Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: In this session you're going to learn the teaching styles or the ways of sharing your beautiful song with the world and how you don't have to be this remarkable pioneer who comes up with all kinds of new ideas in order to share your work. In fact, you don't even need to come up with anything at all whatsoever in order to be successful. Successful.
Reason this is an important session is because many people think, well, there's so much stuff out there already in the world. There's so many posts on social media, there's so many books, there's so many podcasts, there's so many documentaries, there's so many courses, you know, there's so many meditations. What is the point in me doing anything else, right?
I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm starting out.
Why would anyone listen to me?
Have you ever thought that?
And if you have, just notice how it made you feel, probably doesn't make you feel very confident and very inspired to do anything.
And so if you're thinking, there's no point in me doing it because all these other people have already figured it all out. There's nothing new, there's nothing original, why should I add to it? I'm just copying other people, all that stuff, it really makes it pretty much impossible to do anything because we are thinking negative thoughts, self defeating thinking patterns right at the beginning.
And so if you compare yourself to other people on the Internet, or people in your life, or famous people in the past or whatever it is, they have so much stuff, they've invented all.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: These things, they're so successful.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Why would anyone listen to me? If you do that, then you will not take much action and you will just stay stuck and a spectator rather than being in the arena.
So in order to overcome this, we need to understand the three types of teachers or three types of coaches or healers, right?
The first type are what we call the pioneers.
The pioneers. There's hardly any of pioneers in the world actually. These typically are like the religious leaders of the world.
And even the religious leaders often don't pioneer things completely. They are bringing stuff from other stuff that they learn or using ideas that they were already around in the society they were in.
But out of anyone, there's like the religious leaders or certain scientists who come up with genuine breakthrough ideas that never have been mentioned before.
The problem with this is that even the pioneers, and I can't even name that many of them because as soon as you start looking into it, you'll say, ah, yes, but this person came up with this thing, but if you look back, some other person said something almost exactly the same somewhere else.
So we seem to have this culture where people are considered pioneers, but if you look deep enough, there's almost zero genuine pioneers. And oftentimes we might consider ourselves not a pioneer and say, well, if I haven't invented anything brand new, I haven't got some magical new method and come up with all this stuff out of nowhere, then I've got nothing to bring to the world, in which case I shouldn't do anything. So I want you to know there are very, very few pioneers, if there are any pioneers.
And so you don't have to be a pioneer. And chances are it's actually going to be pretty much impossible to come up with anything new. There's the expression there's nothing new under the sun.
And in many ways it's true. It's just remixes of remixes of remixes. So you might be wondering, well, what's the point then? If it's just the same old thing again and again in different ways, why should I say it? Here is the key thing to keep in mind.
Everything that you can say has already been said by somebody in some form, but because no one was listening, it all must be said again and again.
Everything that could be said has already been said, but since no one was listening, it all needs to be said again.
Now, this is slightly comical, but it's also totally true.
Many of my students have said to me over the years that, you know what, Michael, I've heard all these things before what you're saying, but it never made sense until I heard it from you.
I myself have experienced hearing something from this person, this person, this person, this person. Then finally, after the 10th person, someone says it and I go, oh, wow, that's incredible. Wow, I get it.
So just because someone else is saying it doesn't mean that they don't need to hear it from you. You, you might be the only person who they can actually hear these things from.
I remember one time I was staying at the Theosophical Society, which was like the main New Age hub in the world in. At one point in London it was a big deal, and that's a long time ago now, but I was staying there because my friend of mine actually lived there. And I stayed in the. In that, that whole area was fascinating and they had meetings there. And I remember one of these guys was a taxi driver and he was like a London, you know, cockney accent, London guy who you wouldn't think was in any way spiritual.
And I remember hearing him talk about spiritual things, and because of his accent and because of who he was, it was. It's almost like I was hearing something from a totally different place because it came through a very unusual filter of his personality and his experience.
And so you have a unique constitution and unique experience.
And so when you share something that people might have heard before, it goes in differently, it lands differently.
And to be perfectly honest, most people have not heard hardly any of the things that you know.
On some level, we kind of believe that everyone knows what we know. This is like a internal childlike mentality that lingers in the back of our mind. We think, well, of course, people probably know a lot of the things, but when you really talk to people, you realize that, first of all, most people have never heard about the things you know about.
And secondly, even if they have heard about them, they haven't practiced them and experienced them.
So there are no real pioneers or very, very few genuine originat.
And so what are the other options?
So the pioneers are people who develop new things. In a way, I could say I kind of invented spiritual life coaching back in 2003, before there was a name for it, because I was teaching meditation, which I learned from someone else.
And then people started asking me questions, and then I improvised ways of helping them out using meditation plus questions, plus things which, at the time, I hadn't learned.
And then I realized it is bits and pieces of various coaching therapy methods that ended up becoming spiritual life coaching, which wasn't a term when I started doing it.
But when I look at what I was actually doing, it was bits and pieces of other things from around the places and things that I'd come up with myself, which, upon closer inspection, other people had come up with as well. I remember one time, I thought I genuinely pioneered a new discovery. I was on the beach in Hawaii. It was a cold, rainy January afternoon, and I was meditating on the beach.
And it was raining a little bit drizzling, and the wind was there, and it was. It was nasty. And I was feeling depressed, and I was like, gosh, how am I gonna get out of this? I don't know what's happened.
Something. It was a really difficult time in my life. When I just got to Hawaii, some bad stuff had happened.
And I said to God, please help me. What can I do? What do I need to know?
And I was shown a vision of a small image of myself above my head.
And I looked at this image of myself, and it was like A carbon copy of me on the beach, unhappy.
And I was like, that's weird. What's this image of myself up there?
And then I miraculously saw this image change into a happy version of me. So I saw myself as a happy image of myself on this higher plane above myself.
And as that image of me became happy, my own body shifted and I started feeling great. And I was like, oh, my God. And I realized that the image we hold in our consciousness of ourselves, our self image, inner self image, has a direct effect on our feelings.
And I thought, oh my God, this is a discovery. No one. I've never heard this before. So I jumped in the car and I came back and wrote it all down and created a program called Inner self Image. And I thought, this is a brand new discovery because if you change the image of yourself, you actually change how you feel. And not only how you feel, how other people respond to you, right? And so for a few years I thought, I've invented this fascinating new thing.
And then about three or four years later, I was. I read a book called Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Meltz, which was written in like 1961 or something.
And I was reading it and he said, there's this thing called the self image. And if you change the self image, then you. I'm like, you've got to be joking. In 1961, right?
I'd never read the book before, never heard about the book, but there it was. It was almost identical. It wasn't quite the same, but it was almost identical.
And much of the self help actually is based on that book in some way.
So I'm just telling this because even if you think you pioneered an idea, someone else has come up with it. And then if you go back in time, you realize it's in some religious scripture somewhere, hidden away in some passage.
But Maxwell Maltz mentioned this in 1960s, and I'm sharing something about it in Hawaii, right?
Way, way, way later, to a different audience, people who'd never read the book. So it has to all be said again.
So the first category are the pioneers. And there's barely any, if any. The second type of people are called the translators.
And the translators are people who make complex ideas.
Simple. So these are the educators, the explainers, the bridge builders, people who take complex ideas.
So they read a bunch of stuff, learn a bunch of stuff, and then make them accessible to the public.
They translate difficult concepts into language that regular people can understand.
And so they're not coming up with anything new, but they are taking Things that otherwise would be difficult to comprehend. And saying it in a fresh way, or even just saying it in a way that you'd normally talk to somebody. Because many of these deep spiritual concepts or personal development concepts are written in a way or said in a way that just doesn't land right. It needs to be said differently. It needs to be said in many, many, many different ways in order for it to land, for it to go in.
And so if all you do is learn stuff from other people, whether it's through courses, books, YouTube videos, whatever, whatever, you know, retreats, anything, it doesn't matter how you learn it, learn it, think about it yourself, and then say it again in a different way. That makes you a translator.
And there's not enough translators and there's not enough people talking about these things.
And frankly, there's not enough people talking about good stuff at all. Most of the Internet is full of nonsense and random entertainment and junky, weird trolley stuff.
You know, it's very, very toxic.
So hardly anyone is actually saying useful things and they're not saying it in the unique way that you can say it.
So if all you did is learn stuff from other people and then talk about it and say, this is something that I learned from so and so, and this is what it means, and here's how it works. You don't even need to have applied any of the things at all to do service for somebody else.
Let me say that again. You don't actually need to have implemented and applied anything you talk about in order to help somebody.
Now it's good if you do apply it because then you can say, here's how I applied this thing and this is what happened. That's actually ideal.
But you don't initially need to be an expert in having implemented all this stuff for it to be useful.
Think about ChatGPT, right?
It doesn't know what it's talking about actually, but it can still give you useful information, can't it?
I had a problem with my hot tub recently and I was like, what is going on with this thing? How am I going to fix it? And chat gbt? I just showed the video of the hot tub and said, this is what's going on. And it fixed it, told me exactly what to do and it worked. It doesn't understand it. Chat GBT has never had a hot tub. It's never going to use a hot tub. It can't go in a hot tub, right?
But it can help me fix a hot tub because it has knowledge of how hot Tubs work.
Does that make sense?
AI is a perfect example of this. It gives loads of very useful information and also some crazy stuff that doesn't make any sense is really annoying.
But the information that is useful, it gets the job done without having ever had any personal experience.
So if all you do is take complex ideas, all the books and courses and programs that you've learned, and tell other people about what they are and how they work in a way that makes sense and is simple, it's hugely valuable, right? Hugely valuable. You don't have to have come up with any of the ideas. You don't have to implement anything. You can just read something and tell someone else about it and you're doing service.
And in many ways, people often prefer that because they're hearing it through someone like them.
So hopefully I have convinced you that you don't have to be a pioneer.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: You don't have to invent anything, and you can just share what you've learned and people will appreciate it and it's extremely useful.
The third kind of people are the practitioners. These are people who help others implement things.
So, for example, coaching is actually about helping other people do the thing that they want to do.
I had a session with our students yesterday and a couple of questions, because these are new coaches, right? They just got their first clients or they're just starting coaching.
So we are congratulating everyone for getting clients.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: I'm always so proud of our students.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: For their great work. But then the question comes up, well, how do I make sure I help this person transform? How do I make sure that they get results?
And what they're basically saying is that they are taking personal responsibility for the outcomes of their clients.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Now, I appreciate the sentiment.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Of course, we really want to help people. I genuinely want to help my students. I genuinely want to help my clients, right? Sincerely, from the depth of my heart, I'll do everything I can to help.
And who's responsible for change?
Who's responsible for you to change your life?
Who, who, who's responsible for me to change my life?
We are personally responsible to change our own life.
So coaches or therapists or people who are helping others, accountability coaches, they're not doing anything for the client, but they are helping these other people do the thing that they want to do.
So, for example, you might ask somebody.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: What do you want?
[00:18:33] Speaker B: Why is it important?
What's going to happen if you don't do it? What's going to happen if you do do it? So you have to have good questions to ask them. To make them think very deeply about this, give them work to do.
Sometimes you might want to sit with someone while they do the work.
Right? Many sessions that I have, I'm asking people questions, letting them think about it.
[00:18:55] Speaker A: I'm holding space.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: I might give them homework for them to write something and send it to me.
So I'm doing something, but they're doing all the work.
And so that is highly valuable. Even though I'm not doing anything for them specifically, Just being there, asking the questions. Holding space is extremely valuable.
And keep in mind that everyone likes a different type of person to be there for them.
So you could do coaching with somebody and they would get great results and someone else could do exactly the same.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: Thing you're doing and it wouldn't work.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Because that other person's coming from a different place, they have a different background, different experience of life. They can't relate to their client in the same way that you can.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: So again, you don't have to pioneer some brand new idea.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: You are helping other people do what they want to do just by being there, asking questions, holding space.
I have various people who help me do things right, and I, I want them to say stuff like, have you finished this thing that you said you.
[00:20:15] Speaker A: Were going to do?
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Is it done yet? You know, just having someone message me saying, did you finish that thing you said you're going to get done is hugely valuable.
[00:20:23] Speaker A: They haven't done anything.
[00:20:24] Speaker B: They just sent me a text message.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Oh, I need to finish this thing.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Because, you know, we all get distracted. There's too many things going on.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: So you can learn a bunch of.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: Knowledge from various places and tell it to someone else in a different way.
You can also combine things like, I heard this thing from this person, this thing from this person, and when you put them together, then it's even better.
You can hold space for people and ask them questions and totally change their life.
All of these things are profound and you can do them without implementing anything and without being an originator.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Now, of course, I encourage you to.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Practice whatever you learn as best you can. But you can't practice everything you learn. Even if you, for example, read a book and then shared with people what you learned from the book, it would touch a whole bunch of people's hearts and minds who would never read the book. And even if they read the book, they might not get the same benefit as hearing it from you.
So you don't have to figure all these things out yourself. You can just share from your heart and ask yourself which one of These.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Are you.
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Are you a pioneer? Probably not. If you are, then I'd love to hear what you've come up with that.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Is genuinely original and no one else has said it.
[00:21:53] Speaker B: Are you a translator, someone who takes complex ideas and makes them simple or mixes things together?
Are you a practitioner, someone who helps others take action?
Or are you in the fourth category, which is the intellectual hoarder?
Have you seen hoarders? They have all this stuff in their house or in their car, packed the top, never let anything go, can't even move around. Super dangerous.
Many people, unfortunately are intellectual hoarders. They've learned all these things and they're just stuck in their house with all this stuff.
Many people would benefit from from what they have, but they're not willing to share it for various reasons. Perfectionism, fear, worry, not good enough, etc.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Etc.
We don't want to be an intellectual.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Hoarder because it's like being constipated. It's not a pleasant experience.
We need to learn how to digest and have a natural flow in life. And that comes from learning and experiencing it and sharing it.
So I want you to think about this. Who could you share with in some.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Way to get out of this?
[00:23:28] Speaker B: We have to start sharing. Who can you share with? It could be friends, it could be family, it could be online.
And remember, if you do post stuff on the Internet, when you share it, no one cares. It still counts as sharing because at least you're getting it out of your head into the world. And if someone actually shares again and again and again, they will get better.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: And better and better at doing it.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: But if we're intellectual hoarders, stuck in our house, never sharing anything, what good is that?
So hopefully this has been helpful.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Have fun.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: There's no need to compare yourself with anyone else.
You can totally let that go.
If you measure yourself against so called pioneers, then you are going to feel very inadequate. But the truth is, everything that has been said has already been said before. Truth just exists because truth is something that is there anyway. It's just that people are saying it in different ways.
A rose by any other name is still a rose.
Gravity by any other name is still gravity.
Truth exists and people just pick it up and notice it in different ways and share it in different ways. You're just speaking truth in your own way.
[00:25:05] Speaker A: And one last thing I'll mention is.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: That you definitely do not need to be perfect to help large numbers of people. I know plenty of people personally who, because I know them in my actual life are quite mentally unstable and all over the place, actually, and they have massive followings and have done tremendous service. Right.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: I'm not saying you shouldn't should go out of your way to have a.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Mental disorder of some kind or be completely out of control.
But even if you have all kinds of issues, if you're sharing something useful to other people, you can still help them. The ideal situation, obviously, is that we take care of ourselves, we implement what we do as best we can, and then we share from our experience. That's the ideal thing. But even if you're nowhere near there, you can still share something useful that's truthful and people will benefit.
So go ahead, let yourself be where you are, Let yourself express based on where you are, and let yourself gradually improve what you're doing through doing it.
Thank you so much. Lots of love and many, many blessings.
