This is Stephan’s podcast appearance about How To Have Transcendent Transformations In Life And Business? on the The Noble Warrior.

I'm really excited to be talking to Stephen Spencer today. He and I met at a seminar about 10 years ago, 2010, roughly, and the Eben Pagan event and I just witnessed, from the outside, the transformational story. You were already in the middle of your transformation. And then seeing what's happened since then, it's been just tremendous for me to witness. Stephen is the best-selling author of the book The Art of SEO; it's quite a tome, 700 pages.

It's actually almost 1000

Excuse me, I undermined the number of pages. 1000 pages, he has two podcasts, Marketing Speak. Then the other one is Get Yourself Optimized. So he is a father, husband, and student of life; I just love the whole idea of infinite potential, developing himself continuously, along with his wife, to welcome him to the show. Thank you, Stephan, for being here.

Happy to do it.

So, if you don't mind, rewind a little bit about your transformational story from the time we met to where you are right now. Back then, you were a hardcore SEO guy. And now, you are venturing into the world of spirituality. So, walk us through a little bit of the journey that you went on. That would be amazing.

Yeah, so I had been studying and experimenting with SEO for a long time, since the 90s. Started an agency in 1995, even before SEO really existed, and became an SEO expert over the course of time. In 2009, I was going through a divorce, one that I wasn't planning for and kind of caught me by surprise, but my wife, at the time, decided it was time for change, which ended up being a huge gift for me.

So 2009 was a pretty hard time for me; it's a pretty dark time. When we met CK, it was, as you said, towards the end of the physical transformation, and I had already done a hair transplant and LASIK and shaved off my goatee. I changed my body pretty significantly, lost some weight, fitness and so forth. That helped me look unrecognizable from the guy I looked like a year or even ten months prior. So that was pretty cool.

I started because I went to a Tony Robbins event I had gone through; as I said, it was a dark time, and people were noticing three different people in the span of just a couple of weeks. All told me to go to this Tony Robbins event; I was coming to the area to Chicago, and I was in Wisconsin at the time. So I did that. I went to the Tony Robbins event, which was called Unleash the Power Within.

I did a fire walk, which means you walk on 2000-degree hot coals in your bare feet without any protection or anything. And I didn't get burned at all. I didn't get even a blister. So I'm like, wow, if I can do that, I can certainly go and get LASIK, which I was terrified of. Like I don't know if somebody is going to operate on my eyes. So I don't have to wear glasses. Yeah, I'd love to, but no, no, thanks. Two weeks later, I went and got it. It's amazing.

Walking on fire literally changes your belief system about confronting your fears.

Yeah, it was a huge paradigm shift for me, and I could do pretty much anything. And I started making these huge decisions. It's really cool and never stopped. It was a permanent shift, huh? Yeah. So, I've done things that you could have told me ten years ago. I would have said, "Oh, that's crazy. There's no way there's no way." Like for example, microlighting.

Microlight is a hang glider with a motor attached. I didn't pilot it. I had there was a pilot, but you're so exposed. You're in this seat, but you're just totally open to the elements. And then we were flying into the mist above. Victoria Falls in Zambia was beautiful and amazing. And yeah, it was so terrifying. But I did it. And I had always thought of myself as being terrified of heights and unable to do anything anywhere near that. That was a huge breakthrough for me; I also went on that same trip in a canoe on the Zambezi River, which is full of crocodiles and hippos.

Hippos are actually more dangerous than crocodiles. Fun fact there: I did fine, even though I didn't know how to swim, and I had been terrified of water. Never learned how to swim. So, I always avoided that. It was the first time I'd ever been in a canoe or kayak. I was on that trip.

It was a Tony Robbins trip; I had joined something called Platinum Partnership, that's way, which is his high-level thing where you pay 100 and whatever thousand dollars a year; great to be in it. 

And I did it for three years, almost. It was life-changing, for sure. But it all started with that one $800 ticket to unleash the power within Chicago. Then the next event took place a few months after that. And the next event after that was about eight months later. And by then, I was unrecognizable from the version of myself from prior. And that was just my physical and mental transformation, I guess, when you talk about the fear and stuff, but the spiritual transformation that came in 2012.

Well, before you go, the spiritual aspect of it, I'm curious to now for the people that are listening to this, chances are they're like you and me, right? They love reading books and listening to podcasts. You know, I really wanted to discover the secrets of life; I want to get the most juice out of this precious gift we've been given. One of the things I teach is that you also hear people say this a lot: whatever you want is outside of your comfort zone.

Wherever you want is outside of your comfort zone. And fear is actually a really good indicator that you're at the boundary of your comfort zone and whatever growth lies beyond. Yeah. So I'm curious to know. So, beyond walking on coals? How do you continuously push that boundary of your comfort zone and outside your comfort zone for the sake of growth?

I'm a lifelong learner; I think what matters more than anything is to shift your identity and not just try to establish new habits and make behavior changes, which are important. But if you see yourself as a lifelong learner, or you see yourself as somebody who pushes the envelope or somebody who is living outside his or her comfort zone, that's just who you are, then your reticular activating system (RAS) and your brain is going to find all sorts of opportunities for you to manifest that. That's just the way our brains work.

But if you don't see your, let's say that you wanted to stop smoking, like I'm going to stop smoking, I'm going to stop smoking. Yeah, whatever. Right. So maybe stop, but then you have a relapse wherever you start smoking again. You never changed your identity to a nonsmoker. That was the problem. A nonsmoker just doesn't smoke. You still see yourself as somebody who enjoyed smoking, but now you're you're stopping. You didn't make that identity shift.

So, part of my identity is somebody who is constantly learning and growing, contributing, and looking for opportunities to go outside of my comfort zone without being prompted or pushed. Because I believe there are more blessings to have. When you don't get the, you don't get hit with the brick from the universe to, like, okay, you need to make a change now. Even if you can do it before the feather arrives, you know, there's this analogy as feathers get, you know, the drop on you is like little hints from the universe.

You could ignore those, and then that turns into a brick. And you can ignore that, too. And then more bricks. Eventually, the Mack truck comes and runs you over. If you keep ignoring the brick, I don't even want to get to the brick stage. I don't even want to find opportunities to grow and evolve where I don't even have to wait for the feathers. I just tap into the synchronicities of life and the universe. I know the Vortex is there. You know? Are you familiar with Abraham Hicks?

Go ahead and tell us.

Yeah, so this might sound pretty out there. It sounded out there for me when I first heard of Abraham. But my wife is also a podcaster. Orion has a podcast called  Stellar Life, and she was a fan of Abraham Hicks before I'd even heard of Abraham. Esther Hicks is the woman who channels this entity, or entities called Abraham, actually multiple entities. I don't know what else you'd call them, like Ascended Masters. People who have passed, I don't know.

I don't know what Abraham is exactly. But I do know that the message really resonates. And we just went to an Abraham Hicks event on the weekend. It was amazing. And it was not the first time we'd been. We go usually once a year for the last couple of years. One of Abraham's core concepts is the law of attraction. Another one is the Vortex, and everything that you want and desire can be imagined in the Vortex waiting for you.

But we disconnect ourselves from the Vortex, and we kick up resistance in our path unnecessarily. We could just get into an abundance mindset and so forth and just attract all this wonder into our lives. And yet we don't do it; we don't believe we're worthy. We don't think it's possible. We believe that side effects should just naturally come if things are hard, and therefore, they become hard. So yeah, I just want to stay in the Vortex as much as possible. And one thing that Abraham teaches is that pets are great; it's being in the Vortex. So if you've got a pet, they're like always in the Vortex. They're just so fun and fun loving and everything. And that helps us stay in the Vortex. We just lost our cat. 

Not long ago, a few months ago, it's been really hard, but she's a beautiful soul. And yeah, there are some good meditations and words of wisdom about losing your pet, actually from Abraham Hicks' videos on YouTube. Anyway. So yeah, this has been a journey that is continuing and evolving. And you never get to the destination. And I want to keep ahead of the curve and do stuff that I'm not prompted to buy, like bricks or even feathers.

So here's one question that I have as a follow-up to that. Thank you for sharing. By the way, you talked about identity shifting. So, let's use the smoker decision example. Yeah, logically, it's a really good idea. They want to change. And they want to be that I'm, you know, my identity is someone who doesn't smoke. Yeah. Right. So, where do you go from there? It's a good idea to have someone who doesn't smoke. Even though it sounds simple to say intellectually, that tiny gap between stimulus and response is the key to the secret of life. Right? So, how would you articulate the shift from someone who thinks this is a good idea to someone who actually believes wholeheartedly from the body perspective?

It's all about desire, desires, and fuel. I learned this in Kabbalah, I take Kabbalah classes, and I just love this concept. That desire is the engine for all of your growth and transformation and everything. So if you're, if you're wanting to quit smoking, you need to have enough desire to make it real, to manifest it. If you just think it's a good idea, you don't have the desire. So, yeah, it's not going to happen. But let's say that your daughter or son comes and pulls on your pant leg one day and says, hey, "Why do you keep smoking? I want you to be alive when I get married. And then you start weeping, and you think, I can't do this anymore. And that's the last cigarette you ever smoked. I've never smoked. So I don't know what that's like. But I had heard the story of somebody who was affected this way. Got the desire, then if it's not for you or your health, maybe it's for for a loved one and the impact your loss is going to have on them.

How do you, then, have you heard the idea of equanimity craving versus aversion? That is one of the key lessons that you learn from Vipassana. So, the idea is, you know, let me unwind that a little bit. So, one of the core tenets of Buddhism is that all suffering comes from attachment. Right. So, the attachment includes two components. One is the craving for something, like, "Hey, I have a positive emotion about something. If I don't have this thing, I'm going to be miserable. Right, that's craving for something." The other one is the aversion to some negative emotions that you don't want, maybe be extremely uncomfortable, to speak in front of a public whatever, like so the idea of putting you on stage, if you're uncomfortable with that, is total misery.

Right? So, attachment and and aversion. The idea of suffering is one or the other is no bueno. Right. So the whole idea is just letting these emotions pass through you and being equanimous about them. Okay. Okay. So the idea. So, going back to what you were saying, is having a strong desire for change that fuels the action, then how do you not be so attached to the outcome? So should I bring suffering when, nonetheless, maybe you relapse back to smoking? I don't know why we keep going back to smoking. I mean, that's the theme that we've been talking about. Let's say you relapse and go back to smoking. How do you not make yourself wrong for relapsing while still keeping a very strong desire to, you know, create this new identity of someone who doesn't smoke? It's interesting, both of us don't smoke.

Yeah, I don't think it's like, I don't think you're creating that identity, you just identify as a nonsmoker, or you identify as somebody who is focused on growth, or somebody who doesn't eat sugar or eats, you know, I don't know, healthy or whatever. If you go on a binge or whatever, and you eat a bunch of sugar, you still think of yourself as somebody who eats healthy and doesn't, you know, a lot of sugar than, or, you know, it's like, not a sugar eater, you're going to go back to the homeostasis of not eating a lot of sugar that Incidentally, you eating a big piece of chocolate cake or whatever is just an anomaly. Yeah.

Okay. Cool. Anything else you want to say about identity shifting? Because I believe that's actually a core tenet of any kind of personal and professional development journey. You can actually hold on to that really, really well. You know, Bruce Lee said, “I'm not afraid of someone who knows 10,000 kicks one time. I may be afraid of someone who knows one kick 10,000 times,” right? Where I'm paraphrasing a little bit, right? And I believe this is one of the core skills. If we master it, then we can create any kind of reality that we want in our life spiritually, physically, emotionally, and intellectually, all these things that we can learn. So, is there anything else you want to say about identity shifting?

I think it's got this in this analogy from, again, from Kabbalah that if you're chasing after one aspect, whether it's health or career business relationship, whenever you're missing the bigger picture, and all the other stuff will tend to drop away and kind of fall apart. So, for example, if let's say you're really seeking a relationship, and let's say, imagine that here's the here's the model. So imagine white light shining into a prism. And out the other end comes all the different colors. 

There is purple and violet, blue, green, whatever. And all these areas of your life, your relationship, or lack thereof, your career, business, health, etc. They're all different colors. If you chase after the colors, you don't get any of it; basically, it all slips through the fingers. You might focus on your health, and then your relationship will fall apart. Or you focus on your career, and your health falls apart. Whereas if you focus on the white light, that's where all the colors come in, and you get it all.

What's the white light, in this case?

White light is the white light of the Creator. Remember, this is from Kabbalah, which is the mystical branch of Judaism, which is actually applicable to any religion. You can study Kabbalah, or, as I studied at the Kabbalah center, you can learn Kabbalah and apply it as a Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, or atheist. It's like an ancient self-help movement. It's really, really cool. So, imagine you are now changing your focus from chasing after these different colors. Yeah, you're instead chasing after the white light and not chasing it, but you're connecting with the light. It's all about everything I do; I'm looking to reveal more light.

Yeah, so if I'm going to speak at a conference, I want to reveal more light. If I'm going to be on a podcast, I want to reveal more light if I'm going to interview somebody for my podcasts or try to reveal more light. So if that is how you operate in the world, and the whole identity thing is just in a much more powerful context, you're not just a nonsmoker. Your I don't know, light chaser or whatever you want to call it, the sum of a child of God, I don't know. Or if you're an atheist, somebody who's just really connected to the fabric, recover the universe, and the community and the environment or whatever, whatever matters to you, you get a glimpse of the bigger picture. So I think that really helps as far as an identity shift as well.

I appreciate that. I think for me, going from someone who is an agnostic, not sure, like uncertain whether or not there's a greater power, to someone who is spiritual, who actually believes. And the journey has been really interesting. The psychological journey has been I have to fend for myself versus now having a deeper faith that I'm now connected to the greater whole. So so so that journey in itself is beautiful. So when you speak about connecting to the light, you're going to be a speaker being on a podcast. Tell us a little bit more, like concretize that for us. Conceptually, I get it, but what does that mean for you?

Well, here's here's the problem. And I can relate to where you're at because I was there, too. I was agnostic my whole life, almost even atheistic, up until 2012, when I went to India on a Tony Robbins trip, my Platinum trip. And I had this experience. So, the Oneness monks who gave me this blessing were called Diksha. They explained afterward that God is not a belief; God's an experience. The Divine is an experience, so you haven't experienced God. And so you're agnostic.

Once I experienced God, everything just clicked into place. It was amazing. I got touched by the Oneness monks on the forehead, and at the top of my head was, like I said, Diksha; I experienced this sense of calm and peace and connection with the creator and all this. I just don't know; it was an awakening experience for me, and then I went outside right afterward, and all the greenery and everything was so vivid, Technicolor.

It just, I couldn't make this up. It was more brilliant Technicolor than a cartoon. I got the experience. I got what they said about it being an experience and not a belief. So, I think you gotta have to put yourself in a position to be able to experience. So for me, things like going to oneness events, like the thing I went to, then we went my wife. I, we Okay, so when I met my wife, who was at a Tony Robbins event, two months after this awakening experience in India, a month later, we went to India together to Oneness University, which is where, like the headquarters of oneness movement is, and we had an amazing experience. My wife, Orion, actually had an out-of-body experience at this temple while being zapped with the Oneness energy by the monks with Diksha.

So be yourself in proximity to these sorts of non-ordinary experiences. Eventually, you will experience God, the divine oneness, whatever you want to call, what is beyond the tangible, so what we think is kind of like the real reality, which is only a tiny sliver of what is actually real. Right? So that's another thing. I learned from Kaballah that there's the 1% reality, which is gotta pay my bills, the, you know, knock on wood, and that's actually wood and solid and everything. That's the 1%. And the 99%, which is everything else that we can't possibly imagine, let alone experience. And our human form is the rest of reality.

As long as you go through your day, knowing that there's something so much bigger, that you can at least imagine that there is that that's going to be, it's going to just change how you show up in the world. It's like having an awareness of your awareness. So you can be agnostic and put yourself in proximity to nonordinary experiences, and eventually, you will tune in. And, yeah, I think everything just kind of flows from that.

Can you say a little bit more about it? Because you had a spiritual experience? Right? You had a mystical spiritual experience. Oh, interesting. So, say more about that. Is it more of an acclimation process? Because now you have sort of experienced that benchmark yourself that way, and then I can kind of go back to you. Well, it is, so back to that state again.

Okay, so the monks teach that there's not just an awakening state, but there's an awakening. That's a permanent awakening. So you can go into an awakened state like I did when I was touched the first time in India. But that doesn't stick. You could drop back down to lower vibration. You're not awakened. But when you get the permanent shift and your brain, what they call awakening, then it doesn't revert back. You can still have awakened states that take you to even higher levels of awakening as if this is a continuum.

This is an ongoing evolution up that you don't drop back down to not awakened after having that awakening, so I have lots of spiritual experiences that happen that are nonordinary and sound fantastical, but they're just part of my regular experience. For example, I went to an event run by Donny Epstein. And he's amazing. He'd be great to have on your show. You know, great, yeah, he's been on my show eyes. He's an energy worker and healer, but also the founder of Network Chiropractic and just at the energy energetics is phenomenal. And he's he's a wizard, it really is. So he does this entrainment, which is what is called on you to open up your energy centers.

After getting entrainment by him, I'm laying on the floor blissed out, and I realize I could just get this kind of download that I can give Diksha, which I had just experienced that powerful Diksha a few months earlier, but I realized that I could do this remotely. I had learned in India to give Diksha as well as to receive. So I was a Diksha giver; I could now give them remotely without being in the physical presence of somebody. And so, at least, that's what I was receiving during this blissed-out statement that I was lying on the floor after the entrainment. So I start blessing all these different people.

Fifty different people, I don't know how long I was laying on the four, four, but one of them somebody hadn't thought of for 15 years ago, the guy that had sued me for wrongful dismissal. It was an employee talking badly about meet other staff kind of gossiping about me. And I was livid about it. And I was very young at the time and not the most mature boss. So I made an example of him, walk them off the property. And you know, he had to pack his stuff into a box and everything. So he filed wrongful dismissal, which was a frivolous lawsuit because Wisconsin was a work-at-will state.

But anyway, I eventually paid him off to settle the lawsuit rather than just fight it all the way to the point where I would win because I would win. No, I'd spend more money and lose a lot of time. So this happened in the 90s. He is gone from my life for 15 years. I don't even think of him. I never hear his name. Never run into him. Even though we lived in the same city, Madison, Wisconsin, for a number of years, he's just gone.

And I pray for him while lying on the floor that day. And guess who calls me four days later? When is my cell phone to apologize? Wow. Yeah, we were all connected. And this doesn't faze me at all. It just makes total sense. And as a former skeptic and almost atheist, I would say yeah, that's, you know, coincidence, or whatever. I believe that skepticism and cynicism are two sides of the same coin. If you're a skeptic, you're just one step away from being a cynic. And once that is done, you cut yourself off from everything that is awesome.

And the true sense of the word awesome. Word is so overused these days. But look at the true definition of awesome. Anyway, so we had a beautiful conversation. Forty-five minutes or so, I told him there was nothing for me to forgive because I got all these great lessons from this process about being, you know, using progressive discipline with staff, and I'm a better boss. Now. I also read contracts very well now, and I care very carefully, and so forth. I learned a lot from this process is nothing to forgive. It was a gift for me.

We met up a couple of months later, and I gave him some Tony Robbins DVDs because he was having some relationship issues. And this was all about improving your relationship with that DVD set. And then I randomly see him a few months later, a pet smart. So all those years go by, I never even hear his name. And then I just randomly saw him at a Pet Smart and was going shopping with one of my daughters. That's the way the world works. That's the way the universe works. You just have to tune in, it's like you are a receiver. And you gotta tune into the right radio station. It's all there for you.

So, what I hear in everything that you said so far. One, when you tap into this source of spirituality, you're more likely to have serendipitous moments. say more about that.

So, you don't worry so much about the fact that, you know, we're mortal and that we're going to die. It's a big fear of people. I was terrified of dying before this spiritual set of experiences, and now it's, I, the contrast is there. So that we can benefit from it and appreciate all the gifts. Without the contrast with the only sunny days, you can appreciate it. For example, if you get some storms and rain, If there's no death, how do you appreciate life? How do you treat it? Like it's a precious gift that matters every day. So that's brought me a great perspective.

They say that, so one quote that came to mind says the youth is wasted on the young. Yeah. Right, because they don't know what's coming. So with this awareness of death Memento Mori that we can truly appreciate every day, every moment, you know, such as the moment that we have right now. So thank you for being here.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's funny that Memento Mori was mentioned. Some people think that it's very morbid to carry a coin in your pocket that has a picture of a skull or something to remind you that you are mortal and you will die. I don't have one. But now I don't see it as weird because it gives you perspective to count every day as a precious gift and to make it make it really count. And not be unintentional, with your time and your attention.

I was at a Genius Network event A couple of months ago with my wife and the way they started. This is Joe Polish's group. The way that Joe started that meeting was to play. It is not a meditation, but it is like a lesson on death. That was about 10 minutes long from Sam Harris. And you know, Sam Harris. Yeah. So he's got this app called the Waking Up app. Do you have that? I don't know; you should check that out. It's really cool. So, in the app, there are a bunch of meditations, but they're also a bunch of lessons.

He's just riffing about different things like gratitude and death and mindfulness and all; yeah, it's really, really good. So he, Joe, played the 10-minute segment on death from the lessons to start this two-day event. Wow, what a different energy. Everybody had, and this, the whole event, had for the rest of those two days because he played that. It's not like more bid or whatever it is because we are all going to die, but have some awareness about it and the preciousness of life changes the whole conversation. Really cool.

Because the World War bit to me implies that, hey, we're going to die in nihilism, what's the point? But to me, Memento Mori has an empowering, almost optimistic connotation to it. Because precisely because my life is limited and finite, it actually gets me to deepen this moment, right here now, versus wasting it just because it's just going to be another day. That's the way I interpret, you know, the word morbid, the connotation of it.

So I'm curious: how do you see the end of your life? Is it truly the end? Or is it just a transformation to another chapter?

Yeah, it's a really good question. So I'm trained as a scientist. So, in my mind, I thought to the equation energy can't be created or destroyed. So when I first started thinking about it, it's like, okay, spirituality doesn't make sense this and that. But I have, since then, had many spiritual awakenings, so to speak, because I found my way. I met the Dalai Lama in very close proximity, and his presence really catalyzed my spiritual journey.

Then I had my first cup of Ayahuasca soon after that, and that really brought me something similar to yours, the Diksha experience; I had a mystical experience. One with the collective whole, and I've drunken Ayahuasca about 30-plus times since then. Okay. So, a significant amount of journeys for me to really deepen my spiritual lessons. Where I am right now, us going back to source, right, I'm part of this collective whole. Part of the experience of living the human life is for me to, in the end, glorify and allow God to experience different aspects of life.

And then I'm going to go back to source that then allow me to come back again and again. The way I kind of think about it is this is heaven on earth, literally, and I paid God a significant amount of spiritual currency to come back and experience this. But when this lifetime is over, and then I go back to the source again, that's what my mental model is right now without any kind of spiritual texts to reflect on anything.

Okay. So, but you still identify as agnostic, then?

Oh, no, let's say when I started as a scientist, I wasn't sure. I have had spiritual experiences since then. I started from meditation to Ayahuasca to having conversations with other wisdom teachers, got it, and then I've got to deepen and more and more clear, clarity. What does this all mean? So now I have more relative truth, rather than the Absolute Truth, so to speak.

Yeah. Who knows what the capital T truth is? Right? Right. This cat? That's part of the 99% we can't get access to.

So, actually, on that note, here's one question I wanted to ask you, how do you? And then, on the surface level, the question is, how do you make decisions? Well, underlying that question is how you find your truth. So, how would you answer that question? You know, because you have a lot of experience, you seek out wisdom teachers, and you talk to a lot of different people. So, do you have a lot of information sources? How do you know? All right, this is true for me.

Yeah, I tried to have a bigger picture in mind before I made my decision. But you know, the old adage that leaders make up their minds quickly, and they change their minds slowly, so I'm not one to spend a lot of time mulling over a decision. Either it makes sense, or it doesn't, or resonates with me, or doesn't. But I do look for some inspiration or some connection to the Creator to get guidance. Because I get so much of this serendipity and synchronicities and stuff. And I know if I'm on the path.

It's almost like you could channel the source of the Creator source through just your words and deeds if you chose to do so if you developed that ability. I believe all of us have that ability, some more than others. I mean, for example, Esther Hicks has a very nonnormal ability to channel. So if you're connecting to source, and you're kind of channeling, and you can have these insights, that you're not really sure if it's you, or it's the Creator because it's not like the Creator is going to talk to you on a deep voice, right? Or your voice is going to change when you're speaking the wisdom of the Creator or something through you.

But if you ask yourself, actually ask the voice or whoever you think is behind that wisdom, is that you? Or Is that me? You get an answer. So if you, let's say, you get some insight or some inspiration, like, I really should contact this person and have this person on my show on my podcast, even though it's not in the normal sphere of the kinds of guests that I have. I just feel this is important. I don't know why. Okay. So you could say, all right, is this me? Or is this the creator guiding me?

I see. So, you literally ask yourself that question.

Is this me? Or is this you? And then wait for the answer. And that'll be right. So sometimes, it'll be your voice that says, This is totally a great opportunity, go for it. And it's just you. But sometimes it's it's the Creator. And if it's the Creator, and you ask the question, Is this you? Or is this me? Then you know, for sure, get the answer, not just, you know, I, you might get confused with the first insight where it's coming from. Now, if you ask him, wait and listen. Is this me? Or is this you?

Thank you for that. Yeah.

I have to give credit where credit's due on that. I learned that from an Akashic Records reading, do you know anything about Akashic Records?

I know of it; I don't know much beyond the name.

Okay. Anne is the lady who does these readings. She's great, by the way. Anne Marie Pizarro and body energy connection.com. I don't get any affiliate commissions or whatever. I got some very powerful readings from her. And so to my wife, Orion, she actually got a reading first. And there was stuff in there that she couldn't have possibly known. That was a very helpful, insightful power fall.

And then she got a second reading from the same lady. And then I'm like, Okay, I gotta get a reading too. So the first reading, I've only gotten one so far. But that was one insight that I got from that first reading. To ask, I want to develop my ability to channel and have psychic abilities that have a more direct connection. And I can do it, it turns out; that's something that I have access to.

So you think, okay, well, this Akashic Record stuff that sounds like bunk, or whatever, if that's you, the listener, thinking that I'm with you because I was there too. I just didn't know. I was a scientist, I was a skeptic, I was agnostic. And then all those experiences happened. Now, the way that I operate in life is through this concept of the willing suspension of disbelief. Why introduce skepticism when you don't even have enough information yet? Why introduce resistance in your path when you don't have to? Just go into it open-minded, the willing suspension of disbelief, and see where it leads. Try an Akashic Records reading a try. The entrainment from Donny Epstein, or one of his practitioners, goes to one of his events, such as the transformational gate. Go to a Tony Robbins event, walk on fire, and just try it.

Thanks for that. I'm the same way because in my mind, it was the worst that could happen. Like what's the probabilistic outcome? Right? What's the possible payoff? What's the possible cost? What's the best that can happen? What's the worst that could happen? And then, if it's the net positive, the worst thing that could happen is maybe you pay some money, maybe you spend some time, maybe you have some energy, but nonetheless, you have a story to tell, right? It's those that are the worst that could happen. If it's possibly game over, then that's a whole other story for him. But if that's not the case, it's worth trying things out at least one time.

Okay. You know, I don't want to be one of these crusty old curmudgeons, that's like, get off my lawn. Right? Nobody wants that. But you turn into that if you keep making these poor choices of going through a closed-minded mindset, every opportunity, every gift that's presented to you turn your snub your nose to it.

So, a couple more questions, and then we'll complete it. First question: so you talk about cultivating your ability to channel sources. So, based on everything that you have tried so far, I know that you are a great student of life. You probably try a lot of different things and different venues. What would be one or two or three things that have really moved the needle for you, for you to feel that, hey, I'm actually getting better at the channel for source? Right. Right. That's your career intention right now. Yeah.

One of them. I've got plenty of desires. So, one thing I do that helps put me in the proximity of this ability is to coach and not just consult. So I'm an SEO consultant, and I help companies big brands. In fact, I've worked with Chanel, Zappos, Sony, CNBC, and so forth to help them with their Google rankings. So that's my expertise. But I also now, over the last several years, have developed a coaching practice.

I can work with clients in a coaching capacity that includes general business advice and personal development advice. And that gives me an opportunity to channel or kind of step aside and give something that is profound and powerful. And I don't know how I got that inspiration, but it was massively life-changing. And so I've had some coaching clients who have those kinds of experiences working with me. If I had said, Now coaching isn't going to get me as much revenue, which it doesn't, that's fine. But it's not about the money.

Money is just energy. And there are lots of other ways to get energy besides money. And if you see that energy, that gives if money is energy, and let's say that you are all this is a really important lesson that I learned from Kabbalah is, you don't want to disrespect the energy of money, you know, as people sometimes will just throw money away, like literally like the treat pennies as trash. No, I don't want those pennies here.

Those stick them in this. Like the penny jar thing at the gas station, I don't want to; I don't want you to disrespect the energy; it's just the size of the vessel, which is small. Right? We are working to increase the size of our vessel. So we can take in more light from the Creator. Well, the amount of energy and a penny is small, but the quality of the energy is the same quality that's in a million dollars or a billion dollars.

So don't step over that penny next time you see it, pick it up off the ground, or don't throw the penny in the in the jar, but appreciate the value of the energy inside it is contained within it. So, I'm always looking for opportunities to reveal light, add value, and make a difference. And by doing the coaching, it gives me lots of opportunities to tap in and not just focus on. All right, here's what we need to do to optimize your robots. txt file or something like that when we're actually working on something that is going to impact generations, you know.

Coaching is one venue. Is there another?

I'm working on creating my own events; I do have the podcast Get Yourself Optimized, which I used to call the Optimize Geek, as you had mentioned. So I rebranded that so it wouldn't just identify with geeks who identify with anybody who wants to optimize themselves or evolve to the next level. So that's another way that I feel like I can channel more. I also even had people who are channels on the podcast; I just had Paul Selig. He's really cool. Have you heard him?

Yeah, he is. Aubrey Marcus is a big fan of him, right?

Yeah. So he's got a new book coming out. Anyway, so he actually channeled on the episode, which is no kidding all out at the end of it. So cool. I did ask him personal questions. Sure. And things that could benefit me but also the listeners to feel like the podcast is such a great opportunity to get face time "With people who are leaders in these different areas that you can ask them anything." It's really amazing. It's such a great opportunity. So anyways, do I use the podcast as a way to access to kind of directly connect to the Creator? I'm oftentimes coaching friends and family and so forth and helping them with input from the standpoint of, like, how can I get out of the way and let a message that's bigger than myself get through to them?

I have a suggestion. Yeah, something that I'm experimenting with right now, personally, is Facebook Lives. Okay, literally, just whatever comes through me interacting with people. And it's been a tremendous growth journey and an opportunity to make an impact on people.

Great suggestion. I actually did an Ask Me Anything Facebook Live last month.

Last question. You talked about many peer groups that you put yourself in. You made a significant investment in that Platinum group, the Genius Network, and I'm sure you have many, many others. So, tell us their importance because they require a significant investment of time, money, and energy. Yeah. So tell us why you do it that way. And what's the benefit of putting yourself in the proximity of certain caliber peer groups?

Right. Well, you know, the adage that you are the five people you hang out with the most, and I believe that to be true, at least kind of generally. So I want to put myself in the proximity of people; I want to become more like there's a lot of great people out there that find high-level groups to be a part of, you know, so I'm big into biohacking. What's a group that Dave Asprey is in? Yeah, so I've had Dave Asprey on my show. He's the creator of bulletproof has, I'm sure, you know, amazing guy. I know he's in Metal. I'm in Metal. I know he's in Genius Network. I'm a Genius Network. And if I can be in proximity with him, then potentially amazing things could happen.

I went through this whole thing of doing stem cell therapy. My wife did it, and my kids did it in large part because of Dave Asprey. First, I had him on the show, and we talked about stem cell therapy. I went to his conference, the bulletproof biohacking conference, which he brought me in for free, which was very generous of him. My wife and I loved it. It was an amazing conference; we got to hear about stem cell therapy, which we hadn't really not very much information about before. We also met Dr. Harry Adelson, a great stem cell doctor.

Then we saw him again. The following year, we went back to the conference again, and he keynoted at that time. All right, we can meet. We need to go get some stem cell therapy from this guy. He was also on my show and Orion's. So, that was incredible. And not only get your stem cells harvested and re-injected in different parts of your body to deal with chronic pain and issues like muscular-skeletal pain and so forth. I didn't really have anything like that. But I wanted to do it for maintenance. I wanted to rejuvenate, kind of, right?

Right. Preventative.

Yeah, exactly. You also get your stem cells harvested, and then you can get them banked. for a rainy day, let's say 40 years from now, you want to use stem cells from when you were 40 years younger. That's much better than using stem cells at the current time. In fact, they aren't as functional. Once you get into your mid to late 70s, it's 50/50 whether you're even going to be able to use your stem cells at that point. So get them harvested while you're still young.

What's the expression best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, second best time is today, right? So go get your stem cells harvested and then get them banked so that you can use them on a rainy day. You have a time machine now. 

The only problem is don't get them banked in the US because the FDA has considered your own stem cells to be a drug. And so they regulate your stem cells as a drug, and they don't let you use them. In fact, they just sent a destruction order to the stem cell bank that was using us stem cells out of Florida, demanding that they destroy the stem cells, and they got a court order for this.

My stem cells, my wife's, and my kids are going to be destroyed. And so we're fighting that with lawyers, and they're about 70 of us that are teaming up patient. There are people who have had stem cells banked there that have teamed up and hired a law firm to fight this fight, fight the government, fight the FDA, it's ridiculous. So, do you get your stem cells banked? Do it overseas, not in the US.

Going back to the peer group question. So when you make, there's someone listening to this right now, and they may be thinking, you know, the ass breeze group or Genius Network or platinum, whatever it may be, right, my group, your group, you know, all kinds of different groups out there tribes? Yeah. How would you advise them to make the decision? Because they do have finite resources: time, energy, money, right? And how do they, you know, make the appropriate, the best, the wisest decision? Do you have any framework they can advise them on?

Well, there was a lot of trial and error and a lot of expense involved in my process. And I have probably spent upwards of a million dollars over the last ten years. So, I doubt that many listeners are going to want to do that. But what they could do for free is just listen to Get Yourself Optimized there. Several hundred new episodes for them to listen to, and the ones that resonate the most for them.

Probably going to give them a sense of which masterminds or groups to become a part of. So, for example, if somebody really resonated with the Paul Selig interview, and they want to learn more and study more, you know, there's abraham hicks conferences, essentially, it's like a cruise you could go on for a week with Esther Hicks and Abraham and a bunch people and have all this amazing wisdom and opportunity to ask questions of Abraham and so forth.

So that's a full immersion sort of experience. If you really resonated with the Chris Keane episode on my podcast, where he's the CTO of 40 Years of Zen, it's one of Dave Asprey's companies. You go for a week and get full immersion into neurofeedback. And it's super powerful. I had memories that were unlocked I hadn't had for 40 years, 40 years of not having these memories, and then I go to this 40 years of Zen event, and boom, they're all there. It's pretty amazing. And it is life-changing.

If that resonated with you, then it's not a mastermind per se. It's a week-long immersion into this very advanced neurofeedback; there's a community around it. They do have these monthly check-in calls, and you can jump on Zoom. There's a community there where you can ask questions of Dr. Drew and so forth. And there's no charge for that. It's just anybody who's gone through the 40 years of Zen process. But there's definitely transformation in that.

So quick question about the remembering of the old memory from 40 years ago. What do you do? What did it do for you? Like, why is it important for you?

Why is it important that I don't have an overall pleasant view of my childhood? Many of us have traumas from our childhood, right? And it was like, Oh, yeah. Not the most awesome childhood, right? If you have an amazing childhood, you're very blessed. Many of us do not. And yeah, I want to have more memories from my childhood and not just unpleasant ones. Gotcha. Thanks. That was really cool. That was really cool. And a lot of us will block memories because that's just a coping mechanism. But you block all the good stuff, too. I felt like I had planted some flowers or just kind of reopened some neural pathways that it had cemented over.

So those are two. Anything else?

Well, I've done a number of different masterminds. Mentioned Genius Network. I've also done it, and I'm just now starting Strategic Coach. I've done a couple of meetups there, but the actual main curriculum I haven't started yet. That's Dan Sullivan. He's amazing. I will have him on the podcast. I haven't haven't had him on yet. I've actually had episodes on the show where we talked about masterminds and what the best masterminds are, being a connoisseur of finding masterminds, and then having a guest who's big into that, too. It was a fun riffing session. I'm thinking, like, for example, the guy who heads up War Room.

So, the CEO of War Room, I had him on, and we talked about a whole bunch of different masterminds that he's in and that I'm in. So that was a fun one. What else? There are so many different groups that you could be a part of; I've heard a good bunch that I wanted to check out, and I've heard good things about Brotherhood. Forget things about the Wake-Up Warrior program. That was for men only to expose the Brotherhood. For good things about YPO and EO and so forth.

What do you what do you evaluate when, like, when you go from group to group?

Yeah, I look to add value and for synchronicity to happen for the one plus one sort of equals three equation to happen. And if there's alignment, values, and a mission.

To alignment of value, mission, serendipity, some magical moments, anything? Do you look at business, revenue opportunities, or anything like that, or fringe opportunities or what else you're looking at?

Yeah, if I can meet cool people through it, if I can generate revenue from it. So Genius Network, for example, has generated enough revenue that it pays for itself just from direct client revenue. That's great. Yeah.

Beautiful. Is there anything else you think I should ask? I didn't ask. I think we went through a lot of different areas. Thank you so much. So, if people were inspired by your story, by your journey, and by your point of view, where should they go? Other than listen to the podcast?

Yeah. So I have two shows, Get Yourself Optimized and Marketing Speak. I also have a whole bunch of resources on StephanSpencer.com—a lot of videos, a lot of archived webinars, some PDF downloads, and lots of blog posts.

I love it. Thank you so much for Shiny, LI Stephen. The show's content is so inspiring. I know that you put so much heart and soul into these shows, and you can really tell that the quality of the questions that you asked and the quality of the answers that you received are just tremendous. So, guys, go listen to the show.

Thank you.