You are now listening to The Model Health Show with Shawn Stevenson. For more visit themodelhealthshow.com.

Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today.

I'm just over the moon excited about this episode.

We've got a guest who's been a huge inspiration in my life personally for many, many years and I'm so grateful to be able to deliver him to you today to learn some of these incredible insights.

We've got, all of us, a lot of stuff going on in our lives and I know that if you're a fan of this show then you're interested in becoming better, you're interested in becoming a better version of who you are right now and just expressing more of who you are and tapping into your potential.

And this man knows a thing or 2,000 about how to do that, how to access that.

And I've seen it firsthand in my life in applying the things that I've learned from him and it is just really, really difficult to put into words the impact that he's had.

And so I'm very, very excited about that and so just be ready to tune in, listen in, and take some notes and just get ready for some transformational information today.

Also, right before this show we were already jamming about some nutrition and he's been on the planet a few decades, we'll put it like that, but he just celebrated a birthday.

He was on stage at his incredible community doing a headstand, knocking out 100 push-ups and like he's very, very invested in his physical health as well.

And for me personally, obviously, if you know my story you know that I didn't eat a salad until I was in my mid twenty's, it was the first time I ever even ate a salad.

And here I am, considered one of the top health authorities in the world but my starting to that was very, very later in life and even getting myself to the place where I could eat a salad, for me, rationally like I just couldn't understand why you would take the time and eat a bunch of leaves.

I would even tell, like my daughter, we would go to Burger King, I'm getting the flame grill jump off and like she'd order a salad.

I was just like, "What's wrong with this kid? Who gets a salad?' She's like six years old or something. Clearly, she didn't get there from me.

And I just couldn't understand why somebody would even eat that food.

But then losing my health and understanding the power of food and the fact that food isn't just food, it's information, there's certain data that's contained within those greens that provide a lot of very powerful kind of software inputs to make some changes with essentially what's going on with my hardware.

And for me, one of the first steps was because I couldn't physically eat a salad it would make me gag.

And so I happened upon this place that served juices and they would put the spinach into the juice of the celery was in the juice and so I was able to get that stuff into my body and this was you know probably at this point it is going to be a couple of decades ago, at this point.

And it started to change the intelligence I was putting into my body, it started to change my palate.

And so I want to have access to that for everybody, that on-ramp of getting that higher-quality nutrition that is seen specifically in green juice.

And that's why I really love what Organifi is doing. Because even have access to a juicer and all this stuff, let's be real, that's the best source if we're talking about real, whole food, fresh nutrition, a fresh-pressed juice.

Number one— who's going to clean the juicer? You got to have somebody who is going to do that job but also what about the accessibility like when you're on the go that kind of thing.

Now it is a little bit more accessible for sure, but for me especially even when I travel and just that daily on the move and also the level of nutrition that is in Organifi, that's not in a typical green juice is out of this world.

Because Organifi doesn't just have typical things you'd find in a Green Juice like even wheatgrass which is incredible in its own right, but it also has spirulina, it also has chlorella.

Chlorella is, it gets its name because it's one of the top 3 most dense sources of chlorophyll that we've ever discovered in the food.

And so what does that mean? Well, chlorophyll is kind of in Chlorella, it's kind of like a defense that the plant develops as a result of its exposure to UV radiation and so it's kind of creating this very powerful pigment as a form of protection that then gets transferred over to us.

And so what we know is that chlorophyll is a very, very powerful assistant in building our blood and it's also very interesting because it has some aspects in helping to regulate our appetite which is seen in this study.

And this was published in the peer-reviewed journal Appetite and they found that the chlorophyll which is contained in Chlorella can actually aid in weight loss and reduce the urge to eat hyper-palatable foods, so at the time, I was trying to get off of eating Cheetos and Funions, and I don't know if you've ever mixed them together?

So I was trying to get off those hyper-palatable foods that have that vanishing chlor density that my brain doesn't even know I am eating anything because it disappears in your mouth.

And I'm trying to get off the hyper-palatable foods and Green Juice helped me. Adding in chlorophyll and Chlorella helped me, wheatgrass, grass which is a very high-dense source of chlorophyll as well.

And so all of those things are contained in the Green Juice formula from Organifi. So pop over there, check them out. It's organifi.com/model, you get 20 percent off everything they carry.

That's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/model, 20 percent off their Green Juice formula, their Gold, which is incredible, I'll talk more about that soon.

And also their Red Juice formula and just everything that they carry. I love those guys so much and I think you're really going to love the Green Juice because it also tastes good too, my kids love it, they have it basically every day.

So pop over there, check it out, get that good information into your cells, organifi.com/model. Now, let's get to the Apple podcast review the week.

iTunes review: Another 5-star review titled "Can't get enough" by Healthy Momma 313. "My personal trainer turned me on to your show about a month ago. I listen to your podcast every moment I get. I listen to you or I watch you on YouTube. Our TV is hardly ever turned on anymore. I work at Sprouts in the vitamin department. Listening to you is so educational and helps in my mission to help people learn about nutrition, vitamins and supplements."

Shawn Stevenson: Awesome. Shout out to Sprouts and Healthy Momma 313. I appreciate that so much, thank you for taking the time to leave that review and shout out to your personal trainer who told you about the show.

I really appreciate you guys so much and thank you for sharing your gift and helping people as well.

And listen, if you've yet to leave a review, please pop over to Apple podcasts, leave a review for the show, let everybody know what you think about The Model Health Show, I appreciate that so much.

And on that note, let's get to our special guests and our topic of the day.

Our guest today is one of the most critically acclaimed speakers and teachers in the world today, considered a true thought leader.

And he's the founder of the Agape spiritual community here in Los Angeles, and he's just had a huge impact on my life creating one of these programs that were just truly transformational for me, the Life Visioning Process.

He's got audio programs, books, incredible talks and things like that that you can look up and just dive into that world. It's just so incredibly powerful and insightful and I'm so very grateful and honored to have him on the show today.

I'm happy to share this conversation with the incredible Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith, let's dive right in.

It looks like Dr. Strange stopped time.

Michael Beckwith: This is where they got it from.

Shawn Stevenson: Another dimension.

Michael Beckwith: Somebody went to Brazil and got this and then flew to the last time we were in Egypt and flew and brought this to me in the pyramid.

Shawn Stevenson: Come on, that is so magical. Wow. That is Dr. Strange level.

Michael Beckwith: I said what he brought one for me and one for my brother.

Shawn Stevenson: Because you have how many siblings?

Michael Beckwith: Two.

Shawn Stevenson: Two. So it's two brothers?

Michael Beckwith: Yeah.

Shawn Stevenson: Wow, yeah. And so all you guys moved to DC or were—?

Michael Beckwith: No, I was the only one born at the time. Those two were born in LA.

Shawn Stevenson: Okay. And then you went to, was it Morehouse?

Michael Beckwith: I went to Morehouse.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. And then so what got you back out here?

Michael Beckwith: Well I've transferred to USC and my family was here, my son was here, so I came back home.

Shawn Stevenson: I got it. So I'm curious, and I don't know the answer to this myself, but what got you interested in people? Like interested in just being of service to other people?

Michael Beckwith: I love people, first of all. I primarily, you know when you're in service, when you understand the nature of reality, the nature, the interconnectedness between people, between each and every one of us, you're here for each other. So I live to be in service.

And so that connects me to people. I know a lot of people who are in service, but they don't necessarily like people, so they have a hard job.

I have an easy job because I like people and I like being of service, helping motivate, inspire, encourage, activate it's all a part of who I am.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, yeah. So what about the folks we were just talking about, these two that are in service but they don't want to be in service. Can you work on that? Because I think you just mentioned it that there's an interconnectedness that I don't think we realize?

Michael Beckwith: Right. Well, when you have to do something you don't like doing it then you have to pray to fall in love with what you don't like to do.

That also gives you a hedge in success because being successful, there are things you don't like to do and developing the discipline around it. So you have to establish an intention to really fall in love with the things you don't like to do.

Just like you have to fall in love with eating certain vegetables, you can't have immature taste buds your whole life and eat candy, you have to eat spinach, I've grown to like beets.

So in that same way there are things we may not have a proclivity towards. So we have to ask, "Let me fall in love with this part," until what you don't like to do becomes something that you start to like, and then it becomes really cool.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. You just said a dirty word in there, you said discipline. So even when I hear it still there's a little tinge of like that sounds very difficult.

Michael Beckwith: Well, when you look at the word disciple, disciple comes from a word that means you're in love with something.

So if you're a disciple of something, you're a disciple of the martial arts, you're a disciple of music, a disciple of the piano, you actually love the music, you actually love the outcome. So when you become a disciple, discipline becomes a blissipline, it's a word I coined many years ago.

And you actually, it's not like, "I've got to do this, I don't want to do it, but I got to do it." You actually start falling in love with the outcome of what you're doing in that moment.

So if it's martial arts, if it's exercise, if it's nutrition, eventually the outcome of the discipline that has become the blissipline, you actually dig it.

You look at anybody who's working on themselves and once they start to see the results of their work, something happens inside, they get excited about, the chemical start flowing in their body, neurons start firing, the endorphin starts kicking in, it's like, "Yeah, this is tough right now to lift this weight, this is tough right now to do whatever it is I'm called to do, but I'm so connected to the outcome that the discipline has now become a blissipline," the bliss chemicals are flowing.

So yeah, I think in our culture, discipline has become a bad word, but we have to reclaim it and take it to another level.

Shawn Stevenson: I really think that it's freedom in a sense, that's just so crazy, like I would express this with my daughter who just growing up in this culture is just like, "I want these things, I want all these stuff that I see."

But I understand that creating the structure and the discipline it will enable you to get those things versus if you get them and you don't really have the discipline to structure, you'll find creative ways to lose them.

Michael Beckwith: Absolutely. Yeah, dynamic structure gives you more freedom. It's like learning any art, you learn the fundamentals and you develop a level of discipline around those fundamentals, then you have freedom.

I always remember a number of years ago when Nate Archibald was playing basketball. Was it Nate Archibald?

No, it was the other guard from New York Knicks, what's his name? It will come to me in a second.

But anyway, he practiced all the time dribbling, he had a level of discipline. And it was toward the end of the game and he was coming down the court, time was running out and he got through three men and did some kind of weird move and put the basketball in.

And they asked him how did he know to do that move? He says, "I didn't. If I would have known what I was going to do, they would have been able to stop me."

But all the years of discipline allow for freedom to happen in that moment there, the freedom for him to go around his backspin and put it in.

So the discipline in the fundamental creative freedom, spontaneous goodness, beyond his thought, he went to the zone.

But you can't go there unless you have a certain level of discipline that provides freedom.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, wow. One of the disciplines that is obviously a big part of your life and also what you've shared with so many people, millions of people is meditation.

And I recently had my mother in law on the show, she was like literally the most requested guest.

Michael Beckwith: Your mother in law?

Shawn Stevenson: Yes.

Michael Beckwith: That's right, you told me about her.

Shawn Stevenson: You know, Hall of Famers, you know Ozzie Smith and Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Dr. Oz and all these amazing people, but she was the most requested person because she's had the biggest impact on me.

And when I first met her, my wife was like, "Listen, they're really weird, just you know, we go in, go out."

And I walked in the house and there was grass growing in the house and I'd never seen this before, it was wheatgrass. And I was like, "What the— what is this, what's with your mom, I've never seen grass indoors."

And within I think it was maybe the second or third conversation she told me that if she could give everybody in the world one thing it would be meditation.

And I literally had the thought give me a million dollars, like why would she even say that. Until she taught me meditation, and that's when I woke up.

And from that moment, I'm a very analytical person which everybody knows on this show, very science-minded, and so she gave me a little background on like how this is working and I was like, "Okay, I'll suspend my disbelief and participate."

And after the meditation, I realized that I hadn't really had a conscious thought my entire life. I was just existing and all this stuff was happening but now I could see it and it was just, and I had to, it took years to really kind of recalibrate my life.

Now I am seeing things so differently. But this is something you've taught to so many people as a discipline, an important discipline.

For you, why is meditation as a tool, as a discipline so important today especially?

Michael Beckwith: Yeah, it's very important. It's interesting that you're asking this because I just flew in from Denver yesterday.

I was participating in America Meditates and people from all over the world gathered and they were in a number, hundreds of cities live stream as we were teaching about the meditation and mental health.

There was Tim Ryan and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was putting it on, and Marion Williams and a number of people. Because there's a correlation between meditation and the transcending mental illness.

So meditation, if we describe what meditation is, it's paying undistractable attention to reality, to the eternal, to that which is real.

And you learned who have dominion, as you were just talking, you having dominion over your attention, so that you can place your attention where you want it to be.

So in meditation, you're paying attention, you can use the breath, you can use a mantra, however you want to do it, but ultimately you're paying attention to that which is changeless.

Now, most people suffer from an attention deficit disorder and an intention deficit disorder, so their mind is all over the place, their mind has been hijacked by worry, fear, anxiety, anxiousness. Beliefs that aren't true.

And then their life becomes, they start to experience those thoughts and those perceptions. So there are different aspects to meditation.

One aspect is there's cleansing to it, those thoughts they surface so that you can look at them, is this true, is not true? You can embrace, help dismantle, transmute them.

And then there are periods of meditation where you have real bonafide insights. You actually know something that you either formally just believed or maybe you didn't even know this part of reality even existed.

So there's meditation where you have insights and there's meditation where you're clearing things.

But the average person, its mind is hijacked by the world, the media, social media. They're thinking thoughts that don't even belong to them.

They're thinking those thoughts, but their mind is obtaining those thoughts from the sea of mental garbage.

So in meditation you're purifying your awareness, so that you can actually see the world as it really is, not just as it's being projected to you. So it's very important.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. I love the fact that you said intention deficit disorder. So can you like talk a little bit more about that?

Michael Beckwith: Most people, again, until they live with a level of deliberateness in their life, they suffer from an intention deficit disorder.

They wake up and they're mainly reacting to circumstances, they're living as a reaction to things that are going on in the world, but they don't have an intention, a driving intention for their own life.

So at the end of the day, they've simply just managed their reactions to whatever is going on rather than establishing an intention, and intention to be your best self, an intention to improve at an area of your life.

Now when you have intention, now the universe through its laws can begin to help you with that intention, but if you don't have any intention, you just kind of buffeted around on the ocean of life, wondering why you're not going anywhere.

So I teach people to make sure you establish an intention. It's the same thing with meditation, we have a point of meditation where you actually establish an intention, why am I meditating here?

I'm meditating to have a realization of my oneness with life, to activate wisdom, to activate intelligence, to become conscious that I'm supported, I mean you can have whatever intention you want, but to live an unintentional life you're just going to go around in circles.

Shawn Stevenson: That just makes so much sense, it's just like, I think a lot of us if we're not trained like in the way that you were discussing, meditation is just like, "Let's see what happens," versus just like, "Let's set an intention."

It's just like when we set out this door, like, "Where are you going", to set that intention. That's powerful, I never really—

Michael Beckwith: It's necessary, because the world of phenomena is swirling.

We're going to go outside and the minute we're going to read a news item about some crazy thing that's happening and it could just suck our attention and then we're not going where we need to go, because we're caught up in the swirl of something else, you see.

So intentional living is where we want, we want to bring people to an intention. Now, what happens is by law, I'm talking about mental law, and when you establish an intention, intention is directional, it's like, "I want to walk in that direction."

So what happens is by law, the mental laws start to assist you to walk in that direction. Now you may not get exactly what you think you want to get, it might even be better.

Things may open up that you don't even know exist yet because you've established an intention.

Whereas just rather than just sitting back and waiting to see was going to happen, that's a different kind of waiting.

You establish an intention and then you wait for wisdom, guidance, direction. But just to wait around and see what is going to have with your life, that's foolishness.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. So this is obviously a part of the Life Visioning Process.

Michael Beckwith: Yes.

Shawn Stevenson: And so I got that audio program of yours, when did it come out, it was about 10 years ago?

Michael Beckwith: Probably.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, it was probably right shortly after that, it was maybe I'm thinking maybe around 2010.

Michael Beckwith: And people still get it, I mean it's really— I meet people now who just got it and they are very enthused about it.

Shawn Stevenson: It was so remarkable and we talked about this when we were hanging out in Portugal, which is crazy to even say, but I just did it, I applied it.

And that's one of the things that makes me different.

We all have this capacity, but so many of us like we get these things but we don't just do the thing, we'll get different programs, buy different books, we'll hear different things, but just applying the principles led to moments like this.

Because I didn't know, all I knew is that I wanted to help people, I was passionate about health and nutrition and I was already helping folks in my little local sphere, but I knew that there was a bigger thing, a bigger mission.

I didn't know what it looks like, I don't know what a podcast was, but I set that intention, you know what I'm saying?

Michael Beckwith: That was outside of your paradigm at that time.

That's what I mean, it's like you get to be surprised, you establish an intention and then you are surprised, you didn't know a podcast existed.

You didn't know you'd be moving to Los Angeles. 

You didn't know a lot of things, but all those things existed. But the moment you establish an intention then that which already existed could come into your sphere.

Yeah, that's very powerful. Again, there are people, you know, you've heard the old statement from the Bible that says that without vision the people perish.

If you don't have an intention or a vision for your life, you're just going in circles. Now let me just say this one thing, because you said you applied it.

Now, people say to me sometimes, "I understand the teachings, I've read your books, I've seen you on the live stream.

What're the advanced teachings?" And I say, "Beginning is theory, advance is practice." So you practiced. Most people don't do that, they are not going to stick with the thing long enough to actually see the fruits of it, like you say they may read the book, they may hear a lecture, they may get excited for a moment, but to actually day by day by day actually practice, that's where the change is.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's powerful. And even just going back to the analogy with the basketball player.

It's just building those muscles and kind of a skill set in a sense. And so what makes Life Visioning different from goal setting?

Michael Beckwith: I break the reality into 4 stages, first stages being the victim stage, we think something is doing something to us.

The second stage is the stage we learn how to manifest and that's where you learn goal setting, you learn visualization, the creative use of your imagination, you take your imagination backward, being hijacked.

You start to realize that you're being supported by a progressively friendly universe. But then the next level is visioning.

Visioning is what you did, it's saying in substance that there's something within me, I don't know what it is yet, but I'm open and receptive to it guiding me.

So I make myself receptive to that which has been placed within me, only within me, to come forward and articulate itself.

So I'm asking a question, goal setting and visualizing is, "I know what I want, I want this, I'm going to visualize it, this is my goal, I'm going to do A, B, C and D to get to the goal".

Now, that's beautiful, it's wonderful, but many times people get to their goals and they still feel empty and they feel like, "Okay, I've done this, I've done that. I have all these things but I'm not happy yet."

So that means they haven't tapped into their real we'll just call it "meant to be" it's like there's a "should be" and there's a "meant to be". "Should be" is from outside sources, "You should do this". "Meant to be" is this something within you that only you can do, the way you can do it.

And so your visioning brings you to your "meant to be-ism". It's like a rose is not going to be an avocado tree; oak tree is not going to be a Magnolia.

You're going to be you, I'm going to be me, so there's something about me that I'm trying to set free.

So envisioning I'm asking a question, ultimately— what within me is trying to emerge? What gift am I to give? What blessing am I to bestow on the world?

And if you ask those questions sincerely, you start to be guided in a language and in the way that you can understand, and then you start to walk in that direction and then there are things like you are saying you didn't even know that even exist, they're outside of your experience.

But they start to come into your experience by asking the right question. So it's a big difference.

But however, the fundamentals of goal setting and visualization are very important, that's the foundation and you leap from that into visioning.

Shawn Stevenson: Wow. That's so interesting because for me, just having access to that is kind of like inner technology and I would even say some of the statements that you are saying just like—

Because I was concerned about missing things, because I know there's so many, like it's happening all the time, these crazy synchronicities right.

And so I would ask like, "Let me see this in a way that I can understand very clearly". And so all these little small things, sometimes you don't know what they're going to lead to, but they all have a process, a part of the process and so even how the show started.

I was speaking at that point, I was speaking at an event in Las Vegas which I had no business being there, I could barely afford a plane ticket but I was like helping people my local area, I got invited out to do it, and after I came off stage this couple came over to me and they were like, they had a million unique visitors to their website a month.

I had about 100 and I was like, "But I'm going to reach all these people", and I didn't see how.

And they told me that they had started this podcast and they were looking for somebody to be the face of it, and I was like, "I'm a face." But they were just like, "That was amazing we think that you will be great for this."

And then they told me about what they had going on, I was like, "Absolutely, let's do it." But in my mind I'm like, "What the hell is a podcast?" I didn't even know what it was.

Michael Beckwith: I love it!

Shawn Stevenson: And so I figured it out later.

Michael Beckwith: But you said yes?

Shawn Stevenson: Yes, I said yes when they presented itself I said yes. And so you mentioned that there are these 4 stages.

We got to talk more about this because that victim stage, I definitely lived that, that was my reality before I learned meditation.

Things were just happening to me everything. Everything in the world was happening to me. Can we talk about those 4 stages a little bit more?

Michael Beckwith: Sure. It's to us, by us, through us and as us. The first stage, something's happening to us.

There's something out there that's trying to get us. There's a god, there's a devil, there's an astrology, there are all these things that are determining our destiny. Our parents, how we were raised.

Our experiences become excuses.

And then stage 2, we actually learn the laws of manifestation, we learn creative visualization, creative imagination, right speech, right conversation, hanging out with the right kind of people that are going in the direction you want to go in.

You learn basic fundamentals of manifestation and now to us, not only becomes by us, but it becomes for us, meaning everything that's happened to us is actually pushing us towards a lesson to learn something.

So what looks like is happening to me, after a while it's transmuted into for me. So that negative thing that happened actually is making me learn compassion, wisdom, intelligence, forgiveness, integrity so something terrible has happened to you, you can let it knock you down but ultimately it can be for you and you can say, "Because that thing happened to me when I was a child, I have way more compassion today, I have way more strength." So in the manifestation stage, we learn that.

And then we start to segue into stage 3 which is through us, meaning life on its own terms is wonderful, life is alive, life is teeming with itself.

Life never dies, life is always expressing. And so life starts to operate through us. That's the level of flow or the zone, I call it flow motion where you've done your work, you've trained, you've prepared, but then something takes over and beyond what you can prepare yourself for, something is just operating through.

You've seen orators, you've seen poets, you've seen the athletes, you've seen doctors, you've seen surgeons, something takes them over.

That's stage 3, but it's built upon the structure that they've created in stage 2. So then there's stage 4 which is as us, with a sense of separation between you and life.

Now life has a lot of names, people call it God, Great God of the universe.

I happen to call it limitless love intelligence everywhere. You start to realize that you are an emanation of this life. You're not separate, God isn't over there, life isn't over there and you're over here.

Because if life is omnipresent that means life has to be right here, whatever name you want to call it. And you start to have pin prick moments where you realize I'm at one with this and not separate, you see.

And that may last a nanosecond or it may last an hour or it may last days, but little by little, by little your filters are cleansed, and you live at these higher octaves for longer periods of time.

Now the 4 stages are not linear, they move in cycles meaning in one area of your life you might feel victimized, but in another area of your life you may feel like a master.

So it's not like a linear stair step kind of thing, but you're constantly growing so that more and more parts of your life come under the authority of, this is for me, this is by me, this is through me, and there are moments of as me. It's a growing edge.

Shawn Stevenson: Yes. And this was different about us and me being able to ask you about this, there's so many people who are at that level of victim.

I grew up in a situation, we didn't have much, but it's still in perspective like now, even looking back, like most of the world is subsisting on $5 a day, but we were in poverty. I slept on the floor, you know roaches and mice.

Michael Beckwith: They thought it was their house.

Shawn Stevenson: Right, we're interrupting, sorry to interrupt, you cut the lights on. But you know, and there was a time when we lived next door to a crack house you know, many of my family members being victim to that life and ending up debilitated or dead.

And it's very difficult for me to talk about or to foresee that life is happening for me, when I'm in that state.

So how do we get people or help them to see this process to even give them access to know that there's something beyond that when you're just trying to survive?

Michael Beckwith: Absolutely. Obviously, something happened in you, for you to see beyond that. What happens is an individual gets sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Fannie Lou Hamer coined that particular stage, they asked her how she was able to move the way she moved and she said, "I got sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Now when you get to be sick and tired of being sick and tired you're open for change, and then a new thought will come in.

And a book may fall off the shelf or they may hear your podcast. What happens is something opens up in someone, so we have to be out there planting seeds and what happens is those seeds hit people and at the right time they germinate.

They may not hit, they may not go in the first time they hear it, they say, "It's nothing, they don't understand my experience I am next door to a crack house, what do they know."

But that seed is planted and then one day when that individual is sick and tired of being sick and tired, they remember something you said, some technique, some technology some statement and once they become interested— see the word interest comes from a word that means "to love".

Once you become interested in something, then the universe opens up for you, it starts to bring you serendipities, coincidences, things start to come into your, you start to meet the right people, you start to hear the right things once you're interested.

And when a person becomes sick and tired of sick and tired they become interested. So I say pain pushes you, until the vision pulls you. So the pain is pushing.

And then something happens, you can sick and tired of the pain you become interested and then you start to be pulled by something else.

And then a quantum leap, you have a quantum leap. The quantum leap means that you've gone from one level to another without a ladder, it's a quantum leap, you've actually, "I'm interested in this." So now that you're interested in this, you start to see what you're interested in, you see.

Well if you're interested in not getting robbed, if you're interested in not getting sick, you see robbery and sickness.

But if you become interested in health, you become interested in prosperity, you become interested in success, you start to see life differently, you start to see possibilities.

And once you start to see possibilities combined with intention, life opens, the door opens up, it's a different life.

Shawn Stevenson: It's like you've been watching me this whole time, like I'm the Truman Show, because that's exactly what happened.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired, my body, I had broken down, I was 20 years old, I was diagnosed with this so-called incurable spinal condition, and it just kind of robbed me of my youth and my potential and all the things that were instilled in me that I was going to be the one to rise up out of our environment and here I was the worst of the worst.

And it took 2 years for me to really become, to hit that point, that rock bottom point is such a good place to be. I really woke up—

Michael Beckwith: Say that again, because the victim is listening to you right now.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, the rock bottom point is actually a great place to be, it's a firm place to stand out from.

And I shifted, I asked a simple question, "Okay, so the physician's been telling me that there's nothing I can do, but my bones were degenerating, and I asked, "What are my bones made of?

Let me investigate what's happening with my body," I hadn't done that the whole time. I'd just been expecting them to help me.

And they weren't giving me the answers I was looking for. It took 4 different physicians to tell me no until I just decided, "Let me go look at this myself."

I live with myself all the time but I don't know a thing about myself. And so I became interested in health and also being in college— when I graduated high school I was like because of the Cosby Show I was like, "I'm going to be a doctor."

And so I went pre-med and I hated science, I hated it with passion. And upperclassman were always so obsessed with like self-diagnosis, just pathology like there is this problem, that problem, it just freaked me out.

And I actually shifted, it's so crazy, the influences with television but I shifted from that, from the pre-med to marketing because of watching Boomerang with Eddie Murphy, I was like, "I will do that."

And so anyways, but it all circled back to health, because of asking the question and I knew because of that experience, that seed that was planted, they were focused on sickness.

Let me find out about what it takes to be healthy. And so I became interested in that.

Michael Beckwith: You did some very powerful, you asked an empowering question. Most people, the victim is asking, "What's wrong, who's to blame and why me?"

When you come out of that and you start to ask, “What’s health? What is prosperity? What is success?"

Now those questions will be answered because the universe by law will answer any question that you ask.

So if you ask, "Why me?" you're going to get a whole lot of reasons and excuses as to why you're in the situation you're in. But if you ask, "What is the nature of health?'

You asked about your bones, you asked about yourself, what's the nature of health— you discovered it, little by little, by little, and then you applied it and you're healthy. You see? So you actually did that.

So if you're going back to the person you asked the question earlier, somebody is in the ditch, they are a victim, they want to get out.

Start asking an empowering question; ask the question like, "What gift is trying to emerge through me?"

If you don't have any money, ask, "What is the nature of prosperity?" Just ask the question.

"What is the nature of success?" Not, "Oh why did so and so do this to me? Why did they steal from me? Why is the man on my back?" No, no, no, no. Those are unanswerable questions. That's pathology.

Ask, "What is the nature of success," and become interested in it and then come into your atmosphere, you'll meet somebody, a book will come to you, you'll hear this podcast.

And then with that interest you'll get your next assignment, you'll get your next level of practice, your life will change.

Shawn Stevenson: Incredible. I'm just thinking about so many of those moments where the book came along, the podcasts weren't a thing yet, so it was like audio program.

The person, you know I met this woman probably 2 years, maybe 3 years earlier when I first went to college, before I got kicked out the first college, but now she ended up back into my awareness and she is a chiropractor now.

 She was older and she graduated and when I was trying to get healthy and learning about all these nutrients that because I was looking like, "What does it take to build a bone, bone density."

We know about calcium from marketing and so I found like 25 other things and many of them are more important and you can't even assimilate calcium without them.

Michael Beckwith: You've got to have the other stuff to distillate the calcium, take it by self it's just going to go out your body.

Shawn Stevenson: Exactly and so I started to realize and I started being a natural pill popper, so I am taking all the supplements because I have just got to get those things in, which was a step because I was interested in trying to figure it out, but the person came along and she took me to Wild Oats.

Back in the day before the Whole Foods scooped them up and I was just like, "What is all this?"

And they had juicing and until to that point and I'm still kind of embarrassed, I didn't eat a salad until I was in my twenty's.

I was so, this is why my body broke down, I grew up in a different environment where you know it was just fast food.

And so I started by getting the juice I got those nutrients into my body and I started to reset my palate, as you talked about earlier.

And so just like those synchronicities do happen and I want to talk to you about, and once we get to that place where we're sick and tired of being sick and tired and we understand that we do have power to affect change, how do we actually begin to "attract" and to create the life that we want?

And we're going to do that right after this quick break, so sit tight we'll be right back.

Today we're in the midst of a new revolution with our understanding of food. We used to just be focused on this macronutrient paradigm, proteins, fats, carbohydrates. Carbohydrates and proteins got a pretty good name but fats were drug through the mud. Why is that?

Because it's called fat. All right, the name implies something different than the other two. Because when we hear the word fat we think about fat on our bodies.

Fat in food and fat in our bodies are two totally different things and it's like thinking, "If I eat blueberries I'm going to turn blue," when you think that eating fat is going to turn you fat.

It just doesn't work like that and any of those three macronutrients can actually put fat on your body if you eat too much or the wrong types.

Healthy fats, which I'm proposing that we start to call lipids or even energy are incredibly important for every single function in your body.

Your cells, every single cells in your body, we have upwards of 100 trillion cells that make you up require fats to just maintain the integrity of your cell membranes, we're talking about the thing that holds your cells together and enables your cells to communicate. It's very important.

Also your brain, your brain is mostly fat and water, this is why fats are so important. When you're deficient in fats especially the right kinds of fats, you can see some big issues.

So in order to address that some of my favorite things today are MCT oils and specifically if we look at emulsified MCT oils that actually taste amazing and these are medium-chain triglyceride oils that are extracted from things like coconut, palm, and these medium-chain triglycerides have a thermogenic effect on the body which means they are able to positively alter your metabolism.

That's number one, the thermogenic effect from MCT oils. Positively altering your metabolism. Number two MCTs are more easily absorbed by yourselves, so unlike conventional food of any type that has to go through a pretty arduous process of digestion turning that foodstuff into you stuff, MCTs are able to go directly to your cells and provide almost instant energy.

And number 3, MCT oils are very protective of your microbiome, there's so much research today about the importance of having a healthy microbiome and the integrity of our gut.

MCT oils are one of those things that help to support that because they are especially effective at combating viruses, parasites, bacteria, there's so much goodness that is able to be found in these MCT oils but you want to get the good stuff, and for me, that's why I go to onnit.com/model, that's O-N-N-I-T.com/M-O-D-E-L to get the emulsified MCT oils which is like a coffee creamer.

These are great to add to your coffees and teas, smoothies and things like that to get in a little bit of extra flavor plus all the benefits of MCT oils.

They're easy to stir, so you don't have to throw everything into a blender just to get a nice coffee drink, but also they taste good and they make the process of being healthy fun and enjoyable.

So head over check them out, they've got vanilla, coconut, cinnamon swirl and strawberry, it's one of my favorites.

So go to onnit.com/model for 10 percent off your entire purchase, not just for the MCT oil but all of the health and human performance supplements that Onnit carries and all of their fitness equipment, gear and so much other cool stuff.

Head over there, check them out, onnit.com/model. Now back to the show.

Alright, we are back and we're talking with the incredible Dr. Michael Beckwith.

And before the break I was talking about that transition from being a victim to understand that you do have power to affect change to create your life.

And one of the things that a lot of people connect you with is manifestation and attraction but you shared something really powerful at that event in Portugal put on by Mind Valley and it was to the effect that you don't attract the things that you want, it's not about attraction it's about becoming.

Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Michael Beckwith: Right. The Law of Attraction is what I call the linguistic convenience for really the law of radiation.

You're actually radiating something, you're actually emanating a vibration and then that vibration condenses itself as your experience and it looks like you're attracting it to you, but you're actually sending that frequency out.

And so the idea is you're seeking to become the next great vision and version of yourself. And so the Law of Attraction is a good entry-level conversation, "How do I attract this to come to me?"

No you can't attract something if you're not it, if you're not holding that vibration.

You can manipulate and get it into your life but you won't be able to keep it because you're not vibrating at its frequency which is why I like to say people who steal that haven't earned it generally lose what they steal, they can't keep it.

They have to keep stealing because they don't have the consciousness of actually having that.

So you steal somebody's car that person is just going to have their insurance company buy them a new car, that's a part of them, it is going to be a minor inconvenience.

But they're going to get another car. But the person who stole the car is going to ditch it after a while, they will have to sell, to steal another car, to steal another car.

They're not it, they're not the thing, you see? So the Law of Attraction is actually, I teach the law of radiation, law of radiance, the law of emergence. What does that mean?

We live in a field of infinite possibilities, infinite potential and things already exist in their potential form.

And when you're at your proper frequency, they emerge much like a rose emerges from a rose bush seed, the seed is not attracting a rose. Inside of that seed, the rose bush emerges from it. Inside of an avocado seed there's a tree that emerges from it, the seed is not attracting the avocado, it's already in there.

So in the beginning stage, as we learn these things, it's just easier to say the Law of Attraction.

But eventually, you have to actually become that vibration, through study and practice, as you have done, your life changes, you actually, you are actually, you're not just teaching this stuff you're actually living this, this is who you are.

This is who you are, you cannot be separated from this. If somebody were to kidnap you and throw you into another country you'd still be this, you see.

And you manifest this all over again and so if I say, "You can't live in America, you have to go live, send them back.

 You've got to go live somewhere else," within 30 days you'd be up and running because this is who you are, you understand. So we segue, how do we segue?

Stage two, you learn the laws of manifestation, right speech, right conversation, right affirmation, context of right visualization, seeing the kind of life you want to live.

You become interested, this begins to change your habits, your mental habits and your physical habits and then there's a point of no return where you actually give birth to the next version of yourself.

And on the way to that, things are coming into your life so you say, "I just met this person, I just attracted this person, I met this person at this party and we're really getting along, we can we do this business together."

It looks like attraction. It is on a certain level, but you're actually becoming that frequency. And after a while what happens?

You don't see anything but what you're interested in. You can walk into a room and you're going to vibe with the people that you know, you feel each other, you know right away if somebody is not really bringing the truth, you're not going to be hanging with them that much, "Hey, how you doing, good to meet you, peace and blessings." You know what I mean?

And who you're going to be with, a birds of your flock, your tribe, you feel it, it's who you are.

And so that the segue is the practice at stage two, the visualization, the right speech, being in integrity with your word, all of that until you become something different.

And at the next level, you're not even really thinking about those things anymore because they're such a part of you.

Shawn Stevenson: I think that, and I've heard this multiple times, but a lot of people who are in the health space they have a tendency to believe that the country is a lot healthier than it is, because it's just the top of mind.

And so like I had to proactively like get myself into different environments because it is, it is so crazy how that's what we see.

But then at a places, then I start to get to a place where to see how else I can serve as well, so is that place of like all I was seeing is health. I was like, "That is not as big of a problem as I thought."

Because it's just, I see it everywhere, the people that I'm around but I think it can get you a little bit, and that's why there are those levels, and you see that there's a bigger thing that takes place and then that's when it starts to happen through me. I was seeing that this is not all that there is.

Michael Beckwith: Right, and two things happen and we have to be careful, not careful, but just conscious of. We get into a bubble.

Because we're around the people that think like we think, it's like, "I'm an Agape," you know what I mean?

And there is a certain mindset, there is a certain frequency of conversation and we do have to be aware that there are large groups of people who are still suffering, large groups of people who don't understand these teachings yet, but we're creating an atmosphere that's making it easier for them to come into this frequency.

So I always tell people that, "There are millions of people who would love," if I am at a meditation retreat or whatever I'm doing, "That would love to be here. But they can't because right now they're under the vibration of survival, they are not even thinking about meditation, because they're trying to eat."

So because we can do these practices, we must, for the rest of the population. So it's not that we're not, it's not that we don't know notice that there are things going on in the world that are out of integrity, that are decadent, but we have to keep our frequency high because going down in the ditch is not going to help anybody.

The only thing that helps somebody is that when you are rising higher and you bring somebody there, rather than going into the pity party, you know you have to be at a conscious level of celebration, celebrating the fundamental goodness of the universal presence, then you can help somebody.

You can't help them if you're in the ditch. So it's like, you have your feet in two places, one you have your feet in the Eternal, one foot is in the eternal, there's no death, there's no loss, there's no birth, this is eternal presence.

And then you have your other foot in Time— people die, people losing things, so our job is to bring the Eternal into Time.

So we hang on to the Eternal, it becomes real to us, stage 3 and stage 4, we come into Time as you say it, "How can I serve? How can I alleviate suffering? How can I inspire? How can I encourage? How can I assist?"

But I can't do it if I'm down here, I can only do it from up here and bring it into time.

Shawn Stevenson: You've got the time stone on, this is so powerful, it is so powerful. You mentioned earlier right speech. Can you elaborate on with that is?

Michael Beckwith: Yeah. Well the first fundamental principle is unity or oneness. We're one with the presence.

And in that presence, and I'm speaking reality, I am not speaking like religion, this is like quantum reality, there's only one thing going on everywhere. There are principles of abundance, harmonizing prosperity, health.

So you have to make sure that your speech is in an alignment with that, so you wouldn't say all the time, "I'm broke," you don't want to have that kind of speech, you may be temporarily without money, your body temporarily may not be at its optimal frequency, but you want to have your speech in alignment with where you want to go.

My body is healing right now, everything in the universe is conspiring for divine health. I am on an upward spiraling path towards prosperity, so my speech would have to be in alignment with where I'm going.

Now, of course, there are going to be moments where you vent, moments where you get mad, but then you have to come back so that your speech is in alignment with where you want to go. Because your word, it's a vibration.

You're releasing a vibration so you want what comes out of your mouth to be in alignment with where you want to live, so sometimes you have to fast from talking. Just be quiet and that's why we use affirmations.

So we're retraining our subconscious mind. I, Michael, am willing to be dynamically prosperous, inspirational and healthy.

Sometimes you got to start with willingness, you can't just jump to, "I am this," and mind goes, "No, you're not. You can't pay your bills how can you say you're prosperous?" So somebody may have to start with willingness. "I'm willing to be an instrument of prosperity, abundance, health, wholeness."

And then you slowly come into, "I am, I'm a vehicle." And so what's happening, it's reprogramming the subconscious mind and then from there you start to feel it. And I've been saying for 40 years within the feeling brings the healing.

So as you start to feel that, even before it shows up, you start to feel that you're prosperous, you start to feel that you're successful, you start to feel that you're supported, you have the feeling then it just starts to show up in your life, it starts to manifest. What does manifest mean?

It means the invisible is now becoming visible. It's invisible as a thought, feeling, but then it becomes visible, it shows up as a possibility, as it's a door opening, it shows up as an ideal employment, it shows up as a new friendship, it shows up and starts to manifest.

But it's not going to manifest if you're not in integrity with it in your word and in your feeling.

That's where the work is.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, right.

Michael Beckwith: Because when you're in the ditch, you're complaining, you're using all your creative energies to find new ways of complaining, a new excuse-making. I become creative at excuse-making.

But once you start to take on the principles, you become creative in how you talk to yourself.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's so powerful. It really all connects now, you know. I know you've got it all laid out with the Life Visioning which shout out to Life Visiting makes you pick it up. It's awesome.

But when you mentioned being able to put your attention back onto the positive speech or more affirmative speech, because you're going to have those moments when you're like, "I'm broke as a joke," or you know the situation is just terrible, whatever it is, these negative things we might say, there is no way to fix this.

We all say some of the most ridiculous things that we know are not true. But how do you get yourself back to that place is through meditation, you mentioned this earlier is being able to shift and put your attention on what you want or what is real. And so that practice really leans  itself to being more formidable in this practice.

Michael Beckwith: Right, you can't do without practice. And I'll give you a little trick that I teach the students, is that, and it's a little tricky to do this, but when you're in that downward spiral and you're complaining, or you're mad, actually use that energy to affirm the truth. But do it angrily.

It's like you're on a downward spiral, you know, slam your head on the table and say, "Why do I always have too much money? Why do you think always work together for me, I don't understand it? Why do I, why am I so healthy all the time?" But you do it angrily.

You're not trying to suppress, we don't want to suppress repress energy because it is going to show up somewhere else.

So emotionally backed affirmations, you're actually transmuting the energy, you got anger, so you might as well use it.

And so you use that energy and it starts to fizzle out but what's happened is you reprogrammed your mind, passionately.

Because a lot of times people wake up, the day is just starting, the birds are singing, life is good, and they're sitting there meditating and they are affirming. And then they get on the freeway and someone cuts them off or something doesn't go as planned and they start going crazy.

If you can, it's not, it's a difficult practice, you know because when you're in it you're in it, but if you can just get away a little bit and just say, "Why do things always work together for my good? Please show me why do I keep making so much money? Why is my body healed so fast?"

The universe will answer those questions. And because you've asked passionately, it will come quickly.

Shawn Stevenson: Wow, wow, that's so awesome.

Michael Beckwith: So you want to have a partner with that sometimes, I'll call you on a little bit.

Shawn Stevenson: That's immediately what I thought about, because sometimes, you know, it's even happened recently in a process of moving.

My wife says something and I was like, "You know that's not true," she's like, "I know but still," she literally put that passion into that exact thing.

And what's so amazing to me is when you were talking earlier I realized that sometimes when those crazy words and thoughts come out of my mouth, like I'm to the place where I'll see it coming out like, you know it's not true, and I'm able to bring myself back to what is real.

Michael Beckwith: That's authority and that's a level of mastership when you can see it and then pull yourself back, but the person who's living in the victim stage, they can't pull themselves back, they don't even see it, it just becomes a habit.

So I'll say it's okay to vent, you may vent to a person, you may have a good friend in which you say, "Hey this went down, I don't like it, blah, blah,blah."

Okay, you vent it, but then if you call somebody else and do the same thing again, now that's practicing what you don't want.

Now I'm taking my vent and I'm making it a part of my practice and then I'm going to call the next person and say that, "You just said it to this person, why you're going to call this person and say the same thing? And then call this person to say the same thing; by the time you get to this person you should be finished."

Shawn Stevenson: And you're also spreading that energy.

Michael Beckwith: Yeah, and everybody is agreeing with you about the negative thing that you're seeing. No, you have to vent. But then the next time it should be at a higher level of conversation.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, so this speaks to having people in our life that are supportive of that, of bringing you back to the truth.

And so I want to talk about that, personally, and I've expressed many times, I feel that I'm a nutritionist, so I thought food was everything.

But I really feel that our relationships are the most influential things in like the tangible reality on our health, and just our success overall.

So you know, a lot of folks listening right now of course, there are many people who are in wonderful relationships so they're working towards it, but some folks are just you know, it's their story, like you know, I've got these people around me.

In my clinical practice that was the number one thing why people couldn't because of, "My husband won't  or you know it's my kids," or you know constantly pointing fingers, but then not really realizing that you have the power to affect change in your relationships as well.

Michael Beckwith: Right. I used to say years ago that when you choose a relationship you're biting off a chunk of your destiny, you're actually choosing the direction you're going to walk in, so you actually have to choose the people you're going to be around because that's what your life is going to look like.

And so you want to transcend neediness, so you're not just being around people just to not be lonely, you know so that the people that you are around are a part of the tribe of becoming, the tribe of, each of us want to become the next great version of ourself.

So there has to be a kind of an agreement among the people we hang out with, that we're actually trying to be better.

And with the awareness that wherever we are, we're barely scratching the surface to the next level of our awareness. So we're not sitting on our laurels, "I'm all that, I've got it made."

And so if that's a part of your tribe's credo, that we're all evolving, that becomes a part of our intention, then the conversations within that tribe are supportive and helpful, encouraging sometimes tough love, you know but it's all in the process of us growing.

And then we have to understand what a relationship is, it's a ship of transformation, it's a ship in which individuals, whether it's business, whether it's intimate, whatever it is, we are participating in something bigger than ourselves.

So I say that a relationship is a joint participation in the good of life, meaning you have two fish swimming in the ocean, you know, they're doing their thing.

One fish may say to the other fish, "Hey you know what, if you make me happy, I am going to give you all the water you can handle." But they're swimming in it. One fish can’t give other fish water. So they're actually relating in something bigger than both of them, water.

So we're all relating in something bigger than all of us, that's love. We're surrounded by love, we're surrounded by infinite potential.

So relationship is a joint participation in something bigger than all of us, and if we're all connected to something bigger, than I have more to share with you, you have more to share with me, because I'm not trying to get it from you and you're not trying to get it for me, we're getting it from where it is but we're swimming together and we're sharing with each other and we're loving each other, we're supporting each other because it's infinite, it's not going to run out.

You know, those two fish they are not running out of water, they can share infinitely and swim and dive and avoid this hooks.

Shawn Stevenson: You know, this made me think of to also be weary of the fish who talk that way to you, like, "I'll give you all the water you want," because that's how another way that we can manipulate each other.

So with with that said, another big relationship that we have today is with social media, man, just with the Internet; it's a whole new entity that never existed before in human history and I'm seeing this more and more, I'm definitely concerned about it and I'm making moves myself proactively, I mean it starts within my own household, but also just at a larger scale because I see the potential.

I mean, obviously there's beautiful parts to it, and then there's negativity, but people establishing their value through those mediums, that you know a certain amount of likes or followers gives a certain level of importance, and I've seen it within myself as well and I see how easy you can fall into that trap especially for younger kids and their malleable minds.

And so what, from your perspective, because it's a thin line of having inspiration from the things we might see on social media to feeling that we're not enough. So what do you think we can do to kind of traverse this?

Michael Beckwith: Yeah I think just having a conversation first of all, but you're right when you say that— I didn't have to deal with that coming up in elementary school, junior high school, you actually talk with people, you actually if you had to beef with somebody at school you dealt with it.

Now somebody has a tool that they can actually say something to somebody that they wouldn't say to that person's face. You know what I mean, they wouldn't say that, they wouldn't say,  if you were with the person and you had an issue, you would actually talk to that person say, "I don't agree with you," there would be a conversation, there would be something going on that would eventually get resolved but with social media I can hide and I can say to Shawn, "Man, that's a bunch of—".

I'll never have even have to see you. So on one hand it's dangerous because people can actually do that, the other dangerous part is as you indicated, people are developing their self-esteem from it, you know or self hate.

There is bullying on there as well, so I think that like with anything, it's a tool that can be very inspirational, very educational and we have to encourage everyone, not just young folks, but everyone to use this tool for inspiration, encouragement and community building, and not tearing each other down. It has to be a tool for unity whereas now there are silos of hate.

And it's just marrying the conscious in the world except that now you have a tool just as human beings went from sticks and stones to bombs and guns, you know that consciousness was there but then they had a way to extend it and now we're dealing with nuclear armaments and gun control we still have to go back to consciousness, so that people understand that they're one with each other, it's a big job we have.

So social media is simply a symptom of the underlying angst of humanity, it's not the problem, it's a symptom.

Electricity is beautiful but when you put into an electric chair you'll kill somebody, or it can light up this light or amplify what we're saying, you know but it's the consciousness behind it.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, you mentioned something earlier and I just want to make sure that it gets glanced over, but you mentioned that each person has a— nobody can be them, right you know and it's such a unique, valuable proposition and your mission is to express more of you, that can never be duplicated.

And so with that said and how we're eyeballing social media with our potential envy or sense of not being enough, how can we look at it a little bit differently in understanding our value?

Because when you said that earlier I wanted to talk more about it but I'm glad I can circle back to it.

Michael Beckwith: Right, first of all, this great life whatever name you want to call it, it never repeats itself.

There is nothing in the world that's exactly the same as anything else we're all unique expressions, every blade of grass is different, every snowflake that comes out, they've done experiments where they've taken snow let it melt, then they refroze it and they went back to their original shape, but each shape is different.

So there's nothing the same. So we're incomparable.

So we have to teach ourselves and become aware that we are unique expressions of whatever this thing we want to call it.

So if I do not self actualize, then who I am as a unique expression of the infinite is not going to be expressed.

This piece that I'm to do, is not going to happen, you can't do my piece and I can't do your piece.

Only you can do your piece, only I can do my piece.

So we all have like a mandate from the universe to grow up and mature and to be ourselves. So what does that give us? It gives us a level of self-love and esteem because I am the only me in this entire cosmos, with multi-dimensional universes and parallel universes and galaxies, there is only one me. So if I don't be me, me ain't going to happen.

So we want to encourage people to understand that because what happens is when you don't understand it, you try to make yourself unique.

You know, you do all kind of weird things to be unique, but you're already unique.

And so that's what happens when you go through these stages, you start to realize your uniqueness, you start to fall in love with how you were made and where you were made from, not just your parents, but before your parents, what is that life that made you?

That means that everyone has significance, everyone has meaning, everyone is meaningful, everyone has access to the same power, everyone has access to the same intelligence that runs through the entire universe, but am I upping my wattage capacity to allow that energy to flow through me?

And if we can get that, if we can be taught that. Most things you learn in school you don't even use, you know what I mean. So we can put into school values, when I was going to school we had a grade for citizenship, they don't have that anymore.

Shawn Stevenson: Oh yeah, what? Citizenship, no.

Michael Beckwith: It was citizenship, man, you got a grade. How well you dealt with your peers, how well, I mean, it went from littering to politeness, to listening, it was a citizenship grade and you had your arithmetic, you had your reading, and you had citizenship so there were some kind of values trying to be instilled, we don't have that.

We're not trained to have a goal, to be whatever than ever the meaning of success is in the world.

But we look at it now and we see the celebrity has removed wisdom from the throne. So now because someone's a celebrity, they're more important than a hard worker just because they are celebrity. They may be as ignorant as this cup.

Shawn Stevenson: This cup isn't ignorant by the way. It is teeming with life.

Michael Beckwith: And so we have to figure out, we have to bring back the values of wisdom, compassion, kindness, generosity, intelligence and put wisdom back on the throne of our society.

Because now kids look at that people because they have 2 million likes, 8 million or they made a lot of money, but the money is just stagnating, just sitting there and they do nothing. That's not success.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, and I know that right now you know if somebody listening who are rising to the occasion to be that person, you know, who's demonstrating wisdom along with the growth and success as well.

Because you know that's another thing that help to really catapult me into a different level of thinking because I was very content with just helping people and not being financially successful per se, you know just kind of getting by until I realized I want to show, these kids are looking at Lil Wayne or they are looking at Lil Pump or whoever and they're wanting to aspire towards that because that's what I had in my environment too, and I can show them like, "Listen I achieved this by doing this this. I achieved this by writing books, I did this by helping people to feel good" and showing that there's another possibility.

And so I'm so glad that you talked about that and the fact that like we need to step up and to put ourselves in that position to be seen because there is all this celebrity and like you said, there's a lot of stupid stuff and very hurtful things going on in that domain. But then there are also people who are understanding their platform and making some shifts and adjustments as well.

Michael Beckwith: Absolutely, we appreciate that. In the "Life Visioning" book I talk about the age structures, we call them unstable structures that you're destabilized, that one of the structures is your livelihood and finances and another structure is body temple, health, another structure is relationships, another structure is your participation in the community.

Another structure is having a healthy ego, what does that mean?

So the idea is we're not throwing any of those things away, we're stabilizing them which means those parts of your life become an asset so you want to be financially successful so that becomes an asset; you want to be physically healthy, so your body becomes an asset.

You want to be able to have good relationships where your ego isn't crashing all your relationships because that's your support system.

Now, in the old model of success when you got those things together that was called personal success.

A personal success is a stepping stone to how you're going to serve. Because it's difficult for you to serve if you can't, you can be the light of the world if you can't pay your light bill. So it's difficult to serve if your finances are askew.

It's difficult to serve if your body temple is always falling apart. It's difficult to serve if you don't get along with people. So you get those structures together, now you become a bigger conduit to be of greater service, so we definitely want personal success, but that's not the end game, that's the beginning game.

Shawn Stevenson: Love it. So you just celebrated a birthday.

Michael Beckwith: I did, July 21st.

Shawn Stevenson: Yes, I got to see some pictures of you jumping up on a handstand.

Michael Beckwith: Headstand. And then a cobra, I mean a scorpion.

Shawn Stevenson: All that, and I think you do like 100 pushups in addition to it, somewhere in there. So what's next for you? I feel like you're just getting warmed up.

Michael Beckwith: That's exactly how I feel. I feel like all the years that I've been teaching are leading to a tipping point for myself, for the Agape community, it's like I'm just getting started.

And I think that it's in keeping with, when you look at the indigenous cultures and they break up ages and they'll say you know, until you're 50 you're not even an adult yet.

Once you hit 50 now you're an adult. When you're 80 you are an elder.

So I think that you know, I'm an adult, and I know how things work, I want to be of greater service, so everything that I've done up to this moment is a preparation for my next level of service, come what may, whatever that is.

Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, awesome. Can you let everybodyy know where they can best connect with you, follow you, get involved in what you're doing?

Michael Beckwith: Absolutely. They can go to agapelive.com, A-G-A-P-E-L-I-V-E.com and they can actually watch the teachings every Sunday live right there.

The 7 o'clock service is primarily meditation, 9 o'clock, 11.30 service that's the music, the inspiration, the message preceded by a half-hour of meditation.

They can go to MichaelBeckwith.com and check out my website as well. Yeah, that's it, it's probably where it is right there.

I mean, I've got the social media but I'm using it for good. Instagram, Michaelbbeckwith, Facebook, all of that is there you know. But yeah, I'm easy to find.

Shawn Stevenson: Awesome, yes you are. And I am grateful that I found you and you've been such an inspiration. I shared that with you when we first met.

Michael Beckwith: I know, right now I'm really reveling in the people that have been affected by the teaching that are doing great things in the world. I was in Costa Rica recently and I watched 5 or 6 of my students just tear it up and it just made my heart feel so good.

I'm watching students go out and start centers, people like yourself that are affected by the teachings touching millions of people it's really turning me on these days.

Shawn Stevenson: That's awesome. And again, even that is just getting warmed up as well, you know and I just want to thank you for having the audacity to say yes, I know it's been presented many times along the way in your story, and I'm just really excited to see what's next and I'm going to be watching and following and thank you for coming and hang out with me.

Michael Beckwith: Thank you for doing what you're doing, you're making a big difference.

Shawn Stevenson: Thank you man, I appreciate it.

Michael Beckwith: God bless you.

Shawn Stevenson: Awesome. Everybody, thank you so much for tuning into the show today I hope you really enjoyed this is much as I did.

And again, it's really about practice, it was said many times throughout this episode how important the practice is, you don't just get something and you arrive and it is just all sunshine and rainbows from that point on. It's really about developing those mental and emotional and spiritual muscles to be able to modulating flow through all the things that life is going to present you with.

And it comes from implementing a practice so whether that practice is formal meditation or it's a practice of mindfulness, it's a practice of visualizing, it's a practice of just loving kindness and being kind to other people have of gratitude, whatever it is, cultivate that practice, work on it daily and see your world change. Practice your own personal blisscipline.

And if you've got a lot of value out of this episode, please share it out with the people that you care about and tag me, tag Michael and let everybody know what you thought of the episode.

We've got some incredible stuff coming your way very, very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.

And for more after this show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com, that's where you can find all of the show notes, you can find transcriptions, videos for each episode, and if you've got a comment you can leave me a comment there as well.

And  please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that this show is awesome and I appreciate that so much.

And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to have to transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.