I have been jumping for joy from the moment Steven agreed to do an interview for the Reality Revolution. You are going to love it.
To say I am a big fan of Steven Barnes is an understatement. Steven is a true master in a variety of areas and brings a very special combination of knowledge and experience that is unique and powerful.
Just to give you some background. Steven Barnes is a huge writer that has written over 30 books and is one of my favorite writers. Barnes has written several episodes of The Outer Limits and Baywatch. He has also written the episode “Brief Candle” for Stargate SG-1 and the Andromeda episode “The Sum of Its Parts”. Barnes’s first published piece of fiction, the 1979 novelette “The Locusts”, was written with Larry Niven, and was a Hugo Award nominee. Barnes subsequently collaborated with Niven on several other books, including two books with both Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
Barnes is also an avid practitioner of martial and physical arts. He began studying in 1969.[4] He is a black belt in Kenpo Karate (BKF style), and Kodokan Judo. He holds an instructor certificate in Wu Ming Ta, and has an instructor candidate ranking in Filipino Kali stick and knife fighting. He is an advanced student in Jun Fan kickboxing (Bruce Lee method under Dan Inosanto), and is an instructor in Wu-style t’ai chi ch’uan under Hawkins Cheung.
He is an intermediate student in self-defense pistol shooting (preferring the Turnipseed modified Weaver method). He holds a brown belt in Shorenji Jiu Jitsu, and intermediate rankings in Tae Kwon Do and Aikido. He completed the Yoga Works basic Hatha Yoga instructor program; is studying Pentjak Silat (an Indonesian fighting system) with Guru Stevan Plinck, and Ashtanga Yoga.
Steve is also an incredible life coach and has a unique view of the law of attraction. His teachings have helped me break through my fear and to finish my first book. I learn something new every time I listen to him. Steve walks the walk. His life is a clear example of how using the law of attraction and reality creation can help improve every aspect of your life.
In this interview, we talk about his morning routine, how to find a mentor, how to collaborate with people you may not agree with, how to apply the law of attraction and gives the formula to help you to accomplish your goals and realize your dreams. He also gives a few recommendations for movies and TV shows to watch.
If you do not know Steven I am so excited to introduce you to him. This interview is incredible. He has so much knowledge to offer. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!
Steven and his wife offer an amazing six-week workshop on the film and literature of black horror that has lectures, guests and interactive social media. If that is one of your interests I totally recommend it. Check it out at www.sunkenplaceclass.com
Check out his youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/sebarnes2001
Find him on facebook – https://www.facebook.com/steven.barnes
Welcome to the reality revolution. I’m your host, Brian Scott, and this is dedicated to all those spirits out there who believe life is meant to be magical and fun. Here we’ve ventured to share the very mysteries of self and reality. My purpose is to help light that spark inside of you to reawaken your sense of fascination and awe towards the world. I’m going to try to help you hack reality and unleash your potential and open unlimited possibilities of wealth, health, and relationships in Europe, in your
life today. I am incredibly excited. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have Steven Barnes. Man, I’m giddy right now. I’m nervous. I cannot tell you how exciting this is. I’ve known Steve Ever. I’ve known Steve. Let me give you a little bit of background for the people that may not know. I don’t know how you can’t, but I may not know. This is the perfect mix. First of all, I’m a huge Scifi fan, so my first exposure to Steve, Steve has written episodes of Stargate, of Andromeda, of uh, he’s has a novelette based on a deep space nine. He’s actually written a star wars novel. So many different things. He’s written with Larry Nivon, some incredible books. I have so many books in my collection that I’ve read that I recommend. Blood brothers, uh, iron shadows is great. Charisma is wonderful. Uh, the coon Daleney equation, one of the best, I think that was my first exposure.
I remember I was about 14 and I saw this paper back and it was just fascinating and I cannot believe I get a chance to talk to Steve Right now. People are maybe asking, why am I talking to this science fiction writer? What people may not know is that Steve is also has participated as a life coach and has deep knowledge. Just to give you a little bit, you may actually know Steve as Tanner redos husband because she’s also a great writer. There’s, I’m from the history. If you, Steve, his father used to sing with Nat King Cole as I understand, um, as a background singer. Um, and we’ve talked about some of his books. He writes so much, but he’s also an avid practitioner of Marshall and physical arts. And, um, if you follow his Facebook page, he talks about a lot of that stuff. He is, uh, he’s been studying it since 96.
69. He has a black belt and Kempo karate and Kodokan judo. He holds an instructor certificate in warming top and has an instructor candidate ranking in full Filipino Kelly stick and knife fighting. He’s an advanced student in June fan kickboxing and as an instructor in Wu style types, each one under Hawkins Cho. He’s an intermediate student in self defense pistol shooting. He holds a brown belt and Syringe Jujitsu and an intermediate ranking in taekwondo. At least this is what I’m getting from, from your Wikipedia page, just to give you some background. But the thing that I’m most interested in talk to Steve about because he has talked about the law of attraction and some of the, the techniques that he is used. So I don’t, I don’t even know where to get started, but I’m so excited. How are you doing today, Steve?
You know, I’m doing great. I got, I woke up this morning and I always start with a daily ritual. We can talk about that. Um, and it has to do with the law of attraction. And then I, I map out what are the most important things for me to get done today. So I’ve done that. I’ve done yoga and martial arts and Thai Chi and did a, I did kettlebells with my wife. I love, love, love working out with her. I got, you know, four pages done on one project, polished another project and did five pages on a, on a fiction writing project. And I’ve been trying to get going for it for almost 10 years. I’ve got a graphic novel. And so, you know, the rest of the day is mine. My, I got my son off to football after sitting him down and talking to him about the law of attraction. You know, I don’t know in those particular words we can go into that. I call it the magic formula, but it’s the same. It’s the same.
And I definitely want to talk about your, your magic formulas. Yeah,
I’ve broken it down so that my 15 year old football playing son who is really on that, you know, I don’t care. I don’t care. Please, you know, his development where he understands that, that he’s willing to accept me slipping in some wisdom. What I’m looking at right now is these, these, the next five years of his life, three of high school, maybe two years of junior college. This is the period that I’m going to get to effect him for the rest of his life.
Then I want to talk about how also that’s a question for later is how, how we teach it to our kids. Absolutely. We begin. Let’s, let’s begin with that. One of the most important things and that I’ve learned from you, a large part of my morning routine. I’ve learned from you. Um, I incorporate the five Tibetans, but I really want to get a specific breakdown of your morning routine and how it’s changed in a, an effected youth to help other people that are listening. So when you wake up in the morning, you open your eyes and start from that
very first thing I do want to wake up in the morning is I envisioned my body as if it’s a sac filled with syrup surface kind of dark. And I, I will see how long it takes for the syrup to kind of drain out. And what I wait is for my body to feel light and cool. If it feels heavy and dark, then I know that there’s still fatigue in there. And where I will try to do is to sleep until that trans away. But after that, the first thing I do is I’ll connect with kind of my child’s self. You know, the, the about an eight year old version of me sitting at my tailbone so that if I sit up at that point, at some point I’ll sit up there. But I just kinda connect with him and kind of, I might spend a little bit of a few of those moments, you know, between sleeping, between when you’re sleeping and when you wake up.
It’s called the hypnogogic state. Right. And it’s a hyper impulse state and you can actually use that for, you know, fantasizing, lucid dreaming or imprintation, you know, what is it that I want to do today? So I will use that to kind of get in touch with my instincts. So that kind of gets me going. So I’ll spend 10 to 20 minutes meditating in a seated position. I’ll get up, brush my teeth, wash my face, put in my contact lens, make myself a cup of tea, and then I’ll sit down with probably with Brandon Bouchard’s high performance plan, which I really like. And I, I’m trying to understand that in the five months since I’ve been using his stuff, what I’ll tend to focus on one person’s stuff for about a year and I’ll go deep into it and then I’ll try something else. So he has, uh, six high-performance principles.
Um, the clarity, energy, um, C C clarity, that’s rightness, necessity, productivity, influence, encouraged her. Right? So I’ll, I’ll, I’ll make, I’ll put together his, uh, his journal. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll fill it out and, and look at those things. And then I will do what I consider my formal morning ritual and that, and I’m a little bit lazy. I might, you know, browse some emails and get on a look at Caesar. But the formal morning ritual, which I’ve been doing now for maybe six, seven years is I do it while I’m moving and specifically I’ll do it while I’m doing Tai Chi. Okay. And I will start by chanting, uh, making chants out loud. You know, something along the lines of, of every day and every way I’m getting better and better. God’s wealth is circulating in my life, is well flows to me in avalanches of abundance.
All I, all my needs, desires, dreams and goals come to me instantly because I am one with God. And God has everything you’re doing while moving. Right? That’s right. That’s the key. That’s the, you have to be moving while you’re doing it because the voices in your head that demon voices are going to try to say, oh, this is crap. But if one of your goals, what if one of my goals are to get better at Thai Chi, for instance, than simply performing Tai Chi is a step along that path. So the boy is saying, well, this doesn’t work, has to compete with the reality of the fact that I’m actually doing it. See, and so that’s a thing that, that you’re, you want to separate out those voices so that you start becoming aware of when you’re real and when you’re not real. You know, which, which voices in your head are real number.
So I’ll start with, with, with the, the, the confidence, you know, everyday and everyone getting better and better. A statement about where I am in life and what’s going on in life and the reality of my life. Then I’ll go from there to giving thanks. Gratitude giving thanks for blessings. I already have. There’ll be, I am so grateful for a strong, healthy body. I’m so grateful for on healthy mind. You know, and I’m so grateful for the people who love me and trust my son Jason. My daughter Nikki. See, uh, one of, one of the top NLP trainers in the world. I spent 500, $5,000 to spend a weekend with this guy one-on-one, um, just to have him get into my head. And he discovered that anytime I’m talking about my daughter or my kids now, uh, my energy would immediately pop no matter what, where, no matter how tired I was or what, anytime he got me to think about my daughter bank, I’m there.
Right? So it is that sense of, of feeling grateful for the love and my, my ability to contribute. And you know, it’s the blessings of my family, my beautiful, brilliant wife and my sister Joyce. And I’ll go through my blessings, you know, for Larry Nivon and Mr Mohammad. And I literally think about all of the things in my life that are already wonderful. See, because if you don’t believe that you’ve already experienced blessings, why would you believe that tomorrow’s going to be better than today? Why would you believe in anything? Why bother trying if you don’t believe in it? So the trick is to, is to look at is to watch yourself as you give thanks for the blessings of your past and what you already have. What is your physiology? What’s your tone of voice? How are you using your face? How, how are you moving?
Then when you talk about your longterm goals, which, which have both longterm goals and the things that I have to do today to make them happen, I tried to use the same physiology. I you use the same tone of voice, the same body movement while I’m talking about what I will do or what I will have that I use, talking about what I’ve already got. So I’m tricking my body into total confidence that I can do this, that I should do this. So a, and so I will go through and so there’ll be the blessings of the past. Give thanks for the successes that are to come. And then I will close things out with, with more gratitude. I’m so grateful, um, that you know, it’s the, all I need is within me now. All, all the strength I need is within me. Now. All the love I need is within me now. And I’ll go edit with shirts. You know the thing, you know all, all the clarity, you know, all the energy, all the everything.
Third one. I keep forgetting, I’ve always raised it. I have it up on my board here. See clarity, January energy raised the necessity, increased productivity and then yeah, I was
going to clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence. Right. So I will actually, I’ll say those things and I listen to the tone of my voice. You know, if I need more energy, if I need more, if I’m having problems than during that 10 minutes, 20 minutes. When I’m doing the Tai Chi, all I have to do is do it more intensely. Make deep the stance, raise my voice, you know, put more force into it. I will. If it’s my, it’s my diagnostic for the day as well as my medicine for the day. So, you know, that’s my basic, that’s my basic morning routine. Yeah.
Wow. So when w let me ask specifically, when you wake up, how soon do you start drinking water? How soon? When do you start eating?
You know, basically I, I’ll, I’ll wake up about 20 minutes of meditation and then then I will, um, make myself a cup of tea. The tea has their very specific things. I’m medium chain triglycerides. There’s um, uh, a, uh, something called fast ball asked made by a dirt, Pearson and Sandy Charlotte urban life extension. That is basically a caffeine and the cofactors that make fenal Alanine. Uh, the no acid that you’re, uh, no, um, caffeine, caffeine causes a norepinephrine dump, then there gets the ties due to an orphan ever. No, no. It’s cocaine that caused the nerve and everyone is, that’s savage. Um, but cut caffeine sensitizes you to your brain’s version of adrenaline norepinephrine. So the amino acid that your body uses to make that neurotransmitter is fenal. Alani. And so what Dirt Pearson has sandy shod did was they made this stuff that combines caffeine and being an [inaudible] and a few other cofactors. So your brain is not only sensitized, but it actually is getting the building block that it needs to make it in the first place.
Okay. So what was that again? Let’s just, so I don’t forget the, you said that what you put in your tea? It’s the,
okay. The first thing I put in my team is meeting MCT oil, MCT. Um, and then it’s, it’s fast blast, you know, which is care cap, caffeine and feel for the wallet. And then there is something called [inaudible] collage, which is an herbal jam. Um, uh, g, you know, a clarified or plus herbs. It’s, it’s just an, an ayurvedic of herbal supplement that I’ve taken for maybe 25 years. I’m putting it on my list. So it’s winch that experiment with this stuff in Seattle. Yeah.
I, I feel like I’m a collector and I’m just collecting morning routines all the time. So when you meditate, is it better to meditate after you do your workout or before do you find work, work,
pay. I meditate first thing in the morning. But if you’re doing it afterwards, that’s fine. Yeah. I like to, I like to set my tone for the day, you know, and I will go up my shock rose and I will, I have, you know, different, if I have four major goals sets in the world, there is my career. So I want to move it. A theatrical picture is my last major goal that I have in my life. I’ve got everything else I ever wanted, right? Um, I want my son to get, be getting straight A’s k because what that means to him, if he can do that and be enjoying his life at the same time, he has become the young man that I know he’s capable of being. Um, and because my wife and I are very connected on that, what works well there also works well for our marriage.
So [inaudible] art, movie, family, Jason getting straight A’s a business. I want to make $1 million on my internet business, right? And then there’s some very specific things I’m doing there. Joint, what’s called the two comma club and Oprah bottles. And um, there’s a, there’s a fourth. Oh, my body. Uh, I, I have some very specific goals that require that I need to increase my energy and clarify my energy at a time when, you know, I’m supposed to be slowing down and retiring. Right? So the question is I had, well, what can I do to, to acknowledged the reality that I’ve got less energy now than I had when I was 30, but what I can do is manage it better. I can man much better and I can be more like a laser in, in accomplish the exact things that need to be accomplished rather than just like a searchlight with the energy going in all directions.
That’s what I use is like, Woo. Now, you know, most of the time I’m pretty laid back. I’ll, I, I’ll put my energy up for something like this because it’s appropriate. Okay. So, um, I decided, I think I want to join the, you know, I, you read off my, my bone Athena is in terms of martial arts. Back in the late seventies, I was training with Dan Inosanto, a Bruce Lee’s air air, uh, in the Filipino Kali Academy, Filipino stick fighting and knife violence stuff like, and I was, and I was also kickboxing there and I was an instructor candidate but I never went through the instructor print training program. Um, I’m thinking, you know something, Danny is still alive. He’s 82 years old. He is an absolute walking miracle. Um, and he knows who I am and he would recognize me easily on the street to have somebody at his level where there is a personal connection. I said, you know something, I’m going to humble myself and ask him if I can join his instructor training program. I’d be, I’d be older than any of the other people in the program, but it would force me to bring my a game and have that physical goal, force me to take care of my body better, make sure I’m resting fully and that energy I can then use over here in my career.
So when you, when do you, I’m sorry, when do you go to bed? Usually a, what’s your, you, you sleep, you pull eight hours
that w during the, uh, you bet your ass I get eight hours. I mean if I get late [inaudible] eight hours of sleep, I fall apart. Okay. If I get all the rest I need, I never get sick. I mean, really it’s for all practical purposes, this is true. I never get sick, but if I don’t get the sleep I need, my body falls apart. My Body starts remembering how long I’ve been on the planet. I do not want it. Remember that. So I usually go to bed because my son has to get up. Uh, you have to be at school by eight 20 or something like that. I usually have to get up by six 30 which means that I would start making up by six which means that I should go to bed at 10 except that I don’t, I usually go to bed, leaven, but my, but I’m going to be staying in bed until seven o’clock when the next semester comes up.
It’s my wife pointed out to me that Jason does not need me until about eight o’clock in the morning, get a certain number of things taken care of. I won’t work out before I, I work with him, but I, I might just, I might do the Tai Chi and a little bit of martial arts before, so during the summer I don’t want to get too far off that schedule, so I’m going to bed at 11 1130 right, so you, that brings me then, do you have a evening routine before you go to bed that you’ve integrated into your total? Kind of, I mean, in the evening, in the evenings, my wife and I get together and we watch movies that we watch to tell them, Yup, we’ll binge watch something on Netflix or watch a DVD of the Larry Sanders show and have a good laugh together and watch a good scare.
And then the last 15 minutes where I go to sleep, I probably going to watch an episode of robot chicken, man. All right. That’s good chicken man that works. Those silly things. And then I might meditate. I will, I’ll definitely fill out my journal in the evening, right? I Journal in the morning journal in the evening, um, and I might very well, uh, do a little bit of meditation. I started doing a little bit of meditation in the evening, just kind of checking in again, kind of thinking, well, how’s the day been, you know, did I get everything taken care of? You know, am I ready to die in essence by if I died. And I, you know, now I, now I lay me down to sleep, you know, it’s been a good day. Have I, have I contributed? Have I given love to the world? Have I helped anyone today?
If I didn’t help somebody today, I, I’m, I’m likely to go look for somebody to help. You know what I mean? Find somebody on Facebook. I love that trouble. Let me get in some contribution to the world. You need to do that because there are so many voices that we hear that say that we should not aim and high levels of accomplishment, you know, we, you know, it’s at, it’s too much to ask for. So if you get the feeling, every time I bump up a notch, everything, every win that I get, I’m going to help the world. Everything I do, I’m going to be as much used to the world as possible. You do that and you start feeling like, well, Gee, I guess I need to get rich for the good of the world. Don’t think about me. I need to be successful so that I can show other people how to be successful so I can help with the, we just, to be honest about it, we just helped out some people who were found themselves homeless and you know, I won’t go into it too much, but there on the other side of the country and you know, took us several thousand dollars to get them out of that, out of that problem and on a bus to, to where they were there to a place where they have some resources to be able to do that for Tananarive Dakota means is, Steve, this is what it’s going to cost.
You know, can we do this? And I’m, I looked at it and look at our finances and say, yeah, we can do this. We should do this. This is, this is who we are in the world. And to know that I have a woman who believes and trusts that I would get that, that she believes and trusts me and I, you know, and, and would align with me that we have the capacity to be abundant enough that we can do that, that is meaningful to me. You know, the IP I get to feel I’m a good guy. I’m one of the good guys. I help, you know, I have no doubts about the fact that I deserve to be frigging rich.
So that, that brings me to one of your favorite, my favorite teachings of yours. I remember that you were talking about the first time that you read the science of getting rich by Wallace wattles and you mentioned, and you mentioned that your ego had kinda didn’t want you to know this information that you, after you had read it, you had kind of, you noticed that you had to go back and specifically write out some of the, that there was a point in time where you realized that your ego was fighting you on acquisition of some of this knowledge. Am I right?
Great Story. Um, what happened is that, uh, due to a family emergency, we had to move to Atlanta. Right. Um, and, um, it was devastating to me because it disrupted my writing career in New York, and it also disrupted my writing career in Hollywood. It doomed my writing career, Hollywood. Right. Um, and I was, I was a shattered. Um, I, I d I have no idea. It was one of those times when it felt like my life was over the road after I created from childhood on how to guide my life. It just evaporated, I thought,
turned out to be a great advantage to you.
Well, it ended up being that, but it didn’t look that way from where I was from. Looking back from where I am, 100% agreement. But at that time it felt like death if the amount of pain, I said it felt the amount of pain I experienced with my mother was dying. It was that level of pain every month. Okay. So I realized that one of the things that I had stopped doing was giving myself input of the best philosophical and practical advice about how do you run your life. Then when my mother got me started with that with think and grow rich and the power of positive thinking and psycho-cybernetics and the golden key and the strangest secret and the diamonds and the message to Garcia and on and on, you know, she would have this, you know, LP of, of thinking rich, you know, and she would play this thing over and over again.
So I thought I was going to go nuts, but you know, something, it sink in, right? Just sink in. Um, and so I started going back through some of my old books. I had read that the, the, the, the, the secret, the law of attraction had been based on a couple of earlier books. There were some early books that were very important to the writing center, and one of those was the science of getting rich by Brian’s idols is available free on the Internet. So I downloaded a copy of it and I read it or no, no, no. I think I bought a copy of it and then I bought a copy of it and I read it and then I read it again a second time and I couldn’t remember nothing. Right, right. Literally could remember nothing of what was in that book. It was like, what the heck do I got to?
I mean, what’s going on here? It just literally in one ear and out the other. I think my brain would not hold what this book well said. So I said, you know something, I suspect that there’s some part of me that does not want to hear this, that there’s something in this book that is threatening to me. So what I did was I would read one page at a time and read it over and over and over again, and then I would right a one sentence. A condensation of quote was on that page. Right. If I had to read the page for an hour, I wouldn’t do it. Then I’d go to the next page and I do the same thing. Say It took me a couple of weeks to go through this little tiny book, 60 pages like this, writing down one sentence to represent the basic content of each page that gave me a, a document that was maybe three pages long.
Then I went through that document and I boiled that down and I went through that document. I boil that down and boil that down and boil that down until after a couple of weeks. I had four words that roughly, you know, we’ve, we, I’ve done some changing to this now to make an easily memorable, memorable, uh, mnemonic, right? Magic. It was magic. The acronym Magic Mac Magic Equals Action Times, gratitude times and t intention types, confidence, right? And the key to that is the times meaning if any of those are zero, zero, you’ve got to love that. If you have, if you, if you put each of them on a scale of zero to nine, right? If you’ve got, if you’re taking no action, you get nothing, right? You’re taking action without gratitude out your heart being filled with love already, you’re going to end up chasing accomplishment, trying to get a feeling that cannot, you can.
Feelings are not directly connected to external events or possessions. You can have all the external events and possessions in the world and feel totally hollow. So you have to start by being grateful. And then if you don’t have a clear intention, what is it you’re talking to accomplish? Right? What did you do? And then the confidence or the conviction, you have to believe that you can and should have this have to. You have to take action. You need to start with, with gratitude. You need to have a clear idea of what you’re trying to accomplish. And you have to have the belief that you can and should do this, that your efforts to do this will lead you to more pleasure than pain. If you believe on some level while it’s possible. But if I do it, it’s gonna hurt. You’re gonna be driving with your bright sun.
So if you have a zero on any one of those, the whole thing is zero. But if you have at least on one in all of them now, anything that you do, if I’ve got a one in terms of, of, of, of confidence, I just believe a little bit that I’m taking a lot of action, right? Gratitude for where I am and I have a clear sense of my goal. I’m going to be kicking butt, you know? And if I can get that up to at least a two or three if I, you know, it’s like, so right now, you know, if I was to take a look where I am today in terms of finishing this graphic novel where God, if I’m flooding some goal in my life, you know, finishing the graphic knowledge, you know, in terms of action, I took five pages of action on that today.
You know, in terms of gratitude. God, I’m so grateful because I’ve been trying to get this going for 10 years and I finally got somebody who’s willing to put out some money, you know, to, you know, to get Tim to publish it. And I have the opportunity to work with Charles Johnson, one of my idols and a friend, you know, literary writer of note and he wants to work on this with, with little old me. It, it’s like why some? Yeah, it’s as great and clear intentions. Yeah. It’s going to be about 240 pages. Graphic novel. I can see what it is. I’ve got books on, I’ve got the, the annotated watchman, you know, sitting over here.
Right, right.
Yeah. Best graphic novel written man.
Is this a definite favor? No doubt about it. I did not know there was an annotated edition. Oh yeah, that’s fine.
I’m messing around. Right. And then my confidence, I believe that if I bring everything I have to this, it could be outstanding and that’s, that is my, that is my commitment. So I’ve got, I’m taking action, I’ve got gratitude, I have a clear vision of what I want and I believe in myself. Nothing can stop me if I’ve got all four of those.
That’s why I was so excited to have you on. You’re very authentic. You put on Facebook live videos all the time and a lot of times it’s just you having this deep desire to help at least one person out there. I see that you, I mean you, you know that you reach out one person with some of your teachings and that was a real breakthrough with me when when you with the magic was that if you take one step and you’re not in any of those other things are zero. It’s wordless and interesting. Just just the idea that I need to integrate gratitude and action in all of these things even just a little bit. And once I started doing that, it’s a big difference and it’s something anybody listening to this
and so do you do your show for a young version of you, right, exactly. That’s exactly what I’m doing. What do I wish I could’ve heard 20 years ago, 30 years ago? Whatever it is, right? You do that then you’re being authentic. So I’m always talking to a younger version of yourself. Times two, my daughter, you know, younger female version of me, the rest of you guys that is looking over my shoulder, it might get me having a conversation with your enemy. That’s right. And if I do that, then I’m being honest and if I’m like right now I’m working on a product, it has the potential to be the best thing I’ve ever done. Basically it was a lady named dawn Callen. I mentioned her as being then the female half of my martial arts training. She taught a women’s self defense workshop where in two days she could teach them into how to access their survival drive in a way that most martial arts schools can in two years.
I mean, I’m serious. She was, she was amazing and it’s taken me decades for her to trust me enough to be willing to talk to me about the spiritual core of this kick ass work of hers. It’s like Mike McGinn spiritual, you know, core. Um, and the question we have is what, what can be communicated without putting people through a live combat experience. And there is a lot. It is way we look at it, it’s going to require some kind of a physical discipline, but that could conceivably be breathing or walking. It doesn’t have to be getting hit in the face. Although getting hit in the face is very useful. Instant feedback. Um, and if I do this, then I’m going to do this for the young man that I was, who had so much problem with fear. Um, it took me 17 years to earn my first black film because I was dealing with so much fear and I had no understanding of how to cope with it. No, I had I no one to help me understand what was going on inside me. Um, and when I finally found those resources and began to stack them up, um, I, I created in myself exactly the kind of human being I was looking to create. It’s not that you don’t have fear, it’s that the fear is an improper perspective in your life. Most people, it’s like they’re there.
They are here, they’re here and the thing that they want is here and the fear is in between them. Right. And can’t get to what they’re looking for because of the fear. All you have to do is switch that around so that you’re here. What you want is here and the fear is back here, right here. But now you’re more concerned with dying without expressing yourself to the world of being inauthentic. You’ve made your peace with the fact that no matter what you do, you’re going to die. And once you make peace with that, it might impact how long it takes you to do that. Then you understand that what’s critical is the way that you live in the, you know, what are you committed to, what, what is important to you. Um, and when you get clear on that both, that there is no way to stop yourself from dying and that there are things that you want to do to effect the world beyond the envelope of your death.
You’re using the fear of death to actually motivate yourself to action and consistent action and to connect yourself to, to accomp, not accomplishment, but to, to values in the world. You know, what’s more important than your own life. You know, love is more important people, people growing and evolving is more important. My children are important to me. You know, racial harmony in America is important in my country is important to me. Humanity’s important to me. Life on earth is important. So you’d go out from the, the, the personal in the specific and you move outwards as close to the universal as you can get. When you do that, then the fear is what makes me wake up every morning and embrace life. The fear is what makes me hugged my every day. But it makes me reach out and tell my daughter that I love her, makes me kiss my wife every day and tell her how grateful I am that she has chosen to spend her life with me. Makes me take Larry NIBIN out for father’s day to understand. And that, that, that my journey of life goes one way. I don’t get to go back and do things. So I want to be as good as I can possibly be to the people who helped me without whom I could not be who I am. So that’s, that’s what I do with my fear, right? Fear.
It feels like we’re right now in a moment in our country where we have a choice between fear and love. And we’re not dealing with our fears, we’re dealing with it,
we’re dealing with them. It’s just that we’re not dealing with them in a, in an elegant way. And this is from my position in the moment of solution and you know, we’re, and we’re going to get through it and people who’ve been through much worse things than this and it’s, but it’s still painful. I feel pain for my contract. You’ll pay pain for the people who are afraid of change and people who want change and are afraid that it will never come. That on both sides there is a lack of faith in, in the dream of what America is. I’ve never lost that faith. I love my country. And one of the,
one of the things that really stands out in your career and your epic life that you’ve had, you have, uh, an a remarkable ability to acquire mentors, incredible mentors that have along the way. You go back and look at anybody. Uh, and, and so I have to ask you what if I, what if somebody wants to get that mentor? Uh, like Larry Nivon, uh, one of your first books, the locust I think was your first story that you wrote with Larry and Evan. And then of course there’s been a ton of books that you’ve written together. The Dream Park series is great. The legacy of, uh, the legacy of here, which, or the third legacy here at book is going to be coming out early next week. Those are good. And you worked with Jerry Panell as well. And so for the person that’s in your position when you were younger, how do you go about finding a mentor? A lot of times that’s all it takes, but for a lot of people, there’s the fear in a lot of people they don’t know. And really that’s all they need is just one good mentor that can take them to the next level. And I think that you’re the perfect example of that. And what can we learn from your journey in finding these mentors that have changed your life?
Here’s what I could say. And the interesting thing, I have a friend named Al CBRE who was known for Doctor Al Siebert. He’s known for his work and human resiliency under stress. He said to me, once a Steve, you have, uh, more ability to find the resources you need to move your life forward than anybody I have ever met.
It’s true. I’m, I agree with him. Yeah. And
that’s kind of interesting. So if I were to, if I were to say, okay, let me take a look at the people who have been the most important mentors to me. How did I get them? Well, there are some cases where it’s hard for me to explain how I selected them though. Those vite, if I can say in terms of the martial arts, I knew what I wanted, which was to live my life without fear inhibiting me. And that translated to a certain level of martial arts mastery, certain level of physical confidence along with the aesthetics of beautiful movement. And I went to a martial arts expo and I saw Steve Mohammad and Steve Sanders at that time doing a mass attack thing were four or five of the students tacked him. He was spondon with a level of speed power. I had just never, I’ve never seen anything like it and in that, but there was precision and there was love because he was not hurting his students.
It was very clear. I found out later on that it wasn’t even rehearsed, you know, I got to be one of the students attacking him. It was just like, attack me and he is blinded it. It’s like, holy crap. I, I went to him and became a student and my fear knocked me out of the class over and over again. Um, but I kept coming back. I, I would study other things. I kept coming back. So I had to know what it was I was looking for. I had to be able to recognize it when I saw it. And then I willing to put myself in a situation where I had a chance to get to know them. In his case, it was bring my sweat, blood and money to become a member of the class. But over time we became friends and family. It took a long time.
I had to be willing to really invest with, um, with dawn Callan, my search for, for martial arts master. He took me to a, a workshop that that was about connecting spiritual native American spiritual practice to martial arts. It was held in the tach me mountains for 10 days. And I went there and I saw this woman, this little woman teaching, and I saw her power. And so I said, I want to be friends with her and so how can I serve her? So she did these women’s self defense workshops. So I became the first male sponsor of her self defense workshops. And in the process I got to know her. Um, Octavia Butler. I’d been a writer. Now I’d love to hear this. And um, Octavia, uh, I got to know her a little bit. Um, in conventions, we were like the only black science fiction writers in the world at that time.
So we naturally kind of gravitated towards each other. But then totally coincidentally after my mom’s death, I moved back to my mom’s house and my mom lived about half a mile away from Octavius house. We live walking distance from each other. So we started getting together for dinner and just hanging out. And so she didn’t drive. So I would actually drive her. So once again, being of service to her now, if it is, if there is a cold blooded example of this, it’s Larry. And I’ve told this many times, it’s not nothing that I’d be worried about him hearing. Um, I had written a lot of stories, but I, and I hadn’t gotten much money for them. I’d sold a few of them, you know, uh, I’ve had a few of them published and had been paid in contributors, copies, you know, paid a fifth of a cent a word, that kind of thing.
I said, well, this isn’t going to do it. Let me, where can I find somebody who can help me? Um, and I needed to find somebody who was a real writer who was on the other side of the issue. And so I asked a friend of mine, him, Otis already I was working with at Pepperdine University where I was working at the time. I said, uh, do you know where any real science fiction writers are? And he said, well, Larry NIBIN and Jerry Cornell hang out at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society in Burbank, California every Thursday night. So I said, Larry Nib and Learning Evan, I’ve heard that name. So I went home and took a look in my library and I found a book of short stories called all the myriad ways. It was a collection of historic, and one of those stories is called all the myriad ways. It was an Austin time track store and I thought it was frigging brilliant but brilliant.
So now I was armed with the ability to say to him, honestly, I admire your work. So I went up to Las Vegas and I w I saw Larry Nivon, he, I hadn’t pointed out to me. And I walked up to him and I said, hello, Mr NIBIN, my name is Steven Barnes and I’m a writer. And he looked at me and said, okay, tell me a story. I found out that from the way I’d come on to him, I had 30 seconds to prove I wasn’t an asshole. So Lee, I just mailed off a story that day about a, about a compulsive gambler who hocks his pacemaker. And, and I told him this already. He kind of laughed and he said, okay, so now, you know, so then I said, uh, you know, would you care to read some more my stuff? He said, sure. He said, he read another story of Mine, a story of mine.
So I gave an envelope that had three stories in it. The next week I came back, he’d read them, he said he liked them and we started talking and I said, I did not know that he worked with Jerry Porno. I said, you know, have you ever considered having a collaborate? And I saw the ice wham slammed down cause I asked something too soon, too soon. Right. And I, I, you know, he said, you know, I’m already working with Derek Cornell. I haven’t got all the collaborators I want. I said, thank you very much for your time and you know [inaudible] I really seriously appreciate it and you know, and you know, just all the best of luck to you. And I turned around and walked away. Right. By doing that, I knew that I’d done that while he still wanted to find out a little bit more about me.
Who is this kid? You know, who is this guy? And I knew that if I walked away while he still had questions and he would come to me if he did okay. I Sat, I stood in the other room, counted myself one 1000 it’s like a, it’s like a pretty girl given you look back over shoulder walking away, you gotta go, you know, emotional vacuum. But, and he walked up to me and he said, well, you know, there was a story I wrote about 10 years ago and I was never able to finish it properly. Would you be interested in taking a look at that? And I thought to myself or about a billionth of a second, but I paused that I didn’t want to stay my seem too eager and said, yeah, yeah, I’d really like to, and that led to the locust. Now what you think about it, I was able to sincerely compliment him.
I was able to honestly compliment him, which means I gave him something when he challenged me, I had done my homework. Tell me the story. I had done my homework. I created an opening where he’s Kinda thinking, well you know this is an interesting guy cause you remember people who are accomplished tend to be world class experts at something that not a lot of people care about. Okay, right. Meet someone who also cares about the thing they care about. They automatically look at you just a little bit as well. Maybe you’re another brother or sister on the path. They recognize, they see themselves in you and if you are carrying your own load, if you’re not asking them for somebody to say, that was the mistake I made. I asked him for second, soon you give genuine value first. What can I do for you?
How can I make your life, you know, with dawn, I sponsored a workshop and Octavia, I drove her around, you know, with, with Steve Mohamad, I, I paid money to help support his school and I showed up and I did the best I could with Larry. And I offered honesty, warm sincerity, I genuinely am. And then he had the story that he had done and hadn’t been able. So that meant that there was something that he was connected to his heart. And if I could find a way to add something to that, I would have helped you accomplish one of his goals. When you do after somebody, when you help somebody accomplish their goals, the natural human tendency is reciprocity. That’s true. So I think that the most important thing is you start with honest enthusiasm. Honest operation. You don’t bullshit that. You genuinely admire them.
What do you, why do you want their time and you, you present yourself. I’m going to sleep as I am another seeker on the path. Most people who are happy, who are accomplished in their lives are happy to meet others who are also on the path because the path is lonely and it is true to commit for, you know, 10,000 hours, you know, to do something and is willing to carry their own cross and not asking you to do it for them. That’s a brother. That’s a system. We’re all together in this man and the horizon is the same distance from all of us. There’s no, there’s nothing super human about these people. They Sim did the same thing every day long enough. They just took one step after another step out until they found themselves beyond the horizon and the people who have never done that, they look at it as, oh my God, it must’ve been magic.
You must be a genius. You must be talented. They don’t see the work, the work or the for talent. In my mind, it’s the ability to continue to, to do a grinding, sometimes boring routine day after day after day. Danny Inosanto who might be the greatest master of any subject I’ve ever had a chance to sit down and talk to man. The man might be the greatest martial arts instructor who ever lived this possible. He’s in the credit piece in there and he told me, he’s 82 now and maybe 15 years ago. He said to me, Steve, you can stay in shape as you get older. It just gets a little harder to motivate yourself every year. You know, I interpret that as the voices that say, quick, give up. Why are you bothering getting louder and louder and reader here, your Audi’s not being what it was when you were younger is a reality, but the demons in your head stop you more than physical circumstance ever do.
True. So what you do is you, you map out a course, the thing that you want and you make sure that the core that the thing you want, it makes you happy to do it. I’m happy when I come back from a martial arts class. I don’t need this certificate at the end of the year or the end of three years. In five years. I’m happy that I did it that day and it might be painful to get there. I might have to deal with fear or fatigue, whatever. But man, if I made it through the class, I’d drive off saying, you know, I was done. I did it right. The writing can be hard and it is hard. It should be hard everyday. There are times when it comes easy, but if you’re going to be a pro, you got to do it. Even when it’s hard, you gotta be doing it when it’s hard to be doing it. It’s like, you know, chop wood, carry water. My the, the, the dip, my first writing book and [email protected]
and let me just say that it’s awesome because I wrote my book because of Steve’s recommendation of writing a sentence a day and that’s the, and I cannot tell you enough how much that helped me.
Brian, you have to do. Yes. That idea is called, it’s the atomic theory of accomplishment. You. What is the smallest unit of action that if you do that units, it needs to be something that can easily be done in a day. Write one sentence a day. Okay. Three of each of the five Tibetans, five minutes of meditation. You know, telling the person you love that I love you. What can I do for you today? Whatever. Whatever it is, something tiny so that you cannot lie to yourself and say, I didn’t have the time to do it. I don’t have know. No, you do. You do time to do one sentence. That’s right. You do have the time, right. Stop lying to yourself. That’s the whole thing. That lined to yourself and fear. Stop people more than that. Any external adversary and if you’ve been poor or deprived or abused, it can be so difficult to see that.
I have nothing. I believe for people who’ve been hurt like that, but I will not. I will not agree that they can’t do it and I am not going to tell them. Tell them that they can’t swimming. You know I will not do that. I will say, yes, you have been hurt. Yes, you have been abused. Yes, you have been part of a disadvantaged group and if you’re going to live a happy life, it is your responsibility. I am sorry. That’s you know, you’re going to have to be the one to swim to shore. All I can do is stand here and say this way to the shore. That’s, that’s all I can do, man. Right. And maybe I can give you some instructions about how to swim once you get out of the water. Next time you’re in the water swim like this. But mostly you gotta find it within yourself to, to care enough about your own life and your own dreams. To get yourself back up and keep fighting and let life decide what you cannot do. Or I will not cooperate in my own defeat. Right? Oh, down, swinging. You know that is the one thing I’ve, man, you can’t stop me. You can kill me, but you cannot stop me if you, I will. I’ll curl up in a ball and cry, but then I will dry my eyes, get up and hit it again tomorrow. That just the way I am because I know I’m going to die and I want my life to mean something.
Right? So the one other question, yeah. That way you can look at all of that stuff that, um, that you’ve produced. Clearly you’ve had to do a lot of collaborations and in many instances you’ve had to collaborate with people you may not necessarily agree with. And so you’ve learned some lessons, you’ve created some incredible pieces of art and you’ve had to go through this collaboration process. What kind of lessons can you give us in how to, how to participate in that process?
No, you don’t have to like somebody to carry a log with them so you keep your attention on the outcome case. Right? I don’t want to, I don’t get the wrong feeling about this. I love Jerry Porno, right? Genuinely loved him, but we could not have disagreed more about politics. Of course, our philosophies of life were not that different. They were close enough that we were able to, to get each other to get that. So I remember when I was working on the first book with Larry during the legacy of Herod and Jerry, I don’t know how many human beings who ever in history had to world-class writers and opposite sides of the room rip their pros apart. At the same time, we like tackling, I am eviscerating burns is precious bros for your mother’s scared by a Jaron de Barns, you know, just, I mean literally would drive home in tears, right? Hey, but here’s what it is. I knew that if I could survive that I would learn things. I could not learn at any school in the world. It was just like the ided into the black belt class to spar. You got the living hell out of you, but you learn lessons that you could not learn any other way. So you’d have to ask yourself what’s more important? Being comfortable or being good. Right? So we’re thinking you’ve got it. Right,
right. So to go back to the beginning, we were talking about, you can help me again. I have two kids and I really want to teach them the principles of the law of attraction. And I’ve read your journey with your son and you, you, you know, you’ve really helped him change things. But how do we teach our kids this? Because we’re also dealing with their egos that don’t part of their egos don’t want this information. I see it with my kids that glaze over when I know I’m giving them very fundamental information that’s gonna save their life. Why don’t we teach our kids this?
Okay, look man, I’m still in the process of it. My daughter is 32 and she’s done fine, but she never really fought me. She would practice martial arts that she’d do this and she’d do that. She fought with her mom more. So I don’t know what she Nikki out, just great. I adore my daughter Jason and I bled heads. Okay. So I, let’s assume that we’ve got him on the proper trajectory, you know, or less so that I can make some comments here without saying, without being a prognosticator, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I do have confidence that I can face those challenges because I will take action, I will have gratitude, I’ll have a clear intention and I will confidence, you know, so it’s like I have to have that belief, but, but let’s put that aside and talk about a couple of things.
First of all, there’s a book that I really like called how to double your child’s grades in five minutes a day. Okay. A marketer named Eugene Schwartz, I was told, look up Eugene Schwartz for a book he did on marketing that is out of print. And there was this other book that was, uh, uh, out of print, but it was available on Amazon as a, as an auto print book. It was cheap. Call you how to double your child’s grades in five minutes a day. I said, [inaudible] use on it were excellent. People were saying, this is great, man. I wish I’d had this, that, oh my God, this is so wonderful. And I said, well, this has gotta be bullshit, but I’m certainly willing to risk five bucks to find out what it is. And what it was based on is his marketing principle. When it comes right down to it, it’s, he’s been, he’s been five minutes every day, first thing in the morning going over the homework over what he has to do and you make sure that it’s totally positive, totally positive.
This is a time of love and support. Nothing but positive reinforcement. And so, and then the rest of the book, you know, it has very specific instructions on how to teach and learn this, this, this and this. The only part of it I’ve really been able to incorporate with Jason is that five minutes a day, totally positive, first thing in the morning, big hugs. So proud of you. What do we need to accomplish today? And then what I would say is have some basic set of principles. Now I have tried so many things. I’ve tried massage, she, me and Motos Book of five rings as you know, do not think this honestly in the way is training and mean with every yard. And you know, and that five minutes, I mean, I, I actually had a morning ritual with Jason that went back to, went back for eight years, you know, but I knew what I was doing was this was at a period of time when he’d been, when been diagnosed as being, uh, having a ADHD and borderline TISM.
And so I would have him sit and we would sit cross legged facing each other match and I would match our breathing. So we’re breathing in the same pattern. And I would have him hold my eyes. I’d have him look at my eyes and he couldn’t look at my eyes at first. Cystic people have that problem. So do his. Every time he looked away from my eyes, I would pinch his family to be honest with you. You know, the first, when it first started, I would smack his hand. Um, but as time went on, I could just, I could just put pressure on his stumps. When he looked away. It just brings eyes back to mind just for five minutes, just breathing together, just being present. It’s again, it’s like you’re not alone. I’m here with you. I love you. I will never let you go no matter what happens as a great place to go.
I am here for you and I love you and you are my boy. You know, and, but, but just this, this last year we finally got his, he’d had some real problems with his academics. We did not realize he was having a problem as reading because the school would not tell us what his grades were. And so I was, I was homicidally furious, but at the time I found out how far in the hole he was. So it was like, okay, we gotta, you know, let’s work with it. Let’s work with it. Let’s work in very, this last semester, you know, we finally got all of his grip mates passing, you know, just all of them. So now he can play. And the, and the breakthrough was when he decided he wanted to play football. One of his friends wanted to play football and he wanted to be with his friends.
He wanted to play football. And now his, his national athleticism, which he’s got in plenty a, is connected with his academics because if he doesn’t keep it, a p can’t play. So he also started noticing that the girls were noticing him. So now it’s starting to kick in and it’s the, it’s the question, your turtle question, what is it going to take for me to become an adult? The adult being an adult means being, paying your own bills, being responsible for your emotions and having adult funds like sex. You know, and when I will say that sex is an adult pleasure, that you do not start your sexual journey until you could conceivably support a child that came out of that. So that’s, you know, to me, I’ve put, um, Tony Talks about, uh, his RPM program. It talks about you have to know what you want and then why you would only after getting clear on what you want and why people are going to do it. So to do lists or crap, right? Clear what they want, why you want it. What I wanted to be a field trip to get his grades from. Didn’t care about his academics.
He did. So I got it. So, um, admittance froze. Yeah. My PR Picture. You balance. I, we’re back. Okay. So I’m just on a lighter side. Steve has almost the identical taste in movies as I do. I wouldn’t, one thing I love to do when I, when a big movie comes out is I’ll keep an eye on Facebook for Steve’s review and a lot of times it’s going to be different or he’s going to see things that I just didn’t notice. I’ve learned much. I’m a huge movie buff, so I got to ask you, can you recommend a movie that I probably haven’t seen? Do you have a movie out there that, that I probably haven’t seen that I, that I should check out.
Let me think about that. Um, if something in the theater is something on, on, um, like binge there, the, the Netflix series, bodyguard, British series, bodyguard. Not Bad at all. I haven’t seen that one. People liked it. Um, I thought, I thought it worked very nicely. Um, let me think in terms of terms of movies, uh, you know, this year, you know, I’ve, I’ve seen there’ve been a number of movies this year that I really liked and some of them are pretty trivial, you know, stuff like, uh, you know, uh, you know, Avengers in game really, really enjoyed and game hated and affinity. Hated. That’s another word, right? Yes. Um, and uh, I really liked, I really loved Jordan peals us. Uh, it was not, I would say that that his first movie, uh, get out was about 99% successful. I’d say the US was only by 90% successful, but he was aiming at something much bigger, which means we were seeing a, a larger amount of talent and intelligence and in story, craftsmanship and, and filmmaking on the screen. He was trying something much bigger. And if it wasn’t holy as wholly successful, it’s still a holy crap. I still enjoyed it. Yeah. Do that. Oh, it was just an enjoyable, it was one of those, this guy might be the real deal or a movie of that quality or anything close to it and I’m going to declare him to be one of those modern geniuses of horror that we or you’ll, he’ll be, you know, I’ll be, I’ll be looking, I’ll be discussing him in the same breath with John Carpenter.
Right. Have you, have you seen the twilight zone episodes
and twilight zone struck me? I think if you’ve seen the entire season,
I’ve certainly seen a couple episodes. I still need to get through the rest.
Aye. Aye. I don’t want to say too much about it. I strongly suggest that you do that because I think that the last episode when you’ve seen the last episode, reach out to me and tell me your impressions. I don’t want to say too much about it, but I think that they’re on the right track. There were about three episodes of that season that I thought really hit it and there were several. So that’s where I thought there, you know, they’re, they’ve made the subutex, the texts, they’re just hitting the hill. They’re hitting the nail squarely on the thumb ear. Right. But you don’t need to beat me over the head with this. Just tell me the damn story. But what I will say is that I think that the, that the season, um, the season came out very nicely.
I’m gonna, I’m definitely season two’s coming, I think for sure the thing,
so there’s a, Jordan Peele is a, I think the real deal.
So Hollywood, if you’re out there, there are a ton of books that Stephen Barnes has written and you to make these into movies. The Kundalini equation is a good one to start with. I know that that’s a very popular, but you have so many alternative histories.
Did you know the 12 days? My most recent solo novices days is cleaning word.
Is that, is that a SQL? Yes, it is. Okay. It didn’t say. Now I was looking at that and I was like, I, you had mentioned that a SQL was coming out and the other day I was like Kundalini equation Sequel and I saw 12 days. I just don’t, it’s on my list. I’m going to be reading that. So awesome. What I’m somebody even on Facebook told me to ask you if you had tried the breathing exercises in Kundalini equation. I don’t remember when I read that. If there was specific breathing, I remember the whole process and he m did you ever try those or that was just for the purpose of the fiction? I don’t remember them.
Um, uh, let’s just say that there is more reality in them
getting there. He is, I believe, right
saying that I put things in there directly because there are, there are breathing exercise or meditative exercises that are not, that are effective but not safe, not safe, safe, but not effective. What Adam Ludlam did in that book was tiptoeing into the category of hyper effective but not safe. I would never give the instructions for such things. Blank point blank is obvious game.
Well, there’s the, there’s a good commentary you’re making in that book about the addiction to technique. You can become so addicted to technique that you kind of lose yourself a little bit
or you can lose, you can become addicted to the action. You know, you have to ask her something. What are you, what is it about, I mean, I, the the question, why do we do anything that we do? Um, to me, you start with, um, the ultimate intent. You the meaning of life to be happy, to seek joy, to escape pain, just scape misery and find joy. Everything else is a means to that end. And you want to do it longterm and you want to do it to being service to mankind and you know, and stuff like, but you never forget that. So when people, you know, money look, the most valuable thing about money is not bringing pleasure. This keeping pain, you know, it’s having a roof over your head, food on your table and basic medical care, basic transportation, the things that would cause you harm. Once you’ve got those things taken, care of, the utility of money starts dropping, you know, and to, to once you’ve got those things, if you are sacrificing your family to make money, you’re a fool. I’m sorry. It is not worth missing one day of helping my son get off to school to make an extra hundred thousand dollars a year. Well, that may be a slight,
maybe one day, maybe one day my wife can handle it,
but not if it diminished his sense of self, not if he was thinking, where is my dad? Because I grew up a lot, a father and he created a hole in my heart that it took decades to fill and I will not have my son or my daughter go through that. Whatever they face in their lives, they’re going to know their dad adored them, their dad was willing to do whatever it took. Anything that is, that’s the bottom line. I may fail, but I’ll fail because I didn’t have it. Not because I didn’t.
Well, I just want to thank you for being so gracious with your time. I’m a small podcast and you easily could have said not right now. So thank you for you may favor, yeah, yeah. Send me a copy of this. Oh, I will. I promise video, I promise. And just to everybody, um, we were talking a little bit about horror films and you have a, a Webinar that you offer, um, something place class.com, class dot silicon place glass.com and you and your wife Tenor Eve, discuss a lot of the implications and horror. And it’s very, very interesting. And uh, it’s, it’s multiple. It’s a class, right? You have multiple, you talk about some different issues and it looks super fascinating. I recommend that I recommend all of Steve’s books. Look for them on Facebook. There are so much more I could learn. We’ll have to do this again. It’s maybe, hopefully someday. But thank you. Thank you so much and I’ll be sure to send this to you and welcome to the reality revolution.
My pleasure. And good luck to you. And remember to take action, have gratitude, have a clear intention, and never lose confidence. Always be yourself. Take care, buddy. Thank you.
chiefexecutiveprime
Epiphany addict, inner space astronaut, writer, coach, dad, lover, friend.
