Welcome to Elevate with Elsner. Join us for inspiring conversations with individuals who have transformed their lives and are making a difference through the work that they do. And now, here's your host, Blake Elsner.

Welcome back to another episode of Elevate with Elsner. Today, I have the honor of sitting next to an individual that has truly changed my entire perception about life, about mindset, about how to just continue to show up every day and It's exactly what I needed about nine months ago. And there he was, boom, just helping me show up. And just like that, here I am never in a million years. If somebody told me when I went back to New Orleans and said, hey, Mike, you're going to be on my podcast episode 17. and we're gonna do it right here. No way in a million years would I believe that, but I love having you here and thank you so much for coming. So without further introduction, Mike Kitko InterWealth Global, what's going on, my man?

Blake Elsner

Let's go, man, let's go. So slight adjustment, and this is kind of what I do is I help people make little slights adjustment to their perspective and just those little slight adjustments like create exceptional exponential growth. I just held the door open, brother. I didn't cause any shift in you. I just held the door open. I just showed you a door that you didn't know existed and you walked through the door. If you wouldn't have walked through the door, then nothing would have changed in your life. That's a part of the journey, the development journey that you get to own is that there's nobody that can make you shift. There's no one that can make you grow. There's nobody that can make you elevate. All they can do is show you a door that you didn't know existed, open it up, maybe scream, hey, here's a door, try to get your attention. But ultimately, if you don't walk through it, you're going to remain the same exact person. A great guide, a great coach, a great mentor, all they're doing is showing you possibilities that you didn't know existed, and then you get to harness and leverage those possibilities. Brother, that's what you've done, and that's why the change has happened in your life. I love seeing people transform, evolve, reset. Man, I don't love seeing people just grow. I love seeing them blossom. I love seeing them completely go from just one version of themselves to an exponential version, and you've done that. And I wanna applaud you for that, because not everybody's ready for that, man.

Mike Kitko

Yeah, I appreciate that. And like I said, without without you, I would not be here. And one of the biggest things when you came to me and, you know, said, hey, Blake, you want to come to a workshop in St. Louis? And I'm like, or New Orleans. You had two different ones. And I was like, you know, I knew that I had to go to that one in New Orleans because that was the only way I was going to show up, because knowing my track record, I just knew if something else came up in St. Louis, it's very easy to say, Hey, I'm not going to make it. Right. So I knew I had to put my ass on a plane and go down to New Orleans because I needed some serious help. And even now it's hard for me to sit here and go, Man, you're, you're, you're a lot different. Your voice is different. Your demeanor is different. Even myself, when I do it, I want to retreat. It doesn't feel natural to me because I'm not used to it. So that's kind of a tough thing that's I'm having to overcome.

Yeah. So, uh, first of all, you didn't take the easy way out, right? I, I didn't. consciously offer you an easy way out. I just said, hey, I've got to the same workshop. We were performing it in St. Louis. And you're from your home base of St. Louis. Mine's just north of St. Louis. But I offered you the St. Louis track and offered you New Orleans track. Same workshop in two different places. And you could have taken the easy path. And you did. You took the path of most resistance, which which created like an opportunity for exponential growth again. But I mean, come on. New Orleans is a good time, Blake. a good time. So that never, that never sucks either. But, uh, yeah, man, um, it's this development, self personal development. I like to call it spiritual growth, right? Because that's all it is. It's the growth of your spirit. When we grow as human beings, we're growing in our spirit. And then what I mean by that is in your mind and body, you know, there's thoughts, there's emotions, and that's your spiritual nature. So as you evolve as a spiritual being, then everything in your circumstances and in your life are going to change. So not everyone is interested in changing what's happening inside of them because it's kind of a, sometimes it's a dark place to go into the recesses of our, our insides, the recesses of our, you know, of our being, of our nature, of our thoughts, of our emotions. That's, it's kind of, sometimes it's a, it's a, it's a very uncomfortable place to be, but, but you chose to go in because that's where you're also going to find the glory, right? And that's where the pain is. And then that pain turns to purpose. But what happens is there is a there's a great quote, and I don't have it in front of me, but there is a great quote by Marianne Williamson. And it talks about the it's not the fear of failure that causes people pain. It's the fear of success. Who am I to be successful? Who am I to be wealthy? Who am I to matter? Who am I? And she's like, well, you're a divine being of God. You are a divine part of God. You are, you have divinity in, you are divinity incarnate. Who are you not to be successful? Who are you not to be seen? Who are you not to be impactful? Who are you not to be valuable and significant in this world? Keeping yourself small does nothing good for anyone. But when you start to show up, it is scary because not everybody's showing up. Not everybody wants to show up because it's scary. And when we do start to show up, and you've seen this firsthand, when you do start to show up, the people who are scared to show up start to throw rocks, man. And they start to fling garbage, and they start to fling drama, and they try to pull you back in. And, and that's, that's why this journey, you know, that you, you are the average of the top five people you spend the most time with. If you spend it with people that are just going nowhere, you're going, you're going to be the sixth one nowhere. But when, when you spend all your time with people that are literally unpacking and unraveling all the garbage that was inside, so we can step into a higher level of spiritual purpose and step into a higher level of material purpose, it's game on.

Yeah, totally. And that whole spiritual aspect in my life, I, you know, I knew it was there, but I just didn't know how to pull it out. And, and I'm still, you know, I still struggle with it a little bit, like, because it's tough to, to like, almost create a whole different person. Right. And it's, it's not that I'm, I'm scared, but it is like a little fearful because it is lonely. It is sometimes like, you seem like you're by yourself on this island. And then, you know, you kind of like I bring you in here and I get to talk to you and it kind of, it grounds me back to my, to my spot where I need to be. Um, but there's so many times where I do want to retreat and it is so hard for me to fight that off and keep fighting off. It's some, it's somewhat exhausting sometimes. Um, but I know that the outcomes on the other end of, you know, getting through these times and getting through the retreat process, it's just going to lead me to greater outcomes.

And sometimes we need to retreat. I mean, look, you and I are a lot more similar than we are different. And I teach, it's not really a program, but it's just a synthesis of a bunch of different mystical and spiritual kind of systems that help you really understand yourself, your purpose, your path at a deeper level. You and I have some similarities in how we're designed and what that means is we require some time alone to synthesize what we're learning. And that's not retreat. That's like recovery. That's like restoration. OK, so we need to as as human beings, especially when you're surrounded or when you're, you know, kind of like the hustle culture is prevalent. Right. And the hustle culture tells you there's no days off. And if you're not showing up, then you're a failure. And if you're if you you know, if you retreat, you're you're you're a failure and whatever. But literally our design, our our being requires some time alone to recover and restore what's happening. And we get to synthesize all the lessons. And the synthesis of the lessons that we're after and that we're learning, they don't happen while you're still in action. They happen when you're in action. They happen with your eyes closed and with you just connecting to your breath. That's where the synthesis and the growth really happens. That's when your spirit starts to blossom and that's when you really, really evolve. It's not in the war, it's not in the actual battle, it's when the bullets stop flying and you get to start to dive in and say, okay, what have I learned from this? Then that helps you continue to upgrade and level up. But we require that, Blake, we really do.

Yeah. And I, you know, when I, when the bullets start flying, like you're saying, like, I want to just start fending them all away and just like put up this defense shield of like, no retreat, like go back to yourself. And, and I guess when you say the restore the restoration of, of ourselves, like we need that alone time to kind of figure things out. I think I do take that as, Oh no, I'm starting to retreat. And then I get in my head because I am by myself. I start think a little bit more. And, and so I think I'm, I'm still working on that part of, you know, trying to balance that. Yeah.

Alignment. I mean, look last week and last week was Thanksgiving week, right? So last week, man, I didn't feel like doing anything. I was just in pure shutdown mode. And if you can, you can check my social media posts. I had maybe, sometimes I do four or five social media posts a day. I think last week I might have had two. Like it was, it was like, and those were two that I was just inspired to create where in the absence of inspiration, I didn't post anything. I just, I just went blank. I just went dark. And that carried over into the weekend. And today I woke up. Well, one a.m. my eyes opened up and it's like I started getting like reinvigorated and reinspired. And I started to feel the energy start to move in my body. And and it was a rough night of sleep. But when I when my eyes popped open and my dogs wake me up at five thirty. But when my eyes popped open, it was like, let's fucking go. Like, let's get after it. And it just felt like it felt completely different than last week. And I truly believe in my life and I'm just going to share my experience and you get to figure out your experience. But that restoration of last week and that shutdown created and catalyzed that inspiration this morning. Without one, there's just a depleted. If I was all in motion last week when it was a week of restoration or a period of restoration, a period of recovery, a period of synthesis, then this morning and today wouldn't have been so powerful. wouldn't have been as powerful. Does that make sense? One creates the other. It's not just an either or. It's without one, the other one's not as powerful.

Even to dive into that process of thinking is a whole nother level of growth. That's the stuff that even sitting here talking to you, I'm growing and I'm aligning myself. Each thing you're talking or each thing you're saying, I soak it all up. anybody will know that I'm a learner. And, you know, sometimes I can either put the stuff to work or I won't. It's just a fact of whether I'll be lazy or not. And if I want to do the work or not. And so when, you know, you tell me to do stuff or you, you know, speak a lot of wisdom to me, I inhale it all because that's what I want to do. And I try to replicate it as closely as possible because I know what's on the other end of that. And it's, it's a successful, my kid go. And that's where I'm like, okay, I need to replicate this to a certain degree. Right.

Yeah, so let's talk about, I want to unpack one word there, and then I'm going to dive into some things you said. Success, okay? For me, success is just being in my purpose and on my path. That's all success is. It's not a number. It's not a volume of clients. It's not a, it's not how many commas. It's not, my success for me is being in my purpose and on my path. That's it. And your success is going to look different. If you don't know if you're up when you're operating in your purpose, your life is it feels effortless. It feels easy. It's very inspired. You get great results. People applaud you. People are better. People's lives improve because of you. When you're in your purpose, everything around you gets better. And it doesn't feel like work. It doesn't feel like you're literally laboring. It doesn't feel like you're efforting. And if you don't know if you're in your purpose, you're not. But when you're in your purpose you lose track of time and everything just seems to flow and things flow normally. Now I back that up to say I will I will never ever cause you to question yourself, question your value, question your actions, question your ambition. I will never ever cause you to or invite you to criticize, to critique, to shame, to guilt yourself, okay? What I'm after in this lifetime is I'm after freedom, I'm after fulfillment, I'm after impact. and I'm after purpose, and I've never one time seen anyone beat themselves into oblivion enough or shame themselves or reject themselves enough to create purpose, freedom, fulfillment, and impact. Does that make sense? And I mean all of them, not one or the other. You can beat yourself into wealth, you can beat yourself into what people perceive as success, but then you're internally miserable and it doesn't really freaking matter anyway. You're not fulfilled, right? You're not happy, you're not joyous. And to me, I mean, you got the first act you ever did as a human being was an inhale. And the last act you'll ever do as a human being is an exhale. And what happens between I want to make it as like fun and fulfilling and joyous and joyful and peaceful and loving and impactful as possible without damaging myself in the process, because that doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, you're right. And when you say about success is not on like a financial scale, see that I already think like that. And when I look at you, I think of you as being one of the most successful humans. But it's not from a financial thought. It's, you know, obviously you have everything you want and need and et cetera. But when you look at yourself, like I've been to your house, you got a normal two story house in up north in St. Charles or Lake St. Louis, wherever it is up there. And And it's like, you're not some, you know, wealthy, huge guy that, you know, owns corporations or whatnot. You're very grounded. And that, I think, is what actually keeps you successful and keeps you, like, going, right?

Yeah, I've got everything I need and much of what I want, right? So the point is, and it's a modest, in relative terms, I mean, according to what I grew up with, it's, I mean, it's a castle. Compared to what I grew up, I grew up in a little, it was probably 800 square foot townhouse, row house in Baltimore City. No grass, no trees, a concrete backyard that was 15 by 15. I grew up with brothers and it was a dusty environment and it was cluttered. I mean, I grew up in, it wasn't a very, fun place to grow up. And my wife grew up in abject poverty, born to heroin, heroin addicted parents and never really having a home. And she was emancipated at 15. And it's the only reason she broke out of it. So we came from relatively nothing and we built everything we have right now. And do I have eight commas, 15 commas in my bank account? No. Right. And I'm exaggerating about the number of commas. But the point being is, do I have like this infinity number of dollars? No, but I am wealthy to my core and I know I will never have another financial problem in my life. Right. Because I am fertile. And what I mean by that is I can create money when I need it. I can create income when I need it. OK. And for people that are fertile, you don't need a silo. Right. Think about a farm when you're fertile, when you can grow anytime you want. You don't need a silo. You don't need to store it up. All right. So we do spend it. We travel a lot. You've seen that. We travel a lot. We go and we experience the world and we go we go to over to Europe and we go to the Caribbean a couple of times a year and we travel all over. And we're just like we're living. About eight years ago, 70 years ago, we designed the life that we want to live. And that included complete time freedom. That included financial freedom. It included impact. It included travel. It included never being beholden to anyone else's or obligated to anyone else. And what I mean by that is I'll never work for anybody else. I'm unemployable. Nobody owns my time. If you don't own your time, you don't own your life. And no one will ever own my time. And because of that, I get to own my life and I get to make my own decisions. And I say yes when I want to say yes and I say no when I want to say no. And I don't do things out of obligation. There's things that we need and things that we want. And I will never disrupt my life for what I want. I will disrupt if if it ever if it ever comes to survival, which it never will, then sure. But let me let me go to war. Right. I'm a marine vet. Right. But if it ever becomes a matter of survival, hell, yeah, I'm in the fight, man. I love I love a good fight. But but there's certain things we want. And I won't give up my happiness and my joy and my contentedness, my fulfillment for what I want. It doesn't make any sense.

Yeah. And you, you know, we're around a lot of wealthy people and, and, you know, and I know myself just seeing wealthy people buying investment properties or whatnot. Um, it doesn't lead to happiness and that's kind of what I think everyone thinks success is about, right? Like they think it's got a comma with it and it, and I'll tell you firsthand, chasing deals is not bring happiness.

Yeah, maybe to somebody it does, but to you, it doesn't. But maybe to somebody else it does. And we each know if our life is serving us or if we're serving our life. All right. We each know, you know, again, if you don't know if you're in your purpose, you're not right. If you're if there's still that question. But when you're in your purpose, man, you're locked in. And the fulfillment comes from breathing in your purpose, not from the attainment from the purpose. All right. I've got a bunch of very, very wealthy clients, and again, they'll never have another dollar, they'll never need another thing, and here's what I love, I love this about some of my higher-end clients, they don't have problems. Right there. There's when we when we jump on a coaching call or or or when I'm involved in in a call with them there, we're not trying. We're not problem solving. They don't have problems, but they're just looking for that next little that mental shift that's going to unlock another level of freedom and fulfillment in their life. But it's not about getting them more money or getting them another client or building their business. It's literally just about that internal freedom and fulfillment that they're looking for. And that's when life gets really, really good. But do they stop their business dealings because of that? No, they go out, but they treat business like a game. It's like playing Monopoly, right? My wife and I, we just accessed a bunch of equity from our home, and right now I've got two investments going where I'm gonna get 20% returns, right, on my investment. Why wouldn't I do that, right? That's a lot of fun. Now, I get to participate in two other people's journey where I'm buying into their dream, and since I'm buying into their dream, there's gonna be a nice hefty return, but I get to partner with them and help them and do life with them, and it becomes a game. Do I need that 20%? No, it was just fine. But now I get to participate in their journey. And that's a lot of fun. It's like, that's when, you know, I might land on BoardWalk and get to buy BoardWalk. Do I need BoardWalk? No, because I could close up the fricking board game and put it away anytime I want. I'll never need another dollar in my life. But we get to participate and play this game like it's a game instead of like life or death, right? Like creation mode instead of survival mode. And if it's based on insecurity, inadequacy, insignificance, fear, what if everything goes wrong? If it's based on that, you're in survival mode. And that's not a fun way to live. But when you shift to creation mode where it's just exponential growth and you're just playing with house money and you're just, you know that you don't need, but it'll be fun to just continue to expand the pie, that's when life gets really, really fulfilling and enriched.

Yeah. And when you go back to the purpose part, you know, I'll sit here and say, I think I'm still trying to figure out my purpose because I sit down on this podcast and I start talking. And like you say, the time just goes by. I, I can just kind of, I feel like I'm doing it without even like thinking, like I'm almost like it's an out of body experience a little bit. It's strange to me because it just doesn't seem right, but it just flows out. It's just like, blah, like there it all is. Here I am. Like, And so I don't know, like, is what's my purpose? Where am I? What's my lane? But that's kind of my I think both of our structures, like I love to fail, like as bad as that sounds, like I love building stuff. And if it fails, I don't care. Like, I just I love to do it.

It's like a game. That's creation mode, man. That's great. Let me ask you this, though, Blake. With this podcast, have you gotten any feedback that this has improved somebody's life, or given them a different perspective, or it's helped them level up, or it's made them think differently?

Yeah, I actually have, and that's pretty cool, a cool part of it.

And that episode or whatever, was that hard? Yeah. The episode, making the episode itself was hard?

No, making the episode definitely was not hard.

The process of, yeah, of, of realizing the podcast. Right. But you also got support. You got a mentor. You got people to help you who, who understood how to create the podcast. You got some support and some advocacy to help build the platform, but making that content. Like doing that episode. Was that a struggle for you?

No, I guess not because I, yeah, I was able to just.

And it improved their lives. Yeah. It's crazy how that happens.

Yeah, actually I saw, actually Cassidy showed me a message last night and it was some girl she went to grade school with and she, I mean, she got hit by a car in Columbia and she turned into like had, you know, problems with addiction after and basically her one friend died that was in this car accident and she survived. So she was having, you know, survivor's guilt. And I think that kind of tormented with her a little bit. And so she sent these long messages to Cassidy and said, like, I can't, you know, Blake is so brave for coming out and talking about, you know, how he, how I basically numb myself and gave Cassidy shots for IVF, stuff like that, like through alcohol. And so me coming out and saying that and then taking it in and going, wow, that's that's incredible that you would come out and say that. It's awesome. And I love listening to it. That hits home to me. And I'm like, wow, like, that's awesome.

Not Blake. Not everybody's as courageous as that brother. All right. That is that's not a small act in this world to to be transparent and to share like some some skeleton in your closet. So going back, I wrote my first book in twenty eighteen. I think it was I think it was twenty eighteen. But it's called The Impostor in Charge. And the very first chapter was all me exposing skeletons, you know, and just getting it all out. It's almost like I related to you ever seen a movie Eight Mile. Right. It's all about let me tell you all of my darkest shit so that you can't use it against me anymore. And I exposed in there that, you know, I was a 300 pound suicidal alcoholic who was physically, mentally abusive to my wife and my kids. I was sometimes sexually abusive to my wife because I was like drunk out of my fucking mind. You know, I wasn't a very nice guy. I wasn't a very kind guy. I was very selfish. I was very self-serving. I went to work for my benefit. I didn't go to work for the benefit of the company, even though I was running the companies, right? It's crazy. I managed a $350 million energy plant. I managed a $65 million manufacturing plant. And I did that so that I could get what I need, not for the benefit of the company, okay? And if there wasn't... I really didn't... even dive into the impact that I was making in that role. It was all about what's in it for me. So the first 43 years of my life was lived just for my own wants, my own needs, and for my own benefit. And that included my wife and my kids. My kids were there to make me validated as a parent. They were there. My wife was there for my emotional needs, for my physical needs. It was all about me, me, me, me, me, me. Pretty shitty way to live. But in the imposter in charge, I shared all of that. Say, guys, whoever I've pretended to be up to this point, that's not who I really am. Let me tell you what was really going on. And one time at a speaking event, I let off and I let off just like that. I was like, hey, for 43 years, I was physically, mentally, emotionally abusive to my wife and my kids, sometimes sexually abusive to my wife. I was suicidal, stuck a gun in my mouth. I hated everything about me and I hated everything about whatever. And afterwards, after I opened, and that was the very first time I opened up like that, there was like a line of people waiting to talk to me. Because not everybody possesses that courage. And there's a Buddhist maxim that says, if we all sat around a campfire and told our deepest, darkest secrets and stories, we'd all laugh at each other for lack of originality. Like every everyone's struggling in some way. And when we share our struggles, people feel more normalized. Because if you look at most of the influencers in the world, they're showing up and they're they're they're showing people their perfection, where when we show people our pain, they feel more valuable. But when you only show the perfect side of you, they feel less valuable. And people desperately want to feel valuable. They just don't know how. And we help them do that.

Yeah. And without you, I can't, I don't know, like, if I would have been 43, like, luckily I got to new Orleans at 31. But, you know, I don't know, like, if had you not been, I don't even know how it had, you know, just not popped up, like in my life, where, like, would I have just kept going? Like, I don't like, it's scary to think a little bit because I, yeah, I was, I was a prick asshole. Like, I mean, you might as well have just, put a big old M.E. on me and just walked around like me, me, me. Like you say, and that's all I cared about, because I thought that was how I. How I like helped everybody, like that's how I thought I pushed the world like and I never, never even realized that it was actually doing the opposite.

death, but pretend they're not, you know. And again, I'm going to go back to the more we share who we really are and the more we share what's really happening in our mind and our body, the more that we share, you know, with transparency, with honesty, with rawness, shamelessly, who we are and what's going on inside of us and what's happened over the course of our lives. the right people are going to lean in because they want to feel that freedom that we feel. I'm not saying we feel infinitely free and infinitely fulfilled, but I would say we feel more freedom and fulfillment than the average human being, Blake, because we're on the path. We're on the path, brother. But again, I just opened the door for you. I didn't do that to you. I just opened the door for you. I've opened the door for thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and a few have stepped through. All right. You're one of them. You're one of the brave ones, man. This this stuff is it's deep. It's dark. It's scary. It's hard in terms of it's very, very. There's a lot of darkness when we shut down for our life or when we have shut down for decades. There's a lot of darkness in there that needs to be revealed and that we need to shine the light on it. You did it again. I did it for me. Nobody could do it for me. I had mentors hold the door open for me. But you stepped through the door. Now you're holding the door open for other people, brother. So we just keep passing this net that it tends to kind of like help us find our purpose.

Yeah. And I think, you know, I I'm a, I'm a big emotional ball, as you know, already over here, you know, getting emotional because that's what I do best and no. But that it's just, it's kind of how I, you know, I held back so many tears. I feel like throughout my life that now it's just, I get to be myself and I will cry in front of anybody because I don't care. Like I, it feels good almost to cry. Like I'm like, this is like part of me, like here, here I am on my podcast. I'm crying. Here we go. Like, this is, this is how it's supposed to be.

Yep. I was at a speaking engagement one time and there's only one time I've gotten up like a complete standing ovation. And it was, it was awesome. And it wasn't, it wasn't even by design. I, it was in front of a group of women and, um, my wife was in the audience and I started talking about, So let me go back. In 2016, when I started this spiritual journey, because again, I almost killed myself, I still can still taste the metal in my mouth, right? But when I didn't kill myself, I knew I had to do something different. So I started this whole spiritual journey. I didn't know it was a spiritual spiritual journey at that point. But I started this whole reset transformation. And when I started transforming, my wife wanted nothing to do with it because she was an active addiction. And, um, it took us a couple months, took me a couple months of persistence to, you know, and I kept trying to help and I kept trying to share with her what I was learning and I kept, you know, trying to open up that door for her and she wanted nothing to do with it. So I filed for divorce. And when I filed for divorce, uh, yeah, I didn't do it to try to get her back. I had kind of given up. It's almost like when you let go and you give up, that's when good stuff happens. But when I gave up and I filed for divorce, that's when she stepped on the path. And that's when she started making transformative decisions. And she stumbled, she relapsed a bunch of times, but she's clean now and she's on the path and she's a completely different human being. And we are a completely different couple. At this speaking engagement, I shared our journey and I was worse than you. I couldn't even spit out three words because I love my wife so much and I'm so proud of her and I'm so proud of us and who we've become and what we've endured because most people would not endure what we've endured. And most people, my family, my two girls too, the four of us together, we're powerhouses because we can transcend any pain. We've proven it over and over. But in this speaking engagement, I couldn't even blabber out three words without freaking breaking down. And at the end of it, through a veil of freaking tears, and I had tears and shit spewing out of my ears, when I finished, they stood up because they saw They saw a real human being. They didn't just see a speaker. They saw a human being. They saw somebody share their soul. They saw somebody share everything that was happening in their mind and body in that moment. And that, again, that normalizes people. That helps them feel real and valuable in their own skin. But when we pretend that we've got it all figured out, all it does is hurt other people because they don't. And when you pretend to have it all figured out, that means they start to reject themselves at a higher level. And you did that. When you share your perfection or only your successes, all it does is help somebody feel less valuable and normal because it's going to start to make them or encourage them to question their own value and their own worth.

Yeah, and when I talk about the alcohol part of numbing, I get into, I was taking three Xanax a day. I was prescribed 90 Xanax just in April of this year, and now, you know how many I take? Zero. Not a single fucking Xanax.

What do you think that is? What do you relate that to?

It's relating to finding, to aligning yourself to a proper Like, I don't want to just say happiness, but it is. Like, to find what truly, you know, makes you, you know, lights your fire, that really gets you going, that really gets you out of bed. You mean purpose. Yeah, purpose. That's it. I guess that's it, right?

Turning on that water. In the absence of purpose, you know what people default to, Blake? Pleasure seeking and pain avoidance. When someone isn't in their purpose, when someone's not honoring their purpose, when somebody's not honoring the miracle that they are, because we all, we're all walking, talking, breathing miracles. There was a one in 400 trillion chance you were going to be born, but yet here you are, right? And you're, and you're on time and your own purpose. You're not a coincidence. You're not a mistake. You are a complete act of divinity. And you are given talents and gifts and desires to serve humanity and to serve a meaningful purpose and a meaningful reason in this world. And when you start to step onto that, the pleasure-seeking tends to wane, and the pain-avoidance tends to wane. And we get on our purpose, and the pleasure and pain part of life doesn't matter anymore. The impact does. The realization of a worthy ideal Success, right?

That's what success is. And that high is a lot better than Xanax, let me tell you.

Oh my gosh, it sure is. Because you've gotten the messages before, right? You've gotten the messages about how just by you breathing, somebody's life improved. And that's what happens when you're in your purpose. When you breathe, things happen. Things happen positively for other people and for you. I make money not by what I do, but by who I am. I make money by being my Kitco. I need to do nothing different than be my Kitco. That's it. I don't need to do anything. I breathe and I make money.

And Angie tells you that, right? But you'll still go try to do something else, right? Yeah. I like to do stuff too.

I mean, I've got a new book coming out probably at the beginning of the year, and it's in its final editing phases. I've got my own podcast. I got 174 episodes. I've been at it since August of 2021. You know, every week since then. I've got blogs, I've got other books, I've got content, I've got a mastermind, you're my mastermind, I've got the inner wealth community. I mean, I get notes from people around the world. My podcast has been listened to on six continents, 63 countries, and like 1,350 cities around the world. I mean, it's surreal. And just like you, I just started with a single episode, right? And here it is where, people around the world, their lives improve because of this thing that I love to do, which is sit down and do this with maybe with somebody else. I don't do a whole lot of interviews on my podcast, but I just call them like mic drops. They're like little 20 minute mic drops. I just get on the light, your ass on fire for 20 minutes. And when you get off that, when you finish that podcast, I know you're going to run through a wall. Right? I just know I made my life better, your life better, or your, I invited you into a better life because I just shared a little bit of fricking fire and just threw a fire. And people tell me that, you know, whenever I need a little pick me up, I just throw one, you know, one of the 174 and just like, let's go. Turn on that Marine. That's it, man. And this is, you just monetize being yourself. There's, I wasn't, there's a, there's a Japanese concept called Ikigai. Okay. I K I G A I. And I love it. It's, it's very, it's very awesome. And in, in, in terms of, it's very simple, but not easy. Okay. There's four concepts that when you take these four concepts and you put them together, you'll never work another day in your life. All right. You ready for these? Let's go. What you love to do, what you're really, really good at, what people need and what people will pay you for. You put those four together, you will never, ever work another day in your life. My kid go right there. It feels like I live in Ichigai every day. And every once in a while, I'm gonna go back to a little bit ago, every once in a while, I just shut that shit down. I'm just like, I'm taking a break for a while. And a week goes by, or a couple days go by, where I'm just not inspired to do anything, I'm just inspired to be, and I shut the doing down. no Facebook posts, no book writing, no podcast recording, no nothing. I'm just in a little holding pattern, a little bit of restoration. And then I'll wake up, my eyes pop open, it's like, fucking go time, let's go. And it turns right back on. But I used to be scared that if it ever turned off, it wasn't gonna turn back on. Man, that fear's gone. I know that there's just, there's seasons and cycles. And if we honor the seasons and cycles of our life, you'll never ever go wrong.

Yeah, I guess you're right. Cause I'm not really retreating. Like I'm more, I guess, resting. Cause I'm not like going out and partying. Like I'm not retreating to like my old drunk asshole self, um, on Xanax, you know, like shit like that. Like I'm actually just, I guess when I say I'm retreating, I'm just resting.

Like, and yeah, that's it. Why you're a human being. You're not a human doing. OK, you're a human being and sometimes not doing is OK. Now, the hustle whores and grind gurus will tell you that that's not the case, right, that that you're a failure and you're not giving it all and you're not committed. And I don't know, man, you know, I don't know from my last exhale if I'm going to really worry about how much I struggled in the course of my life. I don't think I don't think I'm really going to worry about that. And there's a, there's an awesome book called the top five regrets of the dying and nowhere in there does it say, I wish I would have worked harder, right? I wish I would have worked more. I wish I would have, I wish I would have stressed myself out more. I wish I would have like not slept. Nowhere in the, in those regrets, right? Number one is I wish I would have lived a life true to myself instead of the life that other people expected for me. Number two is I wish I wouldn't have worked so hard. Okay. Those are, those are two of the, you know, I wish I would have stayed in touch with my friends more. I wish I would have shared my emotions a little more. I wish I would have shared who I am a little more. Right. And number five is I wish I would have let myself be happier. Hmm. Sound like, sound like we're on the right track. Hell yeah. Yep. There you go. There you go, my man. I am living my life so that at that last exhale, I don't regret anything. I want that last thought in my mind to be, that was fucking awesome. Cause nobody's going to give a fuck. Nobody's going to care. Nobody's going to care. And no matter what, no matter what you build, I've got a, I've got a very, very dear ally of mine, very close friend of mine. And he was in a really multi-millionaire many times over. He's got an empire and it was in a really, really dark place one time. And he called me and he says, Mike, I need a little boost, man. I'm in a dark place. I'm in a spiral. And I listened to what he was saying and I listened to his words and I listened to where where he was challenged. And I said, all right, my man, I'm going to say some stuff that's probably not going to it's not going to feel real good, but it's going to be liberating. And he said, go for it. I said, you're going to die. Your wife's going to die. Your kids are going to die. Your empire is going to crumble. Your legacy is going to be forgotten. Anything you accumulate is going to be spent. Anything that you build will be destroyed. Anything you leave behind will be erased. And all it takes after two generations, nobody will know who the fuck you are anymore. And nothing that you built or nothing that you achieved will matter to anybody. And literally all it takes is one asteroid and this place is gone. And nothing that you've ever done is meaningful at all. And there's there's no legacy. And I was just stating some truths, man. But I just literally, hey, you're going to die. And so and so is everybody you love. Like, don't take any of this stuff too seriously. And at the end, he's like, that was like really depressing. But but I feel suddenly lighter, like Just go out and have some fun with all this. Don't take it. There's a word I love. It's called seriosity. And seriosity makes everything harder. Just don't take any of it too seriously. Man, making money, parenting, being a spouse. Don't take any of it too seriously. Just have fun with it. Watch how much easier it gets.

Yeah. And I'm working on that every day. Cause it's hard to do. Like that is a, it's a, it's a, a master skill, um, to really, you know, dial all those back to where you're, you know, you're calm, cool and collected throughout every, you know, situation. And that's, you know, you're not going to be perfect.

I was getting ready to say there's the, the, the only thing that'll happen is over the course of time, whatever, whatever we practice out, we get better. OK, that's just that's a law of being a human being, right? Whatever you practice improves. OK, so I've been at this for eight years and the only it doesn't mean that the triggers don't happen. It doesn't mean that, you know, the fear or whatever doesn't show up because we're I mean, we're. we've got this little amygdala in our mind that's always pointing out danger that doesn't exist. But the point is, is the magnitude and severity of the events decreases over time, and the frequency decreases over the time. And the length of the event shrinks over time. So it doesn't mean that they don't happen. It's you just learn how to manage them better and better over time. Because we do have this human anatomy, this this fear-based, human, animalistic beingness that we've been gifted, right? So we are spirit having a human experience. So we're not we're not humans having a spiritual experience. We're spirit having a human experience. All right. We're playing human for 80, 90 years. That's all. We are God and we are the essence of God. We are a divine being. We are divinity incarnate. And we are here for 80 to 90 years, likely playing human. That's it. And when the human stops, we just go back to being divinity. Divine, right? Energy and awareness. That's it. We go back to being spirit. And sometimes we get caught up in the animal instead of in the spirit. We forget that we're spirit having a human experience and we get caught up in the animal that is this this meat suit. All right. And the meat suit is very fear based and wants to stay alive for infinity. And spirit already is alive for infinity. But the meat suit is going to perish after about 80 to 90 years. Just make sure you're being the spirit, not the meat suit.

Yeah. I love that. I mean, it's like you almost want to just have that on the wall, right? Yeah. Be the spirit, not the meat suit. I've done some terrible things, not terrible, but stuff that I would regret because I wasn't living like that for my soul. I wasn't just being a meat suit.

You were being the animal, not the spirit, right? Yeah. Look, it's easy to get caught up in this. illusion of being the animal man, but we're not. We have a body, we have a mind, but we are the soul. We are the soul in control. We're not the animal and we're not the mind. Average human being has 120,000 thoughts per day, most of them not kind. So you see that little freaking foray of sometimes not goodness up there, thought after thought after thought. But you're not the thoughts. The thoughts come and go. They just come, then they can leave. Just the same thing with the emotions. The emotions, fear, guilt, shame, anger, jealousy, whatever, desire. These things can come and if you just, you know, just let them be, they'll just dissolve and you can just go back to being spirit. You don't have to identify as the animal or the emotion or the thought or the mental construct. You don't have to identify as any of that.

Yeah. And there's a quote that you always refer to and it's about like, um, being like seeking out your, uh, enemies and you find your supporters on the way. Is that, can you, can you, oh yeah, yeah.

Can you dive into that a little bit? Yeah. So when I first started and it's my, my journey, I guess in, in this, personal development, self-development, spiritual development, has been almost like step-by-step, layer-by-layer, letting another little layer of myself come out, right? So it wasn't like I just, you know, took off the, I don't know, took off the coat and just like, bah! I'm out and I've arrived. It's like letting go of a little bit of, you know, who I wasn't to let who I was shine. Okay. And it's not, it's not, you've experienced it. It's courageous, but it's not, it's not the easiest. It's simple, but not easy to just be yourself. We say be yourself, but it's not easy to be yourself. It's very simple. It's a very simple concept. But the point is, is there's always this piece of us that says, if I show this to the world, I'm going to be rejected. If I show this to the world, then they're going to think things about me. So the process has just been letting little layer after layer of who we're not, and our conditioning and our programming just dissolve. And the point is, is most people are trying to find champions. They're trying to find supporters. They're trying to find people that agree with them in the world. And that's the easiest way to keep ourselves small. Go out and try to find people that don't support you. Go out and find haters. Go out and find, push the edges of authenticity to the point where people start to push back. Because when you start to reveal yourself and you find who doesn't, appreciate you or enjoy you, that's when you'll really find the people to do, and that's when they'll start leaning in, okay? So I've seen it time and time again where I'll share a spiritual truth that I'm holding on to, and somebody will point back and somebody will push back on that, and then people that support me will jump in and they'll start to converse. And it's like, oh, got it, there you are, there's my guy, because that's when you see the people that really connect with your message. But go out and find instead of, and Grant Cardone shares this. There's not a lot of things that I love about Grant Cardone's message, but that's one thing I love. Go out and find your haters and in the process you'll find your supporters. If you only try to find your supporters, you'll keep yourself small.

Yeah. And that's kind of one thing I'm going through right now and trying to figure out, like, you know, as I come and kind of tell people who I am, I'm losing people. Like it's, it's not only just affecting like my personal relationships, but it's trickled down to like, even like my business, like where people are wanting to talk badly about my business skills. Like, so it's gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't like I don't know, you know, I have my few supporters, but there's a lot of fucking haters that I have now, like and I don't it was unintentional. Like this wasn't my intention to go out and just have a bunch of haters all of a sudden, like that wasn't my purpose.

No, no, you don't want the haters, but you're. You're going to find both. You're going to find both, and if you're not finding both, you're not showing who you really are to the world. Does that make sense? You're not looking to create haters, but you do want to reveal them. You do want them to show you like who they really are. And in order to show them, show you who they really are, you have to show them who you really are. Right. So some of the things that I teach, you know, I love I'm a student and I'm a teacher of, you know, you were just over my house, the soul sciences. And I talked a little bit about the soul sciences, spiritual and mystical concepts, you know, and in systems and platforms like gene keys, human design, astrology, the life you were born to live, soul contracts, Mayan astrology. These are some weirdo like systems. All right. These are some things that these are some revelations that that most people are like they'll go cross-eyed if you if you tell me you believe in these things and I do I do I've seen I've seen it people's entire lives change because of the truth that they reveal in the truth that they find out in in their in astrology and you know people say well yeah where it's written in the stars well it kind of is and it Astrology is not a replacement for God. Astrology is the methodology that God used to create you. That's all it is, right? There's energies of different cosmic planets. And as things move and as things transit, that's why you feel different from day to day, because those energies are shifting, right? The moon is responsible for high tide, low tide, and the magnetic and the gravitational pull of the moon causes entire bodies of water to move. And so you're eighty five percent water. You don't think the moon's going to have any impact on you. You're right. So so like everybody will completely surrender to the fact that the moon changes tides. But when you say the moon changes somebody's mood, they'll say, oh, that's bullshit. But you're eighty five percent water. But the moon will make entire oceans move. like and change and shift, right? But they sometimes refuse to face the fact that we're mostly water and the moon has an impact on us and our mood and how we show up and how we feel, right? There's so much truth in astrology and human design and gene keys and all these systems that when you really connect them, when you really understand them at a deep level, they will only change your entire life and how you perceive yourself. But that was scary for me to share for a long time because it was, it was weird. Oh shit. Right. And, uh, now the more I share it and I'm doing a workshop here in a little bit, but the more I share the soul sciences, the more the right people are leaning in. And I don't need everyone. There's 8 billion people on the planet. I don't need, I don't need 8 billion people. I just need the people that really connect to who I am and to what I share and what I teach. And those people's lives, that's who I'm here for. I'm not here for everybody else. I'm here for that little subset. And I just have to show them who I really am so that they can lean into me. I can't worry about everybody else. So if you're busy and you're worried about the people that aren't right for you, you'll miss out on finding the people who are right for you.

Yeah, I love that. You know, and going back to the astrology part, obviously, because you look at Christianity or Catholicism, like that type of stuff, you read the Bible. Yeah. Okay. You know, some of those Bible verses are, yeah, don't, you know, what is one don't, you know, uh, cherish the stars, moon, or, you know, stuff like that. And you're, you're like, Oh, I didn't even realize it. To be honest, like I had no idea.

The Bible's mystical, man. The Bible is mystical. It's not, it's, it's philosophical and it's mystical. There's a reason that, and look at the church's teachings. There's a reason that Easter changes where it is from year to year, right? It's the first Sunday after the fricking, the spring equinox. I mean, come on, it's Based on the three wise men, thousands of years ago, everybody, there were three stars that they called the three wise men. It's based on the Catholic Church adopted pagan principles to expand its population, right? That's why we have Christmas trees, and that's why there's wreaths, and that's why there's this freaking mistletoe. These are all pagan symbols, right? These are all paganism, and they were implemented and adopted by the church. to increase the number of people. These things are more intertwined and interconnected than we ever give credit to.

I guess that's a star on top of the Christmas tree.

It is. It's the same thing, man. If you look at Christmas, where Christmas is, it's the winter solstice. It's all the same stuff. I decided to lean into the spiritual truth that I feel inside, and if somebody doesn't That's okay.

Yeah, and you could also say that they have probably some cherished beliefs, and that's one thing that I've changed with myself. I'm real open to really anything, and even on politics, I will listen to other sides of people or comments and agree with them because they are right on a certain level because everybody's right. It's an opinion, right? But at the same time, yeah, I can give you my rebuttal to that or why I would be against it, but at the same time, point, like we're all right, like we all have it in us to do something amazing. So I can't look at that person and say, well, no, you're wrong about it.

Yeah, well, just like, you know, I said about how I believe in astrology, so I see, I see truth in, in astrology and what, whatever we, whatever belief we're holding, our life rearranges around it. Right? So, so when, when we change our beliefs, our life changes. So when you, whatever you look for evidence of your beliefs, you're going to find, just, you know, pick wisely, choose wisely. So, you could take this back to money mindset and I do a lot of, content creation and speaking about money mindset, whatever you believe to be true, you'll make true. So if you believe that making money is hard, you'll prove that right. You'll prove yourself right. If you believe that you have to work hard for your money, you'll make that true. You'll make it true for you. It doesn't mean it's true for everybody. You'll make it true for you. If you feel like life is dangerous, you will make that true for you. It might not be true for me, but you will make it true for you. So just look at your beliefs and ask yourself simply, is this belief serving me or is it not? Is it bringing me freedom? Or is it bringing me like struggle? And if it's bringing you struggle, then you can adopt for a higher belief unless you want to hold on to that struggle-ish belief. But you get to choose, right? I get to choose freeing beliefs and I choose freeing beliefs that say I'm infinite and I'm abundant and I'm part of like the grand scheme in the cosmos and I am God and you are God and we are God and we're divinity and there is no end of life. It serves me. It brings me a lot of freedom and it sure does feel better to hold that belief than something like Like, there's an end to all of this.

Yeah, I agree with the whole end part. Like, why would you want to, like, just be like, oh, there's a, you know. Obviously we know we have an exhale, like our last exhale, but at the same time, like the journey of this and then back to spirit, like saying, hey, or, you know, like you're not really dying. Like you're still here. You're just out of your meat suit now. That's it. That's it.

You're just on to the next form or lack of form. It doesn't matter. But the, the consciousness that you are doesn't, doesn't perish, man. It doesn't extinguish. You're just consciousness. That's it. There's two parts of our being. There's energy and awareness, and that makes consciousness. All right. The energy, energy can't be created and it can't be destroyed. So when your body is just energy slowed down to create some density. Make sense? Totally. So if you take a flashlight in the sky, think about this, all right? Listeners, like it's nighttime and you got a flashlight and you just move the flashlight across the sky, it's going to look like a line, right? You ever done that? Deal with your kids, right? When you move the flashlight across the sky real fast, it looks like a line, even though it's not. It just looks like a line. So atoms, the basic molecules and atoms, they're moving so fast, they're energy, but they're moving so fast that it looks dense. It looks like matter, but it's not matter. They're molecules, okay? They're atoms, but they're moving so rapidly and they're so compressed that it looks like meat, but it's just energy. Your meat suit is just energy. 99.999999% space in energy and 0.000001% matter. That's why when we, when you, what is it called? I can't, I just dumped the word. When we get cremated, there's a little pile of ash left. That's it. That's why all the rest, the whole body turns into this little handful of ash because we're 0.00001% matter. And the rest is energy and the fire just releases the energy. That's it. So there's we're not we're not solid. We're not real. You know, that's why when you burn wood, wood is energy, densified energy. And when you burn wood, it turns to ash. Right. Because you're really letting the energy it's letting the energy go from from the piece of wood. It's not real. It's not dense. It's just energy and a little tiny bit of matter. But it's energy. And that's us. We're energy, a little bit of matter, not a whole lot, a little bit of matter, but we're also awareness. And that makes up our overall consciousness. But people identified like we are the matter, even though that's so small, like the Big Bang started with a little tiny, tiny piece of matter that blew up. And that's why there's a little tiny bit of matter in you, because you are you have the same makeup as the stars. There's a little matter and a whole lot of energy and a whole lot of stardust, right? A little bit of stardust, a whole lot of energy. But the point is, you're not who you think you are if you identify with the body. We're not our body. The body will cease to exist, but that's not who we are. The awareness that's inside of the body or the awareness that is aware that it's wearing a meat suit, that's who you really are.

Yeah, that really, I mean, When you bring it all around like that, it really like, it really puts it into your brain. Like, man, like we are, we are lucky to be on this earth and we're lucky to be in this country. Um, I mean, yeah. Yeah. One in 400 trillion just to be born in the world. Right. Then you really break it down. And I was saying, what about to be born in the United States of America?

Yeah. Good luck.

Yeah. Jackpot. I guess we made it.

Yeah. We. there are people in this country and I just did a podcast episode about it was a Thanksgiving Day podcast right last Thursday and uh and I said we just got back from a trip to the Dominican Republic and we took this bus trip to go and and see some some beautiful things in in the in the Dominican but at the same time we saw a lot of really horrific things in the Dominican and on this bus trip there are shanty after shanty after shanty and that this basically looks like what would be a shed in the United States Sometimes they had doors and windows and sometimes they didn't. But either way, it was about the size of a shed and a family lives in these things. There's a rainwater collection system on top of the shanty. And the shanties are rusty and there's like, around the shanty, there's a bunch of garbage and there's hazards. And the kids are out there playing near all these hazards and stray dogs walking around. And I mean, it's like literally abject poverty. And they have no access to running water. They have no access to electricity. They have no access to the cooling. And it's hot in the Dominican. They have no access to to any environmentally controlled temperature for most of the country. most of the country. Are there pockets of prosperity? Absolutely. But for a lot of the country, it's abject poverty. And we get to get off, get up off our couch, go over to the faucet in the sink, turn the handle and water comes out. And there's most of the people on this planet do not have access to healthy water or running water, but healthy water, drinkable water that won't further damage them. And here we are, we need nothing. You open your fridge, I guarantee if you're listening to this, you open your fridge, there's food in there. I guarantee you have air controlled temperature around your house. I guarantee you have access to clean water. I guarantee that you have some shelter around you that's keeping you safe. If you're listening to this, right? Most people in the world don't have that right, that privilege. We are truly blessed. We are truly generously blessed in this world. Why do we take it for such granted, you think? Because things that are already present, typically, there's a quote by Eckhart Tolle that I love. It says, the mind wants to want more than it wants to have. Most people are living their life according to their mind instead of their soul. And the mind wants to want more than it wants to have. And this is why when you set a target and you set a goal, even before you get there, you're already moving the target. Because the mind's convincing you that what you have isn't enough, that it needs to be more. and the mind is addicted to more. So when the mind wants to want more than it wants to have, it doesn't take time to appreciate and feel gracious or feel gratitude for what's present in our life. And typically, again, if you're listening to this, you have what you need in your life. You might want more, but we sometimes confuse our wants and our needs and we put ourself in survival mode for our wants while we have everything that we need to exist and we need to thrive and we need to feel a sense of gratitude and stability in this world. But we identify more with our wants than our needs because the mind wants to want more than it wants to have. The meat suit right there. The meat suit. It's all tied together, man. The animal nature of you is always going to look for freedom and fulfillment in the future, but your soul knows it's here now, because it's only ever now. Again, going back to Eckhart Tolle, the only time you've ever lived is now. The mind assigns this miraculous coming to period in the future, and then when you get there, it's only now. If not now, not then either, because it's just a different now, like later.

I got, trust me, I got to pull like 14 layers of my brain back to even like, to like understand all that because like you really, it is so easy just to forget it and just to think it's just, well, that's just part of, that just comes with it. It's all inclusive life, right? But it's really not like all this stuff that we have and that we take for granted is not taken for granted and literally, numerous other places like we we are so lucky and I struggle with that daily like I'm I fight that all the time I'm like just accept it just you know I'm like pulling my brain back to just say like squeeze it together like just going just accept that like this is amazing that you get this stuff, like that your water turns on, that you have hot water, that you have a roof, that yeah, you don't have to drink rusty water. Because I've been to the Dominican Republic. It is sad. Like, it is. I mean, you have oxes that are still moving machines. Like there's an ox going in a circle, you know, grinding sugar cane, like, and it's just like, whoa, like, I wouldn't remember in Jamaica, I walked into a school. And I have red hair, of course. And they all looked at me like, Whoa, like, who is this guy? And I remember looking back and they're like, well, this guy's got like orangish red hair. What what planet are you from? And then I'm thinking to myself, yeah, what planet am I from?

There's a saying that over 50 percent of the population of the world has never seen a phone. So think about that, how connected we are to our phones and we live our whole life through our phone. And over 50 over 50 percent of the world's population has never seen a phone. And most of them don't even know what a phone is. Like this is this is first of all, my wife was sitting on the couch one time and said, you know what? Life was a lot easier when we were younger. And then she stopped and went. No, wait, fuck that. She said, I can get on my phone, order something from Amazon, and it hits me in the head like an hour later. Like, what a great time to be alive. And what a great time to be alive in a place where we can access all this technology and use it for the benefit of ourselves and for human humanity than to use it detriment, you know, detrimentally. And most people on this planet don't have access to any of the goodness that we have. But some of them are happier because, because they cherish like the goodness that they have instead of what they lack. And if they don't know what they lack because they don't know what we have, then they just accept what they have as perfectly suited until, until they, they see. And then that, you know, the crazy comparison sets in and comparison, man, it'll just cause a lot of pain and discomfort in your life that that's completely unnecessary.

Yeah, part of me always would be like, man, you need to just like go live over there for like a week just to appreciate what you have. And because it is hard, like I said, I struggle with this daily. Appreciate gratitude. It's, it's as simple as gratitude. Like, I mean, everything comes back to just giving thanks for what you have. Like, and nobody, like you say, nobody really gives thanks for turning on their water every morning.

No, and just make a game out of the rest of it. We have everything we need now. But like, as you said that I started connecting with, I'm a Marine vet and you really don't know what freedom is until you don't have any. And what I mean by that is I was a 20-year-old punk and I went to Marine Corps boot camp and suddenly, you know, I went from being able to make my own decisions and doing whatever I wanted to do and having complete autonomy and authority over myself of drinking what I wanted and eating what I wanted and sleeping when I wanted and waking up when I wanted. I, you know, and I had complete autonomy and authority over my life to the next day when I, when I was in bootcamp, I had authority and autonomy over nothing. And it's like when I came out of boot camp and reemerged into the world and went on leave and it was like, I appreciated life at a whole different level. Oh my God, I get to wake up when I want. It's crazy. You know, when my body wakes up instead of just when somebody tells me it's time to wake up. Um, so until it's taken away, you don't really appreciate it unless you, maybe you're listening to this podcast and you start to reflect on that and really start to express some gratitude and understand what you have right now.

Yeah, that's all I can really do. I can't go sign up for a war, but in terms of going to the Marines, I never really thought of it like that. Maybe we all should have a little stint in some type of a Marine or the Navy or whatnot, any of those branches, but I guess I guess the only thing I can do is just keep reflecting on my gratitude and just take it day by day and give thanks for everything I have.

Just constant gratitude. Look at what you have instead of what you don't have. And I think that there's a book called The Gap and the Gain, and it always talks about if you always compare yourself to the gap, you'll live a miserable existence. You'll always be unfulfilled. But if you compare yourself to where you've been, and, you know, compare yourself to your needs and that all your needs are met and you can continue to evolve and continue to play the game of business and continue to play the game of impact and the game of life and not take it too seriously. You always win. You always find that, you know, purpose, freedom and fulfillment that you're looking for.

Yeah, I love that. And kind of to wrap this all up, I just want to kind of throw it over to you and kind of give you a little like give you almost the ball and kind of give us a little like close of what you would tell somebody like, hey, if you're if you're wanting to change your mindset and you know, you're not all about the, you know, the hustle and the group, which I wasn't like, I'm not that's not what It's a fire under my butt. It's truly a different level of success. It has nothing to do with that. But tell somebody, what would you start with? You got InterWealth Global. You got this whole science stuff. You got so many different areas to enter and so many different doors to go in. What door would you choose?

I, I think the first question is, and only each listener or each person on the face of the planet can answer this question, right? Are you truly feeling a sense of purpose in this world? Right. And, and, and I think one way, one, I guess, line that I use that I love to use is you're not a coincidence. You're not a mistake. All right, you are on time and you are on purpose. You were born at a specific time to serve a specific purpose, and you are completely designed with desires, talents, and purpose that will impact the world in a specific way. Do you feel a sense of purpose? And if the answer is yes, keep going. If you do feel a sense of purpose, keep going. If you don't, then start to kind of weed through the stories that you're telling yourself, the fear-based stories. Are you feeling a sense of freedom? Are you feeling a sense of freedom? And I'm talking about internal and external freedom. I'm not talking about political freedom. I'm talking about a sense of freedom to be yourself, to live life on your terms, to own your time, to own your life, to own your outcomes? Do you feel like you are the creator or you are the victim of your life? Do you feel free to create a new life whenever you want? And if the answer is yes, keep going. If the answer is no, then start asking questions. Start understanding, start unpacking some of that stuff that's in your body, in your mind. Are you fulfilled? And I don't mean are you happy. I mean, are you fulfilled? I mean, do you feel like you are valuable and worthy and significant? Do you feel like life is better because you exist? Do you feel like people are better because you exist? Do you feel like a miracle? Do you feel innately blessed on a daily basis by things you can see and things you can't see. 99.5% of what life is you can't see. Do you trust life? Are you fulfilled? Do you feel complete inside right now? Not do you feel Are you looking for external circumstances to fill you and to make you complete? Are you trying to prove yourself? And if the answer's no, you're not trying to prove anything, and if the answer's yes, that you are fulfilled, then keep going. But if you're not fulfilled, if you don't feel like you have already arrived, then we got some work to do. Start questioning what's going on in your mind and body. This is the work that I do with people. And it's just we start to really understand what's happening inside of them from a conditioning perspective, from a programming perspective, from a comparison perspective, from having understanding at a deep level of where you are living as the ego, the fear-based part of you, the fear-based animal, or the soul. And we start to differentiate, because only by connecting to the truth of the soul that you are, are you gonna find the true purpose, the freedom and fulfillment. You're not gonna find those three things in the animalistic ego. You're never gonna arrive, and when you do get to your last exhale, there's probably gonna be some regret there. And then, you know, I don't, I don't know about you, but like I said before, I want my last thought to be that was fucking awesome. Like I left it all on the table and it was a lot of fun and the world's better because I existed. And if I could help in any way, that'd be awesome. My business is InterWealth Global. Our website is www.interwealthglobal.com. I do a lot of stuff on social media. My Facebook profile, first and foremost, a lot of silly posts, but I also invite into workshops, and I invite into speaking engagements, and I invite into webinars, and I have a course, You Kingdom, I Choose Your Destiny course. Successful people choose their destiny, unsuccessful people chase their destiny, right? Spiritual beings choose their destiny. Material beings, they chase their destiny. On Facebook, YouTube, I post a lot of inspirational content, a lot of things that'll just give you a different way of perceiving life. And I do have books. I am a published author. My first book is called The Impostor in Charge. My second book is called The Prosperity Principles. And my third book, it's called Inner World, Outer World. It'll be out at the beginning of 2025. But connect with me, follow me, and reach out. I love, oh, I've got a podcast too. It's called the Inner Wealth Podcast. I'm very proud of that podcast. But these are all, a lot of this content is my gift to the world to try to inspire and try to, you know, help people level up and help find that purpose, freedom, and fulfillment. So, but if ever I can assist and you're open to me standing beside you shoulder to shoulder like Blake did, reach out, just connect with me in any way.

Yeah, it's powerful because it's not the hustle whores and the grind gurus or however you phrase that. It really is something completely different. It's my kid go. You can't replicate what you're teaching other people. A lot of these hustle people, they can take stuff off of other people's plates and then rebrand it or white label it for themselves. But you can't do that with how you teach it in the mindset part. It just can't be like taught to somebody to teach. You almost have to like go through it like and figure it out and and understand on your journey that. That my purpose is to now share my journey, right?

Yeah, well, I'll say, you know, I've got. At least five, eight figure people with net worths in excess of eight figures that call me. to help them find a sense of purpose, freedom and fulfillment. The money's good. Money is awesome fuel, but it's a horrible destination. That money isn't going to give you a sense of purpose, freedom and fulfillment. You got to find that and explore that for yourself. Now, I say we do both. Let's go. Let's go hit the gas on the spiritual purpose and find that and find the spiritual goodness. And at the same time, let's go make some money so we can experience this world in its abundance. And it's interconnected. That's the thing. Very interconnected. As you change who you are inside, the outside chain rearranges itself, right? The world is a reflection of your beliefs. And when you change what you believe and you connect a higher level belief, you'll see your material circumstances change almost like called automagically.

Automagically. I like that. Well, any last words before we part ways? And we'll do this again because I really enjoyed this conversation. I know we could just keep talking forever. Put us on a stage and we'll just keep going. I'm sure people are going to listen to this. I know people are going to listen to this and take something out of it, whether it's just one just step back of just, hey, gratitude or, or just, you know, one mindset shift over maybe the soul science or just something, just one little, like you say, just one person is all you need. You're not meant to impact a ton of people. It's just a small group of people that you're supposed to impact. And there's probably one or two people that are going to listen to this that are meant to be over here.

So, you know, you know, if you're living your life by design or if you're just being, you know, a victim of circumstance. You know, if you're living in creation mode or in survival mode, if you're always fear in the future, if you're, you know, if you're, I mean, insecurity is fear of losing, fear of, like, loss, inadequacy is you don't believe in yourself and you're trying to prove yourself to somebody else. trying to prove yourself to yourself. If you feel insignificant that you're trying to feel like you matter, you're living in survival mode.

Everything you just said is exactly how I felt before I put myself into that room. I get it. This podcast is creation mode, baby. Yeah. I love it. I love it. Yeah. We're going to keep going. This is my purpose, I think. Like I said, this is episode 17. I get to have my kid go on here. It's been truly incredible.

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