Welcome to the award-winning Superhuman Academy podcast, where we interview Extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now, here’s your host, Jonathan Levi. This episode is brought to you by BluBlocks. Blue and green light destroy our sleep hormones and performance, and that’s why it’s important to wear blue light-blocking glasses. But did you know that all blue light glasses aren’t created equal?

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Greetings, super friends, and welcome, welcome to episode number 291 of the Superhuman Academy podcast, brought to you thanks to a loving review from Miss Bailey, five stars, my favorite kind of educational content. Miss Bailey says, “I’ve been listening to this podcast for two years. Sorry it’s taken me so long to leave a review, and it ticks all of the boxes for me. Entertaining, check; makes me wanna better myself, check; introduces me to new experts, check.” And that’s just to name a few.

She goes on to say, “Jonathan always asks the questions that catalyze the best conversations. Because of this podcast, I’ve tried intermittent fasting and dietary supplements, questioned the products I use, and become inspired to do more with myself overall. Thank you, Jonathan.” Well, thank you, Miss Bailey. I really, really appreciate the review. It means so much to me to know how I’ve had an impact on your life.

On to today’s episode. Guys and gals, today you are going to meet one of my dear personal friends and favorite professional contacts, Stephan Spencer. He’s the bestselling author of three books. He’s a serial entrepreneur, internet luminary, life hacker, podcaster, and contributor to Harvard Business Review and Adweek. His books are The Art of SEO, Social E-commerce, and Google Power Search, although we don’t talk about any of that in this episode today.

And he’s optimized some of the websites for the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, Zappos, and many, many more. But that’s actually not what we cover in today’s episode because Stephan is also one of the most incredible personal transformation stories I’ve ever heard, and I have heard a lot. He went from being in a very, very different and somewhat dark place in his life to completely transforming everything about himself.

In a pretty short period of time, and in this episode, I asked him more about that transition and transformation than I’ve ever had the opportunity to in polite conversation with him. We talked about the event that started it all. We talked about personal growth as a field. We talked about some of his incredible transformational experiences that he’s had, traveling the world with folks like Tony Robbins and working with some of the top personal growth thought leaders on the planet.

We shared some really, really interesting tips that you can use to spark your own transformation and move past skepticism into awareness and openness. I think it was a really fun, engaging, and entertaining podcast conversation, and I think you will agree. So please meet my personal friend, Stephan Spencer. Mr. Stephan Spencer, how are you, my friend?

I’m doing great. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it’s really, really great to finally have you on the show. I know you and I have been friends for years, and I didn’t realize because you and I have had so many heart-to-heart conversations, I didn’t realize until you pointed it out to me that we’ve never recorded one of them and shared them with the Superhuman Academy Tribe. So, I’m really looking forward to sharing your story today.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to sharing it, too.

So Stephan, I would love, I’m gonna totally begin with, you know, the beginner mind here and pretend I don’t know your bio. And I’d love it if you shared with folks who you are today, and then we’ll go in a little bit about who you were before, and we’ll draw that connection.

Sure. So I am an SEO expert, an internet marketer, and a serial entrepreneur, but I identify more as a spiritual seeker and somebody who is always working to improve myself to walk that personal development path. I love seminars and masterminds, workshops, and anything that will help me to grow and evolve to elevate my consciousness. Just a week ago, I did a virtual event that was called Five Awakenings. It’s run by. I just love this stuff. I had a spiritual awakening in India in 2012. Prior to that, I was agnostic, almost atheistic, for my whole life, pretty much.

And then I had this epiphany, and everything’s been just miracle upon a miracle after that. And yeah, so I guess that’s a little bit about me. Typically, when I explain who I am, it’s more from a career and business context. So, like, I’m a three-time O’Reilly author. I’ve got The Art of SEO, which is the book I’m most known for. It’s a thousand pages. It’s all about how to get to the top of Google. I’m a co-author on that. I’m a co-author of social e-commerce and the author of Google Power Search. And I’ve worked with companies like Chanel, Sony, Zappos, CNBC, Bloomberg Business Week, you know, that sort of stuff. But it’s so much more fun to talk about spirituality and personal development and how to grow and evolve. So I hope we geek out on some of that stuff.

Absolutely. And you are humble to a fault. So if you hadn’t listed, you know, the client, I think it’s important. You can’t say this, but I can say this. You’re widely considered the top SEO expert in the world. At least, I’ve heard many people call you that. And you’re also a successful podcaster. You have multiple podcasts, not just in marketing and SEO, but also you have a personal development podcast that people should check out. I believe you renamed it to Get Yourself Optimized.

Yep. It was called the Optimized Geek for the first four years. And I’ve got some feedback from one of my coaches. It’s another thing, as I get lots of coaching from different types of coaches. And one of them told me that the optimized geek would probably turn off some of my audience because they don’t identify as geeks. And my podcast is about self-improvement. So, anybody and everybody could benefit from it. And I don’t want just the folks who think, oh yeah, I’m a geek too. So that’s why I changed the name about a year ago, a year and a half ago now.

Absolutely. And an incredible podcast it is. You had some really, really fascinating people. Some of our most interesting guests on the show have actually come from recommendations from you. And I know you had some of the greats like Tim Ferriss on your show as well. So when you say you’re a seeker, you’re a seeker both in your personal and professional life.

Yeah. And I tell you, it’s amazing to be able to start a conversation with somebody who’s huge, like Byron Katie or somebody like that. And with the purpose of getting them on my podcast instead of just trying to start a conversation. I hate hearing this. I hear it all the time, “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” or “Can I pick your brain for a minute?” Oh, that drives me nuts. It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard. Oh, yes, you want to steal my juice. Okay, fine.

I don’t really agree with it to do it usually. Still, the idea of having a powerful conversation with somebody who is a luminary is under the context of, well, it’s a podcast episode. You’re gonna reveal some light in this episode, I’m sure, and make a difference for some people. And yeah, it’s just, I love it. I’m really passionate about podcasting.

That is definitely going to be the part that I miss as we wind this podcast down. But I’m looking forward, you know, as my interests have grown and changed, and I’ve had the opportunity to meet so many of the people in the personal development space. I’m looking forward to maybe, and I haven’t announced this on the podcast yet, maybe doing another show in another similar but different field where I’ll be able to leverage that same advantage.

I was really surprised to hear that you’re gonna shut the podcast down. What got me thinking about what the future might hold for this podcast is that I learned this thing from Tony Robbins: it’s called, Ask a Better Question, You Get a Better Answer. I remember going to Unleash the Power Within, that was my first event that I went to of his in 2009. That’s where I learned the story, and he was describing how he went to a car dealership, looking at Bentleys or Rolls Royce. I forgot which; it was Corniche that he was looking at. And he found out the price, and he’s like, “No, never mind, I don’t want it.” But the salesperson was a big fan of Tony, and he said, take the car; “I want you to just enjoy it for the weekend. I know you’re not gonna buy it; this is not a trick; I just wanna thank you for changing my life. Have it for an extended weekend for three days and put as many miles on it as you want. It’s my gift to you.” And he’s like, “Well, you understand, I’m not gonna buy the car.” “I totally get it.”

And so he borrowed the car, took it on for the weekend and then he brought it back and his wife at the time was saying, “Don’t you dare it buy that car.” And he’s “I’m not gonna buy it. I’m not gonna buy it,” but on the way back, It was a long drive back to the dealership. He was thinking, well, if I ask a better question, I’ll get a better answer, so how about instead of asking, Can I afford this car, or should I buy this car? How about I get this car for free by the time he gets to the dealership?

He got the car for free, and the way he did it was he called QVC, who had been trying to get him to do a show or infomercials or something for ages. He called them back and said, “All right, I’m thinking I’ll do the deal, but you’ve got to throw in something else. I want you to buy me a Corniche.” It ended up being a two-year lease, and every two years, it would get renewed as long as they continued to work together. Of course, he was on QVC for many, many years. So, every two years, he got a new corniche for that whole time. And it was just because.

How funny.

Yeah, ask a better question, and you get a better answer. So here’s a better question: How do I make time in my life by closing off the podcast or whatever, or how do I shut this down gracefully? How can I get this podcast to have a life of its own, even though I step away from it and don’t have to have the involvement? So I don’t know what the answer is. Maybe there’s another podcaster that you could bring in to host the show. But ask a better question about the podcast, and you might find that you get some new ideas about what to do with it, so you don’t have to just shut it down. Just a thought.

Yeah, no, it’s a good thought. And the question that I’m asking really is, what do I want to be doing, and what do I want to be pouring my passion, attention, and platform into? And you’re a perfect candidate. So, I’m not going to spoil the surprise on the air, but I’ll tell you after you’re a perfect candidate for the podcast that I want to do. And we’ll maybe touch on the angle a little bit in the future or later on in the conversation.

But what I really want to ask is I’d love for you to describe how you ended up on this personal development journey because I didn’t know you back then. This was many years ago. And you’ve been on this scene and on this path for the better part of a decade if not more than a decade. I didn’t know you back then, but who were you then and what was going on in your life that attracted you towards, say, that first UPW seminar or that first personal development book or because, as I remember, you were a very successful entrepreneur before as well.

Yep. So what is that phrase? A dark night of the soul? Something like that. That was basically what happened to me in 2009, and I felt really lost. So, some friends, peers, and acquaintances told me that I should go to a Tony Robbins event. Within a couple of weeks, three different people who didn’t know each other told me to go to this Unleash the Power Within event. I was in Madison, Wisconsin, at the time; it was in Chicago, so I could drive the three hours to get there.

I thought that’s kind of uncanny that three different people within a very short timeframe would tell me to go to this event. I was going through a divorce. I was unhappy. I just was kind of lost, and I needed a kick in the butt. So, thankfully, those folks made that recommendation because it changed my life. If you look at my Get Yourself Optimized website, there’s an About page with a before and after photo. It’s pretty shocking.

So, to see what I used to look like in 2009 and previous to just a year later, like 10 months later, I was unrecognizable. It was really fun actually going to conferences because I spoke at a lot of conferences, internet and SEO conferences. Nobody recognized me. So I was walking into a group of people who I knew, there were, I don’t know, eight or 10 of them, and nobody knew who I was until like minutes into it, and they noticed my badge, and I’m like, “Oh my God, it’s Stephan Spencer, what?” Yeah, pretty funny. And, yeah, so, but the thing is, the physical transformation that happened, and you’re probably wondering, well, what made me unrecognizable? Did I lose 200 pounds or something?

No, I hardly lost any weight. I did change my diet and I started exercising, but I got Lasik, so I didn’t need glasses anymore. I got braces and got those off by that time. I also had a hair transplant, which I don’t often talk about, but it definitely made a difference, and nobody thinks that it’s not natural. It just, you know, it’s my hair. It’s just moved from one part of my head to another. But that transformed my look. I looked, and oh, and I got rid of the goatee, which was prematurely aging me. I looked a lot older. So all that combined made me look probably 10 years older than I was and maybe 15 even.

And then I just was more vital and vibrant because I’d gotten through this Tony Robbins event, and then I did another one, and he’s all about changing your state, and I took that to heart. I changed my physiology; I showed up more powerfully and more vitally; I just seemed younger.

So that was pretty cool. In fact, I still get this thing where people haven’t seen me for a couple of years. “We’ll say, Stephan, how do you do this? You keep looking younger every time I see you.” And this is well past that big transformation in 2010. So that’s pretty cool. I don’t get tired of hearing that.

Exactly, and you’ve gone really deep into the biohacking space as well. I know you’ve done 40 years of Zen with Dave Asprey. You’ve done all kinds of stem cell work, but that’s maybe putting the cart before the horse. Take me through, okay, you do that first seminar. I’m going to ask you a question that your wife, actually Orion, asked me on a podcast. I liked it so much that I often ask people the same question: What changed within you that made all that happen?

Yeah. Well, I knew that I needed to make a change. A couple of years later, I was at this Tony Robbins event. It was a platinum partner trip. I did the whole high ticket thing with him. So, I was a platinum partner. We went on these exotic trips. The one that really changed my life, even more than UPW that first time, and I look completely different and so forth, is I am a different person internally because of this one event in 2012 where I had a spiritual awakening. It was in India.

And Udaipur was the city that we were in. It was a beautiful palace on the water. And this oneness monk touched me on the head. It’s called a diksha, a oneness blessing. And when he did this, I felt like I had been plugged into the electrical grid, too, like the fabric of creation. I just couldn’t fathom it. I don’t know what drugs are like because I’ve never done even marijuana, but it must have been like an LSD trip or something. All he did was touch me on the head.

I went outside after a few minutes afterward. I was so blissed out. I felt all this peace and connection and connectedness. I just remember everything being this technicolor bright green, like in a cartoon. The grass, the trees, everything was this really brilliant, cartoonish green that I’d never seen before, and I just felt so much peace, and I was so grateful. I’d been awakened, and I didn’t know that this was even possible. I went to the monks afterward and asked them a bit more about it, and the explanation was God or the divine is an experience, not a belief. So, it’s not about believing in God.

It’s about experiencing God. And that day, I experienced God, and everything shifted. Two months later, I was at another event. It was called Date with Destiny. That’s where Orion, my wife, was. I had not met her yet, but I prayed for her. And I had written a relationship vision on this big poster board. And so that was what I prayed for, was for that relationship.

Those attributes of my soulmate and that I would be the kind of guy in that relationship vision because it’s as much about who I am as it is about her and what kind of relationship we build together. And it happened. 18 hours after I prayed for her, no 12 hours after I prayed for her, she was introduced to me by a mutual friend.

18 hours after that, I said I love you to her. This is really ironic, considering one of the masterminds I was in was The Society, which is a secret society; it’s not so secret; it’s actually got a website. The Secret Society is run by Neil Strauss, the famous pickup artist who wrote the book The Game. And I knew a lot of pickups. Not that I was super successful at it, but I was 100 times more successful at meeting women than I was previously, especially the guy that, if you look at the before photos, that guy could never get a date. Right. I mean, I was married for most of my adult life. But after the divorce or after the separation, I didn’t have a single date for two and a half years.

Oh my gosh.

That was quite a dry spell. So I learned. I learned how to be confident and all that. And yet, all of that melted away. It wasn’t about that. It was just trusting, trusting in the creator, trusting in divine timing, and trusting that everything was just going to be okay, so I surrendered to it. And that’s how we met. I just, I’m so, so grateful. I mean, it gives me goosebumps every time I tell this story.

So, 18 hours after we met, I said I love you to her, but you know what the thing is, I knew five minutes after meeting her that she was the one, that she was my soulmate. And the reason why is because in India, I had learned how to give dikshas myself the oneness blessing. So at Date With Destiny, on the last night, they do a big oneness blessing where the blessing givers who have been like me would go from person to person, and the lights would be low and beautiful music playing and so forth, then we would bless people.

But there weren’t as many blessing givers as needed to cover 5,000 people or whatever was in the room. So, not everybody got touched, and she didn’t get touched. So when she mentioned that to me, and I just met her a few minutes earlier, I’m like, well, I can do that. I learned how to do that in India. Would you like me to give you Adikshira? The thing about Adikshira is that the more you pray for a person, the more divine grace passes through you to that person. So I was praying for her like she was my soulmate, and we had just met. So I knew. I knew.

Now I have to ask: After all this experience, you and I have talked about spirituality and energies and things like that. Do you believe in one conscious, sentient being, kind of in the traditional Abrahamic sense of a God, or do you believe in a force without a name? Maybe elucidate your beliefs after having had this experience.

Yeah, so I think we see an experienced God or the creator or universal intelligence, whatever is the most comfortable way of seeing or experiencing God in different ways. And so, if you believe that God is a punishing God or a strict God, that’s how you are going to experience God. If you believe God is a forgiving and wonderful, just omnipotent, but just a very accessible God, that’s how you’re going to experience God.

Yeah, universal intelligence, the Creator, the Divine God. To me, it’s all the same. It’s just whether you experience it as kind of an intuition or a voice, or you personify that as I don’t know. However, you want to experience God, Jesus, Jehovah or Yahweh, however, but it’s all different paths to the same destination. And we’re all connected. And once I plugged in, then I got to experience that in so many different ways. Things that you would think, ah, no, that didn’t happen. Like for example, I was at another event, not a Tony event.

It was a Donny Epstein event in early 2013. And he’s an energy healer. He was a guest on my Get Yourself Optimized podcast. Such an amazing guy and a real wizard. Just an incredible, incredible person. So I was at his event called Ultimatum, and we were getting entrainments from him, these energy healings. And I was just, again kind of blissed out in this other realm.

And I had just been to India a few months earlier, and I had met Orion by this time a few weeks prior. I had this intuition or this kind of message that I could give a remote Diksha, I know, like a oneness blessing, and the person doesn’t have to be in my vicinity, I don’t have to put my hands on their head.

I was blissed out laying on the floor after getting an entrainment. And so I just started blessing all these people, and random people came to mind—people I hadn’t heard of, heard from, or thought of for years. There was this one guy who used to work for me, and I had fired him because he was talking smack about me behind my back to other staff and.

I was immature at the time, and I took it personally and I decided to make an example of him and fired him on the spot sort of thing. And so then he filed a lawsuit, frivolous lawsuit, for wrongful dismissal and it was cheaper just to pay him off rather than to fight and win the lawsuit. So I did. He disappeared from my life. I hadn’t heard his name for 15 years. He came to my mind, so I blessed him. I prayed for him when I was at this event, and guess who called me out of the blue four days later on my cell phone to apologize?

No way. You can’t make that stuff up. Nope. You really can’t.

No. And it’s just par for the course. It is so normal now. I’ll tell you what else happened in that conversation that I had with him. I told him, you didn’t need to apologize. I got all of these benefits from that situation, that experience. Like, I read contracts so much better, and it saved my bacon so many times. I’ve instituted better hiring and disciplinary practices.

You know, I believe in giving people lots of chances, and progressive discipline was something that I’ve incorporated into my practices as an employer now and that came out of it. So I said, you know, I have to apologize. It’s all good. And he was really touched when I told him that. I just prayed for him. He just felt this drive to connect with me and to clear that. And I told him about some of the events that I’d gone to and things like that.

I loaned him some relationship DVDs because he was going through some relationship issues, and I think that helped him. Three months later, I happened to see him at a PetSmart. I was shopping with one of my daughters. And so we were in the same city for only 300,000 people in that city in Madison for years and years. And I had never bumped into him. And then, finally, I started bumping into him. After we cleared this thing, that’s pretty cool.

It’s really funny to me because, you know, you had mentioned it before. However, people perceive this instance of a God, but I find the same is true with this. This, we’ll call it serendipity, call it the secret, call it, some people call it coincidence. But I feel the same way, and at times in my life, I’ve been-

Yeah, the law of attraction.

Exactly, the law of attraction. At different points in my life, I’ve been more connected to it. And I also met my wife, Lee Moore, who you know, through a very similar process of literally calling her in and praying that I would find her. And at times in my life, I’ve become less connected. Right now. I certainly feel less connected to that energy, that oneness, that ability to manifest things. So, what advice would you have for someone who wants to increase their connection to this sense or this ability?

Yeah, that’s a very important question because until you experience it, you’re essentially asking somebody to have the desire for a certain kind of fruit or dessert that they’ve never tried before, that’s very foreign to them, have no understanding of it. Like some Indian dessert you’ve never tried before, never even heard of.

And I describe it to you: does your mouth water? No, probably not. Are you really desiring that dessert? Probably not, because it’s just not part of your consciousness and your experiences. So I guess the best advice I can give for somebody who has not experienced that connectedness, that serendipity and connected the dots that is actually the Creator at work.

Then, go to an event where there is some sort of opportunity for spiritual awakening, like Oneness; O&O Academy is in India, and they have amazing events. Of course, it’s all social distancing now, so you’ve got they’re doing Zoom-based events, so I would highly recommend it. Another really wonderful spiritual practice, Kabbalah, and I started taking Kabbalah classes from the Kabbalah Center in LA, and that was amazing.

It’s just that it has been as powerful as anything. I keep talking about the oneness in India, but what I’ve learned in Kabbalah has taken me to a whole other level, and if I start feeling disconnected, I know what it’s like to be connected, so I know I can get there again, and I can get there very quickly. I just need to maybe do the Anabakoa prayer, or I need to go to a Kabbalah class. You can do them virtually. The Kabbalah U, you can sign up for, and it’s just a monthly, small fee, and then you can binge on all their different classes. I’d start with Kabbalah 1.

Most amazing ancient self-help movement. It’s so cool. I mean, just learning about how energy works and like money is energy and the proactive formula. There’s just so many cool things. I’ve had three different episodes with three different Kabbalah teachers on Get Yourself Optimized.

So I highly recommend those as a starting point. But yeah, just start on that path if it’s not Kabbalah if it’s not oneness or O&O Academy that resonates with you, there are lots of other things that you could look into that transcendental meditation or Buddhism, Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk wrote some amazing books. It’s pretty easy once you’re open to it. And if you are a skeptic.

Once you get down the rabbit hole.

Yeah, once you get curious, then it becomes a lot easier. But if you are locked into skepticism because I’ll tell you, I was a skeptic, and that closed me off to a lot of miracles and a lot of wondrousness in the world, in the universe.

Now I realize that skepticism is just a very fine line to the kind of evil twin of that, which is cynicism. And who wants to be a cynic? Certainly, I would imagine not the person listening at the other end of this episode. And so, if you identify as a skeptic, that is just the other side of the coin to cynicism.

I wouldn’t identify as a skeptic. I would instead think of this as, I’m gonna try something new and it’s the willing suspension of disbelief that I’m going to tap into. The willing suspension of disbelief and then so much becomes possible in your world. It’s really cool.

I also fundamentally believe that anyone at any time can have these experiences and that they’re transformative. I often used to joke that you’ve also, I think, been to Burning Man and Burning Man-like events if I’m not mistaken.

No, I haven’t been to Burning Man. I’ve been to, no, I actually, I don’t think I’ve been to anything that is, uh, even remotely like Burning Man. I haven’t been to Coachella or anything like that. So, I’ve heard from folks what the experience is like. It sounds pretty cool.

Right. So I used to joke and say that there was something, so I studied sociology, right? And I did my thesis on liminality and communitas. Communitas is a fancy word sociologists use for a bonding experience, a sense of bonding that people have when they go through some kind of transformative event together, so what did you probably experience with some of your peers in your first UPEW program.

And I always used to say, you know, I think if you brought the most aggressive, angry, you know, unenlightened person, I guess would be there’s the slang word in Hebrew that I won’t share, but that describes like people who are just not tuned in and not enlightened and go through the world very angry. And if you brought that person to this event, I imagine that they would immediately change their tune from trying to take advantage of people or trying to stir fights.

They would have this experience because of the energy here, because of the connection and the oneness. And lo and behold, I had an experience where I was amidst a bad trip and happened upon two guys who were dressed and looked and spoke in such a way that indicated to me that they were not your average. They were not represented by the average at this event.

They took care of me for the majority of an hour, made sure that I had water, and were just so kind, loving, and compassionate with me. And so I took this opportunity and I said, is this your first event? And they said, if you told me a week ago that I would be here doing this, I would have laughed at you, I would have maybe punched you, but here I am, and there’s something special about this place. So, to anyone who identifies as a cynic or a skeptic, know that you are really one transformative experience or community or interaction away from really believing that there is real-life magic in this world.

Yeah, and the thing is, if you are on the other side of this and you know somebody who really needs an awakening, and oh my goodness if I only could grab this person and drag them to this event, it’s not. That’s not how it works. They’re ready when they’re ready. The best thing you can do is model the behavior that you are looking to inspire in them. Because trying to teach it to them is like coming back from an event all inspired, and you just want to dump all this new knowledge and insight, and you can’t do it. They’re not ready for it. Their vessel isn’t big enough yet for it. But you can model the behaviors that they will start seeing.

You show up differently, and you can’t change anybody, but I’ll tell you, you can change the field around you just by changing yourself. You know, that is the change you want to see in the world, right? Famous Gandhi quote. By doing that, you change the field around you, and anybody in that field can’t help but change. They are affected by you and so trying to drag my kids to, like, I have three adult daughters, and I took them all to Unleash the Power Within, and they did the fire walk on the 2,000-degree hot coals, but you know what, it didn’t stick. As soon as they got back to their mom, she was very anti-Tony Robbins and you know, so they were just not; only one of them wanted to go to any other events, and my oldest was the one who went on A Date with Destiny, and that didn’t really stick either.

Because the desire wasn’t within her. It’s not like you can be the power plant for the person. The desire has to come from them, and that is the power plant, which is the energy source and the fuel that makes anything possible. If you have the desire to create a business or to invent a product or to have a spiritual awakening or whatever, that’s what gets you there. It’s the desire. It’s the fuel that runs the engine. You don’t have desire. You’re not going to have it. You don’t have a desire for that strange Indian dessert that you’d never heard of. You’re not going to seek it out. You’re not going to get it.

So, the one thing I learned that was really powerful from my past Kabbalah teachers was to pray for more desire and pray for more certainty while you’re at it. So those two things will get you through a lot. Rather than pray for the end result that you’re after, which is kind of like wishing to a genie that I get three wishes, right? No, that’s not how it works. If you want the thing, then you need the desire to manifest it. And if you don’t have the desire, pray for the desire.

Absolutely. I do also want to point out, you know, my wife and I have a rule in our marriage, which is only push for change that’s expressly welcomed. But once that change is welcomed, push for it. And you know, I want to point out your whole transformation started because of three people who said, “Hey, you should really check this out.” So it’s not. I think a lot of times. We try not to step on people’s toes and try not to tell people what they should do.

But at the same time, if that person hadn’t made that recommendation to you, same with me and my marriage, three different people told me to read a book, Calling in the One, which ended up, you know, bringing me to my marriage. So I think it’s important not to step on people’s toes if they’re not ready and if they’re not welcoming the change and if they’re not, as you said, their vessel’s not ready to hold it, but also don’t hold back. If you see something that could help someone and you feel they’re ready for it.

Tell them, hey, I picked you up a copy of this book, or hey, there’s an event going on in Chicago next week. I really think you should be there because you might just change someone’s life. And I have so many stories over the last 20 years of someone saying, hey, have you ever heard of Eckhart Tolle by any chance? You might want to check him out, Complete Life Transformation, you know, and so many others.

Yeah. And if you’re sharing your story and your experience. Without trying to lecture or proselytize to them, they’re gonna be a lot more receptive. So you’re not trying to inject your own belief systems or values into somebody else. You’re just trying to share an experience with them that might be helpful, might open a door. And you’re essentially advocating for that person.

Stephan, do you have any idea how much you’ve invested in your own personal growth over the last, say, 10 years?

I would guess at least a half million dollars, maybe a million. And I’ve gotten the ROI out of that by far, by far. Like I figured that, so I did three years of platinum partnership. That was Tony Robbins’s thing. And I get a lot of skepticism from them. People are not that keen on Tony Robbins, and that’s totally fine. So I’ll get pushback like, what, you spent that much money? That was probably well into the six figures. I hope I won’t get specific, but it was well into the six figures. And I got just in direct client revenue, $450,000, I would say.

Because of being in a Platinum partnership. So it much more than paid for itself, but then I found my wife through it. Because if I hadn’t been a Platinum partner, I wouldn’t have gone to India, and I wouldn’t have had that spiritual awakening, and then I wouldn’t have been on A Date with Destiny in one of the front rows where the mutual friend who introduced the two of us who is also a platinum partner.

I wouldn’t have known him, and he wouldn’t have been able to introduce me to Orion. And I wouldn’t have had, it’s just, yeah, it is 100 million times ROI. I guess it’s priceless to have your soulmate, to have your connection with the creator have happened because of that serendipity.

It wasn’t that, you know. I’m not saying you have to sign up for Tony Robbins or for any other particular event, but be open and trust. Trust that life is happening for you, not to you.

Absolutely. I would love to hear, though, what you find yourself most recommending. To other seekers, that I mean, you’ve done every time I talk to you; you’ve, you’ve done three different new seminars or courses or programs or memberships. So you’ve really tried the gamut, probably more than anyone I know, besides perhaps our mutual friend, Joe Polish. So I would love to know what the things that stand out to you are that you find yourself time and time again recommending that people check out.

It depends on what their needs are. So let’s say it’s business-related or, I don’t know, they need some epiphany in their career or business life. I probably recommend a Strategic  Coach, a Genius Network, or, yeah, just so many different events that I’ve gone to in masterminds. Super-Fast Business and Silver Circle. You might want to try War Room.

I didn’t end up joining, but I love Genius Network. It’s just a great group of people. That’s run by Joe Polish when we’re both in that group. So, those are just off the top of my head, a few different masterminds and groups. I highly recommend getting a coach, because that will help keep you accountable and help guide you specifically.

If you’re looking for, let’s say, better sales processes and skills, get a sales coach. If you’re looking to be more productive, more accountable, more intentional, get a productivity coach or a personal development type of coach. If you’re looking for a better sales coach or spiritual epiphanies, get a coach like a Kabbalah teacher-type coach. And yeah, so Masterminds, I’ve done I don’t know how many, at least a dozen of them.

I mentioned a few, Platinum Partnership and Genius Network and so forth, but there’s also, oh, and the Society, of course, I mentioned. That was really not about pickup so much. It’s still going. Neil Strauss still runs it. It’s about personal development. It’s about having big breakthroughs in your life. Slaying your dragons, your inner demons. It’s really good. So I could probably rattle off dozens and dozens, but those are just some of the ones that come to mind just initially here. Fantastic.

Now, Stephan, I know we’re coming up on time here, so I do wanna give you the opportunity to let people know where can they reach out, learn more, get in contact, download your podcasts, and where we should send folks?

Yeah, so StephanSpencer.com is my main website, and it has lots of great content about online marketing and SEO. If you’re keen to explore the whole personal development angle, Get Yourself Optimized has the podcast and there’s information there about getting coaching with me.

There’s also my other podcast, Marketing Speak, which is MarketingSpeak.com. It’s all primarily about online marketing, but I’ve had some of the real marketing legends, like Seth Godin, Jay Abraham, and Dan Kennedy, on the show. So that’s like a mini university education in online marketing. I highly recommend it.

Awesome. Now I do want to thank you, Stephan, but before I completely let you go, I want to ask you the question I always ask every guest on the show, which is if there’s one big message people should take away from this episode and carry with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that to be?

Just to be less skeptical and practice the willing suspension of disbelief.

That’s a fantastic message to end on. Stephan, my friend, thank you for coming to the show. It’s been an absolute pleasure. It’s always a pleasure to connect. I hope we can get together face-to-face soon with all this craziness.

I hope so, too. And you’ve been such a great friend and, you know, this, I don’t normally hear guys tell other guys that. I love you. It’s like, I love you, bro, or I love you, mate or buddy or whatever. You always have to put something at the end, but Jonathan, you are an amazing person, and I love you. You are a bright light in my life. So thank you.

I love you too, Stephan. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Thanks for tuning in to the award-winning Superhuman Academy podcast for more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit superhuman.blog. While you’re at it, please take a moment to share this episode with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes. We’ll see you next week.