correctand shoot for the basket shoot
too far to the right In archery.
If you shoot high and to theleft, shoot low and to the right
(23:30):
the next one.
So by working both sides wefind center and that applies to
anything in life.
Working both sides, that's howyou actually apply the law.
It's not just abstract thinkingor ideas or theories.
It's something you can apply ineveryday life.
And this, as you know, from thelaws of spirit, that little
book, this ageless woman sageteaches me these laws.
(23:54):
We're up in the mountains doingdifferent things and that's how
I really anchor them in in howthey can be applied in everyday
life.
So that I hope, addresses thisquestion of balance.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yeah, I just wanted to add one more thing that
people can do.
You know, if they're doingsport, like next time you're out
in nature, get a stone and tryand hit a tree, and you'll know
where the stone is going, andthen just completely go on the
other side and then you'll seewhat dan's talking about.
And I love to do this exercise,just to keep reminding myself
(24:30):
if I'm in balance or out ofbalance, because we're always
out of balance perhaps in somearea.
Every day, you know, every dayyou might be out of balance.
Today I was like I was feeling alittle low on energy.
I've been traveling, I've beendoing this, that and the other,
lots of work, lots of interviews, speaking to clients, and it's
been great.
But then I found my energy abit lower.
So I was like you've got totake a nap, james, take a nap,
(24:51):
slow right down.
And then I was like right, I'vehad a nap, I feel great.
Now you need to pump some bloodthrough your heart off you go
for a run.
So I went and did sprinttraining up and down a hill,
came back, I was like wow, I amback again.
This is just applying thatbalance that dan is talking
about and only you can tell,like the audience, only you guys
(25:11):
can tell what you need to do,uh, in order to stay in, and I
love Dan's application and justbeing reminded of the law of
balance.
I mean it's so powerful.
So, your teachings of, likepractical wisdom, is there any
other spiritual insights thatyou'd love to share?
(25:31):
Or something practical andanother physical exercise other
than balance that you think, wow, people should, really could
not should, but could be awareof that.
Maybe some people don't thinkof that would really help them
enjoy a great quality of life.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I hope your listeners appreciated that what you just
said not should, but could,because it would be very useful
for all of us to change the wordshould.
You should be this way, Ishould be this way to, I could
be this way.
It's much less judgmental andit's more realistic as well,
because most of us we think weknow how life should be, but we
(26:12):
really don't.
It's unfolding in a sense ofmystery.
It's evolving.
So we need to trust our processand, even though I hinted at it
before giving that example oflearning a somersault that we
have to respect our own way oflearning and living.
Speaking to young people today,many of them are depressed
(26:33):
because they're looking onsocial media and everyone else
seems happier than them, thepeople.
They see their pictures.
They're showing their best self, they seem to be having more
fun or traveling more and thatsort of thing, and that comes
from comparing ourselves toother people.
It's a profound disrespect forour own self.
Sir Walter Raleigh once said Icannot write a book commensurate
(26:58):
with Shakespeare, but I canwrite a book by me.
And so each of us has torecognize our story is our
treasure, our own story, ourlife.
It's like a novel being writtenand we don't know what the next
chapter is going to be.
You certainly didn't.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
No, I didn't.
At these various points in yourlife no, and you know, dan, one
thing that I really appreciateabout you, you know, like
conversing with you before youcame on the show before, when we
were like writing to oneanother, me being in spain and
you being in, uh, brooklyn youalways wrote at the end until
then, until then becomes now.
(27:37):
Tell me, now it's now and nowit's now right.
Tell everybody a little bitabout that, because I think that
was a really beautiful way ofunderstanding life, sure, and I,
and I think that you know you,you.
This is why I really appreciateyou and appreciate your journey
and appreciate your story andappreciate your last book, um,
(27:59):
that I think the audience willmassively appreciate.
Well, but I just really like tojust bring that home for people
until then becomes now.
Tell us about what you mean bythat.
I know what that means, butit's quite nice to hear it from
you, because I never heardanyone said that before and when
you wrote that on every singleone well, that's, that's the
thumbs up on the other one, Iwas like I really like the way
(28:20):
Dan's saying that, because it'sfun, it's truthful and it's got
a depth of wisdom.
That is like, yeah, that's soright.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
That's a Millman original, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
A Millman original.
You can take that.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
And it comes from the realization.
You know most people roll theireyes when they hear about
living in the present moment.
Because you know, we've read Behere Now, ram Dass, power of
Now.
We've read my book.
It goes into the present moment.
But there's many realizationsI've had since then.
Any physicist will tell you youcannot grasp the present moment
(28:56):
Because if I say the word now,from the time I intoned that n
sound to the ow sound, a millionnanoseconds have gone by.
Which nanosecond is now?
So when teachers like mesuggest attending to the present
moment, we're really sayinghandle what's in front of you.
(29:18):
Attending to the present moment, we're really saying handle
what's in front of you and theway time works.
It's a paradox because timeseems real to most of us and in
the conventional world it isreal.
We set up a time to link uphere for our conversation.
So time is a functional thing.
We know we're going to be doingsomething this evening perhaps
(29:40):
or tomorrow, and yet from atranscendental view, there is no
time.
And here's an example.
Let's say I was sitting on theshore of a river and I was, and
you were in a boat and you'remeditating, you're doing your TM
in a boat and you're sittingvery still and you're coming
down from what appears to be thepast, passing in front of me,
(30:04):
what appears to be the present,and then moving on in that river
of time into the future.
But from your perspective, youare sitting in the eternal
present moment, absolutely still.
And so that's the paradox oftime.
Conventionally speaking, it'sreal, but transcendentally
speaking it's an illusion.
(30:25):
All we have is the presentmoment, the present moment, the
present moment.
So when I write, until thenbecomes now.
Well, until then, we've allheard that phrase, but it will
become now.
And here we are in this now andnow.
Life is like a motion picturewith many frames One frame,
another frame, another frame.
They all come in front of us inthe present moment.
(30:46):
That's all we have.
What we call the past doesn'texist anymore, except in the
neural impulses in our brain wecall memory.
And if someone said to me butwait, dan, I know the past
exists.
Here's a picture of my fifthbirthday party Well, all that's
actually happening in thatmoment is someone is showing me
(31:06):
a photographic image of a memory, but it's happening in this
present moment.
Past is past and the future isour imagination.
We can get up and we have theability to plan our day, to say,
oh, I have to run this area,and then we run that area.
But memory is not so accurateas we've learned and what we
(31:31):
imagined happening that day.
If we wrote down everything wethink is going to happen and at
what time it changes, it simplydoes so.
We don't want to become tooattached to the plans.
So memory and imagination arewonderful human capacities, but
we are often lost in the pastand future.
And if we want to quiet our mind, the best way to do it is focus
(31:52):
on what's happening right now.
If we were sitting in the sameroom right now, james and I
tossed you my keys and saidcatch, you'd reach for them with
a cat-like awareness.
You would not be thinking aboutwhat happened yesterday or
what's going to go, you're goingto do tomorrow.
You would be pure awareness Inthe present moment.
There is only awareness whenwe're thinking about anything,
(32:13):
it's from the past or the future.
So by focusing on what's infront of us, that's our moment
of sanity, that's our moment ofpower.
That's our moment of sanity.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
That's our moment of power, that's our moment of
reality right now so you saidsomething that I really liked in
that is, like, don't beattached to certain things, um,
but at the same time, you, youknow, like when people are, you
know, struggling to find theirpurpose and direction, they're
trying to attach to theirpurpose and direction.
(32:40):
So how can we find orientation,or how does one find
orientation in that?
And, by the way, I've writtenall these questions down, and
I'm just thinking my ownquestions instead of yeah,
that's great.
That's why I like these, so hereI am with you and I'm like
going well, this is james, thisisn't you know, stuff that I've
really.
Oh yeah, let me ask dan this.
(33:01):
I was like well, thesequestions are going right out
the window.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Well, feel free anyway.
Yeah, but taking up that idea,we can have an aspiration in
this present moment.
In fact, one of my books,another small book like the Laws
of Spirit, it's called the FourPurposes of Life.
And you know, when I waswriting that book, james, a
friend of mine, said I don'tneed to read your book, dan.
He said I know the purpose oflife it's learning to love.
(33:26):
I mean, whatever the question,love is the answer.
And I went well, that's a goodpurpose.
And another friend said, no, no, the purpose is realization,
enlightenment.
And I went well, that's reallya good purpose too, for humanity
.
But another friend said no, no,that's all philosophy.
He said our purpose isreproducing, keeping the species
(33:46):
going.
So they're all right, they'reall correct.
But just as we divide the daysof the year into four seasons or
the points on a compass intofour primary directions, by
looking at our life through fourpurposes, it helps make more
sense out of it.
I'm not going to go into thatright now.
I'm just going to say the firstpurpose is learning life's
(34:07):
lessons.
There's a lot more to thatTwelve courses in the school of
life and so on.
But the next one is our careeror calling.
Sometimes they're the same,like in my case, maybe in yours,
but sometimes they're separate,which is fine.
We have a career that makes anincome, and then we have a
calling or mission or hobby,whatever it is that we love to
(34:29):
do in our spare time.
The third purpose is a moremysterious one.
I don't know if you've read mybook the Life you Were Born to
Live.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, is that the one with all the?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
life path numbers.
The life path numbers.
Right, I'm intrigued to knowwhat number you are.
What number are you?
Uh, mine's a 268.
It describes my life path, um,and I can say a lot more.
I mean we can do a whole hourjust on that life path material,
um.
But it's my second most popularbook.
It has been over.
We do another show on that, dan,because you know, I think that
(35:02):
people would really love to toto know about that, but because
there's so much depth in thatyeah, well, in the meantime, let
me just say that anyone can goto my website, peaceful
warriorcom, and look at the lifepurpose, find your life purpose
, and there'll be a calculatorthey can put in their date of
birth and they might, might, seea sample, a taste of some core
(35:23):
issues in their life, andthere's much more, of course.
It deals with relationships,finances, health and so on, and
so it's an extensive system and,again, it's been read by well
over a million people, maybe two, and it's kind of scarily
accurate.
Yeah, it is.
It's quite accurate.
I don't know exactly how itworks, I can't say how adding up
(35:45):
the numbers of one's date ofbirth can give valid, reliable,
accurate information, but itseems to work.
And there are many numerologysystems and none of them make
any sense really, and yet it canbe very useful as a tool.
But the reason I mentioned thefour purposes is the fourth
purpose.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
The first one was the , so let's just go to recap.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Learning life's lessons.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Learning life's lessons.
Number two was career.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Number three was and number three is the life purpose
.
The life path system.
Yeah, and that's another kindof life purpose, another
approach, right path system.
That's another kind of lifepurpose, another approach.
But the fourth purpose isperhaps the most important and
the most manageable, because wemay not know our cosmic purpose
ultimately, but we always knowour purpose in the present
(36:34):
moment, like, for example, mypurpose is very clear in this
moment, sharing with you andyour purpose is very clear, and
your listeners, in this moment,their purpose is clear.
So we always know our purposein that moment.
Otherwise we're not living onpurpose.
Robert Byrne once said thepurpose of life is a life of
(36:56):
purpose.
When I watched my granddaughterhere in Brooklyn when she was
little, crawling across thefloor, she wasn't crawling just
to get a workout, she wanted herbig brother's toy, a sparkly
toy.
So that's why I say we'rehardwired goal seekers.
So in this moment we can have aplan, in this moment we can
(37:18):
have a goal and we just canhandle you.
You know that that analogy it'sit's uh, everybody's heard it,
but it's beautiful that we'relike cars driving at night and
we can only see as far as ourheadlight beam.
But we can make the wholejourney that way?
Sure so, if we focus on ourpurpose in each moment, we're
(37:40):
living a purposeful life, andthat can lead to progress toward
our goals.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
Which is another way of like saying you're building.
You know, like I have thislittle analogy that I like to
use is that, as I've started thepodcast, like five years ago in
November, it was say somethinglike that, and I remember just
thinking, well, I've got tobegin.
I don't know how to begin, butI have this calling.
I've had this calling for along time and I've not listened.
(38:09):
So I was like, right, james,how many times does it take for
you to really listen?
I feel like my inner guidancewas saying you've got to do this
.
And I was like, no, I'm notgoing to do this because I don't
want to share this information.
And like my inner being was,well, you're going to share it
because you have a gift.
And I'm like, well, why me?
(38:29):
Why does?
Why does the world need anothercoach?
Why does it need anotherteacher?
I was like, well, you have away of explaining it like nobody
else, because your story thisis what you were alluding to at
the beginning, dan, which Ireally appreciate and I hope
Someone in the audience or allof you take this is your story,
is your treasure map, right?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
because there's not a single story on the planet
exactly like yours or mine orany of your listeners.
That is our treasure.
Yeah, and yes, it does take acertain hubris, but also, yes,
it does take a certain hubris,but also an inner calling to
share with other people.
You know, andre g once saideverything that needs to be said
(39:10):
has already been said, but itneeds to be said again because
no one was really payingattention.
Yeah, I mean.
Each of us beautiful analogy,right?
Each of us has our own way ofexpressing our own wisdom and
sharing it with others.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
So if one is listening, someone's listening
in and they're going.
Well, what's my purpose anddirection?
Well, your purpose and yourdirection, if you're listening
to what Dan is sharing, is likeunfolding your own story.
Having a look at your own storyand noticing some of the
mistakes you've made.
Now you've come back from thatand using that to uplift other
(39:48):
people in some way will thensort of give you the headlights
about the next step, and thenthe next, and then the next step
and to trust that.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
to trust that rather than the fear of missing out.
And other people are getting itand I'm missing out.
Somehow Nobody is missinganything.
As somebody once said, everyonehas the best seat.
I think it was John Coltrane.
A musician said everybody hasthe best seat in their own life,
which is the front seat.
(40:17):
The front seat.
And as somebody else once said,be yourself because everyone
else has already taken.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I love that one that one, and something that I really
liked that you said at thebeginning, dan, was you said I
think the theater roosevelt saidthat is that you know
particularly some of the younglisteners listening in because I
like to feel like I'm a bridgebetween you know different
levels of demographics, and yousaid that comparison is the
(40:48):
thief of joy, and I think it wasTheodore Roosevelt who said
that, something, somebody likethat and and I remember you know
, like it is true, it's like weall do compare, particularly
when you're younger, but realizethat you know your mistakes and
you're the front, you'resitting in the front seat of
your own life and, although mylife challenges may be coming
(41:10):
onto your lap without yourpermission, sometimes you just
realize it's going to serve youreally well as you pass through,
as that storm passes throughand I can say that from one of
you know several of my ownchallenges that I've gone
through and, as you, you know,go into your book and your
stories.
You're like I've gone throughthis, this and this and here I
(41:32):
am and you become a lot moreopen to life.
And I guess my last questionthat I wanted to really ask you
today was just about trust,because I think a lot of people
find trust, trusting insomething greater, trusting life
, trusting the universe,trusting your inner guidance.
You know that it's going totake you in a direction, because
(41:53):
some people feel like theydon't have control.
So how does that trust bringback that sense of control, what
you can from your perspective,because I really love the way
you put it down right well,here's how I would put it.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
Uh, I view daily life as a form of spiritual weight
training that's a really justalready.
That's just like bang, have someof that you know, if we don't
lift enough weights, we don'tget any stronger.
Now I do not recommendfractures as a method of
spiritual growth.
No, I do not.
(42:32):
We don't have to suffer inorder to grow.
However, many of us have noticedthat lessons repeat themselves
until we learn them and if wedon't learn the easy lessons,
they get more dramatic to getour attention.
So we can see daily life as aschool, our classroom and in
(42:54):
fact, daily life is guaranteedto teach us everything we need
to learn and to evolve as ahuman being.
People were evolving beforebooks and before seminars.
But sometimes people say well,dan, why do you write books and
teach seminars?
Because a good book or seminaror any communication can remind
us of some things and help us tolearn more easily, more
(43:19):
gracefully, the lessons ofeveryday life.
But our daily lives?
We need to start to trust thatAdversity is a part of life.
In fact, sometimes I askaudiences raise your hand if
(43:43):
you've ever experienced thatthat's.
That's a whole other thing.
But but most people canappreciate that they're a little
wiser and a little stronger forhaving gone through that
difficulty.
Sometimes digging our way outof a dark hole can give us the
strength to climb the mountain.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
That seems apparent in your case yeah, one thing I
just wanted to sort of leave ona high was something that you
well, I just I took an idea thatyou said once and I and I hope
the audience, can take loads oflittle ideas that dan and I have
shared today.
But I really love dan's take on, do the physical stuff to get
(44:22):
the real understanding.
You know so, when you wereshowing the balance, like you
showed the balance of the, ofdoing the handstand because of
your experience on a wobblytable, and that to me just shows
you can be centered in a wobblylife experience.
And one thing that I chose todo shortly after we met was I
(44:44):
decided that I'm going to go anddo a skydiving course.
So I went and did a skydivingcourse and the purpose of me
doing that was, number one,because I thought it'd be fun,
but number two, I thought it'dscare the living daylights out
of myself as well, because themind would say no, but the
body's actually going to go.
Sorry, the body says no, butthe body's actually going to go.
Sorry, the body says no, butthe mind's going to go, I'm
going anyway.
(45:05):
So a friend of mine and I cameover from hong kong.
We went and did this like freefall university, uh thing, uh,
several years ago, and we wereboth petrified doing it.
But we're like, we've got to dothis, and the reason why we
were doing it well, at least my,my case, I can't speak for him,
other than he thought it wouldbe fun was because in my mind, I
(45:26):
thought, if I can land out of aplane pulling my own cord many,
many, many, many, many, manytimes, then I can pretty much do
anything.
I put my mind to Now you didn'ttalk about that, but this an
idea that james suddenly thought, well, this would be a good
idea, and so it didn't matterwhat I set my mind on.
(45:47):
It was like I will stand and doa long term goal, it doesn't
matter how long it takes.
So in my case, you know, one ofmy missions is I want to help a
billion people with enjoying agreater, uh, healthy life,
happier life, wealthy life andgreater fulfillment.
Time doesn't matter how longtime it takes, right?
(46:09):
So I've started.
So it's like, right, I put mymind to it.
I know I can do it.
I've jumped out of an airplane.
I'm still here.
I survived a car crash, Isurvived alcoholism, and here I
am still chipping away brick bybrick, and I just love the way
you put it on.
You know, just turn up youraction.
(46:29):
What are you doing?
Because that's the only thingyou've really got control on
when you're moving towards yourpurpose.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
Spiritual life begins on the ground, rooted like a
tree.
A tree can't grow branches andleaves and extend to the sky
until they put in deep roots.
So I do believe in physicallygrounded, physical training.
Enlightenment may be a bodilyexperience and it may be that
meditation sitting in meditationdoesn't just quiet the mind.
(47:01):
Maybe it quiets the body, andwhen the body is still, the mind
tends to follow.
So I believe that our practiceis physically grounded in the
way we approach everyday life.
You know, a man wrote to mesoon after Way of the Peaceful
Warrior came out and he read itand he said Dan, now I really am
(47:22):
interested in spiritualpractice, but I have a wife,
three children, a full-time job.
How can I find the time?
And he came to understand thathis wife, his children, his
full-time work were his primaryspiritual practices.
Yeah, and they will demand moreand develop us more than
sitting in a cave and meditating.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
I know because I've done both okay, I did one
christmas I did instead of goingto my family, who were living
in sweden at the time.
Um, instead of going to seethem, I said I'm going to
meditate this christmas.
I remember this, right, I satthere and I was like, okay, I'm
(48:03):
bored, now I'm bored.
I was like it was a real.
I was like, okay, I'vemeditated.
Now I've not gone to see myfamily, I've stayed in england,
which is where I was living at atime, and I've missed out on
that two weeks of being with myfamily celebrating because I
want to sit and meditate.
And I was like I won't do thatagain.
So I never did it again, but Ihad the experience, you had the
(48:25):
experience you learned thelesson right lesson, which is,
you know, being around peoplecan sometimes be a really
beautiful thing yeah, well, ramdas also said you think you're
enlightened.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Go visit your family, yeah, yeah, and also the
training itself.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Yeah, yeah, and you, like, I have a really great
relationship with my familybecause I don't judge them.
You know, I try not to judgethem and I know that you're
different from me, but I loveyou as you are, not as the way I
want you to be, but just as youare, and I found that that gave
me a lot of peace.
You know, if we look back toyou know your new book, peaceful
(49:05):
Heart, that gave me a peacefulheart thinking that way.
You know, and the warriorspirit is I don't need to change
you.
Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah, and that brings up the whole idea of peaceful
warrior.
You know people often ask mewell, where did you come up with
that term?
And actually I was teaching amartial arts course at Oberlin
back when, based on myexperience with Aikido and Tai
Chi, and so part of the coursewas Aikido and part was Tai Chi.
Speaker 1 (49:29):
One was Japanese, one was Chinese, but both from the
Orient right, exactly, both fromAsia, and they have a certain
approach.
Speaker 2 (49:35):
And I was going to call it for the school catalog
the Way of the Warrior.
But then I went, you know, thatdoesn't quite fit, because both
of these are receptive martialarts, they're not aggressive
martial arts.
And I said, and then I had alight bulb moment, I went why
don't I call it the way of thepeaceful warrior?
And that's when the term firstcame up.
But the reason that termapplies to every one of your
(49:57):
listeners and you and me.
It's not some exclusive club.
We're all peaceful warriors intraining because all of us are
seeking to live with a peacefulheart among, with more serene
heart, a more, more equanimityin the midst of the chaos of the
everyday news.
And but there, and as youacknowledge, there are times we
(50:20):
need a warrior spirit just toroll up our sleeves and march
into life and deal with thechallenges that naturally arise
in everyday life as a form ofspiritual weight training.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
Yeah, I really like that.
You know, for people who thinkthat you don't know if they're
on a spiritual course or aspiritual awakening or whatever,
don't worry, you are, becausethat's happening exactly.
You're just on it, whether youlike it or not.
You know, dan, it's been a realjoy speaking with you.
Thank you so much for sharingyour wisdom.
(50:52):
This week's super soul model isdan millman.
Thank you, dan, you're verywelcome.
Thank you, thanks for tuninginto this episode and if you've
enjoyed this or any of theothers, please remember you can
support the show, and yourcontributions do allow us to
keep bringing you the bestguests.
In the meantime, till the nextepisode, I wish you green lights
(51:14):
all the way.
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