SHAWN STEVENSON: Welcome to the Model Health Show. This is fitness nutrition expert Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today, our perception determines our reality, the number one driving force of the human psyche is to stay congruent with the ideas that one has of themselves. Everything that we do is based on who we believe ourselves to be, and every time we do something outside of our beliefs about who we are, how we do things, what we believe, it creates discomfort that tends to snap us right back, it's the snapback into our old ways of being. This is why change can be so difficult, so a real change is generally going to start from a place of changing our identity. Now, about 16 years ago, I had already been working in the field of health and wellness for about four years. I was working at the university that I graduated from recently and working as a strength conditioning coach and helping folks to become more strong and fit and changing their nutrition, and I was also just starting to crack the doors open on my clinical practice, opening my own office.

So, I was doing a lot, I was really striving to serve and to help people because I'd been through so much difficulty with my own health and after turning my own health around, I wanted to help other people to do the same. I just really got on fire to do that, but I didn't know how, I didn't know how to go about it because at that same time, I was living in a one-bedroom apartment in Ferguson, Missouri. My mattress was on the floor, I had the world's chittiest couch, alright, chitty with the 'ch', alright. The world's chittiest couch. It was made out of dryer lint, like the lint that you find in the dryer, stitch that together, it was terrible, alright. And at the time when I was dealing with health issues and I was heavy, I was the heavy Shawn, I'd actually cracked the wood that was underpinning this quote "love seat", and I had a pillow stuffed into it underneath the cushion to kind of make it look like it's level, alright. I was just getting by. Now, I had graduated, I've got a four-year degree from the university, I'm helping people, but I just couldn't really get it together to reach outside of the paradigm that I was in.

My perception of reality was that it had to be hard, I had to struggle, it's where I come from, and even if I'm doing good in the world, I have to shoulder the burden of all of the things that are going on in the world around me. I didn't know that there was another way because it just wasn't something that I perceived as a possibility. Now, of course, I saw many people doing well, the people on television and things of the like, but I didn't have any close associations with anybody that had even graduated from college, except for my professors, for example, I just didn't grow up in an environment where people went to college and went off and had quote "success" in life, so I didn't really have any examples of what that was so I'm venturing into uncharted territory and replaying a lot of my old patterns. But something really amazing happened in that process, and I believe that it is within the striving towards that new way of being, that we actually happen upon those things... We need to be in the process, we need to have a willingness. But something really amazing happened.

About 15, 16 years ago, my mother-in-law gave me this DVD... Alright, this is when we had DVD. Alright, so the DVDs are getting passed around, alright. It also... It wasn't bootleg, it was actually a real, real DVD, it was a real version of it. And I put it on, and there was this amazing teacher, somebody that spoke right to me, and he was talking about the principles of reality that we all are existing within, but oftentimes we don't know that it's happening. And he was sharing that the things that are happening in our lives are not by accident, we are co-creating our reality, and we create an attractive field based on the way that we are living our lives and the thoughts that we're carrying. And he talked about the power of our thoughts and how we have the ability to choose our own thoughts, whereas at the time, I lived so many years in my life believing that thoughts just happened. Believing that if things are going on in the world, I'm just responding to those thoughts, and now I'm getting more empowered and understand that I get to create the thoughts that I want, I get to think the thoughts that I want to think.

Thoughts that are empowering, and I get to cancel out the negative thoughts, and through the practice of course, of meditation and things of the like I started to become more aware of those things and becoming... Having the ability to essentially work kind of like the minority report screen or like the matrix and being able to see things through a different lens and to choose the way that I want to live and what I want to believe, rather than having these things imposed upon me, and the person that I'm talking about who's on that film was Bob Proctor. At the time, Bob Proctor had already been one of the leaders in personal development for decades... Literally four decades, so 40-plus years. And certain people, you just have a resonance with, I really felt like he was speaking right to me when he shared that the only limits in our lives are those that we place upon ourselves. And I started to inspect my inner terrain and to see all the stories that I was telling myself about what was possible and allowing my conditions to dictate my potential, and hearing from him that day, and he was in... The hit movie that was getting passed around was 'The Secret', and there's many other wonderful speakers, but there were three people in particular that really stuck out to me, Bob Proctor, Lisa Nichols, and Michael Beckwith.

And from that moment after watching the film, like something shifted in me, now, of course, it's going to be nuanced with any tenets around attraction and around the mind, because our mind is so expansive and reality is so dynamic and complex and expansive as well, but to fall in tune and understand, just simply shifting our belief about things changes things, it changes how we operate in the world, and from that moment I just got on fire, I had so many ideas about expansion, about being able to reach and impact the lives of more people in a positive way, I didn't know how yet, I still didn't know how yet. Podcasts weren't a thing.

I didn't know that my life would go in that direction, but I just started walking in that direction, writing ideas down, writing down my goals, and man, life quickly began to change so much so that eventually I opened up my clinical practice and began working with folks on a daily basis and seeing these incredible transformations. And I was also inspired to write my first book, and then my second book, which was 'Sleep Smarter' and then a major published version of that book, which became an international bestseller, and was the first sleep wellness-related book to become an international bestseller it's now translated into 21 different languages and 21 different foreign publications each, and from there, writing the national bestseller, 'Eat Smarter', the USA Today national bestseller 'Eat Smarter' and became the number one new release of all books in the United States when it came out.

And this is a book on health when it's on the charts, and this was fiction and non-fiction on the charts with the likes of books that are written by former presidents, "Being" Barack Obama, Matthew McConaughey's book, and the list goes on and on in this book about nutrition from this guy from Ferguson, Missouri being right up there with the greats. Everything changed when I heard from Bob Proctor. And the reason that I'm talking about this today is that we recently lost Bob, he just passed away, and I wanted to celebrate his life and celebrate his impact on my life and the lives of so many other people. So today, I'm going to share these special powerful conversations from Bob, and please know that these insights are timeless, and it was as if as I listened to them myself, it was a very emotional experience because it was as if I was hearing them for the first time, and I'll tell you what transpired because even with the accolades and the success with being an author and having the number one health podcast in United States many times over, and all the people that I have been able to reach and impact and the positive change I've been able to see in the world and in my life, what I can tell you, first-hand, proof positive about the power of shifting our thinking, millions and millions of and millions, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions of people have seen that film.

So many people would love to have a conversation with Bob Proctor, would love to meet Lisa Nichols, Michael Beckwith... These are my friends, Michael Beckwith, literally text me on the way into the studio today... No, he called me, I missed his call. I've lived in Ferguson, Missouri. I was sleeping on the mattress on the floor. I saw these people, and I was inspired, and I started moving in the direction of stepping into my greatness and stopped making excuses and understanding how powerful that I am to shift my perspective and to become the type of person who can have relationships with these amazing people. So, it's proof positive that no matter where you are, no matter where you come from, no matter what you've been through. You can create the life that you truly want. But part of that is getting honest about what you really want, which is one of the things that Bob's going to talk about, but it's really remarkable to see everything that's transpired and just put me back into a state of reflection, thinking about the conversations that I had with Bob, and at the time, seven years ago when we had these conversations, Man, I was on cloud nine, just to be able to see like, "Wow, I just was looking at you through this screen, and now here you are, and you know who I am," and not only that, he... And you'll even hear him say it how much he wanted to support me and my work and what I was doing, he saw something in me that I still hadn't quite seen in myself yet.

And so that's what I really love, and I appreciate so much about Bob, and you know the wonderful people that are in my life now, and you and I just appreciate you so much for being a part of this movement and for allowing me to be a part of your life. And if there's any value that I've been able to provide, and I just want to ask you today in honor of Bob to really do something today to pay it forward, just something simple, give a compliment to somebody... Let somebody know how much you appreciate them, tell somebody that you love them, send a little special text to maybe somebody you haven't talked to in a while, extend out a little bit more love today in honor of Bob Proctor, and that would mean the world to me as well. Now, one of the most powerful things that I picked up that very first time that I heard from Bob Proctor was, the law of prosperity is generosity. If you want more, give more. If you want more, give more.

This can be a little bit counter intuitive. For our popular culture today. It's just like, "Well, I don't have anything to give. I'm trying to get something." And he was coming with a the different perspective that wherever you are right now, you have something to give, there are people who are behind where you are in some kind of capacity in their lives, and you can add value to those people's lives, so finding a pathway or propensity or willingness to be generous, to give more, so that we can, of course, be able to add value to the lives of others, but that is the direct way for us to achieve prosperity and success ourselves, and so finding ways to give... Because we know this, now we've got all these wonderful studies showing how giving and doing for other people really helps to improve our own health, literally it improves our health, and it creates this cascade this release of positive affirmative hormones and neurotransmitters through the act of giving. And this gets into the value of what you're going to hear about and learn from Bob today in sharing his amazing story and also some powerful insights for us to all create a happier, more successful life. So really, really pumped about this, grateful to be able to have these experiences and these conversations to put together to share with you today.

Now, before we get started, I have something really amazing to add to your super-human immune system support, a study published in the peer reviewed journal, Antiviral Chemistry & Chemotherapy, revealed that this remarkable product from bees called propolis has significant antiviral effects, specifically in reducing viral lung infections, this could be kind of helpful today, a recent study also published in viral therapy research found that when topical propolis is added three times a day in this particular study, it accelerated the healing of cold sores, again, this is resulting from another type of virus, a herpes virus, that is very tricky in being able to hide out in our nervous system responding to things like stress, and the research has found that topical propolis not only reduced the amount of herpes virus present in a person's body, but also protected the body against future cold sore outbreaks, one other study, this was a meta-analysis published in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine found that propolis has anti-viral, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-tumor properties. It's well established to be an immunomodulator that increases the body's resistance to infection, and propolis treated patients showed a reduced incidence and severity of asthma and allergy symptoms.

Now, this is news to us with these wonderful peer-reviewed studies, but the history of propolis is remarkable, it's been utilized for centuries, the ancient Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, were well aware of the healing properties that propolis has, and today, again, we have all this wonderful peer-reviewed evidence but how do you use it in a way that actually has efficacy, and why does it work? Well, there's over 300 active compounds in propolis, the majority of these compounds in the form of antioxidants, specifically polyphenols, that are well documented to reduce inflammation and fight disease, even more specifically, Polyphenols have been proven to inhibit the activity of coronaviruses. This is according to recent data published in the peer-reviewed journal, Archives of Virology. Again, this data has existed for quite some time, and the human body and its natural association with things that humans have been utilizing for centuries, this is something that we all can be utilizing and taking advantage of right now, but the key is we want to make sure that we are utilizing these things in an efficacious manner, bee products are often some of the most contaminated products because of all of the environmental pollution and how things are being grown today.

But the Propolis that I use... And it's a product called B immune from Beekeeper's Naturals. They do third party testing for over 70 pesticide residues that are commonly found in bee products and also test for a wide spectrum of toxins, including heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury, and nefarious bacteria as well, like Salmonella, making sure that none of these nefarious compounds are coming through with the healthy things that you're trying to utilize, so check out the B immune from Beekeeper's Naturals, and they just upped it to a 25% off discount, that's automatically taken off at checkout. So, it went from 15% off, now they're giving 25% off right now. I don't know how long it's going to last, but 25% off. Go to beekeepersnaturals.com/model, that's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-Snaturals.com/model for 25% off, automatically taken off at checkout.

And now let's get into the special tribute to the amazing life of Bob Proctor. In this first conversation, you're going to hear his remarkable story and also some specific insights on addressing our self-image or our perception of who we are, and, again, we're operating from that self-image with every decision that we make. We eat based on who we believe ourselves to be, we exercise based on who we believe ourselves to be, we manage stress based on who we believe ourselves to be, this is why this matters so much in the context of having a healthy, abundant life in all areas. So really, really powerful stuff. And again, it's such an honor to be able to share these conversations, and man, my heart is full having listened to this and I'm so grateful that I get to share this with you. Listen up and hear from the amazing Bob Proctor.

Well, Bob, you've got a phenomenal story of how you kind of got started in all of this, so can you share a little bit about that, how you got started... And I know that even way back in the day, like you even dropped out of high school, so just take us a little through your story and in how you've impacted so many people.

BOB PROCTOR: Well, I think I was like a lot of young guys, I was just wandering around, lost until I was 26. I went to high school for two months, I didn't leave. They asked me to leave. I was as happy as they were though when they asked me, I hated school and nobody ever got me to like it, I worked at dumb jobs, I just took anything I could get, and I was non-happy human being. And I was fortunate when I was 26, I met a man who saw something in me that I obviously didn't see in myself. And he said that if I would do exactly what he taught me I could have anything I want. Well, of course, I didn't believe that, but I believed he believed it, the guy spoke with such conviction, and he asked me if I read anything, and I said, "No, I can't read"... Now, that wasn't true, I could not well, but I could... And he gave me this book, I've been reading this book for 55 years, and I read it every day. It's Napoleon Hill's book, "Think and Grow Rich", I've got a big elastic around it, so it doesn't fall apart. And I started to read it.

And everything in my life changed. He got me to sit down and think of what I wanted. All I wanted was some money. And he said, well how much money do you want? Anything would have been a lot. I was earning $4000 a year and I owed six. It was a hopeless situation. But like I say, I think a lot of people live like this. If I had taken every cent, I earned for 18 months and paid debts, I would have just broken even, nothing to live on. So, you know, I couldn't see the light, I just couldn't see it at all, but he said, Listen, forget all that. That's why you can't do it. Read this book, and of course, Hill tells you to... There's a secret in the book, then he said, "If you can find the secret in the book, then you're going to do seriously well." And he tells you to write your goal on a card. So, I wrote my goal on a card, and I'd been carrying a card in my pocket with my goal on it ever since, that's 55 years ago, and I wrote on it that I wanted $25,000. I didn't believe I could get it; I didn't even know anyone with $25,000, but I kept reading the card.

Now, years later, I look back and I realized what I had done, I went from thinking of debt and having to pay bills, I started to think of earning money. Now the natural question there is, "Well, weren't you thinking of earning money?" No, I wasn't, I was thinking of debt. People that are in debt and have a goal of getting out of debt, will probably stay in debt forever and because whatever you think about that's what's going to happen. Well, somebody said there was good money cleaning floors, I started to hear people talk about earning money, and I started to think about it, and I said, I'm not proud, I'll clean floors. So, I started cleaning offices, I got one office to clean at $15 a time, and I cleaned it twice a month, then I got another one at $65. Well, you know, by the end of the year, I had my income at $175,000 and I took it to over a million. In less than five years, I was cleaning houses in Toronto, Montreal, Boston, Cleveland, Atlanta and London, England. The thing took off like a rocket. I never stopped studying this book, and then I got into Earl Nightingale's condensed narration of the book, and I got into studying all of Earl's stuff.

And so, I have thought about this, and I don't think it would have mattered what I was doing, I was going to win, because I was following the right direction. I did exactly what I was told. I had asked myself, how is this happening? I was earning all kinds of money, I was living in England at the time, I'd opened an office there, and I thought, you know, there's something strange here, a lot of people have read Think and Grow Rich, they weren't doing what I was doing. There's a lot of people cleaning offices, but they weren't doing what I was doing it, and I had been raised to believe, if you can earn a lot of money, you got to be really smart. Well, I know I wasn't very smart, but I was earning a lot of money. I was raised to believe, if you don't go to school, you can't get a good job, I didn't have a good job, I owned the company, so I started to really question all my beliefs, and I found that most of them wouldn't hold water. And I made up my mind. I was going to find out what happened, and I started to study it, it took me nine and a half years. And when I finally got the dots to connect, all I wanted to do was teach it.

And I've even found out why I wanted to teach it, you don't enjoy anything until you share... I don't care what it is. You get a new stone microphone; you want to share it. And all I wanted to do was teach this to people, because I knew that if I could do it, anybody could do it. I had not been going for me that everybody didn't have gone for them. And I got carried away with it. I've gone into prisons, I spent five years at Green, one Saturday a month, for five years, maximum security. And I watched people change their lives. I had them parole to me, they've changed their lives. We were picking up people out of the park and we'd washed them, and we watch people, we wouldn't let them out of our sight, and I was thinking, "Will this work for anybody?" And those people's lives changed, I've gone into companies, the credential insurance, the largest company in the world, back in the early 70s, we raised their sales by hundreds of millions of dollars. And do you know what was a strange thing, Shawn, I found that... When I found out why I changed I found out, hardly anybody knows why they're winning. Large corporations do not know why their stars are stars, if they knew they'd can it and give it to everybody, and that's what I've spent the last 40 something years doing.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And doing it very successfully at a high level, and you've impacted lives or so many people you impact in my life, definitely, far before this conversation. And I love the fact that this was really brought by the revelation that anything that we want, that we want to have in our lives, it's not worth having it until we share it. And the example that you gave of even if it's a suit, 'cause you don't get a new suit and you put it on you look in the mirror and you're like, "Wow, this looks great, I'm going to go take a nap in it, right?

It's like, I want to share this. And now you don't necessarily have to go out and connect with people. But you know, you could take a selfie and share it on social media, you still want to share it, and it's so valuable.

BOB PROCTOR: But you know, if you're looking at a sunset alone, it looks good, but if you're there with somebody to say, "Look at that," well, they're looking at it and you're telling them to... It's sharing. You got to share it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. It's so true. And this is so important because you brought up that you're driving force in the beginning, and it's evolved since then, but it was to get out of debt and you shifted over to making abundance, making enough money to do and have and be all the things that you want. And our financial health is really important, this is the Model Health Show, and we're talking about all the aspects of life that contribute to your health and your financial health matters, especially in this world today. It's a huge stressor for people. Because your finances are really what help to drive you being able to do things, it's an exchange of energy for sure, but it's just a way that our society is built, whether you like it or not, if you want to be...

BOB PROCTOR: Well, it's a medium of exchange that you use for other people's products and services. I see money only used for two things, one is to make you comfortable, the more comfortable you are, the more creative can become, and the second one is to extend the good you do far beyond your own presence, and you want to... Like our companies locked in, we build schools in Africa, and we got into this about four years ago, and we love it, and we build a school every two and a half weeks, our goal is to build one every day. And we do it with through Cynthia Kersey's, the Unstoppable Foundation. In fact, in a couple of days, we've had... First, I have a partner, Sandy Gallagher, who is a brilliant lady, she runs the company. She went over about three, four years ago with Sentry, we built in Kenya, and they get in and she saw what was going on. Last year, we set Cory Kelly, another girl in our company with her 15-year-old daughter, and she went over. Every May Cynthia Kersey goes and so we send somebody with her. This year, Gina, my assistant, and Kim Klein, who is in our finance area, they went. And Gina had me crying when she came back, she had me on the phone, she said, "Bob, if you could only see the good that we're doing there," and she went on and on. So, the group of them that have been there, are you going to put on a presentation to everybody in the company so the whole company can really get involved in what we're doing.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

BOB PROCTOR: And that's where we get our greatest joy.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Right. Yeah, I've actually contributed to unstoppable as well. That really helped me personally because I didn't grow up with much at all. Very interesting story, of course, oftentimes for Christmas, I haven't talked about this on the show before, but for a lot of Christmases, we would get free gifts from this... Basically a food shelter. So, for three years in a row, we got the same gift... I kept getting Yatzi, every year, but I never learned how to play. We just played craps or something with the dice, we were like 10 years old, 11 years old. And so just different interesting situations like this... We didn't grow up with much. So, getting out of the paradigm of struggle was difficult in the beginning because I would do things to help a lot of people and receive a lot coming back, but I find a creative way to lose it, because I didn't change my thermostat for this stuff. So, what really helped to serve me, and my thinking was, I can have so much more to contribute by building myself up financially, my financial health as well. And this is one of the big things that really comes across it in your new book, which I read through, and I just devoured it, 'The ABCs of Success', and first of all, I want to know why you titled the book 'The ABCs of Success'.

BOB PROCTOR: I didn't actually title it, but that patcher Penguin who published it world-wide and they put that name on it, and it does fit because I had the idea, we should... When you to change a paradigm, you're changing your habitual behavior. Well, if everybody's got little hang-ups in different areas, and sometimes they don't know what they are. So, I just took a lot of different ideas that we work with, and I wrote little articles on them, and we put them together, and they're from A to Z in the book, and so it fits. Everybody has little hang-ups in their life, and if they change those little hang-ups, everything changes. And it all goes back to understanding ourself, understand what makes us tick, and then trying to live the best life we can... Try and improve the quality of our life.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I thought it was a very fitting title, the ABCS of success, 'cause it's talking about something that's very elementary, the ABCS of something. And this is something we're not taught in school. I went to a traditional university and student loans and that whole story, but there was not a success class, that's up to you. We're going to teach you some rudimentary skills, we're going to teach you about a particular subject matter with English or something of that nature, or mathematics, but not how to apply it in your life to be successful. There was no Success 101.

BOB PROCTOR: There's a lot of things that are not taught in school, that we're missing. You will find absolutely brilliant people who are losing, they will have grease coming off the end of their business card, but they're broke. You'll find other people who are functionally illiterate, they've never even learned how to read or write, and yet, they may be any millions of dollars and building large organizations. We do not teach people who they are, what they are, what makes them tick, we don't really get them in touch with the spiritual essence of their personality. We don't get them to stop and ask themselves, why am I doing this? Why am I getting these results? Do results just happen? They don't just happen, we've got to start to understand how and why they've happened, and then change what we want to change, and I have found over the last 50-something years of studying this, I study it every day, I'm absolutely fascinated with it... We can truly have or do or be whatever we want, we're God's highest form of creation, we've got to learn how to utilize the potential we've got.

And as a matter of fact, I just finished a fairly large coaching call before I got on this call, and question was asked by someone, if they only had an hour to teach children that an hour a day, if they were given an hour in a class, and I would suspect this woman was given an hour, what would she teach him? And I said, "You can teach them anything that you can teach anybody else." We've got to get away from the idea, they're children, they are human beings, they have a marvelous mind. Now, think of this for a moment, the only thing a child is missing his vocabulary and the experience. But the mind operates the same way with the young child as it does with an adult, and we teach children languages before they go to school.

I had an associate over in Kuala Lumpar, I was going over there for a long time, at four years old, the little boy could speak four languages, they thought nothing of that. And that's very common in many parts of the world. Now, if a child can learn four languages before they go to school, why do we spend so much time getting them to play with blocks? You can teach your child to read before they can talk, and when they can talk, you can give them a book on the CAT scan, and they'll read it. So, I think we have to understand that a child has a marvelous mind, and the mind operates in a very orderly way, and you can teach it to children. I think one of the first things we should teach children is the difference between responding and reacting. I did that with a bunch of kids one time, it changed everything in their life. When we react to a person or a situation, we're giving that person or the situation control over us. When we respond, we're maintaining the control.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And that's the word responsibility, and so let's go ahead and dive in and talk a little bit about that structure in the ABCs, one of the first concepts you talked about in the book was this straight As, because that's some one of those idealistic things you want to do in school were going to hit those straight As. So, what are your straight As?

BOB PROCTOR: We have in here, awareness, acceptance, alteration, and achievement. I think awareness is the whole thing. You go all the way back to King Solomon, he said, "In all you're getting, get an understanding." Well, understanding and awareness come together, as we understand, we develop an awareness, and when we come aware, that's all we ever can develop is awareness. Like people are not earning 100,000 a year because they want hundred a year, they're earning 100,000 years because they're not aware of how to earn a hundred a month. People are not alone and lonely because they enjoy it, they're alone and lonely because they're not aware of how to develop meaning relationships. So, we want to understand this concept of awareness, that's really what we're after, and then we want acceptance. We've got to accept new ideas, we've got to accept the idea that we have this potential and we've got the ability to change, and when we get that, then we have to learn alteration. We have to alter the concepts that are fixed in our mind, we are programmed genetically and environmentally, all our prejudices, all our hang-ups, they're programmed in, we didn't decide on that, we inherited them. And then after birth, of course, we've got our environmental conditions and situations, and the last A would be achievement.

And you can always tell, I think, by the results, you're going to know them. You can tell what a person is doing by what they're achieving, you can pretty well take a look at the results of person's getting and know what's going on inside. It's not an accident. Everything that happens outside starts inside. Everything you're teaching. It all starts in the mind, starts with attitude. Attitude is to keep everything, you know, the only thing that we have complete and absolute control over is our attitude, our way of thinking. Viktor Frankl, that spent the war years in the German concentration camp wrote a marvelous book, 'Man's search for meaning'. He said that regardless of the intellectual or physical abuse he was subjected to, no one could cause them to think something you didn't want to think. We have complete and absolute control over our thinking, and that's where our attitude starts.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, when I went through that, it would very quickly hit me when I was reading the book, the acceptance was a big one for me, because I've seen this consistently be one of the big hang-ups for a lot of people and not really accepting their power, not accepting that it's up to them to choose their response, it's up to them to choose their attitude, accepting that you actually have the power to change, and that's like a game changer once you get that.

BOB PROCTOR: But I think we have to go back and look at how we're raised. We're raised to live through our senses, we by what we hear, see, smell, taste, touch. "Go on out on the street, be like the rest of the kids." The only thing you can't be like is another one. We're all unique, in fact we're raised to go by what we see. We get a report card, the report tells us what kind of student we are. What the report card really tells us is where our mind was at for a few minutes, maybe three weeks ago. We've got to be taught to use our higher faculties. We have perception, intuition, the well, reason, imagination, memory, these are all higher faculties, and they are what separates us from all the rest of the animal kingdom. Do you know we are the only creature on the planet that's totally disoriented in their environment? All the other little creatures on the planet are completely at home in their environment, they blend in. We are different, we have been given the ability to create our own environment and most people don't know it. And so, they complain they have to do this, they have to do that, the truth is, they don't have to do anything, they choose everything they do. J. Martin Kohe wrote a marvelous book called 'Your Greatest Power', it was a little book but was dynamite. And your greatest power is your ability to choose.

SHAWN STEVENSON: You really lay it all on the line too, and I really love your straight approach to communication also in the book as well, and there was a really important chapter in a powerful section of the book on communication and in particular, listening, which you called the great compliment. Can you talk about why this matters so much?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, when you're listening, first of all, you're listening with your emotions, you don't listen with your ears. Frequently, you'll be talking to somebody, they hear what you're saying, but they're not listening to you, and you know they're not listening. When you listen, you're paying attention to a person, you're saying, "I believe what you have to say is worthwhile. I am going to give you my full conscious attention." And you're emotionally involved, we listen with our emotions, we hear with our ears. And I believe listening is extremely important. I was fortunate enough to study listening through Dr. Ralph Nichols, way back in the late 60s, and you don't just listen with your ears, you listen with your eyes, you listen with your body. You'll find when a person is listening, they'll to lean towards you. You watch people in an audience, maybe in a theater or in a seminar, you'll see them, they'll start to lean forward, they're really into whatever is going on, and it's pulling them toward it. It is a compliment, I think, to a person.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Being able to listen is an important quality and building relationships, and the number one influential factor in our health and in our success in life is our relationships, I truly believe that. And so, I believe it was Stephen Covey who said, "Seek first to understand, then to be understood." This is a big secret for everybody who might be having trouble in communicating and having positive healthy relationships, maybe it is with an intimate partner, or maybe it was with a business partner, but we really need to understand first the other person. When we're always just kind of natural human propensity because of how our programmed, is to "Me, first, this is a 50-50 relationship." It's not 50-50, it's literally not. It's 100% your responsibility to show up and to listen first, to understand where the person's coming from, so that you can speak their language if I may say that. And there's also... This goes way back, even St. Francis of Assisi, talked about seeking first to understand so that you can be understood. So powerful, and it's a really, really important secret and I hope everybody can walk away with that, to seek first to understand, 'cause it's a really powerful principle in life.

BOB PROCTOR: Well, you know, understanding is the polar opposite to worry and doubt, it is the polar opposite. Like up, down, hot, cold, there's a lot of opposites, so it's a law of the universe. And understanding can only be developed one way, and that's true study, there is no other way to develop now, there's many forms of study... Watching your show is a form of study, there's many forms of study, but you must study if you want to develop understanding, and if you're ever going to understand anybody else, you have to understand yourself, what we really want it and if we study ourself... That's all I've ever studied, we automatically know the other person, we are all the same in that respect, we're a necessary part of the whole scheme of things. You take any part away from anything and it's not complete any longer, so we're a necessary part of the whole scheme of things, but the real beautiful truth is that we're all the same, we look different, we sound different, we come from different cultures, we eat different food, dress different, speak different languages, but when you get past culture, and culture is not in a group have it, we're all the same. And when we can really understand that that's when we're going to start communicating effectively.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, totally agree.

BOB PROCTOR: There's only one problem in the whole world, and that's ignorance.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Love that. So, in the book, you also shared some important insights about leadership, and so can you talk a little bit about what does leadership really mean and how can people apply it in their own day-to-day life?

BOB PROCTOR: I think to lead other people effectively, you have to understand yourself. There's a boss and there's a leader. Leader gets people excited about improving the quality of whatever it is, themself, their work, whatever they're doing. People follow leaders because they want to. People don't follow leaders because they have to. That becomes a form of dictatorship, and that never works. The great leaders, people want to follow, and leaders inspire you, leaders pull a very bust out of you, leaders know how to look inside and bring the best of you to the surface, cause you to look at the higher side of your own personality. What the world always is looking for is leaders. It's silly to ask who's going to lead, the leader is going to lead, and the leader just automatically emerges. If they threw 50 of us into a committee and say, you don't have to elect a leader. You may elect one, but the leader is going to lead and it probably isn't the one that's elected.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah, so true.

BOB PROCTOR: They know how to get the best out of people.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely, and everybody listening, every single person is a leader in some form or fashion.

BOB PROCTOR: Absolutely.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And it might be in a family context, you're a mom and you're leading the troops of children that you have, or in a context, maybe you're a college student and you have your friends, you could be a leader in that group when it comes to certain tasks or certain things that you guys are doing together, or something bigger than that. There is always a place that you could find out how you line up with this leadership information. This is why I was so happy that you put that in the book.

BOB PROCTOR: Well, we got everything in here from A-Z, Shawn.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Literally, yeah, the ABCs.

BOB PROCTOR: We've covered all the bases.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, I loved the section on effectiveness, this is a real pet peeve of mine, because there's a difference between working and being effective, and I want to make that clear distinction for people whenever possible, but I love the section on effectiveness. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between producers and almosts?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, you know, I'm having a studio built right behind my house here, and they're just about done, and I was out talking to Max, one of the workers, and he is without question one of the best workers I've ever seen, and he looks after all the details, he makes certain that it's done and done well. You see, the effective person is working towards a particular end, and they want to make sure that everything is really done well. Most people are just busy, they're not goal-oriented, they're not effective, they're busy and they're busy for busy-ness sakes. We want to be effective; we want to know what we're doing, we want to know why we're doing it, and then we want to get the very best result that we're capable of getting. And it doesn't matter how good it is, we can make it better. Better is a beautiful word, I love it. You can always make it better. And we've got to understand, there's no right way to do anything, it can be a good way, it can be a valid way, but there's always a better way. The effective person is always looking for a better way to make it happen.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So powerful.

BOB PROCTOR: I think that's what your show is doing, I think you're helping people understand how to enjoy a more fulfilled life on all aspects of life, so you're bringing on different personalities, different people who obtained expertise in different areas, and I'm going to broadcast this show through our company because we meet a lot of people, I think you got a heck of a good show.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I receive that, Bob, thank you so much. There was a great meme going around on the inter-webs, on Instagram and on Facebook. There was this little picture, it was from a movie, but it was a movie about the ancient Mayans, and so one of the guys standing over the other guy and looking kind of disappointed in him. And it says... This was an exercise meme, and it said something like, when your gym partner doesn't finish his last rep, and he says to the guy, "We will call you almost."

But almost doesn't count. And that's also a song out there, but it's just understanding that there is these producers who consistently get stuff done, and then there's almosts. And you can quickly shift that spectrum over to being a producer by applying these principles, and again, just really changing your inner game.

BOB PROCTOR: That's very true.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So, Bob, there was... I think this is probably the most, or one of the most important sections of the book where you talked about self-image, and this is something that a lot of people battle with, their picture of themselves and how they view themselves. So, talk a little bit about some of your insights in that realm.

BOB PROCTOR: Well, you know that Shawn, is without question, one of the most important subjects. Dr. Maxwell Martz wrote a phenomenal book on it, 'Psycho-Cybernetics' way back around 1960, and it was considered one of the greatest psychological breakthroughs of his generation. Self-image, unfortunately, is developed before the person can even walk or talk. Our self-image is formed in our little life, when our subjective mind is wide open, part of its genetic, and the other parts environmental. Our mind is wide open, our subconscious mind, and whatever is going on around us goes right into our subconscious mind, like almost all welfare recipients are third, fourth, fifth generation welfare recipients. You know there's geniuses locked up in those welfare areas, every one of them has genius within them, they have perfection within them, but it'll never come to the surface because they don't wake up. I had an absolutely horrible self-image, that's why I wouldn't learn, that's why I wouldn't go to school. I never thought anything of me, I wouldn't try to get a good job. And when I started to read 'Think and Grow Rich', and I started listening to a man by the name of Rein Stanford, he got me looking at myself, he said, "Bob, you're telling me reasons why you can't win, why you're broke. Let us go to the other side and talk about how you can."

And he got me thinking of all this, and then I got into really studying self-image, and I found that we do have a cybernetic mechanism in our mind, it's like a thermostat, it's a science of control and communication in the animal and some machines. And this cybernetic mechanism, this self-image, it controls what we're doing, and if we wander off course, it will bring us right back. If a person's overweight, it's how they see themselves, and they say, I'm going to lose weight, they've got to change the image or they're never going to lose weight, and they shouldn't lose it anyway, they should release it. When you lose anything, you're programmed to look for it, and you always find it. So, we've got to understand that we have an image of ourselves in our subconscious mind, but we have the God-like ability to change it. I worked at changing my self-image, I changed the way I talk, I changed the way I walk, I changed the way I dress, I changed the way I work, I changed the way I study, I changed everything about me, a little bit at a time. So, the image or the person you're looking at now is not the person that picked up this book 55 years ago. And I modeled it, I built the image, and then I caused myself to live that way, and it caused a lot of discomfort.

William James gave us the idea, he said, "Act like the person you want to become." I encourage people in our programs to get Stella Adler's book, 'The Art of Acting'. 'The Art of Acting' is a great book. Stella Adler never actually wrote the book, a man named Kissel took all her lessons after she died and turned it into a book. So, when you read the book, you're going to her acting classes. Stella Adler was a phenomenal acting teacher, she studied under Stanislavski, the Russian who perfected Method Acting. Marlon Brando wrote the forward in the book, and he was the first method actor to hit star status. But we have to... When we're changing the self-image, we have to change the way we act. And other people have difficulty with it, they know you the way they are, they don't want you to change, because if you change, they have to adapt to the change in you. See, people don't resist change, people resist being changed.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

BOB PROCTOR: We've got to change ourselves, we've got to build a new image, a picture in our mind, we've got to see ourselves the way we want to be, and then we have to live with it. You go to the gym work out, that's what you do. You build a picture, how you want to see this arm, this arm, and you build that picture, and then you build the body while you build the life in your mind. Take your pen and write out how you want to live, and always start by writing, "I'm so happy and grateful now that... " And the second you write it, you've got it intellectually. The moment you impress it upon your emotional mind, you've got it emotionally. And it's only a period of time till it manifests on the physical plane. Spirit works from a higher to a lower potential.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Bob... I've got to share this with you. You know, this is something, that principle, that little... That opening phrase, the prefix to changing our life, "I'm so happy and grateful now that," I learned that from you many years ago, and it really helped to be the catalyst for this show to even exist. This was something that I was in my senior year of college, still not knowing... Just recovered from a really serious health issue myself, but I'm still not understanding how to share this. And I'm a strength and conditioning coach, and it was like, "Should I open a gym? No, I've got me, and I don't want anything to do with that right now." But I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, but I know I wanted to serve. And just starting to script out what I wanted my life to look like, all of these pieces just kind of started to fall in place, funny enough. But it wasn't like magic, I was taking action in the world, I was moving towards those things every day with this passion and with his consistency because I knew where I was going. And I always like to share this with people whenever I get the opportunity, is that the number one driving force of a human being is to stay congruent with the ideas that you hold of yourself.

So if you're perceiving yourself as Bob is talking about as a person who is struggling and overweight, and I just can't seem to crack the code or I'm always broke, you might get a little bit, but it's going to come right back, you're going to come right back to where your thermostat is set, because you have to affirm what you believe about yourself, it's the number one driving force of human beings. Also, changing the person that you become, instead of worrying about the external thing, of weight loss, is understanding that I have to change the person that's coming to the party, I have to change the person that's coming to the FIT party, the inner game. How does that person look? How does that person walk? How does that person talk? How does that person function in a relationship? How does that person dialogue when it comes to food within themselves? Is this person afraid each meal or is this person joyful about the opportunity of adding something wholesome to their body? All these things, that inner game is going to help to create that outer game. And the last thing that I picked up from what you just shared, Bob, so phenomenal, which is, stop right now, this losing weight. Never say it again, I'm losing weight. Release it, because you just said it, when you lose something, the natural human tendency is to find it again, so let it go. Let it go.

BOB PROCTOR: It's not just a human tendency, it's programming.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, you said, yeah.

BOB PROCTOR: Literal programming your subconscious... It's automatic. The program operates without you even thinking about it, it's got to be done that way. It's like a child in school, let's say they're getting a C and D average, so they get grounded, they have to stay in after school, they've got to study, study, study, and they go and they have a test and they get a B, wonderful. Now, the restrictions are lifted. They'll go right back to a C and D average. They were pushing, pushing, pushing. It doesn't work. Force negates, they never changed the image of themself. If we take children and teach them about the image, have them write their own report card, have them see themselves with those grades, and they operate like they've got those grades, that's the grades they're going to get. See, I have proved this to myself, I proved it in maximum security prisons when I was going in there, I proved it in corporations, and I proved it in my own life. I went from being a very unhappy, confused individual to being a very happy, healthy, wealthy individual.

I'll be 81 in a couple of weeks, less than two weeks, and I've got more energy than most people in their 20s. I have absolutely no intentions of slowing down. That's a bunch of nonsense. We grow up... Well, we've got this program, you get older, you want to go a little slower, take it easy. That's a bunch of crap. All the power is omnipresent, you shouldn't have to slow down, you should be speeding up. You've got more knowledge; you should go faster. You got more energy. See, the triggering mechanism to release energy is desire. What we want to do is calm down and speed up, open the valves, let the energy flow freely through us. Calm down, speed up. Age has got nothing to do with productivity, we've got to get rid of that, we've got to get rid of the idea of female-male productivity. Well, we see the difference. We say male, female, like females earn 70% of what men earn. That's nonsense. That's an old idea, it's historic. We should get rid of it. But we say, this culture, that culture, this group, that group. We've got to really understand, we're all the same, we're God's highest form of creation, all the knowledge there ever was or ever will be is omnipresent. The way to build a cellphone has always been here.

We had to become aware of how to build it. All the knowledge, all the power there ever was, is omnipresent, we are God's highest form of creation. Our spiritual DNA is perfect and spirit's always for expansion and fuller expression, so that's what we should be moving towards, greater results.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Always dropping knowledge, Bob. By the way, this takes me back to when we had on Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and when she said that age is no barrier, it's just a limitation you place on your mind, and Bob really being the example of that and talking about some of this faulty conditioning we just believe, like, "Okay, so I'm getting older, this is supposed to happen." You're literally programming every cell in your body to listen to that, and then you get to hear from somebody like Bob who's playing at a high level, and it can be a paradigm shifter, but you have to tune yourself into that because there's 10,000 other messages saying otherwise, but we still have that choice, and it's really about... Again, one of the principal things in the book is acceptance that this is the way that it is.

BOB PROCTOR: Shawn, what we should really do, no need to worry about 10,000 other things, what we want to go to is the truth. Let's forget the facts, the facts are always changing. Go to the truth. The truth is that you and I are made from a single power that is all knowing and all powerful, and I don't care where you're from, I don't care what your background is, I don't care what you've done up to this moment, we are loaded with potential. Age, gender, none of that has anything to do with it. The thing that has to do with it is, what do you want? Wants are of a spiritual nature. You don't want to get; you want to grow. So, we should always be going after bigger and better goals.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Now, that was taken from my very first conversation with Bob Proctor. Now, I've got another powerful conversation to share with you, and this one is a game changer. Now, one of the things that I think about when I think about Bob was his amazing mind, and he's over 80 years old, by the way, during these episodes, and he's just blowing the hinge, he's knocking the door off the hinges. His cognitive ability, his power, his insights, it's palpable, you can feel it. And this is something that we all should be striving for, learning from folks like Bob who've had that kind of, not just, again, "longevity," but real vitality and a health span, an ability to continue to make an impact and to live life to the fullest as we go on in age. And so, I know that Bob is tapped in, of course, in those alpha frequencies, those alpha waves with his mind just locked in, he's in the zone. And this is something that we all can do, of cultivating, of course, just practices of self-awareness and meditation, and also of course, through our nutrition as well, eating real food, making sure we're providing our brain cells and our cells overall the optimal fuel to have the healthy expression of our gifts and talents and our capacities.

One of those things for me, one of my favorite things is... And of course, we can get into the isolation of these nutrients, but what is the package they're coming along with, with all their complementary elements? One of those things is L-theanine and L-theanine has been proven study after study, to improve our focus. This is noted in the peer review journal, Brain Topography. The researchers observed that L-theanine intake increases the frequency of our alpha brain waves, indicating reduced stress, enhanced focus, and even increased creativity. Creativity is where it's at. This is what we need moving forward. We need creativity. Creativity is going to be at hallmark, and actually we're going to talk about this in a second as well, creativity and imagination. Now, how do we get L-theanine? Well, the best source is going to be coming from green tea, but not just any green tea, matcha green tea specifically. But not just any matcha green tea, Sun Goddess matcha green tea. It's actually shaded for 35% longer to increase the L-theanine content, and it's crafted by a Japanese tea master, which there are less than 15 of these folks in the entire world. And it's the first Matcha that's quadruple toxin screened for purity. No added anything.

No preservatives, no sugar, artificial sweeteners, any of that, just the highest quality matcha green tea ever made. Go to piquetea.com/model, that's P-I-Q-U-E-T-E-A.com/model, for 10% off the Sun Goddess matcha green tea from Pique Teas. And also, 10% off store-wide from their other amazing tea assortments, they've got about 20 delicious award-winning flavors. So, give your brain a boost, head over to piquetea.com/model for 10% off. And up next for another amazing conversation that I have with Bob Proctor, he's going to kick things off by sharing some wonderful insights about the power of imagination. And these are some lessons from another one of his amazing books, Master the Art of Living. So, check out this additional conversation, powerful conversation, with the legendary Bob Proctor.

SHAWN STEVENSON: How are you doing today, Bob?

BOB PROCTOR: I'm doing great, Shawn. How are you?

SHAWN STEVENSON: I'm doing fantastic, and I'm just so happy for you. Happy to have you back on the show again. I think you're coming in live from Canada, right?

BOB PROCTOR: I am coming in from Canada, Toronto, Thornhill, Ontario.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Love it. And so, something that I got from your book really right off the bat was it just kind of made me tune into the importance of my imagination, and you went right in on how our education system can kind of maybe accidentally, maybe, kind of push it out of us. So can you talk a little bit about that, how important the imagination is when trying to construct our life and achieve the goals we want?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, your imagination is everything really. You can use your imagination to bring the future into the present, and that alters the vibration you're in, and alters everything in your life. Unfortunately, when we're little kids, well, first of all, we're encouraged to use our imagination because that gets the soap from under their feet, the big people, and we may be playing with pots and pans, but in our mind it's not pot and pan, and so they leave us alone to do whatever we're doing, we're quiet and we're not causing any trouble, and so we're actually encouraged to use our imagination, it would be, I think, fascinating to see what's going on in our little mind when we're just on all fours. You know?

Well then, we go to school and that's called not paying attention and you get punished for that. Well, a kid's pretty smart, you only have to get punished for something two or three times, and whatever it is, you'll stop doing it, and so we stop using our imagination. It's the most magnificent creative faculty man's been given, and then here we are, adults, they are great, big companies and little, tiny creative departments, when the truth is, everybody in every department is creative, but they don't know it, and it's the imagination where everything begins, the radio that you're broadcasting on or the TV that you're broadcasting on, it was nothing but an idea in somebody's imagination.

They tuned in, and they could see it, and when they could see it, they were on the frequency they had to be on to attract what they had to do to manifest it. And the ones that were strong and held on to their visions, they would win, but most of us were beat up using the imagination, so we stopped using it. It's such a wonderful tool.

SHAWN STEVENSON: For me, it just sparked my mind and thinking back to that time of being a kid, and then working in clinical practice and seeing so many people over the years, adults and parents of kids who are stricken with a condition, they are dubbed with a title ADD or ADHD. And oftentimes, and this is something I love having Bob or just to kind of reiterate this, but when we're at that age, one of the worst things that you could do to a kid is to tame them, to take a kid who's all about full out play and tell them to sit down for seven hours in a chair and behave himself. Things are changing in the school system slowly, which surely, but it's just understanding, we're setting ourselves up and our children for a potential lifetime of problems because even if they make it through that type of conditioning to go back and to truly be successful because as Bob mentioned, and I want to reiterate this point, every single thing that we're surrounded by right now came from somebody's imagination, the floor, we're standing on, the clothes, we're wearing, the devices that listening to this through, it was all from somebody's imagination, that's how important your imagination is to achieving in your goal.

BOB PROCTOR: Well, if we can remember this, nothing is created or destroyed, and everything is already here, we were talking about school there, Shawn. I was reading something where Madam Montessori said, "We send kids to school and we treat them like they're an empty cup, and we've got to fill the cup up with knowledge." She said, "The truth is, the cup is full. Our objective is to draw it out of the cup." We've already got it, and if we can grasp the concept that the energy that we're made of, the energy that flows to and through us is a creative energy, and as we build an image in our mind, we flip ourself onto a frequency of thought, because thought operates on frequencies, it's energy, it's the most potent form of energy there is, it's more potent than a laser, and we've been given the ability to think. And when we build our imagination, we flip ourselves onto a frequency. Now, if we understand that, then regardless of all the stuff that we have to go through, all the objections that we run up against, all the walls we run into, if we hold the image in our mind, the way will be shown because we're going to stay in the vibration that we have to be in to attract it. Attraction's very real, but you can't attract to you something you're not in harmony with, and you're not in harmony with it if you haven't got the image in your mind.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow, so true. It's probably one of the most foundational things, is clarity and getting clear on what you want and having the imagination to think external from your circumstances is what I'm really picking up from Bob. And one of the things that hinders us, Bob, is that we feel that we have to do something. And you talk about this in the book, I have to go to this job. I have to, I have to, I have to. But you say that we actually choose everything that we do, it's not something that we have to do, nothing is. So, can you talk a little bit about that?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, if we let the paradigm control us, we have to do it. If we wake up and understand we're the highest form of creation on the planet, there is not one thing that you can think of that you have to do. Everything is a choice. J. Martin Kohe wrote a little book. It was a beautiful little book; it's called Your Greatest Power. And your greatest power is your ability to choose. And so, we choose everything we do. I was speaking at a meeting earlier this morning, and I was saying, all over the world, there's people in traffic jams in their car, and they're going to a job they don't want to go to, they're working for someone they don't enjoy working with, they're doing something they don't like to do, and they'll sit in that traffic for an hour every morning or more, and an hour every night coming home, and they've spent their whole day doing what they didn't love to do, and that they don't understand they're choosing to do it. They could quit. But they don't know that. You see, ignorance is the only problem. When we eliminate the ignorance Solomon put it very well, very wise king, "In all you're getting, get understanding." Let's understand who we are and what we are. Let's understand we are God's highest form of creation. Let's understand, we were created in God's image, we got the whole concept confused and we've created God in our image, and we've messed up for ourselves.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Bob, I wanted you to touch on this, because I think we were maybe close to your birthday last time we talked, so how long have you been teaching this stuff to people, and how old are you right now?

BOB PROCTOR: I'm 81.

SHAWN STEVENSON: 81.

BOB PROCTOR: 81.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And this is like five decades that you've been speaking and teaching?

BOB PROCTOR: I'm in my 55th year, and I'm just warming up, Shawn. I have absolutely no idea of slowing down. See, I really believe the older you get, the more energy you should have, because you don't get energy, you release energy, and if you study and if you do your work and you take care of yourself, look after your mind and your body, and you understand the laws, you're going to have more energy as you get older than you had when you're younger, so you should be able to go faster and accomplish more, the idea is, speed up, calm down.

SHAWN STEVENSON: The fact that we choose everything that we do. You share the story of Viktor Frankl and in the book, 'Man's Search for Meaning'. So, can you talk a little bit about that premise and the big takeaway that you got from that book?

BOB PROCTOR: Frankl was such an extraordinary human being. He's a Viennese psychiatrist that spent the war years in a concentration camp, and he said, "Regardless of the intellectual or physical abuse that he was subjected to, no one could cause him to think something he didn't want to think." You may be forced into doing things, but no one can cause you to think something you don't want to think. And that's very important. I had an interesting situation Shawn happen, and it's going to be more interesting, I think tomorrow morning. Gina, who has worked with me for 30 years phoned me, and she said, "Bob, we had a young lady who phoned the office today and said she thinks you know her father-in-law. And then she said, do you know a Jimmy? And I'm not going to mention his last name, and I said, "I know him better than you." And I started to track around in my mind, it's been 54 years since I saw him. I was in his wedding 58 years ago, but I haven't seen him for 54 years. And I phoned them two days ago, and I'm going to go and see him tomorrow morning. I asked him what he's doing, and he said, "Nothing."

And I said, "Well, you must do something." No, he said, "I don't do anything, I'm retired." He said, "On Tuesday is the only day that I'm busy. I go to an airman's club," he had been in the Air Force, and he said, "We meet at the airport," and he said, "It's nice getting together and chitty chatting about what we did." Here's a guy, apparently, he's healthy, he's one year younger than me, and we jumped around when we were kids, here he is doing nothing. It's like we came to a fork in the road. I went one way, he went the other way, and I thought, "What is shame?" And he asked me when I was talking to him, he said, "Do you smoke?" And I said, "Oh, heavens no." He said, "I smoke." I said, "Well, why don't you quit?" He said, "I like it. That's the first thing I do when I get up in the morning have a cigarette." I said, "Well, the truth is, you don't smoke at all, I said, "The cigarette smokes you; you suck. You should understand what you're doing to yourself."

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, my goodness.

BOB PROCTOR: But, you see, we both had a choice, we were going down the same path. At 26, I decided, I don't like what I'm doing with my life. I was losing, I was unhappy, sick, and broke, and I made a change and I have never looked back. He never made that choice.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. We all have that choice no matter where we are, because as you just mentioned, he can change now.

BOB PROCTOR: Yes, he can.

SHAWN STEVENSON: And we all have this kind of equal opportunity, but it takes us to get outside of our paradigm, I just want to share with everybody at this point, this is The Model Health Show. So according to the research, individuals that retire, their mortality rate, skyrockets compared to individuals who work well into older age, continue working.

BOB PROCTOR: Because you see, works made for us, we're not made for work, work is made for us. Work is the... And we should be doing what we love. Work gives us the reason to have this mental activity, and if it's constructive and its good mental activity, you're going to be in a good physical vibration, you're going to be in a good intellectual vibration. Do you know, I've been asking questions all over the world for a long, long time, and I boiled it down to three things, 'cause it doesn't matter if I'm in China, in Buenos Aires in Brazil or Europe, or the Middle East, or here. I keep asking people, what do you want? What you really want? 'Cause I really believe that I can show them how to get what they want, and I broke it down, not everybody wants to be wealthy, but everyone wants to earn enough that they don't have any financial concerns. That's the first thing they want. They want to earn enough money; they don't have any financial concerns.

Number two, they want to be able to wake up in the morning and be enthusiastic about how they're going to spend their day. And number three, they want to associate with people that are enthusiastic, that are upbeat and they're doing something creatively constructive. But you know, they don't believe they can get it, and the truth is they can, and you know, you talk about health, that is the healthy state of mind that a person has got to be in if they want to really enjoy life.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Absolutely, I couldn't agree more, and I see this time and time again, I've seen this over and over, that the most influential thing on our health and our well-being is our relationships, and also what we do for a living. And I love the paradigm shift that Bob is already providing today in relationship to how we view our work, it's not that we're working it's kind of like, I think he just said something along the lines of, "It's working us... "

BOB PROCTOR: Work's made for us; we're not made for work. See, the concept is that you have to go to work to earn money. Well, the truth is the people who earn the most money, do very little. Working is not how you earn money, work is how you develop your mind, work is how you develop yourself, it's made for us, so we should do what is appealing to us, what we enjoy doing and give it everything we've got.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Let's dive in and talk about this right now, because a lot of people listening want that so badly, but in their mind is popping up, "I've got these bills, I've got all this responsibility, I've got kids, I've got school to pay for, I've got all these things how can I just do what I really want to do Bob?"

BOB PROCTOR: Do you know all those things you mentioned are true, and they go on the left-hand side or on one sheet of paper, and on the other sheet of paper is all the reasons why they can. Those are reasons why they can't. And if they spend time thinking why they can't, they're going to find it, 'cause whatever you look for, you'll find, seek and you'll find is good advice. What they've got to do is make a clear written statement of exactly how they want to live, and they've got to commit it to writing. They got to take a pen and put it in writing in the present tense, and then make a... Just an irrevocable decision. "I am going to do this; I am going to figure this out." Now, a good idea would be to go to someone that's living that way and say, "This is what I want, can you give me some steps on how to get it?" But they don't do that. Most people stay on the sheet of why they can't, and then they go and talk to the guy next door who's totally engrossed in that, and they start talking about why they can't, and they talk about... And they're involved with that.

You got to get involved with people who are going to figure out how to do it, and I really believe the secret is go to someone that's demonstrating by results they know what they're talking about, and then do exactly what they tell you. That is how I changed my paradigm, Shawn. That's how I got on the right track. I found someone that knew a lot more than me, and he said it, "If you will do what I tell you, you can have anything you want." I did not believe that, but I believed he believed it. And then he followed up by saying, "Bob, your way is not working, why don't you try mine?" And I thought, "You don't even have to be very bright to understand that makes sense." And that's what I started to do, and I have never stopped doing that, I have always followed the advice of people that were doing better than I was doing at what I wanted to do.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow, there's something in the book that's reminded me of when you talk about going beyond goal setting, and it's really acknowledging where you are now. And I think that's kind of the... Yeah. I see you shaking your head. So, can you talk a little bit about that?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, it's everything. You see, I can say, "I want to go to Cincinnati." But if I don't know where I am, man, I could drive right past Cincinnati and not know I was only a mile away. I've got to know where I am if I want to get to Cincinnati. And if I don't know where I am it doesn't matter if I've got it figured out where I want to go. I'm never going to get there. And where I am now, that is where I'm at intellectually, where I'm at emotionally, where I'm at physically. I've got to sit down and say, "Why am I doing this? Why am I here?" It took me 10 years to figure that out, and that was after I was earning over a million dollars a year. I had changed my life and I didn't know what I had done, and I'd take a look and I thought, "You know, I grew up with the idea, you got to be really smart if you're going to earn a lot of money, I'm not very smart, I'm earning a lot of money. I grew up, if you don't go to school, you can't win, you won't get a good job. I didn't have a good job, I owned the company, we're in seven cities in three countries."

So, I thought, "That isn't true." And I started to question everything I believed. Your watch television, they'll tell, "Eat this, it's good for you." It could kill you. But we just watch the tube and create a head to match. We've got to know where we are, we've got to know why we're doing what we're doing. Why do I get up at this time? Why do I go to bed at this time? Why do I spend my day doing this? Why am I earning this? Why am I talking to them so much? Why do I pay attention to those people? We've got to ask ourselves those... They are very hard questions, and we've got to get objective, we're the only creature on the planet that can get outside of ourselves and look at ourselves and see what we're doing, and then say, "Why am I doing that? Is that serving me? Am I spending my days doing something that serves me?" And if it's not you got to quit, just stop it, right here, right now, there's somebody listening to this show right now, and what they want to do is get super serious, if what you're doing is not giving you what you want, make up your mind now. I'm going to stop doing it, I'm going to go to somebody that knows what the hell are talking about, and I'm going to start doing. I want to be healthy; I'm going to talk to Shawn, I want to get wealthy, I'm going to talk to this person, I want to build a business I'm going to talk to the person who's already built one." And then do what they tell you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: In this chapter, you talk about how profoundly simple this is, yet simple or not...

BOB PROCTOR: It is so simple.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It is. It is so simple. And I want to everybody understands this timeless saying that's been, been rippled throughout our human civilization, know thyself, know thyself. It's really important to do that self-assessment and to know who you are so that you can truly understand what you want, what you're capable of, but also, I want people to walk away understanding your current circumstances is not your destination necessarily, unless you choose to stay there, because it's really your choice, and I can very much resonate with Bob in his story and just growing up in very poor conditions for here in the United States poor... But we have to understand all of this stuff is in context, because everybody listening, chances are, you're in the top one or 2% of income in the world, because most of the world is living on a dollar a day.

So, it's understanding we have tremendous opportunity here. And even being able to step up and get connected, this kind of information, but I remember my brother actually reminded me of this when we did the show, talking about my story, and I shared how when I moved in with my mom around age 7-ish, 6 or 7, and now I can go to the corner store and buy a penny candy, and I could take a dollar and buy a 100 pieces of candy.

He was like, "Woah, bro, it wasn't a dollar. It was a food stamp, there was no taxes." I came from that paradigm, so growing up through that and just the messages that were ingrained in me, my mom I'd ask, "Hey, mom, can I have... " She's like, "Don't I look like I'm made of money? Money doesn't grow on trees," it kind of did. Pushed through that stuff, and as I got older and started working, I would make money, but I would find a way to creatively get rid of it. For me, it was tying to something bigger than myself to help turn it around. And I really figured that it's that Abraham Lincoln quote, "You can't help the poor if you're one of them." And so, I decided I could touch so many more lives, I can help so many more people if I build myself up in every single area.

BOB PROCTOR: But you know how we live relative to most of the population of the world. You can narrow that down even smaller. The people listening to this show are in a very small percent of this top percent, or they wouldn't be listening to the show. So, I think a person has to realize when they're looking at where they are, you have to ask why am I listening to this show? Because there's something in you, your soul is craving more creative energy and you are doing what you should be doing, so you should give yourself a pat on a back just for turning this on. And then ask yourself, Am I doing this? See, I've got this book, I've been reading this book every day since the 21st of October 1961. Now, I may read the same paragraph every day for a month, I want to understand... Where was his mind at? Am I doing this? Have I internalized this? Is this me? I read something in a book that is really good. Listen, the rich man, the poor man, the good man, the thief, individually, so different, is the same world. What made them different? Their perception.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, yep.

BOB PROCTOR: They were all the same. The rich man, the poor man, the good man, the thief, they're all made from the same stuff, they've all been blessed with the same faculties, they see the world so different, and they're all in the same world.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. This is true across whatever career path you're choosing, even if you're doing something you love right now, please understand that there are people doing what you're doing that are multi-millionaires, and there are people that are doing that are struggling just to pay their bills. There are personal trainers who are extremely wealthy, and then there's personal trainers who are living day-to-day and can barely buy food, I was one of them, and then there's individuals like Bob, actually is a great example. He shares a story in the book, and he started off cleaning floors, and there are people who clean floors and he turned that into a huge multi-million-dollar business, but there are people cleaning floors that are literally... That's what they're doing and they're barely making it. And then there's multi-millionaires, it's really... It's the same thing, but they're doing it in a certain way. That's the thing, and that's what he talks about in that book.

BOB PROCTOR: That's what got me... The book is about what I've learned. And what you just said is what got me to try and figure this out. Here I am, somebody would say, you know, I'm earning all this money, I'm doing so well, I'm living in a great neighborhood. And people say, "Well, what do you do?" I'm cleaning offices, but I'm listening to Earl Nightingale, Strangest Secret, and I'm reading Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich every day. And then one day I thought, but a lot of people are cleaning offices, they're not doing what I'm doing, a lot of people have listened to Earl's record and read Napoleon Hill's book, but they're not doing what I was doing. So, what is the difference? What happened? And you can be absolutely brilliant and be losing, and you might be six bits short when it comes to being smart and be winning. It's the decisions we make, it's the choices, it's locking in, it's the focus, that's where the imagination starts it all.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's talk a little bit about that, about locking in, this is straight from The Art of Living, from Bob Proctor and his wonderful co-author, Sandy Gallagher. The statement says that when you really want something, you will always get whatever is required to have it, always. This is an absolute law of your being, and that really brought to my forefront that in my life, my family, the people that I know, whenever we truly wanted something... No, let me scratch that word, whenever we needed something, when our backs were against the wall, we always found a way to make it happen. But the thing was, it took things to be bad enough for us to move... You always have the capacity. I know this is resonating with some of the people listening, you've had times when you didn't know how you was going to get something done, to take care of a loved one, to pay a bill, to get something you might have needed for school, for a trip, whatever it might be, but you found a way and it's because the urgency was there. So how can we turn that urge into urgency, Bob? Are there any strategies that you have to get people moving again?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, I think we have to understand there's no inspiration in needs, if you're working towards needs, you're never going to be inspired, you've got to be working toward what you want. I believe wants to come... I think our spiritual DNA is perfect, there's perfection, and that's the essence of who we are. And it's jabbing us in the consciousness, want this, want this. We might see a nice car; I want one of them. See a beautiful home, I want that. We see someone in a beautiful body, I want that, and we want these things, but we instantly let them go because we don't know we can have what we want.

If you know how to get what you want, it's probably not what you want, it's what you think you can do. You've got to go beyond your own thinking, you've gotta get out of the box, you've got to get away from that paradigm. And when we go after what we want, it causes a respectable amount of discomfort because we're stepping out of the box, we're stepping out of the paradigm. If we're not prepared to handle that discomfort and keep on going, we're going to stay where we are. When we build the image of what we want and lock in, we fuse with it, we become it.

And that is when it starts to move into form. You've got to fuse with the good you desire, and that's exactly what you're doing when you build the image of what you want, you don't have to know how to get it. The joy of life is figuring out how to get it. And you become aware one step at a time, one step at a time. Just pay attention to what you're doing. Give it the best you've got. Robert Russell was a great author, he's been gone now a long time, but he said there's no secret to becoming great, he said do the little things in a great way every day. And I thought, "What wonderful advice." It's so much easier to give everything we've got to what we're doing, than it is to struggle.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So true. As you talk, I've got questions for you, and then there's so many more pop-up, and one of the things that comes to mind right now is the discipline to actually do this, and this is the thing like you dedicated a specific part of the book talking about the only quality that we really need is that discipline to do what you just said, but the discipline to actually do that.

BOB PROCTOR: That's right near the start of the book. And for good reason, first of all, I grew up with the idea, I went in the Canadian Navy, and I thought I knew something about discipline when I got out of the Navy, that was a form of punishment that I mistook for discipline. Discipline is something you can give to yourself, nobody else can give it to you, it's the ability to give yourself a command and then follow it, this I will do. You know, if a person is going to go on a healthy diet, if a person's going on a healthy workout program, they've got to have discipline. If a person's going after something they don't know how to get, they've got to have discipline. Discipline is the ability to give yourself a command and then follow it, this I will do. Now, doesn't matter what happens. You're going to do it; you're going to make it happen. And the reward is the satisfaction you get from doing something that you didn't even think you could do, that you didn't know how to do, and you did it because you disciplined yourself. It's a magnificent quality. I am a very disciplined person, I wasn't always. When I realized that this was really the linchpin, this was the key, this was the thing that made the difference. I made up my mind, I was going to become disciplined, this I will do. And I'll do it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes, success is not something you do every now and then, it's how you consistently live your life, and I love the word discipline because as soon as I hear it, I think about the word disciple, and for me that really means becoming a disciple of yourself in your own mission, in your own purpose, and that kind of lighting the way for everything else in your life.

BOB PROCTOR: I have to do a show with you sometime. I made a program called 'The Mission in Commission', you're going to find the people that do well, make the big dollars, they're on a mission. And I made it based on disciples that I had studied. It's so important, I don't care what you're doing, like you're disciplined, or you wouldn't be doing this show, the whole group of you there, you deserve so much credit doing this show. You know you're helping people way beyond even what you know. There's people getting healthy that you don't even ever hear about. And the universe hears about it though, and it sends it all back.

That's a beautiful part. You know I had a young man today talk about earning money, about working. I said, "No, no." And I quoted Hill and you could substitute money for health or for anything. He said, if you are one of those people that believe that hard work and honesty alone is going to bring riches, he said, "Perish the thought, it's not true." Riches when they come in huge quantities are never the result of hard work, riches come if they come at all in response to definite demands based upon the application of definite principles, and not by chance or luck. Now, you can say that's true about good health, about good physical health, about good mental health, it comes as a response to definite demands based upon the application of definite principles. The definite demands, you've got to demand it of yourself. Nobody else can demand it, you've got a demand it of yourself. This, I will do. God, I love it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: There are so many different things here, but one of the things I want to circle back around to, the foundational point that I really got from Bob in talking about, I think that it's wants that actually drive us. I actually did a program myself about maybe five, six, seven years ago of 100 goals in 100 days, and it took me several days just to even write 100 goals out. But I'll tell you what I accomplished about 40% of those goals. And it wasn't 100, I didn't bat 100, but even in major league baseball, if you bat 300, you can make millions of dollars, it's really powerful.

BOB PROCTOR: Yeah. You were batting 400.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Exactly, and so... And it was small things and big things, and I think that's important too, to build up that muscle that whatever I write down, I can create. Now, here's the thing, this is the caveat. When I was writing out what I really wanted, it was extremely hard, one of the hardest things I've ever done. Because what kept coming up was what I thought was possible for me. And to stretch that, and I had to look to mentors like Bob and look to other people who've already broken out of that paradigm. This is why I just want to reiterate how important that is to follow and model people like Bob was saying, because that really helped to usher me, to jettison the old life and to usher me into a new reality.

And so be honest, as crazy as it might seem, as random as it might seem, be honest about what you want, allow yourself to want what you really want. So do that step first and then to couple that. After you get 10 things, don't think about the how’s or whys, just 10 things, and then write down maybe four or five, we'll say five. Five different ways that you can help to make that happen. They might be small things like send an email to such and such, or watch this program, small things could be great things, but I'm just issuing that challenge right now for you to do that. I want to ask you a question, Bob. This book, The Art of Living, what was the inspiration behind putting this book out right now, you know you're 81 years old, this is another new book, The Art of Living, why this book right now?

BOB PROCTOR: Well, it was actually Sandy Gallagher that encouraged me to do this. She said, "I want to do this with you." And she said, "You're teaching all this, let's turn it into a book. And I don't think you place enough value on what you do yourself from time to time, you're busy doing it." And she says, "You know, I have no idea how many people this would help. And there's a lot of people are going to get this and read it, that would never be able to listen to you or attend a program." So, I said, "Okay." And that's how we decided to do it. That's coming out I think the end of the month, we got another one coming out, we're under contract with the publisher to do a paradigm shift. We'll dig into this deeper.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yes.

BOB PROCTOR: Do you know, I was just thinking... There's a guy you got to have on the show, he's really into health. Do you know Nick Helick?

SHAWN STEVENSON: I do not, no.

BOB PROCTOR: Oh, I'm going to introduce him to you. This guy is amazing. He was very sick, and he made a list. You made me think of it when you said the 100 things, this guy has done it all, and he's earned it on his own. He's become an astronaut, he paid $20 million to the Russians to make him an astronaut. He slept in the pyramids. He's been one of a few people on that, three people submersive where he went down in a sub with two other people and had lunch sitting on the deck of the Titanic. He has been down in this new cave in Mexico, they just found that have these giant crystals. A phenomenal guy. He's written a book, you can look it up, I did the foreword for his book for him called 'The Trillionaire'. You got to have him on the show.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I've asked you this question before, but you grow as you know, every single day you grow and evolve, so I'm interested to hear your response. What is the model that you're here to create with the way that you're living your life right now?

BOB PROCTOR: My whole purpose is to live and work in a prosperous environment that encourages productivity and pleasure, so that we can be better equipped to serve our family, our company, our community, our nation, and ultimately the world.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I love it.

BOB PROCTOR: I like to lead people to the truth that lies within themselves.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much for tuning in to the show today, I hope you got a lot of value out of this and enjoyed this journey and celebrating the life of Bob Proctor. Again I'm encouraging you today to be more generous, to pay it forward, to share a little bit more light and love and let somebody know that they matter, that you love them, that you appreciate them, because there's so much going on in the world right now, and we oftentimes... Bob not being here right now, I wish that I could have one more conversation with him, but it's going into gratitude and giving thanks for what I did have the opportunity to do and to learn and to live my life as an expression because he had an impact on me and demonstrating that what he gave me I'm going to be the expression of, I'm going to represent him with how I live my life.

So, we never know how things are going to go. Take the opportunity to share some love, extend some joy, some words of wisdom, just extend yourself today and let somebody know that you care, let somebody know that you matter. Now, during this episode, Bob mentioned how much his lifeline was tied to his work and to travel and to people, and I just can't help but think if he'd still be here with us had the world not shut down around him. And I want to share that because it's true for all of us. People are our lifeline, having a sense of purpose is truly tied to our longevity, and if that is taken away, it's taking away a part of our soul, it's taking away a part of our livelihood, and we have to proceed very cautiously moving forward with learning from this experience and making sure that we're not doubling down on things that have a lot of collateral damage.

Now again, who's to say how things would have transpired, but just knowing Bob and just seeing the vitality that he had, and he had so much to give. And part of his life was traveling the world and speaking on stages and shaking hands and giving hugs. And again, I wish I had a little bit more time to talk with him, but again, we're all representatives of the people that have impacted us, so let's go out there and shine our lights brighter than ever and represent the people that have added value to our lives. And if this added value to your life, please share it out with your friends and family on social media. Of course, you can tag me, I'm @Shawnmodel on Instagram and Twitter and at the Model Health Show on Facebook, and of course, you can send this directly from the podcast app that you're listening on.

We've got so much in store for you, some game-changing interviews, powerful master classes, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with your soon.

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