Episode 260: Stephan Spencer (My Wakeup Call with Dr. Mark Goulston)

Episode 260: Stephan Spencer (My Wakeup Call with Dr. Mark Goulston)

This is Stephan’s podcast appearance on My Wakeup Call with Dr. Mark Goulston

Welcome to another episode of my Wake-Up call. You know, the introduction is new to my guests, but it’s not new to you, my listeners. So, and so this is for the benefit of my guests, not for you listeners, because if you’ve listened to these episodes, you know, I start them always the same way. I meet people in the world, I get to know them a little bit, and I want to get to know them even more.

And more than that, I want to have the process of getting to know them to be something that you, my listeners, can witness and share. Because these are special people, these are people that make the world better. These are the people who are up to all good, and they’re fighting a tough battle against the people in the world who are up to no good. And

Now, this person is not new to me. He may be new to you, but I’ve known Stephan Spencer for some years.

We actually met years ago back East. I think we attended a New York Yankee game. I forgot that we had both attended some sort of weekend thing, and it was wonderful. And then Stephan moved to California. Since then, he’s moved around. But let me tell you a little bit about him. He’s a deeply thoughtful, spiritual person. And you might not get that from what I’m about to tell you about him because he’s one of the world’s leading SEO experts. He’s the founder of an agency called Net Concepts. He’s a bestselling author. He has three books published by O’Reilly: The Art of SEO, Social E-Commerce, and Google Power Search. And they’re like Bibles. I mean, you want a resource.

Check out those books. He’s optimized the websites of some of the biggest brands in the world, including Chanel, Volvo, Sony, and Zappos. He hosts two podcasts called Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak. I was one of his earlier guests. He joins us now from Miami. Stephan, it’s great to see you.

It’s such a joy to see you.

I really feel that I’m looking into his eyes over my DSL camera, and I’m just feeling the history that we’ve had. We’ve gone on some hikes before, and he lived in California. And he’s had quite a personal journey in his life. But I want him to tell you about that. So if I would ask you what’s the through line in you in your life in terms of purpose, calling, you know, why you think you’re here and then share with us if there’s an origin story or wake-up calls, but I’m just going to listen and nudge you a little bit here and there, but take it away.

Okay. Well, I’ll tell you, the through line was not immediately evident to me. When I was 42, I went to India on a Tony Robbins platinum partner trip, and I got touched on the head by a monk. And that’s called a Diksha, an Oneness blessing. And it was like an LSD trip. Not that I’ve done any drugs, because I haven’t, but everything was in technicolor. I was in this deep sense of knowing bliss, connection. And prior to that, for my first 42 years of life, I didn’t even believe in God. I mean, I wasn’t completely atheistic. I was agnostic. So, I wouldn’t say that I was completely lost.

It was a surprise to me to realize that I had been guided and protected the whole way. Even when I was not feeling connected to the Creator, to my higher power, my purpose, I just was kind of going through things blind. And I walked away without a scratch from some really harrowing things. Like a car crash where I fell asleep behind the wheel, going 65 miles an hour driving all night; it was seven hours into an eight-hour drive. And I went off the road and spun out into a ditch. 

But before I did, I hit a lamp post on the freeway. And luckily it was one of those kinds that pop out, but it wasn’t luck. And also, it wasn’t luck that I walked away without a scratch, and the car got totaled. Kind of crushed around me. I didn’t realize until my second big spiritual awakening, which just happened this year, and I’m happy to go into it, that the angels had wrapped me around with this geodesic dome of energy to protect me so that I wouldn’t get crushed by the metal. I walked away without a scratch. And the trooper who came to report on the damage and everything was amazed.

And he said, “You’re a very lucky man.” At the time, I thought it was luck or good fortune. I did not realize the intervention that happened at that moment. There are so many instances of that in my life. I was just clueless. So, I can’t say that I had this throughline, except that I felt like I needed and wanted to make a difference in the world. Especially in the area of medicine. So I went to school studying for first a degree, a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology, and then a master’s in biochemistry. I was actually studying for a PhD, but I ended up dropping out. The reason why is that I had a run-in with my advisor, and he wanted me on the bench.

All the time, it didn’t matter that I had young children and a family. So we kind of were at odds in that regard. Also, I went to a conference just a few months earlier that Tim Berners-Lee spoke at, the inventor of the World Wide Web. I met one of the guys from Netscape, even before anybody heard of Netscape. This was 1994. And I was enamored by it all. So, I decided to drop out and start an internet company back in 1995. And yeah, so it was an interesting journey. Up until that point, I thought my path was set: I was going to become a professor, I was going to do research, I was going to help cure cancer or whatever the disease was, but I was going to make a big difference. And that felt like there’s this that felt like I gave up on something important by making that shift. 

In reality, now that I see a bit of a bigger picture, I know that it wasn’t meant to be that way. That it was meant to be the way that it completely unfolded was perfect. But at the time, it felt like I was kinda selling out, going after the money, and it wasn’t that way. But that’s how it felt. And there’s this term called Comparative Success Syndrome that I learned about when I was interviewing Elissa Fisher Harris for my podcast, Get Yourself Optimized. She told me a lot about imposter syndrome, which I thought, okay, I have that. I have that. And she also told me about something called Comparative Success Syndrome, which is a close cousin.

And that is about the person you could have been if you had made some different choices. And I thought, maybe I should have continued with my studies, become a professor, done all the research, gotten grant money, and, you know, eked out a living because most professors make very little money. But it wasn’t meant to be. And I’m very grateful for the way everything unfolded. It was perfect. It was divine. It was divinely guided. So.

And you asked what some of these big moments were that woke me up. That moment in October of 2012, where I got touched on the head by this one, this monk, was certainly one of them. And then there was one that just happened this year in January. I already consider myself very spiritual and connected, and I’ve been studying Kabbalah for six years. I’ve been doing oneness. Yeah, I’m a pretty heartfelt, connected guy. And I am receiving miracles a lot. Yeah, I’m just honest to God, miracles, real miracles.

Can you share what happened? I think you mentioned a couple of times in the last year there was another of these wake-up moments.

Yeah, it was on January 22nd. I prayed to God for a job. And that might sound a little strange since I have a successful business. We’re doing SEO for brands big and small. We’re a good seven-figure business. And I’m very, very good at it. Very, very good at it. I’m world-class. And that’s not why I’m on this planet. I didn’t understand what it was that I was here for, but I knew it wasn’t just to get people’s websites to the top of Google. So I interviewed a few months prior to this, a psychic medium, somebody who’s absolutely legitimate, a very heartfelt, wonderful person. Her name is Sheila Gillette. I interviewed her, and in preparation for this interview, I watched a video.

Where she described her near-death experience, it was just after childbirth. She had an embolism. She was on her deathbed. She was definitely going to be gone, probably within hours. But she prayed. She prayed to God for a job. She said, “Please, God, let me stay on this planet. Let me raise my kids.” Please just give me a job. I’ll do anything. Give me a job. And it took a few months, but three months or so later, I decided I was gonna pray for a job. Now, I didn’t want a near-death experience in order to get a job, but I wanted the job. I wanted to have that purpose, that mission that was directly given to me by the creator. And it was instant. It was instant. It was like the veils had been peeled away, and I could see the matrix. I could see how my life had been saved by angels when I had that car crash in my early 20s.

I could see how this is more like a simulation, more like a movie that I’m the director of, that I’m the pilot in the cockpit of my own airplane. This is my own universe in the multiverse, and I get to call the shots to a much larger degree than I ever thought possible. This is called co-creation. We co-create with the creator. I had no idea about this. And it just changed everything for me. It changed everything. And then I started getting all these messages, and I started getting psychic abilities. You know, if you had asked me or even just told me about psychic phenomena, you would have this capability yourself. And it was, let’s say, 12, now actually about 14 months ago; I would have told you, “That’s nonsense. No way, I don’t believe it.” Well, I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand like that. I do believe in the willing suspension of disbelief, but I would not just take it on board as truth.

Now I feel completely different about it because I’ve had the experience of messages and having those kinds of clairaudience, clairvoyance, visions, prophetic dreams, all that sort of stuff that sounds fantastical. I’m a science guy, and I remember being a biochemist. And now I’m an internet nerd who built companies and sold companies. And I am not normally seen as somebody who’s pretty woo-woo, but I’m not seen as somebody who’s completely skeptical, either. Cause I see skepticism and cynicism as two sides of the same coin. And I don’t want to be a cynic. I don’t know that. I don’t know anyone who wants to be a cynic. And skepticism is so close, so close. So, I do believe in the willing suspension of disbelief. And I’ll tell you what happened.

That was an additional wake-up call for me that started this whole trajectory. The January 22nd prayer and the answer came. And that is, I had a guest on my podcast who was a psychic medium. And I had only had one other guest prior to that who was psychic, Paul Selig. Or that was a medium, I should say. Did have somebody else who was psychic a few years prior. Anyway, Paul Selig is pretty famous, and I really enjoyed interviewing him. That was really, really cool. He even channeled in the episode.

But I met in METAL, which is a group that we’re both in, a guy whose name is Mark Nelson, who introduced himself in a Zoom breakout room on one of the Saturday meetings as an ad guy who writes copy and, oh, by the way, I’m also a medium. And my ears perked, and I was like, what? This is about 16 months ago, 15 months ago. And so I’m really intrigued. I don’t know what it was, but I felt compelled to have him on my podcast right away. And thank goodness I did because he saved my family member’s life while I was interviewing him. What happened was I had cleared the deck with no interview scheduled for a three-week time period while I was getting ready to move from LA down to Florida.

But I squeezed him in, and I figured I needed to have him on. I don’t know why, but it was like an intuitive hit. And at that very time slot where I interviewed him was where a family member was having a stroke at that moment and didn’t believe it and wasn’t going to the hospital. So when my wife, Orion, slipped a note to me in the middle of the interview, asking if this person was having a stroke, I interrupted the interview to ask him this. And he said, Yes, absolutely. She is. And here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s what it looks like if she doesn’t go to the hospital. It was dire. It was not good. And she was going to lose a lot of functionality. It was not good.

And she’s doing great. Now. She did go to the hospital. It took begging and pleading. But we wouldn’t have been so forceful about it. And she looked very far away. So we couldn’t go drive and pick her up and take her. We had to convince her over the phone, and we did. And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t interviewed Mark Nelson. Mark Nelson is a very famous medium. I did not know how famous he was until I looked him up online in preparation for the interview, but he was; there’s a TV show on Fox called The Gifted or The Most Gifted. 700 psychics were interviewed by the TV show, and of those 700, I think it was 10 or 12 were selected to be on the show. Well, Mark was one of those, and they just threw the hardest challenges to these folks, and he ended up winning. He was number one, number one most gifted.

And I remember watching this whole segment of him where he was on the show and there were three people who were similar age to people sitting in front of him. He knew nothing about them.

And he was able to discern immediately that they went to school together and he started receiving information about them. He saw visions of them at a high school. There were desks, but there were Arnie boots, and there were people hiding under desks. And he immediately realized this was Columbine. You all three went to Columbine. And then he started describing how they escaped. You went out the back door; you were hiding in the library.

The only thing he got wrong was just a minor thing. So he said, you were hiding in the library to one of them. And that person was actually hiding under the library. Everything else was spot on. So this guy is the real deal. That opened the door to me believing in psychic phenomena because I’d never had any interest in getting a reading, going to a seance, or anything like that. It wasn’t until. He saved my family member’s life, and I realized, “This is not an accident.” I’ve always heard Tony Robbins talk about there being no coincidences, and I’ve been to a lot of Tony Robbins events, and that was clearly not a coincidence. So yeah, lots of wake-up calls.

Yeah. What do you think fuels and sustains skepticism and cynicism?

Well, once we get disconnected, then it’s easy to stay disconnected. I don’t know what it was that started the disconnection in me other than the frustration with my grandparents who were raising me; one was a Jehovah’s Witness, and the other was a converted Catholic. And they were at odds about everything. And I just thought, well, this whole thing is bunk. So that’s probably what really started it. But then it’s so easy to stay on that track. And it’s equally as easy to get off of it, too. So if you want to believe, if you want to more than believe, as the monks in India explained to me, the divine is an experience, not a belief.

If you want to experience the divine. Then, you have to put yourself out there. You have to have that willing suspension of disbelief and try some things, whether it’s, I don’t know, Ayahuasca, I’ve never done any of that. I’m not poo-pooing it by any stretch. I’m just saying that wasn’t my path. I didn’t choose that path, but it could be for you, the listener, plant medicine. It could be a 10 or 12-day silence meditation retreat. Vipassana is what it’s called. It could be that you go to a Tony Robbins event or some other guru, which isn’t the right word, but somebody who’s more along the path spiritually so that you can kind of catch up. Whatever path you choose, take some action because you wish it. Yes, we’re co-creators with the creator, but if you just wish it without action, it is incomplete. You don’t close the circuit. It’s like a bridge that’s most of the way built. You can’t send a single car over a 95% built bridge.

So yeah. You know, I have some empathic abilities, and sometimes, when my empathy is accurate, and people feel felt, one of my books, Just Listen, is about really the power of causing another person to feel felt by you versus just feeling understood. Feeling understood is better than feeling misunderstood, but there’s still a gap. There’s still an experiential gap when you understand someone compared to when they feel felt by you. And and one of my challenges is I think when people feel understood and feel felt by me.

A number of them lean towards me. In fact, some people will say, I can’t hide from you. And I will say, “Is that a good thing?” And they say, “It’s a weird thing.” I don’t think it’s bad, but it’s weird. But I hope you never stop what it is that we do because I hide from everyone, including myself. And I share that with you. I guess people feel a certain safety with me that allows them to surrender to the experience. And I may do it because I vicariously live through them, surrendering into the experience of feeling felt by me.

But I have trouble surrendering myself. I’m not a control freak. And there’s a part of me that just aches to surrender. I have a lot of difficulty falling asleep. And at night, my mind will be racing. And I would just like to. I am exhausted. My body is ready to fall asleep, but my mind is on its own track. It happens almost nightly, and I would just like to be able to surrender and have my mind rest and collapse where my body is already done for the day. So I’m really listening to what you’re saying and resonating with it. Part of my interest is to go from an analytic frame into really feeling the spirituality, embracing it, surrendering to it and allowing it in versus. I’m not sure that I’m a skeptic or a cynic, but I would love to allow it in.

And you can, you can. I think it’s right there for you. I think you’re ready for it. You know, this idea of surrender is really important. It’s really, really important. I wanna give you an example of a situation where I surrendered, and then that’s where the magic happened. I was divorced in 2009, and I went through a really rough patch. That’s when three different people saw how wrecked I was and decided that I needed to go to a Tony Robbins event, and I was not really that keen on it. I didn’t really know anything about Tony Robbins other than he was on TV with his infomercials.

That wasn’t my thing, but three different people, all within a very short time span, all telling me to go to this Tony Robbins event, which was called Unleash the Power Within. That felt like I was supposed to do that. So I did, and it started again; it was a big wake-up call. I walked on 2,000-degree hot coals in my bare feet. I never thought I would do that in my life or anything like that. I never thought I’d break a board or break an arrow with my throat or any of the sort of stuff that I’ve done since. But this one moment was a catalyst for a whole lot of changes. I realized after walking on those poles and not burning, in fact, not even getting a blister, that I could do anything. I could go get a hair transplant, which I did. Three months later, I got a hair transplant. I could go get LASIK. I’ve been wearing glasses for decades, and I went.

Three weeks later, I was in the doctor’s office getting LASIK, no more glasses. All these changes were from the outside perspective; external changes were actually just a reflection of the massive internal changes. I was a different person. And so when I went through all of this transformation over the next, let’s say, ten months. Nobody recognized me when I would start showing up at conferences again after the hair grew in. Then, people literally did not recognize me when I saw all the stuff that I’d gone through and the changes I’d made, the diet changes, and the exercise changes.

And that was really exciting and fun for a little while. Chris, that was a long time ago, in 2010. But that idea of surrendering came to a head when I realized that I needed some help to kind of learn some skills around pick up because I had gone two and a half years without a single date. I went and joined a mastermind called The Society, which is a secret society. Not so secret because it has a website, but a secret society run by Neil Strauss.

Neil Strauss is famous for his book The Game, which is all about the underground world of pickup artists. And he was a very successful pickup artist. I learned pickup from him and from other people that he brought in to teach at these intensives because I was part of this mastermind. And there are 150 of us at the time. And then they grew it to 100. I’ve been doing this for years, but I ended up being a personal development mastermind and pickup mastermind. But I did learn a lot about pickups. And it was through the act of surrendering that everything sped up, and I met my soulmate almost instantaneously. It was from when I was at a Tony Robbins event. I was at Date with Destiny.

It was the very last day I was working on my poster board, which had all the power virtues, my mission statements towards values away from values. And most importantly, my relationship vision. That relationship vision I wrote in a very connected state. I was writing all the attributes of who she was going to be. And then, I wrote who I was going to be, how I would show up in the relationship, and what the relationship would be like. It was beautiful. And then I prayed. I prayed for her to show up right away. And I was very specific about it right away.

And 10 hours, no, 12 hours later, we were introduced by a mutual friend. And I knew in five minutes that she was the one. And the way I knew it was because remember that Diksha, that oneness blessing that I got touched by a monk with, and that same trip in India, two months prior to this Date with Destiny event, I’d also learned how to give these blessings. So, I was a Diksha giver, too. And that last night of the event. Everyone, most everyone, had gotten Diksha, but not her. She didn’t get touched. And she was kind of bummed about it. I’m like, well, I know how to do that. I can give you Diksha. And we had just met. And she said, “I would love that.” 

And so I prayed for her, put my hands on her head and prayed for her that divine grace would flow through me to her. And so much so that I knew she was the one because the more you pray for somebody, the more divine grace flows through to them. And I prayed for her like she was my soulmate. And I knew, so it was very short before I already had a ring. And nine days later, I surprised her with a proposal and a hot air balloon above the Las Vegas desert. And she said, no, she said, more precisely, not yet.

And that made sense logically speaking because it had only been nine days. But on the positive side, it was a very powerful moment for us to bring even closer together, even though it was a very painful and awkward 20-minute descent back down to earth, literally. And I remember how shocked the pilot was because he was taking video for me with my iPhone. And he told me beforehand, he’s never had a failed proposal. So, I killed a streak. And yeah, nine months later, I reproposed to her and she said, yes. But the surrender part is where I said, I am not going to use my techniques. Which I could be pretty successful with.

And I’m a little embarrassed to say I was successful with it just the night before I met my wife. But it’s not about the skills, it’s not about your abilities, it’s not about being in a flow state or whatever, it’s about surrendering more than anything.

If we just allow the creator to work through us and for all the synchronicities and all the divine timing and everything to happen for us, because life happens for us, not to us, as Tony Robbins says, and I’m sure others have said that prior to him. But there’s another level to that. And I’ve learned this recently from Neil Cannon, a mutual friend and METAL, and that. Yes, life happens for us, not just to us, but there’s another level where life happens for us. And that’s where that co-creation comes in. That’s where the, like, just the other day, I’m like, I need to mail this FedEx package. Ah, I would just love not to have to figure out a drop-off location and all that. I would just love for a FedEx truck to appear right on the way.

A half mile away from where I’m dropping my mother-in-law at the JCC for her class. And boom, within a minute, there was a FedEx truck right in the middle of the road, in between lanes, between the two different directions, parked with the guy in the back, messing around with whatever his packages were. So, all I had to do was slow down and hand him the package. And I’m off. I didn’t even have to go a millimeter out of my way.

That’s just a small example, but we have so much more power than we could possibly imagine, each of us. We are the co-creators of not just our little world around us, our neighborhood, our family, our sphere of what we think is influence. No, we have a global effect. If we believe that World War III is coming, we can bring it on just by our balloons. In our universe, in our little slice of the multiverse. And that’s maybe scary for some, but it’s also, I think, very empowering because with great power comes great responsibility and also great blessings.

You know, to our listeners, to circle back, tell me if I’m getting this when Stephan mentioned that he wanted a job. I think what you were saying is you wanted an assignment. It’s not like go get a job at a company, but you wanted a job from that higher power, that being, give me something that is aligned with why I’m here.

Yeah, it’s a small mission.

And so can you. Before we bring this to a close, can you crystallize what that mission is?

Yeah, an ambassador of spirituality. So that’s the short of it. I’m working on a self-help book that I’m intuiting. Channeling intuition is not a gut feeling; to some, it is, but it’s so much more than that. It’s the angelic realm whispering into our consciousness. And if we listen to our intuition and then act on it, beautiful, magical things are going to happen in our lives. An intuitive hit is something that comes in unexpectedly; it comes in charge neutral, and there’s no emotion to it. It’s not like fear-inducing or anxiety-producing, or it just simply is.

And then, finally, it doesn’t lead anywhere else. It doesn’t jump to the next thought, to the next thought, to the next thought. The next thing you know, you’re remembering, “Oh yeah, I need to pick up milk at the store.” It just stays there. So those are the intuitive hits, so pay attention to them. Even if you don’t feel very spiritually inclined or connected, just pay attention to your intuition. And I have a feeling, Mark that you have an intuitive hit around what to do about your sleep issue. Like putting aside all of the knowledge and analysis and all the left-brain logical stuff that you have looked at in regards to sleep. What is an intuitive hit that tells you that I should do this about my sleep?

Wow. You know, I’ll share something. My dad died at 95, I think, and he could be a little bit on the critical side, you know, and sometimes I have older brothers, and I have a middle brother. I’m the youngest who could be the recipient of that. And so, and he was a numbers person. He trained as an accountant. And it’s interesting you’re bringing this up because here’s the intuitive hit I think I had trouble with. Falling asleep all the way back to my childhood.

And I think there was one night. My guess is I was seven or eight, which I was kind of moaning with, you know, feeling frustrated. You know, I was tired, and I couldn’t get to sleep. And this was so unlike my father. He comes into the room. And I think I was even crying, you know, I can’t stand it. I can’t fall asleep, whatever. And then he said to me, he said, “I think it’s possible to rest with your eyes open. If you fall asleep, that’s okay. But even if you don’t fall asleep, nighttime is a time to rest so you can face the next day. And I think even if your eyes don’t close, it’s still possible to rest.”

And that was something that is so out of character for an accountant, analytical mind. But every now and then, when I think of those special moments of kindness and understanding, as opposed to criticism, you know, that’s probably one of a handful of moments of just his being kind. So, what you just said helped me to remember that. And so I’m going to try that tonight.

That’s awesome. I think you should try that one that should be cause should. According to  Marshall Rosenberg, I think this is the founder of NVC. Nonviolent communication should be the most common language.

Yeah, I will do it. Yeah. Marshall. 

He definitely changed my thinking around the word “should.” So let me rephrase it to say I highly recommend that you try that not just for a night but for a week. I think just that will take the pressure off. I need to sleep. If I need to sleep, I’m going to take it. Let’s see. See how long it goes, 15 minutes or whatever, just being in a contemplative state or in a rest state with my eyes open and my eyes closed. And that’s a form of surrender right there. Right. Just be okay with whatever happens next. And I do think that that was an intuitive hit for your dad.

To say that. And I do think that everything happens for a reason. There’s nothing random. And the fact that you brought up your dad right now is significant. And every malady, syndrome, disease, disorder, and physical manifestation of discomfort comes from an interference, an entity, a negative entity, a negative thought form or something that is messing with you. You are in a low vibration, and thus, you are receptive to or vulnerable to infiltration by that negative entity or whatever the thing is that’s interfering with you.

And so something that manifests as a disease could have had an origin point decades earlier. And so one thing that I’ve learned, and this is from, I’ve been learning from Tina Zion, she’s a famous medical intuitive. And so medical intuition is where you can intuit things that are wrong with people’s physical bodies and also with their energetic bodies. So I’m learning from her, and I’m learning all these concepts. The thing I just described to you is that I learned from her that it has an interference source. And it’s not just you’re outside, and you happen to get rays of sunshine that, just by chance, break a gene, break the DNA at exactly the wrong point where it messes with a gene for programmed cell death.

And next thing you know, you got cancer. No, some entity interfered with you and made that happen. It’s not by nothing’s by random chance. So, if you think about your relationship with your dad and whether there’s healing to be had there, forgiveness, or torment, you can always tell if there’s torment for a person that there is a blockage of unforgiveness that needs to be released. So, I don’t know where you’re at with your relationship with your dad, and this can be healed if it’s not whole and complete now.

It doesn’t matter how long ago he passed; it can be healed now. Things that have a physical manifestation that seems completely unrelated to anything, once you start digging in, can have a very important emotional connection to somebody who hurt us in our childhood. Like for example, Morton’s neuroma in my left index finger has bothered me for seven years,

I had no way to fix it. I tried a lot of different modalities with doctors, with the all-path medicine, but nothing, no, no benefit. But then I found that there was a connection to my grandfather, who was physically abusive when I was growing up. And I had to live with him for a number of years. 

And he had hurt me. I didn’t remember this, but he had hurt me when I was 12, hurt my finger.

Or maybe I was 10, somebody, I was around that age. And that seeded the cascade that then turned into more of Morton’s neuroma decades later. And by forgiving him, I released a lot of unforgiveness of resentment, of disease, not a disease like disease, but disease in my soul because I harbored that resentment. Even though I worked on this and I thought I was through it, I wasn’t. And it took Morton’s neuroma to wake me up to this. And then I had this beautiful healing. It’s been a lot better. It’s not as painful. It’s not completely gone yet, but it is much better. And I have this deep connection with my grandfather now.

That I didn’t have two months earlier because of Morton’s neuroma, and I’m like, okay, I got to get to the bottom of this. And there it was. My grandfather was at the bottom of it. Wasn’t some cellular thing going on? Yes, there is a physical manifestation of it that is absolutely at the biochemical and biophysical level, but there’s something even deeper. It’s emotional and spiritual. I bet that’s going on with you and your dad.

Okay, I can feel you’re right. Thank you for being on and taking us on this journey. The journey continues. It’s been a real treat for me, and I know it’s been a treat and a gift to our listeners. So, where can people best find you and get in touch with you?

Yeah, StephanSpencer.com is my main website. My podcasts are Get Yourself Optimized. And MarketingSpeak, which is all things marketing, especially SEO and Facebook and e-commerce and analytics and all that sort of stuff. That’s MarketingSpeak.com. And if folks want to email me directly, they can email me at me@stephanspencer.com.

Right. So thank you, my good friend. It’s so good to see you and so good to hear these things that I hadn’t heard before. I’m especially taking in and feeling some of the suggestions or the way you phrased them. It wasn’t a should.

Just a recommendation, an idea.

Recommendation: there you go.

And you’re welcome to use what works and discard the rest.

That’s great. So, thank you to you and our listeners for listening to another episode of my Wake-up Call. It helps if you leave reviews or comments on Apple podcasts about how we can do a better job. If there are guests you think of that you’d like to hear or see on the show, please connect with us. And so until next time, when wake-up calls come your way.

Don’t beat up on yourself. You can miss a few buses, but the bus will keep coming. One of these days, you will wake up to a wake-up call, and it’ll help you pivot your life, maybe even change your life. And until next time, thanks again for tuning in. Be well, and take care of those you love, including yourself. Take care, bye-bye.

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Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy was last modified on November 8, 2024.

We at Koshkonong, LLC are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe online experience for all of our visitors while offering a high-quality user experience here at www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or/and any other websites operated by the Company, including but not limited to:

We know that you care about how the information you provide to us is used and shared. We have developed this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of Information we receive from users of the Website. Koshkonong, LLC (the “Company”) operates the Website.

This Privacy Policy, along with our Term & Conditions, governs your use of this site.  By using www.stephanspencer.com (the “Website”), or by accepting the Terms of Use (via opt-in, checkbox, pop-up, or clicking an email link confirming the same), you agree to be bound by our terms and consent to this Privacy Policy.

Information We Collect

When you visit our Website, we will learn certain information about you.

In order to provide you with the most efficient and enhanced personalized service and attention, and to accommodate certain requests which you make, we request information about you in certain circumstances and collect certain information automatically.

Consistent with our previous practices, we will only collect and process your personal data when we have a lawful basis for doing so. These lawful bases include when you provide us consent, when we have a contractual obligation to collect or process the data, and when we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data.

We may collect and/or receive the following types of information from you:

Information Provided Voluntarily

Personal Information. You may be asked to provide personal information including your name, address, email address and phone number when you sign up for any of our newsletters, respond to a survey, register for a class, or purchase a product or service. We will only request the personal information that is required in order to fulfill our obligations to you, i.e. in order to deliver what you have requested, as well as to comply with any legal obligations that may accompany such an exchange.

Order & Billing Information. If you place an order through our Website, we track certain information about the products and services you purchase. At checkout, you will also be required to provide additional information required for processing your payment. This generally includes a debit or credit card or other payment information, expiration dates, card security codes, your billing address or similar information.  This information is generally processed and captured by third-party vendors, such as payment processors and merchant account providers. To the fullest extent possible, we make an effort not to capture or retain this information ourselves (unless, for example, we are requested to process a refund, follow up on the delivery of goods or services, or work with customers or vendors on resolving any errors or other scenarios.) Third-party vendors who assist us in any of our business functions will also be doing so pursuant to their own terms and conditions, including privacy policies and terms of use.

Information Collected Automatically. In addition to the information described above, we may collect some or all of the following information:

Activity Info (Log Data). Information may be collected based on your use of the Website, which generally includes information about your computer hardware and software, such as:

Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, operating systems, browser types, device types, URLS, access dates and times; Website pages that you visit; referring website information; universally unique identifiers (“UUID”), advertising identifier (“IDFA”), carrier and country location, hardware and processor information, network type, and other related data.

Use of Cookies.  Our website may use cookies in order to deliver a better experience for you. Cookies are files with small amounts of data that a website stores on your computer’s or mobile device’s hard drive so that certain information about your visit and web-browsing preferences will be recognized upon a return visit. Cookies serve functions such as “remembering” log-in names and passwords, or enabling or saving shopping cart contents. Like many websites, we may use both session cookies (which expire once you close your web browser) and persistent cookies (which stay on your computer until you delete them) to help us improve the experience you have with our Website. Most web browsers have a function that allows you to delete existing cookies on your device or you can set your browser options so that your device does not receive or accept cookies. Doing this may interfere with your ability to use the Website. [ ]

Third-Party Analytics. We use third-party analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to evaluate and aggregate visitor data. These services help us evaluate Visitors’ use of the Website, including time spent on certain pages, which areas of the Website receive the most traffic, how often visitors visit pages within the Website, and also provide general geographic location about visitors, the source of referred traffic (from other websites, vs search engines, etc). These third party analytic services use cookies and other technologies to help analyze and provide us the data. By providing your consent to this Privacy Policy, you consent to the collection and review of data about you by these analytics providers in the manner and for the purposes set out herein.

For more information on Google Analytics, including how to opt out from certain data collection, please visit https://www.google.com/analytics. If you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Other Third Party Tracking Tools. We may also collect or receive information from third parties, such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or other third-party social media and similar sites.

How to Access Your Personal Information

If you have provided personal, billing or other voluntarily provided information, you may access, review and make changes to it via instructions found on the Website or by emailing us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com. To manage your receipt of marketing and non-transactional communications, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located on the bottom of any related email from the Company. Emails related to the purchase or delivery of orders are provided automatically – Customers are not able to opt out of transactional emails. We will try to accommodate any requests related to the management of Personal Information in a timely manner. However, it is not always possible to completely remove or modify information in our databases (for example, if we have a legal obligation to keep it for certain timeframes).

How We Use and Share the Information

We use the collected Information to understand customer needs, including regarding our Website services to:

  • present you with information through our Website and email services;
  • provide our services, process orders, and administer our programs;
  • maintain and improve our Website;
  • respond to your requests, and provide customer service, including in response to any problems that may arise, such as difficulties in navigating our Website or accessing certain features;
  • solicit your feedback, and to inform you about our products and services and those of our third-party marketing partners that we feel may be of interest or value to you;
  • personalize or display advertisements to you on third-party platforms;
  • improve our services or offerings; and
  • fulfill our legal or contractual obligations to you.

As with transactions elsewhere, when you purchase products, services, or programs via our Website, your credit card company will also retain certain information regarding your purchase. We will not otherwise provide any personal data to your credit card company without your permission.

We may share the Information collected with joint venture partners, affiliates, agents, current or prospective business partners, businesses under common control, third-party businesses or partners participating in administering our programs or services, or to those providing business functions such as technical support, customer service, marketing assistance, etc. These businesses will only have access to information as necessary to perform their functions and to the extent permitted by law.

In the event of the sale or transfer of our business to a third party buyer, including in the event of bankruptcy or liquidation, we may, as necessary, share your data with the buyer or transferee.

In the event that we have to collect on a debt owed to us by you, we may, as necessary, share your information with an attorney or a court of law to enforce our rights and collect what is owed.

Under certain circumstances we may be obligated or compelled to disclose the Information: when required by law, court order or government agency, or when disclosing such Information is reasonably required to protect the Company, its property, the Website, the safety of visitors or others.

Retargeting / Personalized and Behavioral Ads

We may, using the techniques described above, and in conjunction with third party marketing partners, gather information from your visit to our Website for purposes of providing relevant advertising content to you in the future. This means that through third party marketing partners or third party sites such as Google, Facebook, or Instagram, we may display advertisements to you (remarketing or retargeting), based on usage data collected during your visit to our website.

Google Analytics: As described above, we use Google Analytics on our website. We may utilize any of the following advertising features that utilize the Google advertising cookies: Remarketing with Analytics, Demographics and Interest reporting, Segments, and Double Click integration.

To opt out of seeing personalized ads via the Google platform, please visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

For more information regarding how Google uses cookies in advertising and how you can control advertising cookies, visit http://www.google.com/policies/technologies/ads/

To personalize the ads you see via the Google platform, visit http://www.google.com/settings/ads

For more information on how Google uses data when you visit its partners’ sites or apps, visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/

Or, via an opt-out browser add-on, you can opt out of having your site activity available to Google Analytics. For more information, or to install the opt-out browser ad-on, please visit https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en  Please note that if you opt out of any service, you may not enjoy the full functionality of the Website.

Google Ad Words: We may utilize Google Ad Words, which provides certain of the information collected on our website to the Adwords advertising network. To opt out of Google Ad Words, visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en

Facebook Custom Audience: We may utilize Facebook’s Custom Audience capability which allows us to display ads on Facebook to individuals on our email lists or in our database. We may provide personal information to Facebook, such as your name, email address and phone number to enable Facebook to identify whether you are a Facebook account holder. To opt-out of the Facebook Custom Audience, please email us at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with (1)“Facebook Custom Audience Opt-Out” in your Subject Line, and (2) your name and email address in the body of the email.

Other Personalized and Behavioral Advertising Services: We may participate in other retargeting services that are similar to those described above.

Managing Cookies Via Your Browser:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences via your browser settings. Please visit your browser’s help section for assistance with turning on notifications regarding cookies, or disabling cookies through your browser.

Managing Cookies on Your Mobile Device:

You may be able to change your cookie preferences on your mobile device either via your browser settings, or via the settings (preferences) on your device. For additional info, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/mobile/

Use Caution When Sharing Information Online

When you voluntarily make your Personal Information available online in an environment shared by third parties – including in webinars, classes, online conferences, via email, on message boards, chat rooms or on blogs, or via telephone calls or conferences – that information can be viewed, saved, collected, heard, and/or used by others outside of the Company. We are not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of information provided in these contexts. Please be mindful whenever you share any information online.

Security of Your Information

The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we incorporate standard industry practices internally and with our services providers, which we believe is sufficient for the information involved, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. Because we work with third-party businesses and vendors in various aspects of our business including operating this website, database management, website security, etc., we cannot guarantee the absolute security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that the Information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to and from us over the Internet. Any information that you provide to us via email should be treated with extra caution, as we cannot control the level of security available through email providers.

Children

We are strongly committed to protecting the safety and privacy of children who visit our website. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under the age of 13 through the Website. If you are under 13, please do not give us any Personal Information. We encourage all parents to talk to their children about online safety and to monitor their children’s use of the Internet. If you have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 has provided Personal Information to us, please contact us, and we will make best efforts to immediately delete that information from our databases.

External Websites

While we have carefully chosen those vendors with whom we work, especially those involved in the transmission of data on behalf of our business, we do not control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of third-party websites, including those of affiliates, business partners, sponsors, advertisers, or other websites to which we may link from time to time. When visiting any third-party websites, you are responsible for reviewing the privacy policy and terms of use applicable to each site. They may be different than those that you see here.

California Privacy Rights

Pursuant to Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code, residents of California have the right to request from a business with whom the Californian has an established business relationship, certain information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. To request a copy of the information disclosure provided by the Company pursuant to this provision, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com.

Our California Do Not Track Notice

Consistent with our policies described above, we collect information from our visitors on our website and across third party websites where applicable, to provide relevant content and advertising. We do not support Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals of web browsers.

DNT is a setting in your web browser that informs websites that you do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT through the Preferences or Settings options of your web browser.

Visitors Outside the U.S.

Our Website and the servers that make this Website available worldwide are located in the United States. The Internet laws in the United States govern all matters relating to this Website. Any information you provide in subscribing to or visiting our Website will be transferred to the United States. By visiting our Website and submitting information, you authorize this transfer, processing, and use.

EU Visitors and the GDPR

If you live in the EU, certain of your data may be subject to protection by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”), a privacy regulation intended to help you have greater control over your personal data.

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights, which we extend to all of our website visitors:

  • to know what information is being collected, as disclosed in this Privacy Policy (“right to transparent information”);
  • to object on grounds relating to your particular situation to the collection or processing of certain kinds of information (“right to object”);
  • to withdraw consent even after it has been given, without affecting the lawfulness of the processing of your data prior to your withdrawal (“right to withdraw consent”);
  • to access, modify or update your information so that it is correct (“right to access” and “right to rectification”);
  • to have your information deleted or erased (“right to erasure” or “right to be forgotten”);
  • to have your data transferred or ported elsewhere (“right to data portability”);
  • and the right to restrict processing in certain situations (“right to restriction of processing”).

For purposes of the GDPR, to the fullest extent possible we do not directly collect or maintain personal data of our EU visitors or clients. This is done through partnerships with third-party vendors who have systems designed for the collection and storage of data on behalf of their clients (“data processors”). The data is only kept as long as is reasonably required to accomplish the purpose or purposes for which it was collected. Certain data may be expunged or utilized more quickly than others, and depending on your engagement and behaviors, including purchasing behaviors, we may be engaged in a business or contractual relationship with some longevity. (For example, if you purchase a course or program, or services that span over some time, you will continue to receive communications in regards to those offerings or services).

The categories of data processors with whom we work, and that help us in the collection of information that allows us to serve and interact with you include website analytics provider(s), website and web form plug-ins and related third-party services that allow us to maintain an up-to-date online platform and communicate with you electronically, an email service provider or providers to assist in managing email correspondence with our visitors, customers and list, as well as payment processor(s) and/or merchant account(s) to help us transact sales online and follow up with you regarding any purchases. For a list of specific data processors with whom we currently work, please visit our list here.

Those within the Company that may have access to the data include Officers, Directors, Managers, Supervisors, Salespersons, or those providing customer or technical support. Access to the data is provided for specific purposes, generally related to communicating with you, fulfilling our contractual obligations, providing customer service or technical support, collecting payment, or monitoring performance of marketing and sales efforts.

You may contact us at any time to have your information with us or any of these processors updated or corrected, deleted, or to obtain a copy for your records. Additionally, you may opt out of receiving any additional emails or marketing messages from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our email notifications.

Further, if you feel that we have not complied with the relevant data protection regulations, please contact us by sending us an email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with your first and last name, your country of origin, and a summary of your concern or complaint. We will endeavor to respond at our earliest possible convenience to address your concern. If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may have additional options.

Residents in Designated Countries may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant EU data protection authority. You may access a list of the Data Protection Authorities in the EU here.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

The Company may update this Privacy Policy from time to time as necessary to protect our users and to comply with a changing environment. Please review the Privacy Policy when you visit our Website to remain updated on our current policy. We have no intention of making any changes to our Privacy Policy and practices to make them less protective of personal information collected in the past. By accessing the Website and/or using our services after making any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes. Please be aware that, to the extent permitted by applicable law, our use of the Information is governed by the Privacy Policy in effect at the time we collect the information. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Whenever we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will update the date at the top.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us via email at me [at] stephanspencer [dot] com with “Privacy Policy” in the subject line.

© 2015 – 2024 by The Legal Website Warrior® (www.LegalWebsiteWarrior.com). All Rights Reserved.  DO NOT DUPLICATE THIS PRIVACY POLICY (OR ANY PORTION THEREOF). THIS CONSTITUTES COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.