Transcription
[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right.
So, probably all of you at least know by now that I do these lectures every Sunday night. Um, I do a variety of topics. Sometimes they repeat, sometimes I refine the lecture and I give it again with new information. This lecture I've given a number of times and every time I do it, I'm going to bring a little more insight from my own personal life. But also, I repeat this lecture because it is by far, by far, unequivocally the most important thing that we are ever going to talk about in the context of magic. Magic and mysticism, occultism, and all of that. This is the number one topic. The topic that everyone thinks is the most important topic is, "How do I work with demons?" Uh, it's far, far, far away from here in terms of what's actually really, really important when it comes to magic and manifestation and spirituality.
But what I do, you know, what the Order of Chaos is really all about, is results-based magic. Right? We're not just doing this as an aesthetic choice or for lifestyle reasons. I mean, that's part of it, and that stuff's all great, but magic should be getting you results. If it's not getting you results, then what do you, why are you spending time and energy on it, right? That's that's my way of thinking about it.
So, when we're talking about magic and manifestation, whatever you want to call it, and it, it truly does not matter, right? I know some people are really, really adverse to the term manifestation because it's been like, hijacked by by a bunch of new age weirdos, and that's, sorry, it's just the way it is, and it's fine, but it's still, it's the correct word. Magic and manifestation are the same thing, and those are both correct terms.
So when we're talking about these things, what are we really talking about? What we're, what we're actually talking about, truly at the core, is your mind's capacity to create and sustain the life that you desire. That's it. Everything else is a, is a way of achieving that. Everything else is a method for doing that. Everything else that goes on top of that fits into that box. It doesn't matter what tradition we're talking about, okay? We could be talking about Solomonic magic, or Wicca, or even, you know, new age, or any, any sense of spirituality. Even, even Christianity and, uh, the Abrahamic religions are full of metaphor, and those metaphors are all pointing you towards ways to use your mind and live your life in a way that will get you the best possible results.
A lot of people seem to think there's this conspiracy within occultism. And a lot of people truly believe this. There's this giant conspiracy within occultism. And the reason that everything is written in metaphor is to keep it some big secret. It's not. It's because half of your brain, the entire right brain hemisphere, speaks the language of metaphor better than it speaks English or any other written language. It understands symbolism. It understands story, and metaphor, and narrative. It does not understand, you know, "Hey, do this," or "Let's accomplish these goals." Okay, to an extent, that's that's good. I think that those are good ways to, you certainly should have goals, but there's a lot more to it than that. And that's, that's really what we're going to be talking about because unfortunately, you know, everything in today's world is reduced down to a meme. If it doesn't fit in a meme, it's too long. And this is detrimental to your mental health, right? You, you got to, it's very important to clue in on that because if you look at some of the most popular influencers in the world today, they never say more than two or three sentences, and those two or three sentences are very impactful, but if you spend at least five minutes critically thinking about them, you'll find out that's a bunch of [ __ ] nonsense. Right? If you want to really gain information, if you want to really change your perspective on life, it takes time. This is the thing that people don't want to invest is a lot of time, but that's what it's going to take. You cannot fix your life with memes. I, I really, really wish you could, but you can't. You can entertain yourself with memes, but entertainment is distraction, and distraction is the enemy of having a really powerful mindset. Not all the time. You need distraction some of the time, but when you are constantly distracted, constantly, it is very, very, very harmful.
So here's what I mean by that. Okay, a lot of people will tell you, well, you got to have goals, and you've got to, and I've said this, by the way, and this is again why I, I reiterate these lectures and improve upon them. Yes, it's very, very important to have goals, okay? But what's more important is to have a complete vision for the way you want your life to look. And when I say a complete vision, I mean a full, total package of every area of your life and how you want it to look, and how it all fits together. Okay, here's why that's very, very important. Um, I play chess. I play chess quite a lot. I'm not super good at it at all. I probably play 10 games a day. Okay. Um, the number one thing I see people doing wrong in chess is that they, they have a goal. The goal is to get the other king, right? You get the king, you win the game. So, the other player will do everything they can to attack the king. And while they're trying to figure out how to get my king, I'm taking your knight. I'm taking all of your pawns, taking your bishop. I'm taking your rook. And then you have no pieces left. And you're like, "What the hell just happened? I was completely and utterly focused on getting your king. Not only do I not have your king, I've lost the game." Does that sound like familiar to you and how you live your life at all? Because this has happened to everybody with something. You put your focus solely on one goal, and this is what a lot of people will tell you to do. Put everything into one goal and say, "I'm gonna achieve this goal no matter what." And while you're blindly or, you know, using tunnel vision to focus on that goal, your life falls apart. This is why you must have a complete picture for your life. And you need to see how it all fits together, and where you want it to go, and how you want those things to fit.
So, here's another quick little lesson from chess. Okay, the queen is the most powerful piece on the board. The queen can move in any direction, as many spaces as it likes. The queen is a lot like your ego. Okay. The best chess players know when to sacrifice the queen. The worst chess players will do anything to protect the queen. That queen is, and, and you'll see this if you like, go watch Magnus Carlsen play or, or any of the top players, you'll notice that with some of these, the grandmasters, they just get rid of the queen immediately because they both know, both players know, we're going to lose this piece, and trying to protect it is pointless unless they have some other strategy. And this is certainly isn't all the time, but some of the time, a good portion of the time, they just get that [ __ ] out of the way, and then they start focusing on the pieces that really matter, right? The queen is a trick. It's, it's overpowered, and your ego is the same way.
Another thing I'll see a lot, and that's the problem. That's the last time I want to talk about chess. Another thing that I see a lot of players do is very unfortunate. Like I said, I say I play 10 games a day. Okay? Sometimes I lose all 10 games. It happens. Um, but what I see a lot of players doing is they will quit the minute they lose that queen. The minute that I've taken their queen, they might still have all their other pieces, but they fumbled the queen and I got it. And they resign immediately, right? And the way that this looks in real life is that something damages your ego. Something brushes up against your ego in a way that you don't like, and you're just like, "Well, [ __ ] it. I don't care anymore." And you get mad and you walk away and you give up on everything that you've been working towards. And this happens to everybody. It happens to me. It happens to all of the people I know. It's just part of the human experience. But the more you can get a grip on it and see what's going on, and the more you start to think more strategically about your life, then the less this will occur. Okay? And so that's what we're really getting at here today.
Now, let's get into the magical part of this. Your reality, the reality in which you exist, is a cartoon. Okay? It is a, a holographic cartoon simulation of the real world that your mind creates, right? And, and everyone learns this in like elementary school and they don't really think too much more about it. The, the answer to the question, "If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is objectively no. It does not make a sound. It creates pressure in the air, pressurized air waves, and that does not become a sound until it comes in contact with someone's ear, and then their eardrum creates a vibration that sends a signal to your brain, and your brain creates the sound. And this is true for your sight, for all of your senses. Okay? You are experiencing a version of reality that is filtered down so that you can understand it, and your brain creates it, and we exist within it. Your reality is a creation of your mind. Therefore, if you can change your mind, you can change reality. Right? And this is what mystics have been teaching since the, the beginning of time. And I don't really understand why it took so long for people to start saying it in just plain English, because I think that's what we really, really need more than anything. I think metaphor is a lot of fun, and like I said, half your brain really needs it, but we also need these things spelled out in plain English for us. Okay? So that's what I'm going to try and do today. I'm going to try and spell all this stuff out for you in the simplest language that I possibly can.
So your mind creates your perception of reality. And your perception of reality is your reality. There is no difference between perception and reality. Okay? What you perceive is what you experience. Now, we could talk about what objective reality is. And that's different because now we're talking about consensus reality. Okay? So, for example, what is this, right? You can say it's a pen, and I say it's a back of my head scratcher because that's what I use it for. All right? This pen doesn't have any ink in it. It's a scratcher. That's what it is. But that's perception, right? And this is what I mean. Objectively, sure, this is a pen. Everybody can say this is a pen. But your reality, the reality that you live in, that you experience, is completely entirely based on your perception of things.
Now, the big problem with this is that most people, and oh my god, this included me for the vast majority of my life, and I had no idea, right? Up until like my late 20s, I didn't know this was a thing. Our perceptions are on autopilot 100% of the time. You ever hear the phrase, you hear people say, "It is what it is"? It's horshit. And, and it's treated as though this phrase is some kind of sacred stoic philosophy. This is not what it is. This is, this is a scratcher. It's not a pen. You might think it's a pen, but I know better. Right? It's, it is what you decide it is is the truth. It is what you make of it. It is what you create. Your life is what you create it to be. Okay.
So, what we're going to go through now is just a series of helpful little hints that you can use in your everyday life to get better at this. Just like I'm trying to get better at chess. And I want to make this very clear for everyone. When I say I play 10 games of chess a day, I am not like, my chess rating is 200. Okay? Uh, good players are 500 minimum. I'm at a 200. Chess is hard. Life is hard. You still got to keep going at it all the time. And if anyone wants to play chess, you can find me at chess.com, uh, at the Order of Chaos Chess, if you want to be one of those 10 games that I play every day. Anyways, you know, every day I try to get a little bit better. I try to see things in a new way. I try to look at strategies I had not previously thought of. And so, you know, this information that I'm about to give you is not the be-all, end-all. This is it. This is everything you ever need to know, but it's, it's a start, right? It's like knowing how all the pieces move on the chessboard. I promised you guys I would stop talking about chess. I lied. I'm so sorry. I'm going to try. But anyways, all right.
So, number one, integrity. Okay, integrity is incredibly important. And it's not about me trying to moralize at you. Let's define integrity. So to me, you know, my definition of integrity is simply that you do the, say the things you say you're going to do. That you show up the way you want to show up in life. That you do not act in a way that is directly in opposition to what you say your goals are, or what you want to achieve, or what it is you want to experience in life. Okay.
So here's an example, and this is an example also of how perception creates reality. Most of us have jobs. You got to be at work, let's say, at 9:00 a.m., okay? And one day there's traffic. There's a little bit of a thing. There's some reason that you get to work at 9:05, and let's say your boss is just not having the best day. And he's like, "Hey, you, it's 9:05. Come on. What, what's with it?" Right? You're five minutes late. You're holding everyone up. There's a million different ways to perceive this, right? Because one guy is going to go, "Yeah, [ __ ] you." He's going to mumble, and he's not going to say it to his boss. He's going to turn around and be like, "Yeah, well," he's going to let it bother him all day long. He's going to be mad, and it's going to escalate, and you're going to be grouchy, and it's going to color every aspect of your day. That another person is going to have the total opposite reaction. Even if it's not their fault, even if there was an accident that they were stuck behind, they're going to get there and say, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm, I'm so, so sorry. I, I'll never ever let it happen again." And then they're going to worry the whole day that they're going to get fired because they were five minutes late. And that's going to color their whole day and their entire perception, and it's going to change the quality of their work. Both of these people having polar opposite reactions are both letting that event color their workday. It's going to, they're going to let it create negative emotion within them. You know, looking at it for the situation. Number one, if you're, if you're stuck behind an accident in work, you're going to be five minutes late. Call ahead, for one thing. Say, "There's a traffic accident, and I'm going to be there five minutes late." Get ahead of the problem. Okay? Getting ahead of the problem is incredibly important if you want to be in integrity all the time. Yes, it's not your fault, but you can still do something about it. You can still phone your work and say, "Hey, I'm going to be five minutes late." If you do that before, you know, the time you're supposed to be there, it'll lessen the reaction that your boss may have about it, and you've gotten ahead of the problem. But if you don't do that, let's say you don't have a cell phone, like my mother, for whatever reason, you know, you, you get to work, and you're five minutes late, and you can just say, "You're right. I was late. I understand. I will do better." And then you, and you, that's it. You shut it off, and you go back to work, right? You're not allowing your perception to run on autopilot at that point. You're taking control of your perception, even though it might bring up some emotion in you because it's an emotional situation. You can say, "Take that emotion and say, you know what, I'm not going to let this get to me all day, and next time I'll remember to call ahead." Something like that. Right? It is, is the least reactive of the three. And there's a hundred more options of ways this can go. But you see what I'm talking about? These three people are going to have three very different work days because of the, because one person is controlling their perception, and the other two are just running on autopilot. So not allowing your perception to run on autopilot is incredibly important. You need to decide how you're going to react to stuff. You need to decide what's important to you, and how you want to walk through the world, and not just let your, your emotions kind of run rampant and control your life.
This is a saying that I absolutely cannot stand. It drives me crazy. And I, I've, this is another one, very similar to it, is "what it is." I've heard this said in a way that it's some sort of like sacred piece of advice. They say, "You can't help how you feel." Of course, you're going to help how you feel. It's called emotional regulation, and you must do it because it's so important. You know, no therapist will ever tell you, "Oh, you can't help how you feel." They're there to help you help how you feel, right? But this is not something you necessarily need outside help with. Maybe you do. And I'm by no means saying don't go to therapy. Everybody should go to therapy. It's so good for you. But it's inaccessible to a lot of people also, and that's just the reality that we're living in, right? I've had a number of situations in my life where I wished I could have talked to a therapist, but wasn't available, right? For whatever reason. When I lived in America, it wasn't available because it cost a million dollars. And now that I live in Canada, it's not available because I have to be on an eight-month wait list for a problem that I have today, right? It's inaccessible. So, we have to learn to do these things for ourselves. We have to. Otherwise, we're just victims. We're just victims saying, "Well, I, I can't go to a therapist. I can't do this. I can't do that. Everything is just [ __ ]. Life is garbage." Blah, blah, blah, blah. That all of that is perception, right? It's 100% perception. So, if we can start to take control of these things on our own, bit by bit, piece by piece, day by day, your life will improve. And that is a fact.
Now, you might be a person that has tremendous emotional control already. You might be a person that has got a, a fantastic mindset. It can always get better, and it can always get worse, too. It's not something that you give up on. It's, it's like your physical health, okay? If you choose to stay in bed for 10 years, your body is going to fall apart. That is a fact. If you allow your mind to just be on autopilot for 10 years, it's going to deteriorate tremendously. So this is an everyday thing. Every day we have to control our minds. And you got to remember that there's a very, very, very important endgame goal here, and that is that you want control over your reality. Now, most people in life spend their time trying to control their environment, trying to control other people, which is impossible, right? Trying to control everything that is outside of them, and put very, very little effort into controlling themselves. And if you would just do the opposite, oh my god, your life will improve by 50% tomorrow. And I mean this. If you are one of these people, and there's no shame in this, because we were all these people at one time. I was one of these people until I would say, in my, in my 30s, 31, 32, before I really started to get this stuff and really started to implement it. Right? So it's only been 10 years. I'm 42 now. It's only been a decade that I've really, really, really dedicated myself to this stuff. And oh my god, in that decade, my life has improved a thousandfold, right? So no matter, no matter where you are with this stuff, every day you can improve with it, and every day you can treat it like exercise, and it can continuously get better. And the, the endgame, the goal that we all have, is that we want to control our environment, but we don't control our environment by trying to control the environment. The greatest control you could ever have in your life, and by your, in your situation, and in your environment, is simply by controlling yourself. Control how you react. Control how you react. Control how you perceive things. Control your mind to the greatest extent that you're able. And what I don't mean by this, do not shove down your emotions and pretend they're not there. Don't gaslight yourself, right? Don't make things up, like, "If I can just force myself to believe that the sky is red, the sky will turn red." It will not. At sunset, maybe. But you know what I'm saying? Like, the sky is blue during the daytime, and you can't change that, but you can change how you feel about it, or what you appreciate about it, or, you know, how often do you even look up at the sky, and that sort of thing, and that's what's important.
So integrity is incredibly important. And integrity, again, is just showing up as the person that you intend to show up as. It means doing the things that you say you're going to do. And if you can't either get ahead of it, like I said earlier, with calling into work, or whatever it is, you know, if you can't make an appointment, call ahead. Don't just not show up and act like it's no big deal. And when that does inevitably happen, call afterwards and say, "Hey, I'm so sorry that I didn't show up. I know that that was rude." Right? And again, I'm not saying this to moralize at you. I'm really, really, really not. I'm not the morality piece. I'm not the morality police. I'm saying this because it will improve the way that you feel about yourself, and that's a very, very, very important part of this. Okay.
So the next thing I want to talk about is non-attachment. This is a concept that took me 10 years to get right, easily. It took me a decade to figure this out. And the funny thing about a lot of Buddhist philosophy is that you, you read it, and you're like, "Yeah, I get it." And then 10 years later, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] now I get it." Right? It sounds so simple, but in practice, it is very different. So when I say non-attachment, there's a saying in Buddhism that desire is the root of all suffering, and that's wrong. Attachment is the root of all suffering. But attachment and desire get confused with each other all the time. Okay? I'm certainly not a master of non-attachment. I'm not. But the more you can practice non-attachment, the easier and easier things will get for you. So you can love, you can desire, you can want things for yourself, you can have very, very, very strong desires. Attachment. Truly, what attachment is, is your inability to let go of the way in which it, something happens, or let's say attachment is the fear of loss. Attachment is the fear of losing the thing that you're attached to. Right? So I, I'll give you an example of something I am attached to and something I'm not attached to. So I am very much attached to my son. And I have a small child. He's my whole world. I'm terrified of losing him in any way. So I make him hold my hand when we cross the street, even though he's 9 years old. Okay? I'm very, very afraid of losing him. I'm no master of non-attachment in that way. But there are lots of other things. Like when I wrote my book, I thought, man, it sure would be great to get published, but I wrote it just to write it, to get it out. Right? If you write a book, and I've seen friends of mine do this, and I've seen other authors do this, write a book with the sole purpose of like, "I must get published, otherwise it dictates that I'm not a valuable person," and then that is coloring their minds, and then they write a really bad book, you know, and it's full of spelling errors and, and kind of weird self-inserts, and they don't get published, and it absolutely wrecks them, and now they, they've let their entire self-worth fall apart as a result of it.
Or for example, and, and people, okay, here's an example of me, okay? Me in my 20s, when I, when I was 21 years old, no, 20, 22, 23, I lived in Sonoma, California, and there is a taco stand in Sonoma, California, and it is the best taco stand on planet Earth, and I would go there for dinner every single night. And I remember one night, after like a really, really, really awful day at work, I was just struggling, and things were bad, and they were closed that one day, and I [ __ ] threw a fit. I was so mad, like I wanted to stomp on the ground like a child because I was so upset that the taco place wasn't there. Like, you know, we all have these emotional reactions. I get it. But it's, it's tacos, and they'll be there tomorrow. It's fine. They deserve a day off, too, right? They're there seven days a week. Like, chill out, dude. It's going to be all right. Tacos are delicious, but they will be there tomorrow. It's going to be okay. No, I was in my 20s. Whatever. Right?
So, attachment is simply not having a fear of loss. Not having a fear that you're going to lose something. Well, you can let go of that. You can get as excited as you want about anything, right? Attachment isn't excitement. It isn't desire. You can, you can have a goal and say, "I'm so dedicated to this goal and this vision that I have for my life," and then still have the ability to adapt because you're going to have to adapt as you move through this, right? And that's going to require some sacrifice. And if you're attached to everything, you'll never be able to make those sacrifices. If you're attached to everything looking exactly a specific way rather than an overall vision, then you're going to have a major upset anytime you need to make a sacrifice in order to achieve that vision. Okay? So, practicing non-attachment, practicing not having a fear of loss while still moving towards your desires and your goals is going to get you there much, much, much faster because that fear of loss is going to put a lot of roadblocks in your way. It's going to put a lot of things in your path that are unnecessary and challenge you. And the less attached you are to those very specific outcomes or those very specific ways something must look, the easier it will be to move towards that overall vision for your life. So non-attachment is very, very important. But I want to really emphasize here that attachment is not desire. You can desire all kinds of things. Just don't be attached. Let, let things flow. See what happens. Be adaptable. Know when to sacrifice. Right? Okay.
The next thing on the list is hopelessness. I want you to be utterly and completely devoid of hope. Have no hope whatsoever. Right. So, the term that we're all familiar with that we've heard if you've, if you've seen a pirate movie is, "Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here." Okay. So, let's talk about that. That really means because I love that phrase, right? When I hope something happens, I'm admitting that I don't think it will happen. You understand? When I hope something happens, I'm saying it's out of my hands. I can't do anything about it, and I just, I just hope it happens. You should create the reality you want, not hope that it just lands on your doorstep. You need to take ownership of everything in your life and say, "I'm going to accomplish this or not." And maybe if I don't, it wouldn't have been that great anyway. And we'll get to that in a minute. But you should not just hope for things. You should be doing everything you possibly can proactively to create that outcome that you want. All right? And when I say this, that you should be hopeless, I'm, I'm certainly not saying what it could be taken as, which is to say, "Oh, I'm, everything is bad." That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying take ownership of what it is you want to create in your life and really be proactive about it. Say, "I'm going to create this outcome for myself. I'm going to create my vision, and nothing's going to stop me. I don't have to hope for it. I'm going to will it into existence." And that's a huge part of when I say a magical or mystical mindset, that's what I'm talking about. Okay.
Now, this next part I've had recently had a major revelation about, and I'm, and this is crazy because I was talking to my friend Mandy the other day. I don't know if you guys know, uh, Mandy M. She wrote, uh, Feral Self-Help or see Feral Selfcare and, um, Richcraft Therapy, which are fantastic books. She's a fantastic author. And we were talking about the writing process. And I told her like, I, I sometimes have these, I'll have this anxious vision that, what if, what if I put all the words in my book in the wrong place or in the wrong order? Like, it's a totally nonsensical anxiety that's just coming out of nowhere, right? And so we're on the process talking, talking about the process of writing, and we kind of agreed, and well, she told me, really, um, that when you write a book, it's a snapshot of how you feel and what you're thinking at that time. It's not forever. And that's very, very true, 'cause I need to go back and make a revision to my book already. It's not even in the stores yet. And this, this is what I want to talk about now because I, I wrote about probability within my book as part of the magical formula because you, you don't want to be spending a lot of time with magical efforts trying to create an outcome, or at least is what I used to say, that was highly improbable. In fact, I told people for years and years and years, "Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time trying to win the lottery with magic." And then one of our community members here won the lottery with magic. And it kind of, it changed the way that I look at these things.
So here's how I want to talk about probability. Now, if it's physically possible for you, you should allow it to be a possibility within your mind. Okay? If it's physically possible in any way, shape, or form, then it's possible for you. And this is, this is why this is crucial because as much as I may have said in the past, "Don't try to win the lottery with magic." And I want to emphasize again here, I'm not advocating for gambling. I don't gamble, and I don't think you should gamble. Okay? That's all I'm going to say about that. I don't buy lottery tickets, but what about other things? What, what about, you know, um, I don't know if anyone here is like a smaller YouTube person, right? Like I'm a pretty small YouTube channel. I, I hit 10,000 subscribers just like the beginning of this year. Nothing compared to what some of my friends have. There's no reason on earth I don't wake up tomorrow with a million subscribers, right? There is no, it's not highly probable, but it's certainly not impossible, and it's not something I'm hoping for either. It's just something that I'm allowing to exist as a possibility within my mind because it's fun. I also really like the possibility that Bigfoot is real, right? That's another good example. I think he's out there somewhere. Okay, you can't prove me otherwise. But what I'm saying is, if it, if it's possible, believe in it, but don't be attached to it. Right? Non-attachment and a fully open mind as to what's possible for you. So fully open to what is possible for you without any attachment to it, and the drive to do your best to create it. And, and actually, I just, you know, this isn't rehearsed. I don't, I don't script these things, you guys, so, so bear with me here. You know, it just made me realize as I'm saying this, how many people are there out there in the world that are like, 100% dedicated to finding Bigfoot? There's a lot. There's a lot of those guys out there, completely. They're not letting anyone tell them Bigfoot's not real. They're, this is their hobby, and they love it, and they are going to buy the cameras and the stuff, and they're going to do all the things they need to do. Same with people who go ghost hunting. They love that [ __ ] and they're not going to let anyone tell them that it's not real. They, they're just doing what they want to do, and they're allowing in their minds for it to be a very real possibility, and for there to be that big moment that they're, you know, trying to create. But again, do this, do that, do those things, but don't be attached. Be fully driven, fully in the realm of possibility, but non-attached.
That's it, guys. That is the magical formula. That's what you need to do in order to be happy and be successful and move forward in your life in a way where you are not constantly getting run over or hit by the bus of disappointment. Right? Has anyone here ever been hit by the bus of disappointment? Right? It happens to everybody all the time. So, how do we avoid getting hit by that bus? This is how we do it. Non-attachment is so crucial because that bus is directly related to the attachment. It's directly related to that sense that if I, if I don't accomplish, if I don't get this exact outcome, I'm going to feel like I got hit by a bus. Right? So again, fully driven, fully in the realm of possibility, non-attached, that's the way. Okay? And if you can master this, and, and I've certainly not mastered it, I don't know anyone that has, but you can take steps towards it every single day. Practice these things. The better you get at it, the more fun your life will become. Even during hard times, even when things are really, really difficult, you can still be having a lot of fun. You don't have to let that bus, or that, that image in your mind of that bus is maybe still 10 miles down the road, right? But still coming towards you, and you're terrified, and so you've got like deer-in-headlight syndrome where you're just staring at this bus that's coming at you, and you're not doing the things you need to do to avoid the bus, right? And this, this happens to people constantly. So again, I'm just going to say it one last time. Fully in the realm of possibility, fully driven, non-attached. That is the magical formula.
And the next part of the magical formula is honesty, right? Radical honesty. So when I say radical honesty, again, I am not the morality police. I'm not here to tell you not, you know, to, uh, to be honest because that's what's, that's what is expected of you, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm saying this because when you are dishonest, especially with yourself, especially with yourself, right? You are creating cognitive dissonance. You are creating versions of reality in your mind that are incompatible. So there's the truth, and then there's the thing that you, you want to be the truth. And the distance between them is how much anxiety you're going to experience. And this is why you should be honest. Because when you're 100% honest all the time, especially with yourself, you are not creating cognitive dissonance, and you're not creating anxiety. And there's two ways that anxiety can really come at you, but either way is a distance issue. Okay? So anxiety is created, is the distance or the difference between the way your world is and the way you think it should be. The further apart these things are, the more anxiety you will experience. All right? And when it comes to being dishonest, now we got the problem of the way reality is versus the dishonesty. And the difference in between is the anxiety that you will experience.
When I interviewed for the last job that I had, which was an amazing job and an amazing company, and I ended up leaving that job to do this full-time because I'm so passionate about what I do. But when I was interviewing for that job, I was blown away because the interviewer asked me, "Tell me one lie that you tell often." And that was one of the job interview questions. And I was like, "Whoa, [ __ ] Oh no." Right? So I had to sit there and think, well, what's a lie that I tell often? And, you know, I don't talk to a tremendous lot of people, especially at that point in my life. I was like, well, I don't, I mean, I tell my kid about Santa Claus. But then I realized, okay, wait a minute. There's a lie that I tell to myself every single day. 'Cause every single day at that point in my life, I was drinking a Mountain Dew every single day and being like, "Ah, it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's definitely not going to kill me, right?" But it definitely will. And I know that, right? And I know that when you, when you eat and drink and do things that are bad for your body, you know that it's bad for you. And we all make these decisions, right? We all, I mean, like my son and I had like six cookies each today. It, it's fine, right? You have to weigh the experience, though. You can't eat the cookie and then tell yourself that it's health food. That's a lie. And you know that it's a lie. Doesn't mean that you can't eat the cookie. It just means be honest with yourself about what you're doing, because that honesty will lead you to make other decisions later. You're like, "Okay, I ate the cookie. Maybe tomorrow I should eat some broccoli at the same time." Or, you know, just try and balance things out. But when you lie to yourself and you say, "Well, the cookie is health food." Then there's no reason to not eat the cookies every single day. And then you're like, "Oh my god, what happened to me?" Right? Okay. So, everyone understand what I'm saying about this? Be honest, especially with yourself. Like, really be honest with yourself. The, and you'll find, like, as a homework assignment. Now, I don't normally give homework assignments during these Sunday night lectures, but I'm going to give you all a homework assignment, and it's the same question. Think of one lie that you tell on a regular basis. Write it down. You don't have to tell anybody. You don't have to go confess, okay? Just think of one lie that you tell on a regular basis. And ask yourself, "How is this lie serving me?" And really, and then really be honest with yourself about the answer, okay? And, and maybe you'll have a little bit of a, of a breakthrough there because it certainly happened for me. All right.
So the next little bit that I want to talk about is karma. I would say that like 85% of the world, I mean, especially people who are involved with magic and mysticism and spirituality, have a radical misunderstanding of what karma is. Okay. Karma is the Sanskrit word for action. Karma is what you do. That's it. Nothing else. Most people think of karma as some kind of cosmic boomerang or system of justice that goes around punishing bad people. That's ridiculous because bad people get away with [ __ ] all the time, and everybody knows it, right? And also, if you do a lot of good in the world, doesn't mean that it's going to come back to you necessarily in the way that you want it to, right? So this is another area where we're having anxiety caused by what we think something is and what it really is. Karma is just action, and all actions have a reaction. All actions have consequences. That's what karma is. You do not have bad karma unless you've been doing a lot of bad actions. And when you're doing bad actions, bad things tend to come as a result of that. Maybe not now, but certainly later, or at some point. And it's just, it's so simple. It is so incredibly simple. So if you can just remember that karma is not something you can avoid or escape. Karma is just the actions that you take in life, right? And if you take a lot of good actions, you will get better results than if you take a lot of bad actions. It's incredibly simple, right? Karma is what you do. What you do matters. That's what the message of karma really is. What you do matters. And it doesn't just matter to you or to the people around you. It actually matters to the entire world because we are one collective system. We are, we are planet Earth. I mean, a lot of people think of human beings as somehow being, um, separate of nature, which I do not understand at all. We're all connected, right? So every time that you wave your arm, that's the entire [ __ ] universe waving its arm. You're not outside of the system. You are the system. You are the universe. You are planet Earth. You are humanity. You are each other. Right? And you can see this very clearly when you think of someone you really don't like. You really hate that guy. You know, why do you really hate that guy? Because something about that person is triggering something that makes you uncomfortable about yourself that you're lying to yourself about, usually. Not always. Okay? Not always. There's, there's certainly other circumstances. But a lot of times when we get triggered by things, it's because it's showing us something very uncomfortable that exists within ourselves. And this is also a great reason to develop a lot of empathy and compassion for other people because you can recognize that we're all in this together. Literally, we are all part of one system. And you want to improve your own life? Well, when you, when you take actions and you are involved in the world in the way where you understand that everything you do matters, you're much more present, and you are much more, uh, involved in your own life and in what's going on around you. And again, it's very instinctual for, for people to kind of take the opposite road and shut themselves down and close themselves off and say, "I am an island. All I do, everything is about, you know, me and what I'm here for and all that, and I'm not connected, and that's none of my business." But we are all part of one system. And this is a complicated issue because you do need to be responsible for your individual unit of that system. You're not responsible for everyone else. You're responsible for yourself. But if you actually want to be, um, to add net value to the whole entire system, then you need to be the best version of yourself that you can possibly be. And that's it. And that means the happiest version of yourself you can possibly be, the most successful version of yourself that you can possibly be. That is the greatest good you could ever possibly do for everyone else. You are responsible for your unit of the whole, and nothing else. Take care of that unit with the understanding that you are part of the whole. Right?
So this kind of leads me to another impromptu line of thought here, which is that frequently in life, we look at things as being either this way or that way, and it's never true. It's always both. Everything is always both. Okay? If you ever find yourself in a situation where it's either this or that, try the option, "What if it's both?" And I'll bet you nine out of ten times, you're going to realize, "Oh wow, that was the actual correct answer." Right? And that will lead you to a line of thought or decision-m
that you you previously weren't on board with. Okay.
So, the next thing I want to talk about is assurances. Okay. And this is something that I deal with a lot as a as a professional tarot reader because I still still spend I mean I'm I'm I'm teaching more now than I am giving individual tarot readings but for the last 10 years giving individual tarot readings was a huge part of my life and so many clients would come to me asking about the outcome of a particular situation and every time I have to explain to them the future is not predetermined. I can't tell you what's going to happen next. I can tell you what the possibilities are, what the probabilities are. I can tell you what the cards are saying. The tarot gives you a reflection of what's happening now so that you can make decisions about what's going to happen next. It doesn't give you assurances. You do not have any assurances. I hate to break this to you, but just like I there's no reason that I couldn't wake up tomorrow with a million YouTube subscribers, there's no reason that any of us don't wake up tomorrow at all. Okay, this is very real and you've got to be on you got to understand that we're all here for a limited amount of time.
So given that we're only here for a limited amount of time, we need to do everything we can to again create the outcomes we want, not waste time trying to get assurances that it's definitely going to happen or we're not going to feel okay about it. And this is especially true with relationships. I've done thousands of relationship readings where the client comes to me and asks the same question. Is this relationship going to work out? I don't know. Is it? Are you going to do the work required to make the relationship work out? Are you and this person deeply compatible? Are they going to do the work? I don't [ __ ] know. Are you tell me, right? I can tell you how to give it a better chance of success. I can tell you I can give you strategies. I can help you sort out your thinking about it. But ultimately everything in your life is up to you. And that's a fact. And it's a fact that everyone seems to want an escape from. They want some sort of assurance as to what's going to happen next.
And even when we get really good at magic, I mean I mean really good at magic. And I consider myself to be really good at magic. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written a book about it and been doing all this. I still don't know that my spells are going to work. What I do have though is faith. I have rational rational faith that my magic will work out. And if it doesn't work out, I treat it as a data point and I say, "Okay, either I could improve upon the way I've done this or," and this one's important and sometimes you'll need to use this. This is a tool for you to use, okay, a mental tool. Consider the possibility that the thing you really wanted would have been terrible, right? Maybe you really wanted to get this particular job and you just, you know, here comes that bus of disappointment, right? but you didn't get the job. And as it turns out, you find out a year later that the person who did get the job absolutely hates everything about it. Their boss is an [ __ ] They're they're paying less than they promised. The benefits are impossible to collect on and it's a toxic work environment. And you dodged a huge [ __ ] bullet, pardon my language. You know what I mean? Consider that this happens probably way more often than you think. And there's a lot of times in life when you really, really wanted something to work out and it didn't. And you can think back on it now and go, "Oh my god, I'm so glad that didn't work out because I'm so happy about where I am now, right? Or what it is I'm doing now." And you can turn this on in an instant. When you create that vision of what you want your life to be, when you create that vision of what you want your life to be and you really start moving towards it and some little thing or some area doesn't work out, you can just go ahead and assume that it wasn't in align with the vision, that it wasn't what you needed on that path to get to where you are. Or consider that, like I said, just use it as a data point and say, "Okay, maybe I could have done the spell a little bit differently. Maybe my mindset wasn't where it needed to be to make this manifest. Maybe it wasn't the right timing. Try again. Right? You can always There is always a way to dodge that bus of disappointment. It's not always the best thing to do. Sometimes you need to feel that, right? But probably by the time you're 30 or even 25, you don't need to feel it all that often anymore. Okay? You need to understand that there are consequences when you don't do things that you need to do in order to create the life that you want. And sometimes you get hit by the buses and it teaches you that lesson. However, you don't need to be constantly getting hit by that bus every single day. You know, once you're an adult, you don't need to be going through those lessons all the time anymore. Right? So, rational faith is a way of saying, I'm completely and utterly sure that everything is going to work out the way that I want it to, even if I don't know how. Even if it doesn't look like what I think it should look like, even if it happens in an order that wasn't the order I thought it was going to happen in. And even if you know, I thought this thing was going to be green, but it's actually blue, stay focused on that vision. And when something doesn't work out for you, rather than just letting yourself get hit by that bus, just step out of the way of the bus and say, "Okay, well, at least I didn't get hit by the bus. I'm going to keep moving forward." Right? Does that make sense? Everyone get what I'm give you a thumbs up if if that makes sense to you. Yeah. Okay. Fantastic.
All right. So, the last thing I want to talk about is narrative. With the vision, you want to start to develop a story. Okay. Your life is a story. There's a scene in the movie, not the movie of the show uh Vikings, which is a pretty good show, but there was one scene that really stood out to me when um when the queen is is on the throne and and you know they're talking about a situation and this is a situation involving the gods. This is a situation where Odin supposedly has come to earth and impregnated one of the women of the village. This is a story that plays out in a lot of mythologies, okay? And the the husband of the woman brings his wife to the queen and says, you know, she's she's committed adultery. I want her executed or or you know, he's really mad. And the queen says, "Shut the [ __ ] up. That's a child of of Odin, and you're going to raise it and take care of it and be a good father." And the husband says, "Those are just stories." And the queen says, "Our entire lives are just stories." That hit me so hard in that moment because it's so absolutely true. Your entire life is a story. You live inside the story that your brain is constantly telling itself. And you need to take control of that story. You can take control of that story in terms of the past cuz I can tell you my life story and I can make it a tragedy or a comedy. I'm very good at this. This is something I put a lot of work into. I can tell you my life story and I'm going to have you crying in 10 minutes or I can have you laughing either way and I'm telling you the exact same story. Your life is what you decide it is. It's a tragedy or a comedy. Anyone ever see that movie um with Will Frell? Uh what was it called? Stranger Than Fiction. If you haven't, that's that's your other homework assignment is go watch Stranger Than Fiction. It's an amazing movie. But the point of the movie is your life is the story that you're telling yourself, right? If the story that you're telling yourself is nothing ever works out for me and my life sucks and everything is terrible, yeah, that's the story that you're living in. If you live inside the story of I am the hero of this adventure and I will slay the dragon, then that is the story that you're going to live inside of, right? It's entirely up to you. No one can do this for you. Okay? I can give you thousands of tools to get better at this, but I cannot do it for you. No book that you can read can ever just flip that switch in your brain. You've got to flip the switch yourself and say, "This story is going to be not a tragedy. It's going to be a comedy." And like any comedy, it's going to have tragic moments because that's what gives it depth. And those tragic moments are necessary. Because without them, I can't experience real joy. And without them, I can't understand the depth of of emotion that's necessary to be the real hero and to go through the growth that I need to go through. But start taking control of that story. Become the narrator of your own life. Imagine your life in grand and beautiful and glorious ways. When you think about tomorrow, you what do you think about? Do you think about, oh man, I got to do this and I got to do this and I got this. Or you could think of, okay, tomorrow I'm going to get all these things knocked off my to-do list and I'm going to get really excited about knocking some other stuff off my to-do list the next day, right? I'm going to go slay these dragons. It is entirely up to you. Right.
All right, guys. That is it. That's all I'm going to say. There's more to this topic and I'll give more lectures on this subject in the future. Uh I'll probably write a whole ass book about it one day. But those are the things I wanted to talk about this time. So, thank you very very much for being here. And now is the time if you have any questions about any of this comments, stories, anything you want to understand a little bit better, go ahead and raise your hand. Um there's a little react button down at the bottom of your screen. Uh, if you hit any one of those, I will call on your name and we can talk about it. [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music]