#61 A World Of Yoga with Leo Lourdes

"Knowing the depths of your own heart is the greatest love affair you'll ever have. Your heart is interested in the depth of your own discovery." — Leo Lourdes  

What happens when you lose everything you worked for, only to realize you’ve already survived the most chaotic journey of all—simply being born?

In this beautifully raw, laugh-out-loud funny, and deeply philosophical episode, Josephine sits down with newfound friend, globally renowned yoga master, author, and transformational coach, Leo Lourdes. Together, they step into the eternal present to map the landscapes of the human heart, exploring how our greatest breakdowns are often just fertilization for our highest renewals. 

Leo shares his extraordinary trajectory —from a childhood running wild on the beaches of Malaysia to sharing one room with his family of six in London , and eventually building a multi-million-pound wellness empire, only to see it dissolve during the pandemic. With refreshing candor, he opens up about childhood adversity , the hilarious tension of adolescent curiosity , the bittersweet end of a 9-year relationship that cost him a destination wedding , and how a random choir rehearsal at a London health center cracked his hardened heart wide open to possibility again. 

This conversation is a masterful co-creation on what it truly means to live life with an open heart and no agenda. Whether you are navigating heartbreak, reinventing your career, or simply trying to find your footing, Leo and Josephine invite you to stop viewing yourself as a static noun, step into your power as a fluid process, and ultimately, get in the water. 

In This Episode, We Journey Through:

• The Scent of Liberation: How a massive rose in a London park became Leo's first sensory anchoring point in a cold, unfamiliar country. 
• Burger Curries & LARGE CVs: A loving tribute to the ingenuity of Leo’s mother, who traded status to feed her family, mastered the art of abundance out of scarcity, and taught him the ultimate lesson in psychology: love without shame. 
• "I Am Not That": A powerful four-word mantra passed down from an Indian guru to gracefully navigate toxic energy, establish rock-solid boundaries, and release the heavy grip of attachment. 
• The Anatomy of a Legacy: The cinematic behind-the-scenes story of how Leo shot his bestselling book, A World of Yoga, alongside lions in the Masai Mara during a global lockdown. 
• Boundaries vs. Thresholds: Recognizing when life is asking you to protect your peace, and when it is karmically inviting you to step over the line into an audacious new adventure. 

Connect with the Guest:

• Read Leo's Bestselling Book: A World of Yoga (Available worldwide at Waterstones, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Target). 
• Connect with Leo on Instagram
• Keep an Eye Out For His Upcoming Memoir: Red Soul
• Visit His Collaborated Wellness Space in London: Prana Voice (near Old Street). 

For your opportunity to win a LIVE coaching call with Josephine submit your 5star reviews on Spotify and Apple Music and send screen shots to josephinemcgrail@icloud.com

Winners are announced on the 1st of every month

Transcript

1
00:00:03.240 --> 00:00:20.389
Josephine McGrail: Wow! So, today is the day. This has been really, really exciting for me. Today, I'm sitting down with a newfound friend, the amazing Leo Lourdes. I hope I pronounced your surname correctly, if I did. How is it?

2
00:00:20.390 --> 00:00:22.270
Leo Lourdes: The Spanish way is Lourdes.

3
00:00:22.270 --> 00:00:23.390
Josephine McGrail: Lord this.

4
00:00:23.550 --> 00:00:25.070
Leo Lourdes: way is load.

5
00:00:25.070 --> 00:00:26.410
Josephine McGrail: Notes? Okay.

6
00:00:26.740 --> 00:00:28.439
Leo Lourdes: English-based Lords, with an S.

7
00:00:28.440 --> 00:00:40.849
Josephine McGrail: Okay, well, I guess I gave you a whole nother way to pronounce it, Dave, but it's so wonderful to have you here with us. You walked into my class just a few weeks ago,

8
00:00:40.920 --> 00:00:55.250
Josephine McGrail: And since then, every single time I see you, my whole world gets a little bit bigger. But for listeners out there, I am going to read up your beautiful bio, Leo, so sit back, relax, and enjoy. This is you.

9
00:00:55.250 --> 00:01:07.510
Josephine McGrail: So, Leo Lochdes is a globally renowned yoga master and a transformational coach who has committed his life to helping clients improve their well-being in their private and professional lives.

10
00:01:07.510 --> 00:01:30.440
Josephine McGrail: As the creator of Brahma Yoga and a wellness entrepreneur, he has taught, shared wisdom with, and coached more than 40,000 people globally, including Elle McPherson, Dana Caran, Dua Lippa, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Oprah Winfrey. At the age of 22, he was the youngest consultant on London's prestigious Harley Street.

11
00:01:30.440 --> 00:01:34.540
Josephine McGrail: He's a motivational speaker and a personal coach for business leaders.

12
00:01:34.580 --> 00:01:49.559
Josephine McGrail: He's also been a consultant for organizations such as Accenture, Unilever, Disney, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Tottenham's Hotspur Football Club, as well as the Yoga Master for Blackstone, an investment company.

13
00:01:49.610 --> 00:02:14.169
Josephine McGrail: He has an avid interest in the ecology and biodiversity of the planet, and he spends his time in East Africa each year helping protect endangered wildlife and the rights of indigenous people. He also supports an orphanage in the Himalayas that looks after more than 40 children. In addition to running yoga retreats and wellness festivals globally, he's passionate about sun writing, producing music.

14
00:02:14.170 --> 00:02:23.850
Josephine McGrail: Climbing mountains, and walking his beautiful beagle, Lamo. Welcome to the podcast, Leo! It's a joy to have you. Thank you, thank you!

15
00:02:23.850 --> 00:02:40.970
Leo Lourdes: It's really funny when you hear your own biography. You feel… it's kind of strange. You feel a bit embarrassed. It's like, oh my god, this is me, oh my god, what do I say now? So, yeah, that is me. But, yeah, it's really funny to hear it.

16
00:02:40.970 --> 00:03:02.920
Josephine McGrail: I so get it, and you know what? That's why very often with my guests, I always ask if I can read out the long version, because honestly, everyone has the same reaction as you just did. Everyone is like, oh wow, it sounds cool! Is that me? You know, like, right! It is funny to hear about yourself in third person, but I think it's also, like I said just before we came online, like.

17
00:03:03.030 --> 00:03:10.440
Josephine McGrail: you really, you know, you really have walked the walk, you continue to walk the walk, you're not just doing the talk, and I think it's so important

18
00:03:10.450 --> 00:03:24.690
Josephine McGrail: when… when I personally meet these people like yourself that genuinely, you know, teachers, not preachers, but from lived experience, you're here sharing yourself so authentically, and so on my side.

19
00:03:24.760 --> 00:03:37.249
Josephine McGrail: that really, you know, this has to be celebrated. So, thank you for letting me read out your gorgeous bio, full version, not the, the shortened version. And Leo, tell us a little bit, so…

20
00:03:38.300 --> 00:03:48.079
Josephine McGrail: Where did you start out in life? As in, you know, what country and what kind of family system, structure, beliefs were you born into? Let's go back to the beginning.

21
00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:50.760
Leo Lourdes: Sure, so I was born in Malaysia.

22
00:03:51.410 --> 00:04:06.280
Leo Lourdes: And I was there for 5 years of my life, and then I moved to London when I was 5 years old. My ethnicity… my dad is Indian, so he's from a place in South India called Pondicherry.

23
00:04:06.280 --> 00:04:15.899
Leo Lourdes: which is very famous in The Life of Pi. It's where the Life of Pi is set, the book, and it's a French colony. This is why I have a French surname, Lords.

24
00:04:15.900 --> 00:04:16.720
Josephine McGrail: loads.

25
00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:26.860
Leo Lourdes: So, my dad is South Indian, and my mum, she's half Malaysian, half French. So, I grew up in a very eclectic family, you know, we would have…

26
00:04:26.990 --> 00:04:39.940
Leo Lourdes: On Monday, we'd have a curry. On Tuesday, we'd have noodles. On Wednesday, we'd have French patisserie. So it was very eclectic, and I think some people might, on the outside.

27
00:04:39.940 --> 00:04:48.249
Leo Lourdes: find it confusing, but it was just what it was. It's what I grew up with, you know, like a real embracing of my mixed ethnicity.

28
00:04:48.630 --> 00:04:51.270
Leo Lourdes: And so I came here when I was 5 years old, so I was a baby.

29
00:04:51.360 --> 00:05:03.160
Leo Lourdes: And lived in London all my life since then. And, my family history in terms of spiritual beliefs, for example. So, I was brought up Catholic.

30
00:05:03.160 --> 00:05:15.319
Leo Lourdes: My family are Catholic. But within my family, we have Buddhists, we have, for example, my sister, her late husband was Muslim, and so her kids are Muslim.

31
00:05:15.390 --> 00:05:28.020
Leo Lourdes: So every year, although we celebrate Christmas together, we celebrate Eid, we celebrate Ramadan, we do… even though we're Catholic, we still do the fasting with the family as well. So it's a really… it's like…

32
00:05:28.120 --> 00:05:33.219
Leo Lourdes: the United Nations family, everyone here, we have…

33
00:05:33.570 --> 00:05:49.250
Leo Lourdes: Caucasians, we have Indians, we have Black people, we have Filipino, we have French, we have Spanish, we have Mexican, we have… like, we have so… we're so interbred, it's almost like we were the World Health Organization's project on the gene pool.

34
00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:58.030
Leo Lourdes: Like, how can we make as many cultures together to give…

35
00:05:58.120 --> 00:06:11.880
Leo Lourdes: the best of the genetics, and it's my family, that's the result. Literally, it should be World Health Organization, the Lord's Foundation. But what that has resulted in, Josie, is it's resulted in a really beautiful appreciation

36
00:06:11.920 --> 00:06:18.729
Leo Lourdes: For different cultures, for different experiences, for,

37
00:06:18.840 --> 00:06:24.120
Leo Lourdes: Being able to relate to cultures and,

38
00:06:24.920 --> 00:06:40.260
Leo Lourdes: religions and spirituality and practices and behaviors and norms and traditions of different cultures, which has made me, from a very young age, made me very globally aware. It almost made me, as a child, be like, oh my god, I've got all this family from different countries.

39
00:06:40.260 --> 00:06:49.370
Leo Lourdes: I need to visit all this family for 80… in these different countries, and I ended up visiting over… so far, I've visited over 80 countries in my travels,

40
00:06:49.520 --> 00:06:53.419
Leo Lourdes: I haven't got a family in all the 80 countries, but…

41
00:06:53.420 --> 00:06:55.610
Josephine McGrail: What's up.

42
00:06:55.610 --> 00:06:59.819
Leo Lourdes: with 80 people in those different countries. No, just kidding.

43
00:06:59.820 --> 00:07:01.200
Josephine McGrail: Exactly.

44
00:07:01.440 --> 00:07:09.410
Leo Lourdes: just kidding. A lot of those, trips were work-related. I lived, you know, obviously till 5 years old.

45
00:07:09.410 --> 00:07:26.569
Leo Lourdes: in, Malaysia, but then I lived in the UK, but I've also lived abroad in other countries. I'll probably talk about more of this later with you, but I lived on a private island in the Maldives for 3 years, which was wonderful. It was in a beautiful island in the south atoll called Willingale.

46
00:07:26.620 --> 00:07:33.420
Leo Lourdes: And, I was the yoga master there, so we built and designed a yoga studio in the island.

47
00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:58.380
Leo Lourdes: And we would have people from our customer base coming for retreats, but also the hotel would receive customers, and we would be the yoga master for them. And it was amazing, we were there for 3 years, and unfortunately, in the pandemic, the island closed. And then the hotel chain that was operating it, which is the wonderful Shangri-La, beautiful brand, they decided not to reopen the hotel, and they put the

48
00:07:58.380 --> 00:08:16.700
Leo Lourdes: island up for sale. So, anyone watching has $50 million available. We can buy the island together and continue the yoga. So, yeah, there's a lot of investors that are looking at the space, thinking about what to do next. It's a huge island. There are 120 villas there.

49
00:08:17.170 --> 00:08:27.210
Leo Lourdes: all with their own swimming pool, and, you know, you can imagine how big that is. So we were living there, and back then, I was with my fiance, and she would spend 3 months there.

50
00:08:27.520 --> 00:08:30.209
Leo Lourdes: Then we would both spend 3 months together there.

51
00:08:30.340 --> 00:08:54.629
Leo Lourdes: then she would come back to London, and I would stay there for 3 months, and then we would send a teacher for 3 months. So throughout the year, we had a constant flow of yogi practitioners and guests coming, and I had, at the same time, concurrently, had a studio in the Shard, and I also had a studio in Grosven Square and Mayfair, so we couldn't be in the island forever. We had to come back

52
00:08:54.630 --> 00:09:08.639
Leo Lourdes: because of business, operations as well. But yes, I've lived in… I've lived in Maldives, which was wonderful. I also lived in Thailand for a while, which I enjoyed, and I used to live there 3 months at a time.

53
00:09:08.640 --> 00:09:13.710
Leo Lourdes: with my… with my fiance, and that was ex-fiance, by the way. So…

54
00:09:13.820 --> 00:09:28.090
Leo Lourdes: like, for me, the world is this big, beautiful place of all the people that you've not met yet. And I'm insatiably, still, after this long on planet Earth, curious.

55
00:09:28.090 --> 00:09:31.800
Josephine McGrail: Right. Oh, I love that. Let's take a breath.

56
00:09:32.300 --> 00:09:55.420
Josephine McGrail: And you're also, for listeners out there, if you can't, you know, if you're not watching on YouTube, Leo, you're literally sitting in front of so many amazing books I can see behind you. So you're there, like, you know, you're already representing global, different wisdom, different traditions with your family, your upbringing, but then you've also got all of, like, the wisdom behind you, like, this, these wings.

57
00:09:55.420 --> 00:10:03.989
Josephine McGrail: Let's take you back in time a little bit. So you arrived to London. What's one of your earliest memories of arriving here? Early memories, just like thinking about it now?

58
00:10:04.510 --> 00:10:12.549
Leo Lourdes: So, in Malaysia, they have roses, the flower, the rose, but they're very small.

59
00:10:12.830 --> 00:10:23.589
Leo Lourdes: Very small, because of the humidity and the temperature and so on. For some reason, the roses there just stay very small. They're very strong in smell, they do smell wonderful, but they're very small.

60
00:10:23.590 --> 00:10:35.089
Leo Lourdes: But I remember one of my first memories when I was 5 years old, and I was going to my… is it preschool, or, you know, the kind of… I don't even know what it's called, but you go, and you have to hold the other kids' hands, and the teachers hold your hand.

61
00:10:35.090 --> 00:10:35.740
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

62
00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:41.620
Leo Lourdes: And we went where our school was, there was a walk through a park.

63
00:10:41.750 --> 00:10:54.460
Leo Lourdes: to the library, and every week, the teachers would take us, all these little kids holding hands together, we'd walk from the school through the park to the library, and we'd spend maybe 2 hours there.

64
00:10:55.400 --> 00:11:02.490
Leo Lourdes: And once, my earliest memories was being in the UK, and first of all, like, oh my god, it's so freaking cold.

65
00:11:03.590 --> 00:11:16.680
Leo Lourdes: Oh my god, like, coming from Paradise, where we had… my family were quite wealthy in Malaysia, and my father sold all the properties in Malaysia to fund him becoming a barrister.

66
00:11:16.680 --> 00:11:17.170
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

67
00:11:17.170 --> 00:11:25.109
Leo Lourdes: came to the UK because my father was a national footballer for Malaysia, and he realized that he could not be a national footballer forever.

68
00:11:25.110 --> 00:11:25.890
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

69
00:11:26.030 --> 00:11:38.920
Leo Lourdes: he was very close to the mayor of Malaysia, or sorry, of one of the towns in Malaysia, and the mayor said to him, you should become a lawyer, because as a footballer, you're limited. You've only got till 35 years of age you can play.

70
00:11:38.920 --> 00:11:49.299
Leo Lourdes: you have 4 children, it's going to be very difficult to support them, so why didn't you become a barrister? So my father decided to sell all our homes, so we had homes all across Malaysia.

71
00:11:49.300 --> 00:11:54.180
Leo Lourdes: We sold them to get the money, so we could then migrate to the UK.

72
00:11:55.670 --> 00:12:11.579
Leo Lourdes: I, first of all, was really pretty annoyed at my dad, because in Malaysia, I'd run out of my house on the beach, I would go into the water, I would play with my friends, I used to have a nanny that cooked me food. It was the most amazing life. Amazing life.

73
00:12:11.850 --> 00:12:15.249
Leo Lourdes: And then, my dad sells all the properties.

74
00:12:15.480 --> 00:12:24.300
Leo Lourdes: And we're literally moved to London, and we're not even… we don't have the budget for a house or a flat. We're all sharing one room.

75
00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:25.349
Josephine McGrail: Oh my god.

76
00:12:25.350 --> 00:12:27.999
Leo Lourdes: In… in… in… in a shared flat.

77
00:12:29.350 --> 00:12:34.400
Leo Lourdes: Because the currency, Josie, was 1 pound, is 6 Malaysian Ringgit.

78
00:12:34.400 --> 00:12:50.229
Leo Lourdes: So the money burns like fire. Does that make sense? So you could have… we had a really, really extraordinary, luxurious life in Malaysia, but my father was clever. He was like, you can't spend all the money now. If we get a house in London, the money will go.

79
00:12:50.230 --> 00:13:01.700
Leo Lourdes: I'm not working, my wife is not working, we will not have any savings. So my father was pragmatic, I guess, but he put us in all one big room in a house,

80
00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:17.590
Leo Lourdes: it was a man that had a two-bedroom house, and then we had one room, so there were six of us, my mom, my dad, and three… me and my three sisters sharing a room. And I remember being really upset with my father, like, what? At five, I was like… I already knew, this is not cool.

81
00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:20.750
Josephine McGrail: Even…

82
00:13:20.750 --> 00:13:24.919
Leo Lourdes: heart, I knew, like, I went from this beautiful place where I…

83
00:13:25.390 --> 00:13:37.600
Leo Lourdes: have a beach house, ran out of the house into the ocean, have a nanny that would cook me any food I want, and now I'm living in a one-bedroom place with three mother-sisters. I don't… you know, we're all sharing in one room.

84
00:13:38.860 --> 00:13:45.539
Leo Lourdes: I remember… I don't want to call it resentment, because that's a very strong emotion, and at that age of 5,

85
00:13:45.660 --> 00:13:55.890
Leo Lourdes: You don't have the linguistic capability to understand words so far, but you still have feelings. You still can go, mmm, I don't like this.

86
00:13:55.890 --> 00:13:57.090
Josephine McGrail: Right.

87
00:13:57.090 --> 00:14:04.880
Leo Lourdes: I was like, I don't like this. I'm in this cold country, I'm sharing with my sisters, I miss my nanny, there's no more beach.

88
00:14:04.880 --> 00:14:05.320
Josephine McGrail: Like.

89
00:14:05.320 --> 00:14:08.280
Leo Lourdes: I'm in the shared room, in this house, with my…

90
00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:18.439
Leo Lourdes: and, like, we were sleeping everywhere. I remember feeling like… and then, amidst all this uncertainty and, you know.

91
00:14:20.040 --> 00:14:26.269
Leo Lourdes: fear a bit, like, about what my life was. I remember it was… it was summer, one summer.

92
00:14:26.440 --> 00:14:39.229
Leo Lourdes: And we were walking from the school to the library for our weekly visit, and I was holding onto these two children's hands. I still remember, it was, like, a Chinese kid, and it was a British kid, and we were holding hands really tightly.

93
00:14:40.620 --> 00:14:42.169
Leo Lourdes: And I broke the chain.

94
00:14:42.730 --> 00:14:52.989
Leo Lourdes: I broke the chain, yes. I broke the chain. I actually stopped the entourage moving, because I literally saw the biggest rose I've ever seen in my life.

95
00:14:54.050 --> 00:15:00.299
Leo Lourdes: the biggest rose. I literally stopped, I looked at this rose, and I planted my face in this rose.

96
00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:18.740
Leo Lourdes: And I took a deep inhalation. I know Josie, how much she loves scents. If anyone's been to Josie's classes, she's always walking around spraying things, like, you know, like different smells and everything. She's very big into sensory experiences. And here was one of my earliest sensory experiences of putting my face into this big rose.

97
00:15:19.580 --> 00:15:22.700
Leo Lourdes: Breaking the chain. And my teacher was like, come on!

98
00:15:22.900 --> 00:15:27.579
Leo Lourdes: Come on, you know, and I was like, no, I'm gonna stay here, because I love the rose.

99
00:15:28.810 --> 00:15:34.129
Leo Lourdes: And at that point, really, Josie, in my own way, I fell in love with London.

100
00:15:34.130 --> 00:15:34.950
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

101
00:15:34.950 --> 00:15:41.609
Leo Lourdes: beyond the seasons, beyond the difficulty, the financial difficulties my family initiates… shush!

102
00:15:41.910 --> 00:15:43.240
Leo Lourdes: Kids? Enough.

103
00:15:44.260 --> 00:15:52.160
Leo Lourdes: Beyond the financial problems that I had experienced, my family had experienced, okay, that's my big goal.

104
00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:53.860
Leo Lourdes: Okay, cool.

105
00:15:54.170 --> 00:16:12.759
Leo Lourdes: Okay, this is, another dog. Yeah, they'll be vocal for a bit, then they'll calm down. So… so it was… amidst the kind of problems of finances and all these things, I was, voice, boys, come down, come down, I'm on a podcast.

106
00:16:12.760 --> 00:16:13.399
Josephine McGrail: This is…

107
00:16:13.400 --> 00:16:14.270
Leo Lourdes: Cool.

108
00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:31.089
Leo Lourdes: I know your readers and your viewers probably love dogs, but you have to be assertive with them, otherwise they take advantage of you. And I have a beagle that's very vocal, and he's just woken up after his nap. And, anyhow, yeah, so it was this feeling of, like.

109
00:16:31.180 --> 00:16:37.549
Leo Lourdes: a feeling of liberation amidst the hardship, and we had a lot of hardship growing up. I mean.

110
00:16:37.820 --> 00:16:43.069
Leo Lourdes: My… if you don't know the rules, if you're an international student back then, you couldn't work.

111
00:16:43.980 --> 00:16:53.259
Leo Lourdes: My father had to go through his studies, but my mum had to work. My mum, she's only been a housewife. She never, she never had money. Does that make sense?

112
00:16:53.260 --> 00:17:11.030
Josephine McGrail: Totally, and can I just ask, if you feel happy to share, what kind of timeline are we in? Because, you know, I came to London in early 2000, and even just in the last, you know, 26 years or so, it's changed so much. So I'll be like, I'll be pre-2000, I'll be in the 90s, just…

113
00:17:11.030 --> 00:17:13.000
Leo Lourdes: 90s, very 90s, yeah.

114
00:17:14.119 --> 00:17:17.809
Leo Lourdes: And so Mum, Mum, Mum had always been…

115
00:17:18.189 --> 00:17:31.259
Leo Lourdes: like, very, good as a mother, but she had never worked in a job. You know, she never really had a job, because she'd always been… she married young with my father, she started having children very young with my father, so it was, like.

116
00:17:31.259 --> 00:17:46.829
Leo Lourdes: She never worked. And so she used to have these big arguments with my father about working, and he'd be like, no, no, no, we come from Malaysia, I'm your husband, I'm not gonna fail you. So, real macho, machismo, you know? Like, I don't want my wife to work. My mom was like, there's no food in the fridge.

117
00:17:46.839 --> 00:17:48.539
Leo Lourdes: You know, we need to do something.

118
00:17:48.909 --> 00:18:03.339
Leo Lourdes: And, my father was really difficult. He would literally say to Mum, I don't want you to work, what will your family say? They would say, I failed you, please don't work. And my mum, she actually,

119
00:18:03.639 --> 00:18:05.599
Leo Lourdes: Kind of went against my father.

120
00:18:05.869 --> 00:18:19.649
Leo Lourdes: So what she did was, I remember this, back then you had computers, and Word used to be blue with white writing. So this is before, you know, the times we live in now, where Word is really… Microsoft Word's really advanced.

121
00:18:19.839 --> 00:18:24.389
Leo Lourdes: And my mom was there, and she was trying to do a CV,

122
00:18:24.879 --> 00:18:30.399
Leo Lourdes: But she didn't have enough experience. So, she was, like, she filled… she felt…

123
00:18:30.509 --> 00:18:34.239
Leo Lourdes: half the page, but she really wanted to have a full-page CV.

124
00:18:34.539 --> 00:18:39.849
Leo Lourdes: So, she said to my older sister, who was probably, like, only 12 or something at that time.

125
00:18:40.009 --> 00:18:44.909
Leo Lourdes: She said to my older sister, what do I do? And my older sister says, Mum, make the writing bigger.

126
00:18:45.500 --> 00:18:47.890
Josephine McGrail: Clever!

127
00:18:50.050 --> 00:18:51.880
Leo Lourdes: half the page.

128
00:18:52.130 --> 00:18:54.490
Leo Lourdes: And made it, like, 20 points?

129
00:18:56.010 --> 00:18:58.209
Leo Lourdes: Like, you know, shouting?

130
00:18:59.020 --> 00:18:59.610
Leo Lourdes: Oh.

131
00:18:59.750 --> 00:19:15.030
Leo Lourdes: So my mother had a one-page CV, but it didn't matter. It gave her the confidence. Like, I mean, if you think about it now, it's kind of laughable. Like, you're printing a CV that the writing is so large, but it made my mother feel confident that she had a one-page CV. And she printed them out with our printer.

132
00:19:15.270 --> 00:19:22.689
Leo Lourdes: And what she did was she went out, and she went to all the shops, and she was, she was,

133
00:19:23.310 --> 00:19:24.090
Leo Lourdes: Right.

134
00:19:25.300 --> 00:19:27.180
Leo Lourdes: One second, Josie. Second.

135
00:19:28.570 --> 00:19:40.579
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, so listeners out there, while we wait, the gorgeous Leo is also very much loving animals like I myself am, so he's got a few dogs today, so…

136
00:19:41.560 --> 00:19:54.469
Josephine McGrail: While he settles himself down, and the dog settles down, just a little… just a little heads-up date. A lover of the world, and also a lover of animals. Yay! Right? Ahimsa, you can't…

137
00:19:54.470 --> 00:20:04.850
Leo Lourdes: one of the dogs went towards Lamu's uneaten food stash, so he was, like, being guarding, he was resource guarding the food. But it's okay now, it's a little bit of a skirmish, everyone's friends.

138
00:20:04.910 --> 00:20:19.630
Leo Lourdes: That's what I love about dogs. They argue, then they sniff each other's butts, and everything is fine. Imagine if we dealt like that with politics. Imagine if, you know, Trump and the people from Iran would just, you know, shake each other's hands and stiff each other's butts and let it be…

139
00:20:20.210 --> 00:20:33.459
Leo Lourdes: Dogs solve it so simply. But actually, I know there's a reason, I know it's a bit of a detraction, there's a reason they do that, is because apparently they can smell all the health information of another dog by sniffing there.

140
00:20:33.660 --> 00:20:36.830
Leo Lourdes: So that there's actually a biological reason they do that.

141
00:20:36.830 --> 00:20:53.910
Josephine McGrail: Well, right, which… and again, you know, and I'm just gonna, like, step in here, because it's true. I do love, I mean, all senses, but especially the sense of scent. And not only am I highly sensitive to amazing smells, but also, I can smell if someone is becoming sick. So…

142
00:20:53.910 --> 00:20:57.709
Josephine McGrail: But it's kind of annoying for me, because it's not very pleasant at times.

143
00:20:57.810 --> 00:21:12.649
Josephine McGrail: But, for instance, with my, with my partner, I always know, I'm not always like, are you okay? And he's like, I'm fine, I'm like, I think you're two days away from getting sick, because I… because the scent, it changes very slightly, but it's something I can smell, so,

144
00:21:12.650 --> 00:21:21.700
Josephine McGrail: Just wanted to share that with listeners out there. The sense of smell is absolutely incredible, and it bypasses this thing in the brain that's known as the thalamos.

145
00:21:21.700 --> 00:21:38.290
Josephine McGrail: And the one that normally sends… it senses… it filters everything before you actually get the information in. So, therefore, sense of scent, because it's one of the most ancient senses, it was necessary for us as human beings, as well as animals.

146
00:21:38.290 --> 00:21:56.000
Josephine McGrail: to get the info straight away, so we would know if something was really dangerous before we even started to remember from different experiences, etc. So anyway, from that big, big detour, let's go back. Okay, so your mom is there, with her CV in hand, the one page, but I do want to say.

147
00:21:56.120 --> 00:22:05.010
Josephine McGrail: You know what? I absolutely… I love the ingenuity, and I love… you know, so good, and I love your sister at 12 going like.

148
00:22:05.150 --> 00:22:18.169
Josephine McGrail: You know, it's so simple, and I know that, you know, we can laugh at it now and this and that, but thank God you did it. Yes. Like, so often in life, we stop ourselves because we're like, oh, but that's not professional, or what will they think, or whatever.

149
00:22:18.170 --> 00:22:29.879
Josephine McGrail: This is super clever! We are visual people! Most people won't even invite her into an interview unless she's, you know, passed… been okayed by the CV, right? This was her foot in the door. Fantastic.

150
00:22:30.410 --> 00:22:40.820
Leo Lourdes: what it showed… showed, and you can teach us as well, is the power of belief. What it did, it gave my mum a license to go out with her CV and go to different shops.

151
00:22:40.940 --> 00:22:46.389
Leo Lourdes: And of course, we're talking about back in the 90s, so… you know, race was a bit different then.

152
00:22:46.520 --> 00:22:58.099
Leo Lourdes: you know, if you came from another country, the people would judge you, they'd be like, can you work? Will you be customer-friendly? So a lot of people used to take my mum's CV, but she knew they wouldn't call her back.

153
00:22:58.280 --> 00:23:02.620
Leo Lourdes: Because she was from another country. But she… it never stopped her. She still went out.

154
00:23:02.860 --> 00:23:20.639
Leo Lourdes: And one day, it was snowing. I remember this day very clearly. She came back home, and she opened the door, and, you know, she went… actually, let me step back a bit before telling you about the snowy day. So because food was really bad, Mum was very creative. So she used to go to the shop, to the value section.

155
00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:33.339
Leo Lourdes: or to the reduced section, and she used to buy everything really cheap. So she used to buy, like, chips, and then dice them up, and fry them, and make, you know, tamarind curry, and we used to have that together.

156
00:23:33.340 --> 00:23:41.569
Leo Lourdes: she used to buy, like, a really cheap value burger meat, and make them into meatballs, and we used to eat that. So she was very, very…

157
00:23:41.570 --> 00:23:46.119
Leo Lourdes: Clever, but it was very basic food, but she used to make it last for a long time.

158
00:23:46.120 --> 00:23:59.279
Leo Lourdes: So she'd cook a stew on the day one, and we'd have a big stew, and then day two, she'd add more curry powder to it, make it into a curry, and day three, when there was no more… not much curry left, she'd fry rice and make it into a biryani.

159
00:23:59.840 --> 00:24:13.359
Leo Lourdes: So, it'd be 3 days food with 1 day's master plan. So she was doing all this stuff, but, you know, as kids, you're like, oh, we just want to have… why can't we just have burger and chips like the other kids? Why do we have to have burger curry?

160
00:24:14.810 --> 00:24:23.320
Leo Lourdes: Which other kid in the school has burger curry? And we used to, we used to, as kids, laugh about it. Oh, burger curry again.

161
00:24:23.320 --> 00:24:30.910
Josephine McGrail: Oh, I love it. Oh my god, I love your mom! How, how wonderful! And actually, personal note,

162
00:24:30.930 --> 00:24:53.160
Josephine McGrail: I basically cook everything in one pot, and my one pot, my cauldron, we always call it, refer to it as the cauldron, it usually… it lasts, and it changes its life through the slightly different flavor. One day, we are more curry-based, and then the next day, a bit of Italian spices and a bit more, you know, vegetables on top, and then after 3 days, you know, Carl Marviance is like.

163
00:24:53.350 --> 00:25:03.140
Josephine McGrail: Is anything left from day one? Like, is it time to, like, throw that cauldron out? So, I'm sitting here, you know, going, I would love to meet your mom. She sounds absolutely wonderful.

164
00:25:03.140 --> 00:25:12.260
Leo Lourdes: Mum's awesome. I mean, she… mum, single-handedly, is an entrepreneur. All of my creativity comes from my mum. My ambition comes from my father.

165
00:25:12.300 --> 00:25:25.160
Leo Lourdes: Definitely for my father. My creativity comes from Mum, 100%. So here she was on this snowy day, the door opens, and literally snow's flooding in, it's like mum's a figure there, and she says, I've got a job!

166
00:25:25.420 --> 00:25:28.139
Leo Lourdes: I remember saying, no more burger curries!

167
00:25:30.820 --> 00:25:36.859
Leo Lourdes: And she got a job in a laundrette, washing clothes. So it was a job.

168
00:25:37.020 --> 00:25:55.369
Leo Lourdes: But my father was very angry. He was like, you come from a good family, how can you be washing other people's clothes? You know, this is really embarrassing, we can't do this, your family will be very upset with us, please don't do this job, I beg you, and they have this big argument. Mum, like a matriarch? Because she knows she has to feed her kids.

169
00:25:55.600 --> 00:26:06.879
Leo Lourdes: She's like, said to my dad, no. She says, you focus on your studying, because I'll be earning money, you will not worry about food, you can study better, and you'll one day make a lot of money.

170
00:26:07.390 --> 00:26:24.549
Leo Lourdes: Right? So she was like… she wanted my dad to focus on his law degree while she looked after the house, which is what mothers do. Mothers… the truth is, in any family, mothers are the ones that should control the finances. The father might bring the money in, but the mother's the one that really knows how to spend on the food.

171
00:26:24.550 --> 00:26:36.970
Leo Lourdes: the things you need in a household. So my mum, she got a job in a laundrette, so she suddenly had more money. And I used to remember, this is the days before mobile phones, Josie, you know, the days where we had landlines.

172
00:26:36.970 --> 00:26:37.460
Josephine McGrail: Yes.

173
00:26:37.460 --> 00:26:51.599
Leo Lourdes: And my mum used to call us, and the home phone ring and says, okay, I'm finishing work now, I'm going to the supermarket, and then at this time, I want you all to meet me at the bottom of the road to help me carry the bags of food back in.

174
00:26:51.830 --> 00:27:02.460
Leo Lourdes: So, you, you know, you just had to trust. It was no such thing as SMS, WhatsApp, updates, there's no live locations, it was just, like, landline, be ready.

175
00:27:02.790 --> 00:27:15.580
Leo Lourdes: we're watching the clock, and then we'd run down the hill, and Mum would have all these big bags she's carrying, we'd help her carry the bags, and literally, when we opened the bags, I literally would have a feast, croissants, you know…

176
00:27:16.670 --> 00:27:24.840
Leo Lourdes: Like, yogurt, oh my god, biscuits, oh my god, McCoy's chips. It was like, I would be, like, in a food coma.

177
00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:36.630
Leo Lourdes: My mum brought us abundance, and that continued for a while while she worked. Then my father finished his degree, and he was able to work. And then my father…

178
00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:46.410
Leo Lourdes: started to do work with solicitors, so he would get legal cases, and back then, he'd get a check payment, for example, for work. And every time he'd get a check payment.

179
00:27:46.670 --> 00:27:50.690
Leo Lourdes: he would come back and say, the check is cleared! It would be like, the check is cleared!

180
00:27:52.220 --> 00:28:01.270
Leo Lourdes: he didn't even know what a check was, we were like, the check is cleared. And he was like, right, come on, all of you, we're going to Wuan, a Chinese restaurant, and

181
00:28:02.030 --> 00:28:12.919
Leo Lourdes: secondhand Ford Cortina car, and we'd all bundle into this car. He'd drive us to, this restaurant, and my dad simply would order everything in the menu.

182
00:28:13.060 --> 00:28:31.629
Leo Lourdes: And all the food would come, and we'd be eating all this Malaysian Chinese food, remembering the old days of Malaysia. And my father, I always remember, he hardly ate, but he used to sit there with such pride watching us, because he realized that, you know, his hard work was paying off.

183
00:28:31.720 --> 00:28:45.979
Leo Lourdes: And after he started to become successful, then eventually what happened, he turned the table around, and he said to my mother, I want you to have an education. So my mother went to study psychology, and she became a psychology graduate, whilst my father funded her.

184
00:28:46.210 --> 00:28:57.969
Leo Lourdes: So my mum was able to enter education and, you know, and learn amazing things about psychology with my… and this was, like, a gift my father gave back to my mother, because she supported,

185
00:28:58.110 --> 00:29:06.760
Leo Lourdes: supported him through the years. So, growing up as a child, We had poverty.

186
00:29:07.610 --> 00:29:09.969
Leo Lourdes: There were times you would go to bed hungry.

187
00:29:11.630 --> 00:29:29.700
Leo Lourdes: But I always remember that feeling of going to the restaurant, always remember that feeling of running down the hill and holding the bags of food, and the abundance, and I think this is why all the countries south of the equator, who are technically poorer than the north of the world.

188
00:29:29.810 --> 00:29:33.499
Leo Lourdes: This is why all those cultures have the best food.

189
00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:44.289
Leo Lourdes: the best dish… you're gonna taste the most delicious. Okay, you can go and have your goulash in Germany, which is hardly any taste, or you can have, like, you know, like, Thai…

190
00:29:44.290 --> 00:29:57.010
Leo Lourdes: red curry, or something, and the cultures in the south of the equator, they've learned to really use food as a way to celebrate, because they don't have other… their wealth is not as big in other ways. They celebrate through food.

191
00:29:57.010 --> 00:30:11.840
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and they also have, I mean, you know, you have so much more sun in a lot of countries, right? So even just a tomato tastes incredible, you know, like, you have an abundance of fruits and vegetables, right? You know, you are living with the land, off the land, you have to, right?

192
00:30:11.870 --> 00:30:25.109
Josephine McGrail: This is a… that is absolutely true. Oh, I love all of this. I want to ask you, so, if we go back in time, and let's say… let's say at this point, let's say you're, you know, maybe 12, 13,

193
00:30:26.040 --> 00:30:45.110
Josephine McGrail: what did you dream of? I don't know if you were someone who were growing up and you were thinking, oh, I'm gonna be this thing when I grow up, or it was more a, oh, I would like to have good friends and travel, or I don't know, what were your dreams when you were, like, maybe 12, 13? Because that was such a pivotal point in time, you know, when we were going from

194
00:30:45.280 --> 00:30:51.309
Josephine McGrail: into teenage years. We're not quite an adult, and we're also not quite a child, so around that time.

195
00:30:51.310 --> 00:30:53.180
Leo Lourdes: I was dreaming of getting laid.

196
00:30:56.130 --> 00:30:59.439
Josephine McGrail: Okay, I was not expecting that to…

197
00:30:59.440 --> 00:31:04.460
Leo Lourdes: And I'll tell you a funny story, and do you know what? I'll tell you this funny story, and I've never… I've never… I've never

198
00:31:05.680 --> 00:31:25.000
Leo Lourdes: told this story ever before publicly, and I'm literally, Josie, on your podcast, putting my entire reputation online here. All that biography you've read before is gonna disintegrate with the shame I'm gonna bring upon myself by sharing this. But I believe in releasing, and I believe in sharing funny things.

199
00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:25.690
Josephine McGrail: Jay, Sue!

200
00:31:25.690 --> 00:31:31.719
Leo Lourdes: I was obviously very curious at that age, and I was like, you know, I wonder what…

201
00:31:32.220 --> 00:31:42.560
Leo Lourdes: sex is. And I wonder, you know, because you hear in the… when you're 12, 13, you hear other kids talk about it, and they really don't know what they're talking about. And this was back… back…

202
00:31:42.620 --> 00:32:01.049
Leo Lourdes: before, you had Google and pornography and online, and now children, sadly, can access this content very easily. This was before that time, does that make sense? It was, like, I wouldn't say pre-internet, but it was a time where you, as a child, you'd be curious, but you could only hear about these things through other children.

203
00:32:01.820 --> 00:32:02.469
Leo Lourdes: Does that make sense?

204
00:32:02.470 --> 00:32:03.570
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, yeah!

205
00:32:03.570 --> 00:32:17.079
Leo Lourdes: So, I used to go to this… oh my god, I can't believe I'm sharing this. I'm gonna share it. And my mum is probably gonna watch this podcast, and she's gonna be like, oh my god, I can't believe, Leo, you ever told this story. But anyway, I'm gonna tell it. So…

206
00:32:17.120 --> 00:32:34.050
Leo Lourdes: there was a newsagents local to us. Not that local, but on the same road, but it was maybe a 20-minute walk from our road to my house. And by this time, my dad had made more money, so we moved into a nice apartment where we all had a bedroom and it was better, you know, so it was like, things were getting better.

207
00:32:34.840 --> 00:32:41.869
Leo Lourdes: And in this newspapers, I used to go in there, and I used to buy my crisps, or my chocolates, or my, you know, my soda, whatever.

208
00:32:41.970 --> 00:32:45.399
Leo Lourdes: But every time I'd go in, I'd always look up at the top shelf.

209
00:32:45.890 --> 00:32:49.810
Leo Lourdes: Because at the top shelf is where you have all the adult magazines.

210
00:32:50.450 --> 00:32:57.629
Leo Lourdes: And I used to look at that, I'm actually just going, oh my god, I really, really want to look at it.

211
00:32:58.420 --> 00:32:59.460
Leo Lourdes: And…

212
00:32:59.830 --> 00:33:11.570
Leo Lourdes: But of course, I couldn't… I couldn't buy it, because the lady in the shop, she's a very strict Indian lady, she's always looking at the kids coming in the shop, there's more than two children, she goes, please, get out, get out, get out!

213
00:33:11.600 --> 00:33:22.099
Leo Lourdes: only two children at one time in the newsagents, so she's a very tough lady, so I knew that I could never just go in, hey, hey, can I buy this copy of Penthouse? She's like, you're…

214
00:33:22.280 --> 00:33:24.280
Leo Lourdes: 12. No.

215
00:33:24.540 --> 00:33:30.549
Leo Lourdes: So one day, I went into the shop, and I said, do you have this type of chocolate?

216
00:33:31.070 --> 00:33:32.800
Leo Lourdes: And she says, I don't know.

217
00:33:33.010 --> 00:33:34.530
Leo Lourdes: Let me check in the back.

218
00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:36.559
Leo Lourdes: She went into the bag.

219
00:33:36.970 --> 00:33:43.959
Leo Lourdes: I can't believe I did this. I went to the top shelf, and I grabbed the magazine, and I put it into my jacket.

220
00:33:45.330 --> 00:33:54.430
Leo Lourdes: I put it into my jacket, and I literally held it tight. And she came outside, and she goes, no, no, we don't have this chocolate, sorry. I said, okay, thank you, Auntie, bye. And I left.

221
00:33:54.790 --> 00:33:55.690
Leo Lourdes: Shish.

222
00:33:56.110 --> 00:33:57.240
Leo Lourdes: I left.

223
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:15.200
Leo Lourdes: Anyway, I was running down the road, and I felt like… I felt like, you know, that I… I'd done something wrong, because it was wrong, because I'm stealing something, I know that. I'm old enough to know it's wrong, but I'm curious enough to be excited at the same time, like, what am I going to see inside this magazine?

224
00:34:15.429 --> 00:34:19.920
Leo Lourdes: So I arrived in the house, open the keys, I go in the house, go to my bedroom.

225
00:34:20.060 --> 00:34:21.819
Leo Lourdes: And then my bedroom's upstairs.

226
00:34:22.320 --> 00:34:26.880
Leo Lourdes: And I'm in the bedroom, And… Literally.

227
00:34:27.010 --> 00:34:38.489
Leo Lourdes: I look at the magazine, and I'm like, oh my god, this is what it's about? I was, like, so shocked, I was excited, I was happy, I was… I felt mischievous, I felt all these things, and then I heard the doorbell ring.

228
00:34:39.620 --> 00:34:46.450
Leo Lourdes: The doorbell rang, And then my mum opened the door, and I… I came outside my bedroom to listen.

229
00:34:46.840 --> 00:34:49.750
Leo Lourdes: And it was the lady from the newsagents.

230
00:34:50.280 --> 00:34:53.200
Josephine McGrail: Oh my god.

231
00:34:53.650 --> 00:35:12.410
Leo Lourdes: She followed, she followed me all the way back to my house. She had no idea where I lived, but she followed me after I left the shop. Ray, come down, darling. She followed me after I came back from the shop, and she said to my mum, I'm sorry, but your son has stolen

232
00:35:12.520 --> 00:35:15.759
Leo Lourdes: An adult magazine from the shop.

233
00:35:16.710 --> 00:35:21.519
Leo Lourdes: And, my mom said, I'm so sorry, this… are you sure it's my son?

234
00:35:21.660 --> 00:35:33.500
Leo Lourdes: And, she's like, yes, it's sure, we have it on the camera. And my mom was like, oh, I'm so sorry, and my mom then said, how much was the magazine?

235
00:35:34.010 --> 00:35:50.610
Leo Lourdes: And the lady said, it's this much. And she says, he's just a boy, he's probably just curious. Let me pay you for the magazine, and can I give you something extra? Because you walked all the way here? And the lady says, no, no, no, madam, just please just pay for the magazine. And my mum paid for the magazine.

236
00:35:50.830 --> 00:35:54.940
Leo Lourdes: And do you know what? My mum never mentioned anything to me.

237
00:35:55.470 --> 00:35:56.610
Josephine McGrail: Oh, wow.

238
00:35:56.870 --> 00:36:11.790
Leo Lourdes: And as an adult, once we talked about it, I said… my mum once told me… I said to my mum, you know there was a time when I was a child, and you did this? And she said, you know, at that point, I was studying developmental psychology, and I was like, my son is curious.

239
00:36:11.850 --> 00:36:30.089
Leo Lourdes: it's natural to be curious, and I just didn't want you to feel any shame about it, so I never mentioned it to you. And I was like, mom, you're an angel. Because she knew that I was curious. Whereas another mum would have slapped me around the face, or another mom would have been like, you're a thief, or another mom would be like, worst case scenario, you're a pervert.

240
00:36:30.640 --> 00:36:32.579
Leo Lourdes: But my mum was just like, no.

241
00:36:32.810 --> 00:36:40.519
Leo Lourdes: My son is curious. So, although I had this poverty growing up, I also had this, Josie, this great sense of freedom.

242
00:36:40.550 --> 00:36:56.769
Leo Lourdes: that I could be or do anything I wanted to be. And I always just wanted to be able to be wealthy and look after my family. And so we went through poverty, but in my 20s, I became a millionaire. So I worked really hard, and I became a millionaire through my businesses.

243
00:36:56.770 --> 00:37:07.059
Leo Lourdes: And unfortunately, I lost my money through the pandemic, like many business people did, so I lost my studio in the shard, I lost my private island studio in the Maldives.

244
00:37:07.130 --> 00:37:17.870
Leo Lourdes: I lost my studio in Grosvenor Square in Mayfair, and I lost all of it, so I went from great wealth to just having nothing, but I could cope with it, because I had nothing as a child.

245
00:37:17.870 --> 00:37:27.599
Leo Lourdes: So, having nothing as an adult didn't feel as bad. Does that make sense? I've been here before. I know I have to watch my eating, I know I can't buy the best things, but…

246
00:37:27.640 --> 00:37:30.259
Leo Lourdes: But when I was making the wealth.

247
00:37:30.350 --> 00:37:49.519
Leo Lourdes: it was the dream that was growing me. I was never ever really looking at the account going, oh wow, I'm a millionaire. I was looking at the account saying, how can I grow it? How can I create more jobs for people? At one point, my company hired about 10 people, and they were being paid salaries, and they… they could live their lives, because I created a…

248
00:37:49.520 --> 00:37:50.840
Leo Lourdes: format.

249
00:37:51.280 --> 00:38:05.280
Leo Lourdes: for them to have abundance in their life. And for me, that created excitement in me, like, I can create this for other people, and I'm responsible for them, so I need to keep growing and growing. And the side… the side thing was, okay, you've made money. Does that make sense?

250
00:38:05.280 --> 00:38:07.980
Josephine McGrail: Absolutely. Bye-bye.

251
00:38:08.030 --> 00:38:33.020
Josephine McGrail: Oh, 100%. So, so tell me, so, okay, you had the experience at 1213, which, thank you so much for sharing, I love the honesty. I really love that that's the first thing that popped into your head, you were like, actually? I did not want to be an astronaut, thank you very much, it was not about this or death, I just wanted to know what this, you know, amazing thing was all about. And, you know, thank you so much for sharing that.

252
00:38:33.020 --> 00:38:51.950
Josephine McGrail: I love that, I think it's super relatable. I'm not going to share my own experiences with that, but we are going to jump, you know, fast and furiously forward. So, did you, you know, what did you study? So, you know, what were you thinking about your future? What do you, you know, and when did yoga come into the picture?

253
00:38:51.950 --> 00:38:56.810
Leo Lourdes: Cool. So I did a degree in… called Design Management.

254
00:38:56.810 --> 00:38:57.510
Josephine McGrail: Okay. Which…

255
00:38:57.520 --> 00:39:16.260
Leo Lourdes: all about managing architects, and managing designers, and managing the design process, and I did that at Surrey University, and I loved it. I really loved it, because it taught me about how to manage creative people, and how to manage the design process. So, technically, with a degree, once you finish, you could manage the design process for any design.

256
00:39:16.500 --> 00:39:32.860
Leo Lourdes: for architecture, for fashion design, for graphic design. But all the way through it, I was really fascinated with psychology, so what I did was I started to study psychology also. I took it on as part of my degree, because I was very fascinated by the human mind.

257
00:39:33.260 --> 00:39:53.100
Leo Lourdes: which I am still, to this date, very fascinated by. And I was able to do that, and when I finished, I was like, you know what? I don't think I really want to manage designers. I want to create things. I want to create my own company. I want to create things that I own.

258
00:39:53.100 --> 00:40:08.779
Leo Lourdes: I want to create products. I don't want to just be, like, a manager of the process. I want to be a creator. I really felt in my fingers, in my bones, that I wanted to create. So at the age of 21, I formed my first company. I met an older lady that was in her 40s.

259
00:40:08.780 --> 00:40:13.810
Leo Lourdes: And she was a psychologist, and she and I had met, and we connected.

260
00:40:13.820 --> 00:40:26.960
Leo Lourdes: And I essentially pitched to her that we should have a business together. Let's create something together, and 50-50, I'll work hard, you work hard, we can have a psychology practice. And my first business was called Future Mind.

261
00:40:27.690 --> 00:40:28.640
Leo Lourdes: dumb…

262
00:40:28.770 --> 00:40:35.540
Leo Lourdes: I love future mind, because the word future and mind were put together, and when you put the words together, you also had the word remind.

263
00:40:36.110 --> 00:40:44.519
Leo Lourdes: FutureMind, remind. So I really like that. The word… the idea just came to me one day. I said to this lady, we should have a company called Feature Mind.

264
00:40:44.520 --> 00:40:58.809
Leo Lourdes: And, you know, we should open and see psychology clients, and I've got, you know, the psychology experience, you're a therapist, you're older, you know, we can make it work. And so we did. She took a risk, and she had more funding.

265
00:40:58.810 --> 00:41:02.780
Leo Lourdes: I had no money, I just had ambition and a lot of passion.

266
00:41:02.780 --> 00:41:03.800
Josephine McGrail: D.

267
00:41:03.800 --> 00:41:20.120
Leo Lourdes: like, I don't know, maybe some people might still describe me as passionate now, but I'm a pale version of when I was 21. Literally, I felt I could do anything. Does that make sense? I do everything. So when we opened up, we decided to open up in Harley Street.

268
00:41:20.120 --> 00:41:36.650
Leo Lourdes: So we didn't choose just some random location because the rooms were cheap. We went to the most expensive real estate where you have the best doctors, the best psychology practitioners, the best consultants in this road called Harley Street, and not just Harley Street, number 10 Harley Street.

269
00:41:38.540 --> 00:41:55.320
Leo Lourdes: 10 Harley Street is the fulcrum of power for psychologists, for doctors, and literally has the best people in the world. So you have a heart issue, you have a psychological problem, whatever. If you went to number 10 Harley Street, you're literally seeing the best people, who also charge very high rates.

270
00:41:55.700 --> 00:42:10.500
Leo Lourdes: So we took a risk. We opened up in Harley Street, and we opened up, and instead of charging really cheap, because we were new, we charged really high prices, and we started to get clients, and it was very busy, and then we had more psychologists join.

271
00:42:10.510 --> 00:42:18.950
Leo Lourdes: And we did that for about 7 to 8 years, and then I decided to let… we decided to get rid of that company, because she was older, and I… I was…

272
00:42:19.120 --> 00:42:31.570
Leo Lourdes: I was like, okay, I've done this for a while now, but it's time to pass it on to someone else. And so someone else took over Future Mind, and now it's another owner. But it gave me a bit of financial freedom, a bit of freedom after running that company.

273
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:36.079
Leo Lourdes: And then, of course, there's that very inconvenient four-letter word.

274
00:42:36.350 --> 00:42:44.520
Leo Lourdes: And it's not, it's not the four-letter word you think when you get angry and you say, oh, the four-letter word. The four-letter word is called love.

275
00:42:47.910 --> 00:42:58.700
Leo Lourdes: The four-letter word, you know, in one of my songs, Curves, I write, love is a four-letter word. And I really mean that, because it can be sometimes, oh my god, that thing.

276
00:42:59.050 --> 00:43:02.790
Leo Lourdes: And I fell in love. I was in, I was…

277
00:43:03.030 --> 00:43:11.160
Leo Lourdes: going to a beautiful, gym called Third Space, which is still open now, and back then, they only had one location, and now they have, like, eight or.

278
00:43:11.160 --> 00:43:13.620
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, they had the one in Soho!

279
00:43:13.620 --> 00:43:15.400
Leo Lourdes: That's… that's where I began.

280
00:43:15.400 --> 00:43:20.320
Josephine McGrail: Right? I used to go there a lot. Oh, fun! Okay, lovely. Okay, cool.

281
00:43:20.320 --> 00:43:31.139
Leo Lourdes: Amazing place. And I was one of the founding members at Third Space, and I used to go there, and I used to attend the yoga classes, and back then, only girls attended yoga.

282
00:43:31.140 --> 00:43:47.970
Leo Lourdes: you know, we're talking about 2000s, and, you know, go mid-2000s, late 2000s. It wasn't… yoga wasn't popular with men, and that's one of the things I've done a lot. I've made a lot of men come into yoga. But it was literally… I was the only guy in the room, and the personal trainers would be like, oh, there's Yoga Boy.

283
00:43:49.750 --> 00:44:08.420
Leo Lourdes: And they kind of, like, jokingly mocked me. Why can't you come and do boxing? Why can't you come and, you know, do the gym with us? Why don't you powerlift? But instead, yoga boy's doing yoga. And then someone else is like, yoga boy's doing yoga is because all the girls are there. And I'm like, no, yoga boy's doing yoga because he likes yoga.

284
00:44:08.770 --> 00:44:20.650
Leo Lourdes: And in my psychology job, I used to be so stressed out that when I used to go on the mat on third space, and I just used to do my yoga, it was almost like all the stress would just be lifted.

285
00:44:20.850 --> 00:44:23.000
Leo Lourdes: And I would be like, oh, I felt…

286
00:44:23.460 --> 00:44:37.980
Leo Lourdes: I feel just free, and yoga was just something that, at that point, because I was so super young and very entrepreneurial, and also had huge bills on my head, every month, if we're not paying the bills, we're in trouble.

287
00:44:37.980 --> 00:44:48.540
Leo Lourdes: And so I had a lot of pressure from a young age, financially, to be able to make my businesses work. So when I used to go to yoga, it used to be my escape.

288
00:44:48.790 --> 00:44:57.999
Leo Lourdes: It used to be where it was a happy place that no one could touch me, I could have my own Shavasana, and I was always known in third space for the guy that the cleaners would clean around.

289
00:44:58.720 --> 00:45:15.470
Leo Lourdes: I wouldn't care. I'm in Shavasana, I'd stay in Shavasana, even after the class, for 20 minutes, and the cleaner would come very quietly and, you know, clean around me, and I'd roll the mat, and then I'd go and have a shower and a steam. But yoga became, like, a beacon for me.

290
00:45:15.560 --> 00:45:24.209
Leo Lourdes: By that point, Josie, I never thought about it commercially, I never thought about it financially, I never, at any point, thought I'd become a yoga teacher.

291
00:45:24.840 --> 00:45:28.020
Leo Lourdes: It was just like, I'm enjoying yoga as a passion.

292
00:45:28.340 --> 00:45:35.380
Leo Lourdes: Anyway, I had guest passes, and one of my best friends, she said to me, do you have a spare guest pass? Because I want to bring my cousin.

293
00:45:35.990 --> 00:45:40.249
Leo Lourdes: And… so… She brings her cousin.

294
00:45:40.550 --> 00:46:00.470
Leo Lourdes: And they're both in the yoga room, and to be honest, I think I'm still quite attractive, but I was super attractive in my 20s. Like, people used to say he's like the Asian George Clooney, like, he has such a nice smile, he's so good looking, and, you know, it was… I was very successful in my 20s with romance and dating.

295
00:46:00.470 --> 00:46:06.669
Leo Lourdes: But here I was, and some of the girls used to fancy me, so they used to put the mat up for me.

296
00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:14.800
Leo Lourdes: So I was, like, this yoga celebrity, I used to walk into the studio, someone used to put a mat up for me, I'd go in the front, you know? So…

297
00:46:15.230 --> 00:46:18.110
Leo Lourdes: Little did I know, but my future girlfriend…

298
00:46:18.220 --> 00:46:31.970
Leo Lourdes: was the cousin of my friend, and they were both in the room, and they came in, and they were ready for yoga, and the teacher had arrived, but I walk in late to my pre-laid-out yoga mat in the front, I wave at the teacher.

299
00:46:31.980 --> 00:46:44.650
Leo Lourdes: And actually, my future ex-girlfriend… my future… my future girlfriend then told me once, I just thought you were, like, really embarrassing, like, who's this guy? Like, who does he think he is walking in late to a class?

300
00:46:45.630 --> 00:46:48.859
Leo Lourdes: Through the class, all I remember was looking through the mirror.

301
00:46:49.110 --> 00:47:00.710
Leo Lourdes: But how beautiful she was. And I just couldn't get my eyes off her. I was just, like, I couldn't even concentrate. She was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen, like, literally.

302
00:47:01.000 --> 00:47:11.240
Leo Lourdes: But after the class finished, because I knew a few people, I didn't actually get to talk to her. I wanted to talk to her, but I was talking to people, and then my friend and her cousin, who's the girl I fancied.

303
00:47:11.350 --> 00:47:25.370
Leo Lourdes: left, and they both waved, and I was like, you know, your heart sinks? You're like, oh, I really wanted to talk to her. I, damn! She was so pretty, and I wanted to introduce myself, and never got a chance. And then… then you just think, okay, life continues. You forget, right?

304
00:47:25.640 --> 00:47:38.220
Leo Lourdes: And this was really before the whole Tinder thing, and the whole Hinge, and the dating apps. This is where you met people in a pub, or a club, or through friends, you know, social network. You know, this was that time where

305
00:47:38.560 --> 00:47:49.440
Leo Lourdes: real-time dating was far more important than online swiping. Does that make sense? It wasn't dismissive, it was based on chemistry, attraction, opportunity, so your whole… your brain

306
00:47:49.570 --> 00:47:59.810
Leo Lourdes: was not just going through a dopamine cycle of left or right, left or right. Your brain was able to drop the dopamine down to the heart, and you could feel your heart pumping.

307
00:47:59.810 --> 00:48:16.219
Leo Lourdes: With excitement, with joy, and do you know what? I wish some of these gen… the new generations would get a chance to do that, turn the phone off, and just go to a pub, go to a club, ask someone, you know, for their number, just forget the apps for a while, because it was such a riveting feeling. So here I was in the gym.

308
00:48:16.430 --> 00:48:22.210
Leo Lourdes: Feeling like, ugh… I've missed my opportunity. Then my friend had her birthday.

309
00:48:22.580 --> 00:48:29.020
Leo Lourdes: And so I went to her birthday, just a few weeks later, and so I was there, and I had this big SLR camera.

310
00:48:29.150 --> 00:48:41.879
Leo Lourdes: And I also did not know I'd become a photographer with photographing a big yoga best-selling book. I never knew all of that at this point. I just had an SLI camera. My friend said to me, would you be… would you mind taking pictures at my birthday?

311
00:48:42.020 --> 00:48:47.770
Leo Lourdes: So it was in, Clerkenwell, and I went to her party, and I had my big SLI camera.

312
00:48:48.290 --> 00:48:51.000
Leo Lourdes: And then I saw this girl, again.

313
00:48:51.250 --> 00:49:05.559
Leo Lourdes: And I was like, oh my god, she's here, she's here! I was so excited! And there was this Australian girl that fancied me, and she was… kept talking to me, kept talking to me, and I kept thinking, I don't want this other girl to think that she's my girlfriend.

314
00:49:05.800 --> 00:49:15.769
Leo Lourdes: Anyway, so I had this camera, and then there was this guy, because, you know, the girl I fancied is so attractive, like, the guys in the… in the… in the… in the bar were all over her.

315
00:49:16.090 --> 00:49:23.729
Leo Lourdes: She couldn't walk without a guy approaching her. Anyway, she was standing, like, about 5… no, 5 meters ahead of me?

316
00:49:24.520 --> 00:49:27.580
Leo Lourdes: She saw me, she smiled, and I smiled back.

317
00:49:28.000 --> 00:49:39.190
Leo Lourdes: And then a guy went up to her and started to talk to her, and I could tell he was trying to chat her up and, you know, talk to her. And she was being super polite. She faced him, and she was listening to him.

318
00:49:39.300 --> 00:49:54.739
Leo Lourdes: I could tell she wasn't attracted to him, but she was super polite. She wasn't blowing the guy off. Does that make sense? She gave the guy an opportunity. So what I did was I took my SLR camera, and I still have these pictures. I turned the flash on, and I just took about 50 pictures.

319
00:49:55.030 --> 00:50:05.029
Leo Lourdes: I flashed. Like, like Morse code. Like, I literally took pictures, and she's there with this guy, and she's looking at me like, what is this guy doing?

320
00:50:05.340 --> 00:50:07.580
Leo Lourdes: And I just kept taking pictures!

321
00:50:07.700 --> 00:50:17.310
Leo Lourdes: And then after the guy left, we met later, and then she, she said, so you have a lot of pictures of me.

322
00:50:17.640 --> 00:50:31.580
Leo Lourdes: I said, because… I said, I'm sorry, it's just all I could do, because that guy was clearly punching above his weight, and he was talking to you, and I had to take some pictures, and she's like, well, why are you taking so many pictures? I'm like, because you're stunning, you're beautiful.

323
00:50:31.840 --> 00:50:37.200
Leo Lourdes: And we connected, and we formed a relationship that same night.

324
00:50:37.520 --> 00:50:42.560
Leo Lourdes: And we stayed together for 9 years, and she became my fiance. So…

325
00:50:42.940 --> 00:50:58.499
Leo Lourdes: when we were together in the early years, we used to go to a lot of yoga classes together, and I was more used to doing yoga, and she was more of a novice in the beginning, and so I'd take her for yoga, we'd do yoga, we'd go for dinner, and then we one day just said, why don't we just do a teacher training?

326
00:50:58.870 --> 00:51:04.340
Leo Lourdes: Why don't we do it, like, just to learn about yoga, just to become better at yoga? And we never thought

327
00:51:04.600 --> 00:51:06.380
Leo Lourdes: We'd launch a company.

328
00:51:06.530 --> 00:51:23.979
Leo Lourdes: But after we finished yoga, we launched our company, which was a very successful company, it was called Yogasphere, which… which is… I love the name, I love it so much. I still have sad feelings about it, because I lost Yogosphere through the pandemic, and Yogasphere opened a

329
00:51:24.200 --> 00:51:42.289
Leo Lourdes: a huge journey, a successful company, meeting so many people, 40,000 yogis all around the world. Like, you know, it was just a journey I will never forget, and I'm very indebted to karma and the sacred consciousness to have given me that chance to have been the… to share yogosphere with Mandy. We were both

330
00:51:42.290 --> 00:51:52.870
Leo Lourdes: had the company together. And in fact, I… when I created the company with her, without her realizing, I put 100% shares in her name as a gift.

331
00:51:53.000 --> 00:52:09.480
Leo Lourdes: So she owned the company, and then it… we drove the company into a multi-million pound business, and one day the bank manager wrote, and she said, Leo, what is this? He's saying, I own 100%. I said, yeah, I gave it as a gift. And then she cried, and she said, oh my god, that's so beautiful, but I cannot accept it.

332
00:52:09.740 --> 00:52:17.179
Leo Lourdes: You work so hard, so then we changed the shares, and it became 70% me, 30% her, and then we ran a successful company.

333
00:52:17.230 --> 00:52:31.070
Leo Lourdes: But sadly, and this is beyond the remit of this conversation, but that relationship, after 9 years reached its own natural end, and it coincided with us closing the company in the pandemic. So, we had a chance to close it.

334
00:52:31.420 --> 00:52:41.850
Leo Lourdes: And I was the creditor of the company, so I could inherit the database, but we would have to close it because we just didn't have the money to keep the centers open. There was no customers allowed.

335
00:52:41.850 --> 00:52:53.839
Leo Lourdes: But every month, we had 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 pounds worth of bills, and we couldn't pay it, and I was falling into debt, and I used my personal savings to try to save the company, but eventually, we were just like.

336
00:52:54.540 --> 00:53:06.379
Leo Lourdes: the relationship's over, and we also have to accept yoga sphere's over as well, and we decided to close it, and I closed my business. So that's how I got into yoga. It was love.

337
00:53:06.570 --> 00:53:25.080
Leo Lourdes: because of love of someone, because of love of yoga, because I was a practitioner, and I loved it, and I was able to experience it beautifully, and create something, an adventure, with someone I loved. And it was… and I don't think I could ever replicate it again. I don't think I could ever meet someone

338
00:53:25.390 --> 00:53:33.310
Leo Lourdes: like, even if I… I'm currently single at the moment, so I'm not sure how your database are. Maybe some of them are single. I'm actually available for dates, and I'm…

339
00:53:33.310 --> 00:53:34.010
Josephine McGrail: Oh my god.

340
00:53:34.010 --> 00:53:45.110
Leo Lourdes: I'm still a decent guy, so what I do do is I do pay for dinner, but I don't think I could fall in love and repeat that story again. I think that was, like.

341
00:53:45.510 --> 00:54:01.810
Leo Lourdes: like, something really special, and my future relationships will also be special, but not in the same way, because there's also some limitations, Josie, when you run a business with someone, you know, you also have the financial pressures, and then you're running your relationships, and sometimes it can get entangled.

342
00:54:01.810 --> 00:54:12.210
Leo Lourdes: So, you know, we would disagree in the business sometimes, then we'd come back home, and I'd be like, we'd have pasta, and I'd be like, the pasta's not cooked. And she'd be like, I thought you liked al dente.

343
00:54:12.310 --> 00:54:16.630
Leo Lourdes: Like, it's not cooked, but really, we were angry about business.

344
00:54:17.140 --> 00:54:17.740
Josephine McGrail: Yeah. But…

345
00:54:17.740 --> 00:54:31.630
Leo Lourdes: So, I think that's something also for people to consider. If you are going to business with someone you love, it can be a great adventure, but it can also be a big restriction. It can also interrupt the relationship as well.

346
00:54:31.630 --> 00:54:40.420
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and it's also that thing of, I mean, I can really resonate with that, you know, I think I… I personally, I always had that dream.

347
00:54:40.570 --> 00:54:54.730
Josephine McGrail: I guess because I did most of the things in my life, I did by myself. Like, I, you know, went to the Royal Danish Ballet by myself. That meant I was there more than I saw my physical family. I left my country when I was 16 by myself, you know,

348
00:54:54.820 --> 00:55:19.740
Josephine McGrail: I, you know, all of the different careers I've had here in London and globally, it's always been by myself, and so I've always had this kind of very romantic idea of, like, oh, what if I, you know, what if I met someone and they were as passionate about the same thing that I am passionate about, and we can work together, and we can do all this thing. And funnily enough, I had those experiences, but with women, so I would have best friends, and next thing you know, we were

349
00:55:19.740 --> 00:55:28.419
Josephine McGrail: living together, and we were working together, and I had those experiences, and it's… we had… I had a similar experience as you guys, where it's that thing of.

350
00:55:28.420 --> 00:55:44.639
Josephine McGrail: you know, the more intensity, of course, the more amazing it is, the more passionate it is, the more it is, you know, we're together 24-7, and we're into the same things, and we're similar people, and all of that, our values are similar, but at the same time,

351
00:55:44.740 --> 00:56:08.640
Josephine McGrail: it also means that in daily life, you don't actually ever really have that, that, you know, that space, right? To kind of find your own center, to remember that you are two different people, etc. I mean, obviously, there's no easy way or one way of doing any relationships, whether it's business or personal or both, but I can definitely relate to that, to that whole thing of, actually, there's all, you know, there's benefits to anything.

352
00:56:08.640 --> 00:56:15.920
Josephine McGrail: There's also benefits to having a love with someone, but maybe your interests are different, or maybe you don't work together, right?

353
00:56:15.920 --> 00:56:20.540
Josephine McGrail: But either way, we don't choose who we fall in love with. And in love, you fell.

354
00:56:20.540 --> 00:56:38.909
Leo Lourdes: Exactly, and also, I think, and you said, thank, thankfully, and Josie's enjoying my book at the moment, and I hope some of the readers will look it up. It's available in libraries as well, so it's called The World of Yoga, and you shared a quote for my book, and on WhatsApp, which was amazing. I wanted to share it with the

355
00:56:38.910 --> 00:56:47.140
Leo Lourdes: the viewers now. It's saying, essentially, knowing the depths of your own heart is the greatest love affair you'll ever have.

356
00:56:47.870 --> 00:56:49.529
Leo Lourdes: Do you remember that quote from the book?

357
00:56:49.530 --> 00:56:52.280
Josephine McGrail: Because, look at this.

358
00:56:52.280 --> 00:57:00.320
Leo Lourdes: Yes, exactly. That's kind of saying what I said in my book. And I really believe that. I believe that actually, you know, when you're…

359
00:57:00.450 --> 00:57:01.630
Leo Lourdes: when you're…

360
00:57:02.360 --> 00:57:10.539
Leo Lourdes: having a relationship with someone, you're actually falling in love with your own heart. You're learning about the capacity, the breath.

361
00:57:10.840 --> 00:57:18.009
Leo Lourdes: the depth of your own heart. And this is why, I guess you could say breakups are so difficult, because I believe, you know.

362
00:57:18.010 --> 00:57:31.919
Leo Lourdes: the more you love someone, you also build a propensity to hate them as well. So the more you love them, the more you can potentially hate them, because you've given so much of your vulnerability, and you've opened your heart, and then suddenly they break it, you're… you're… you can even flip the other way.

363
00:57:31.930 --> 00:57:44.219
Leo Lourdes: And I also believe that love and hate are equal in passion, just facing opposite directions, right? So the more you hate someone, you can also love them. You can love someone, you can also hate them. And…

364
00:57:44.450 --> 00:57:51.300
Leo Lourdes: I truly believe that When you love someone, your heart creates a memory of that.

365
00:57:51.550 --> 00:58:05.449
Leo Lourdes: And the more you love yourself, the more you explore your own heart, even if you're on your own. So, for all those single people out there that have had relationship problems, or have had love, and their heart's been broken, I'm gonna tell you, it doesn't matter. Your heart…

366
00:58:05.450 --> 00:58:15.520
Leo Lourdes: is interested in the depth of your own discovery. So, journal, read, fall in love with other people, understand your own heart, because the more you understand your own heart.

367
00:58:15.580 --> 00:58:30.269
Leo Lourdes: the greatest love affair. You could even be in love with yourself, and I don't mean that in some narcissistic, you know, sense. I mean that as in a true, true thing, like, if you love yourself, like, deeper, the type of partner you'll attract will be different.

368
00:58:30.550 --> 00:58:44.429
Leo Lourdes: You're not going to attract some opportunist, you're not going to attract someone that's going to be not valuing you, because you're valuing your own heart, and you know what your own… and I know Josie and me talked about this at yoga once, about boundaries and thresholds.

369
00:58:44.430 --> 00:58:50.639
Leo Lourdes: You know, you'll know what your own boundaries are, you'll know what your own thresholds are, and you will take risks based on love.

370
00:58:50.670 --> 00:58:58.619
Leo Lourdes: But the more you know your own heart, the more you'll be able to love deeply with someone else, so you'll attract a completely different type of partner.

371
00:58:59.100 --> 00:59:08.420
Josephine McGrail: Oh, I love this, and I just have to repeat what I think you said, something along the lines of, your heart is interested in the depth of your own discovery.

372
00:59:09.870 --> 00:59:31.679
Josephine McGrail: How beautiful and how true is that, right? Your heart is interested in the depth of your own discovery, and exactly like you said. I mean, this is exactly like what all my three books are about, and it's not to highlight my own book, but it's just that this is another synchronicity that we have, right? It's called Fall in Love With You. They're a collection of channeled messages, as is my second book, Messages of Love.

373
00:59:31.680 --> 00:59:38.530
Josephine McGrail: And again, none of this, and I'm just supporting, you know, your life story, all of this, you know.

374
00:59:38.630 --> 00:59:40.840
Josephine McGrail: We meet, whoever we meet.

375
00:59:41.030 --> 01:00:05.319
Josephine McGrail: And whoever we get the joy, the pain, the intensity, the excitement, all of it to be around, it really just teaches us about ourself, right? It's an opportunity. So it's always the same thing, because, you know, just like anyone else, I've, you know, I've had incredible love, love stories, love affairs, I've had incredible heartbreak, you know, as high as I can go, as low can I go too, right?

376
01:00:05.320 --> 01:00:17.049
Josephine McGrail: But the point was always, you know, just because that story has reached its ending, whether it was a, you know, a chosen thing, or something was taken away, whatever happens.

377
01:00:17.360 --> 01:00:36.319
Josephine McGrail: you know, once something was created in love, A, it never ceases to exist, because also, once you have accessed that part of your own sensibility, you think it's about the other person, it was never about the other person. The other person helped you to see, feel, what was already present within you.

378
01:00:36.320 --> 01:00:41.620
Josephine McGrail: And so, right? And so that… those… that line that you just said, you know?

379
01:00:41.770 --> 01:00:52.590
Josephine McGrail: your heart is interested in the depth of your own discovery. I mean, it is the most… Accurate, Beautiful.

380
01:00:52.770 --> 01:00:55.379
Josephine McGrail: and transformative words I've heard in a long time.

381
01:00:55.570 --> 01:01:09.140
Leo Lourdes: Thank you, darling. And you know what? For me, it's the space we create between us. Whenever, you know, there's a wonderful saying for people that believe if there's a higher consciousness looking after itself, it says, when more than one gather in my name.

382
01:01:09.550 --> 01:01:29.969
Leo Lourdes: You know, so whatever that name is, whether it's Buddha, whether it's Jesus, whether it's universal consciousness, whether it's God, whether it's Allah, whatever your label is, it's just a label. You know, we call apple, in France they call it palm. We don't have world wars because we have a translation over the word called apple. So why do we have world wars over the translation of God?

383
01:01:29.970 --> 01:01:30.800
Josephine McGrail: So…

384
01:01:31.110 --> 01:01:44.260
Leo Lourdes: I believe when you connect with people that are like-minded, and for us, you know, there's a beautiful journey we've created from yoga, and from the book, and from our conversations about our lives and our shares, and it's like…

385
01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:52.369
Leo Lourdes: whenever I believe… when you… when you state a kind of truth, you do it actually in collaboration. So although I may have

386
01:01:52.520 --> 01:02:04.239
Leo Lourdes: given birth to those words. It was only given birth to those words because we were feeling a vibration or feel that we're both in, and actually not just in, all the people that are going to watch this, that are inspired by this.

387
01:02:04.240 --> 01:02:13.560
Leo Lourdes: that are gonna, you know, maybe… maybe they're kleptomaniacs, they might go and steal pornography just for the fun of it after this video. Maybe they might be inspired in that way.

388
01:02:13.790 --> 01:02:26.690
Leo Lourdes: But, like, it's because of the feel that's generated, and then whatever comes from that is the creativity and the birth that comes forth. It's not about ownership, it's not about my words, your words, you know, it's about us.

389
01:02:26.880 --> 01:02:35.909
Leo Lourdes: And… this is what I really feel that yoga brings. You know, if you truly get into yoga, and I'm gonna… can I just give a show of my book?

390
01:02:35.910 --> 01:02:37.840
Josephine McGrail: Yes, please!

391
01:02:37.840 --> 01:02:40.430
Leo Lourdes: This is my baby, a world of yoga.

392
01:02:41.100 --> 01:02:56.759
Leo Lourdes: Which Josie has a copy of as well. And, it's a beautiful book. Even if you don't, buy it, you see it in a yoga studio, take… I give you permission to have a cup of herbal tea and sit through the book, and just flick through it. And I guarantee you, I promise you this as the author.

393
01:02:56.760 --> 01:03:02.030
Leo Lourdes: Even if you read some of the affirmations, even if you look at the beauty of the pictures, it will transform your mood.

394
01:03:02.270 --> 01:03:14.289
Leo Lourdes: it will transform your mood, and the book is a journey, you know? The way I've created it, most people, they go through the book in one sitting. They don't read everything, they read some of the affirmations, they read through the pictures.

395
01:03:14.290 --> 01:03:22.389
Leo Lourdes: But it's like a journey that you go through, and it's called The World of Yoga. And I feel that my gifts

396
01:03:22.400 --> 01:03:37.569
Leo Lourdes: with my love of yoga has taken many forms. My love with my partner, my love of my clients, my creativity creating studios, giving birth to them, and also losing them. It's okay. My… the fact I was… had no money.

397
01:03:37.650 --> 01:03:55.899
Leo Lourdes: And I still launched a successful book, and which I did a lot of the photography through the pandemic, because you were allowed… the government guidance was you could not travel for holidays, but you could travel for business, and so I was able to get my publisher to let me travel, and I was able to go to places like Masai Mara.

398
01:03:55.900 --> 01:03:59.230
Leo Lourdes: Where no tourists were there, just me and my guy.

399
01:03:59.230 --> 01:04:03.219
Leo Lourdes: And I'd get out of the… of the Safari van.

400
01:04:03.440 --> 01:04:17.040
Leo Lourdes: do a headstand by a frangipani tree, or some tree, and then rush back in, because he'd be like, no, there's some lions coming. So, like, it was a whole other world, like, I felt… I felt like, you know, Adam.

401
01:04:17.200 --> 01:04:33.519
Leo Lourdes: honestly, when I traveled through the pandemic, and I was taking these pictures, and I was, like, the only person there, there was no crowds, there was no public, just me and nature, and I could tune into my meditation, and I would self-photograph as well, so I had a sensor camera, I'd set everything up, I'd literally run.

402
01:04:33.690 --> 01:04:47.190
Leo Lourdes: set the camera up, run to the spot, do the yoga position, run back, check it, retake it, and I did all the pictures, most of the pictures I did of myself were self-photographed. And I did this because I wanted to show the love of yoga.

403
01:04:47.190 --> 01:04:55.160
Leo Lourdes: And I really believe, whether it's yoga or not, what I'm going to invite the listeners of this podcast to really consider

404
01:04:55.340 --> 01:04:57.189
Leo Lourdes: Is, what is your passion?

405
01:04:57.410 --> 01:05:00.750
Leo Lourdes: What makes you excited? What turns you on?

406
01:05:00.760 --> 01:05:20.739
Leo Lourdes: it might not be yoga. For Josie and me, it's definitely yoga, and other things. I'm sure Josie's also a very amazing author, and you know, a very creative soul. But you've got to really think… you only get one chance to live your life as you, and in my book, I say, you only get one chance to live your life as you, and if you do it right, you don't need to do it again.

407
01:05:21.070 --> 01:05:23.319
Josephine McGrail: I had that one on my phone!

408
01:05:24.190 --> 01:05:24.910
Leo Lourdes: Tip it.

409
01:05:24.910 --> 01:05:42.779
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, I had that one on my phone, because out of your entire book, you know, I read through it yesterday, and of course I couldn't read the whole thing, right? The last photo I took, because I photographed lots of the affirmations, and the last one I photographed was exactly that. You can only live once as yourself in this lifetime.

410
01:05:42.780 --> 01:05:46.320
Josephine McGrail: If you live fully, once is enough.

411
01:05:46.480 --> 01:05:47.030
Leo Lourdes: Becky.

412
01:05:48.750 --> 01:05:49.670
Josephine McGrail: Exactly.

413
01:05:49.830 --> 01:05:58.119
Leo Lourdes: That's what I invite, and thank you for sharing that quote. And, by the way, all of the writings in my book, I meditate, like Josie does. Josie channels.

414
01:05:58.270 --> 01:06:03.179
Leo Lourdes: And she writes, I meditate, and I say what words come, and I put them in there, so…

415
01:06:03.230 --> 01:06:11.100
Leo Lourdes: I know there's lots of books where people say, this is what Buddha said, this is what Mother Teresa said, this is what Martin Luther King said. I'm like.

416
01:06:11.130 --> 01:06:28.480
Leo Lourdes: I was okay, okay, these people are saying things, but I've got so much to say, and I just want to say it, and I was like, I just made a rule to myself. I'm not gonna quote anyone. I'm not gonna quote Buddha, I'm not gonna quote my trees, I'm not gonna quote Martin Luther King, I'm just gonna quote Leo Lords, and I just channeled the words that came through. And…

417
01:06:28.480 --> 01:06:32.229
Leo Lourdes: this is what I love about it, is that, like, Josie's taking pictures.

418
01:06:32.230 --> 01:06:53.769
Leo Lourdes: You know, I get people messaging me saying, oh my god, I'm in a library in Singapore, and I found your book, it's amazing, or someone else is like, I'm in Colorado skiing, and I found this, and I love your book, and I get all these people from around the world messaging me, and the thing I love the most, and I could probably create another book, just a book on all the pictures of my book on people's living rooms.

419
01:06:53.870 --> 01:07:08.019
Leo Lourdes: Literally, Josie sent a beautiful picture with the doggie, with my book, another person sent a picture with their baby holding onto my book, another person's taking my book all around the world, showing it in different locations. So, for me, it's the journey of sharing.

420
01:07:08.140 --> 01:07:14.840
Leo Lourdes: And I really implore And I invite your listeners to really say, you know what?

421
01:07:16.140 --> 01:07:20.029
Leo Lourdes: I'm sorry to swear, Josie. Fuck this. I get one life.

422
01:07:20.030 --> 01:07:36.270
Josephine McGrail: Oh my god, please, we can do it again. Absolutely, fuck yes. We have one life. We cannot sit around and wait for our own permission, someone else's permissions, to actually live in a way that feels truly you.

423
01:07:36.270 --> 01:07:36.750
Leo Lourdes: Yes.

424
01:07:36.750 --> 01:08:01.739
Josephine McGrail: And I think, you know, like, because actually going back, you know, you and I really haven't known each other for that long, and you chose to share about your book with me. You know, you came to the Oracle card and yoga class, and, you know, you took your, you picked your four cards, and, you know, I mentioned we were going back in time for, you know, each year, and going back those four or five years, you opened that first card and you said, that was the year I wrote my book. That was the year I decided

425
01:08:01.740 --> 01:08:03.360
Josephine McGrail: to write my book.

426
01:08:03.360 --> 01:08:17.130
Josephine McGrail: You could have chosen to not share any of that with me, right? And then, you know, and then subsequently, every time we meet up, you share more of your life, I share more of my life, but these are all choices, right? So we can choose to live

427
01:08:17.290 --> 01:08:20.050
Josephine McGrail: A very small, very sheltered life.

428
01:08:20.210 --> 01:08:35.920
Josephine McGrail: Or we can choose to take a chance, right? Like, look at what's happened. So you had, you know, you shared that with me, shared about your life, your book, which is amazing, you know, I shared it with, you know, a good client of mine that, you know, obviously, hopefully already loves it, like…

429
01:08:35.939 --> 01:08:51.930
Josephine McGrail: Everything is a rippling effect, and we fully, like, okay, we can't, you know, we can't control or choose what happens to us, but we can always, always choose not only how we wish to respond, but also from where we're responding, right?

430
01:08:51.939 --> 01:09:05.299
Leo Lourdes: It's a wonderful book, and I don't know if you've read it, Josie, and I don't know if any of your listeners have read it, but I read it years ago, and it really inspired me about Law of Attraction. It's a book called Ask and It's Given.

431
01:09:06.029 --> 01:09:08.049
Josephine McGrail: I have it!

432
01:09:08.050 --> 01:09:21.100
Leo Lourdes: In that book, Josie, they talk about passing, they talk about what's called your emotional set point. What vibration are you in? So, for your listeners, I would say, always think about that. What vibration are you in? What are you creating?

433
01:09:21.100 --> 01:09:35.130
Leo Lourdes: And be vocal. If you have a passion about something, don't shy back. Just be like, okay, I'm an amateur actor, or I'm a try-out stand-up comedian, or I'm a… I'm a designer in the making. I'm a filmmaker at heart.

434
01:09:35.310 --> 01:09:40.740
Leo Lourdes: Don't shy back. State the words, because when you state the words, it becomes the first part of truth.

435
01:09:41.210 --> 01:09:53.769
Leo Lourdes: In my life, I've always shot, and this is because Josie and me are both Sagittarius, in a big way, and I think this is a very… and I'll be honest, I think it's quite a Sagittarian fire sign thing, but we shoot forward our arrow.

436
01:09:54.029 --> 01:09:56.580
Leo Lourdes: We don't always know how we're gonna get there.

437
01:09:56.940 --> 01:10:01.279
Leo Lourdes: We don't always know what skills or whatever, but we shoot an arrow of desire.

438
01:10:01.390 --> 01:10:08.349
Leo Lourdes: And then when we get that vision, the stuff happens that makes it possible to realize that dream.

439
01:10:08.510 --> 01:10:09.100
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

440
01:10:09.100 --> 01:10:16.739
Leo Lourdes: a lot of people don't do is they don't shoot that arrow forward. They don't make that… they don't make that kind of…

441
01:10:18.270 --> 01:10:28.739
Leo Lourdes: reclamation. They don't make… they don't make that vocal, they don't say, I want to be this. I… you know, even if you dream about it secretly, dream about it, but write it down.

442
01:10:28.740 --> 01:10:53.679
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and it's also because, like, again, if you're using that visual as with the bow and arrow, right? It's like, imagine, you know, you're pulling back, okay, that's the desire. The desire is starting to create tension, right? And you're leaning into the desire, so there's more and more and more and more pressure, because you're like, oh my god, I gotta say it! I gotta do it, right? I gotta try it! But the thing is, it's like, at some point, you have to try it, you have to let go of control, right? You have to release it.

443
01:10:53.680 --> 01:10:57.399
Josephine McGrail: All of us, you're in suspense, and in pressure, and in stress.

444
01:10:57.400 --> 01:11:14.570
Josephine McGrail: And that energy is stacked, and it's blocking, and it's stopping, and it's actually hurting, right? So it's that thing of, okay, you know, and I loved it, Leo and I are now, like, just, like, sharing with the world, but here we are, like, honestly, I'm sure Leo, yours is the same as me, like.

445
01:11:15.560 --> 01:11:26.899
Josephine McGrail: I… I have experienced, just like everyone else, huge amount of anxiety, huge amount of fear. It's not like I'm more courageous, or Leo is more courageous, or more confident, or… no!

446
01:11:27.750 --> 01:11:37.249
Josephine McGrail: all of that exists, I acknowledge it exists, you acknowledge it exists, but then we kind of go, fuck fear and let's try it anyway. Like, you know?

447
01:11:37.770 --> 01:11:55.999
Leo Lourdes: Exactly, and I think also what you've got to remember is, once you let go, you've got to trust the law of attraction, you've got to trust the universe, that it's conspiring with you, and I think what a lot of people do is they get the desire, the anticipation, then they release it, then they're like, what's happening with it? Why is it not happening?

448
01:11:57.990 --> 01:12:06.550
Leo Lourdes: Right, have I done it wrong? Why are they not calling me back? Why is it not happening? And what they forget to do is, you release it, but the universe is helping you make it happen.

449
01:12:06.830 --> 01:12:09.219
Leo Lourdes: And what you've got to do is shut…

450
01:12:09.560 --> 01:12:19.920
Leo Lourdes: Fuck up, and just notice who is that person in the coffee shop that you need to talk to that's gonna give you… and this is what, in, for example, a very old book.

451
01:12:20.230 --> 01:12:24.609
Leo Lourdes: But a beautiful book called The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. It's a wonderful…

452
01:12:24.610 --> 01:12:26.240
Josephine McGrail: I got that one, too!

453
01:12:26.240 --> 01:12:31.400
Leo Lourdes: Yeah, and he talks about a Carl Jungian, a Jungian concept called synchronicity.

454
01:12:31.400 --> 01:12:32.360
Josephine McGrail: Yes!

455
01:12:32.360 --> 01:12:48.049
Leo Lourdes: But, like, for example, I met Josie, I think it's divine, how we've met. You know, Josie's met other people, it's divine, how we meet people. There is… there is an energy network that connects you to like-minded people. So once you've short… shot forward your arrow of desire.

456
01:12:48.050 --> 01:12:55.699
Leo Lourdes: You have to be in a state of awareness to notice the signs. Who am I meeting? What is happening? Why has that come through?

457
01:12:55.780 --> 01:13:10.099
Leo Lourdes: what should I do next? Why am I watching that on TV? What is… why does that song keep playing in my head? And you have to notice the synchronicities and act on them, and trust me, and really trust me in my life, and I swear on my life on this, it works.

458
01:13:10.100 --> 01:13:10.830
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

459
01:13:10.830 --> 01:13:22.869
Leo Lourdes: Once your set point, emotional set point, is right, your vibration is right, you attract the right people, the right situations, and all you have to do, then, is trust.

460
01:13:23.670 --> 01:13:24.660
Leo Lourdes: Trust.

461
01:13:24.840 --> 01:13:31.219
Josephine McGrail: Trust, and like you said, since the beginning of our time together here today, and actually always,

462
01:13:32.450 --> 01:13:44.219
Josephine McGrail: we have to find different ways that we can continue to fall in love with the everyday. So… so the energetic state, right? Before you're like, oh, I need to write that thing, or I need to, like, defend this, or I need to communicate that, or I need to… whatever.

463
01:13:44.590 --> 01:13:54.060
Josephine McGrail: the way that we… the easiest way, the easiest route, like, the most simpler… the simplest way that I can… I can express it myself is, you know.

464
01:13:54.060 --> 01:14:11.060
Josephine McGrail: continue to fall in love with that which makes you feel good. And it's… it's just so simple, you know, like, you love dogs, I love dogs, you know, like, Buddha, my little dog that we look after, is, you know, she gives me infinite joy, not just because she loves me, but because I love her.

465
01:14:11.060 --> 01:14:23.189
Josephine McGrail: being around her brings me into that state, right? Again, my flowers, you know, hanging out with you, like, there are so many joyful experiences in my life, and things that I'm really passionate about.

466
01:14:24.020 --> 01:14:46.780
Josephine McGrail: So, yes, trust 100%, but also that easy way to kind of think, okay, well, I need to put my energy high. That doesn't mean we don't get sad and anxious and all the rest of the human being experience, but it means that we continue to seek experiences, places, people, music, books, whatever it is that just naturally, through the experiencing of it.

467
01:14:46.780 --> 01:15:09.530
Josephine McGrail: Same thing with your book, right? Like you said, your book is not… it's a journey, but it's just an experience. I was experiencing your book. I was with you out in all the different places around the world when I was, you know, looking through it yesterday, right? Like, just from being with your book, it's putting… it's naturally… it's not hard work. I don't sit there and go like, oh, I must go into a good energetic state!

468
01:15:09.530 --> 01:15:19.350
Josephine McGrail: Right? It happens naturally, I don't doubt it, so like you said, there's no… there's ultimate trust, because I didn't doubt that I wasn't going to feel good reading your book, right?

469
01:15:19.560 --> 01:15:24.000
Leo Lourdes: Yes, and it's about… it's about trust, and it was also about giving yourself permission.

470
01:15:24.010 --> 01:15:38.000
Leo Lourdes: you know, to feel what you're feeling, and I think, you know, like, for example, this book is a… it's a wonderful achievement, because it wasn't… it wasn't an easy book to do, because I had to… like, I wasn't trained as a photographer, I didn't go to photography school.

471
01:15:38.000 --> 01:15:54.860
Leo Lourdes: I had SLR cameras. I was… I've always been naturally good at design because of my design management degree. I was always able to understand composition and all these kind of things. When I walk into an architectural building, I can see how the columns hold things up. My brain is able to look at the skeleton of design.

472
01:15:54.860 --> 01:16:00.819
Leo Lourdes: Because I studied it for 3 years, but it kind of translated to psychology, I'm sorry, to photography.

473
01:16:01.020 --> 01:16:06.950
Leo Lourdes: And what I was able to do, because my publisher, like, you guys don't realize, this publisher is the vogue of publishing.

474
01:16:07.000 --> 01:16:26.379
Leo Lourdes: the best books in architecture, design, fashion, is published by Rizzoli, and my book is published by Rizzoli, and it's distributed by Penguin Random House, which is the powerhouse. It's the… one of the best, the most successful publishers in the world, and they both believed in my idea and collaborated to make this possible.

475
01:16:26.480 --> 01:16:44.420
Leo Lourdes: But then one thing it did was I was never… when I had this weakness, when I… when I said yes, I shot the arrow, and I was like, oh my god, like, how do I make this camera work again? Like, what are these settings? Should I use auto? Should I use flash? So one thing I always do is…

476
01:16:44.680 --> 01:16:47.079
Leo Lourdes: I'm never afraid of asking for help.

477
01:16:47.440 --> 01:16:51.799
Leo Lourdes: So I contacted the publisher, and I said, can you put me in touch with your top photographers?

478
01:16:51.820 --> 01:17:11.370
Leo Lourdes: I'd love to have a Zoom call with them. Like, I want the best photographers that you've published with in fashion, the best from National Geographic, the best from, you know, cultural heritage photography, and I'd love to get to know them, and they literally gave me the numbers of the top photographers in the world, and I literally became, like, a sponge.

479
01:17:11.480 --> 01:17:26.139
Leo Lourdes: I'd spend time with the photographers in their studio, watching how they photograph fashion shoots. I'd go on site with National Geographic photographers and be like a student watching how they photograph cheetahs and elephants and…

480
01:17:26.250 --> 01:17:30.090
Leo Lourdes: I became like a sponge because I wanted to absorb.

481
01:17:30.180 --> 01:17:45.539
Leo Lourdes: And they all became, like, my best friends. They became, like, my grandparents, you know, who… and some of them, they took photos of me, and they contributed that into the book as well. So I've got really top photographers that have also taken photographs in the book. And 5% of the book is done

482
01:17:45.540 --> 01:17:55.289
Leo Lourdes: by top photographers, 95% is done by Leo Lords. And I'm not a top photographer, but when you look at the book, you don't… you don't look at it and go, oh, that's where Leo was trying.

483
01:17:56.210 --> 01:17:59.769
Leo Lourdes: book is, like, consistently beautiful, right? Yeah.

484
01:17:59.930 --> 01:18:00.580
Josephine McGrail: Absolutely.

485
01:18:00.580 --> 01:18:07.929
Leo Lourdes: photograph is stunning. So I was able to… and all the photographers that took the book, they had the copy, and they were like, Leo.

486
01:18:08.250 --> 01:18:17.990
Leo Lourdes: You've done something extraordinary. You haven't had 20 years' experience like us. You literally had months where you spent time with us, and you were able to create something so beautiful

487
01:18:17.990 --> 01:18:24.410
Leo Lourdes: And, like, it's been described this way. Some people describe my yoga book as one of the most beautiful yoga books ever made. It's like…

488
01:18:24.410 --> 01:18:40.650
Leo Lourdes: it's stunning. There's nothing else quite in the market. You've got some yoga retreats books and some other destination yoga books, which are also beautiful, but nothing captures asanas and the world in such a beautiful way. And I could only do that because I'm indebted to these people.

489
01:18:40.680 --> 01:18:55.239
Leo Lourdes: I was just a humble, novice student that spent time amongst brilliant people, absorbed whatever they taught me, and when I was at the camera, they were all, like, there in spirit next to me as I took the pictures.

490
01:18:55.260 --> 01:19:02.559
Leo Lourdes: And then I was able to create this beautiful book. So what I'm saying is, also to people is, is don't be afraid to ask for help.

491
01:19:03.350 --> 01:19:07.609
Leo Lourdes: And don't be afraid to spend time with people that are better than you.

492
01:19:07.850 --> 01:19:17.570
Leo Lourdes: Don't be an egotist, don't be like, oh my god, they're so good, they make me feel inadequate, or I don't feel good around that person because they're better at this. No.

493
01:19:18.440 --> 01:19:33.120
Leo Lourdes: in many books, they talk about this, they call it the mastermind. You must surround yourself with people that are exceptional. And one thing I say to my clients, Josie, I want to share with you and your listeners as well, is with your emotions and your energy.

494
01:19:34.130 --> 01:19:40.160
Leo Lourdes: When you are in the presence of what you can call low consciousness.

495
01:19:40.630 --> 01:19:47.960
Leo Lourdes: So, you know, people that are negative, or, corrupt, or just bad energy.

496
01:19:48.400 --> 01:19:51.580
Leo Lourdes: Then it's in your interest to hold your energy.

497
01:19:51.770 --> 01:19:59.200
Leo Lourdes: To create boundaries, and make sure you don't get pulled into the negativity, and sucked into the vortex, and just dwindle down.

498
01:20:00.150 --> 01:20:05.350
Leo Lourdes: However, when you are in the company of higher energy, So…

499
01:20:05.560 --> 01:20:15.319
Leo Lourdes: I don't want to say gurus, but people that are highly intelligent, highly creative, highly spiritually awake people, then it's in your…

500
01:20:15.600 --> 01:20:17.309
Leo Lourdes: In your,

501
01:20:18.140 --> 01:20:35.570
Leo Lourdes: right to release your energy and absorb, because you can learn a lot from that higher state, and you can learn a lot. So when you're in low consciousness, you hold your energy, you do not merge with it, but when you're with higher consciousness, you merge with it, because you're really downloading a lot of amazing stuff.

502
01:20:36.280 --> 01:20:49.550
Leo Lourdes: And your duty is simply to know, when am I with better consciousness, when am I not with better consciousness? And I remember in class one day, Josie, I shared with you about the four-letter word my guru taught me.

503
01:20:49.720 --> 01:20:50.450
Josephine McGrail: Yes.

504
01:20:50.450 --> 01:20:54.349
Leo Lourdes: letter sentence. I want to share this with the listeners as well.

505
01:20:54.470 --> 01:21:07.380
Leo Lourdes: don't be for something, don't be against something. Don't be for pro-Palestine, but against, you know, trans rights. Don't be for veganism, but against, you know, Black people's rights.

506
01:21:07.380 --> 01:21:24.700
Leo Lourdes: don't be for or against anything, because when you're for and against something, yes, you believe strongly about something, and you should be passionate, and you should fight the things you believe in, 100%, because that's why the suffragettes did what they did, and women have the rights they have now. That's why Dr. Martin Luther King did what he did, and black people have their rights now.

507
01:21:24.890 --> 01:21:35.969
Leo Lourdes: Right? This is because of what Jermaine Gray did, and this is what feminists have now. So, the people that actually go forward and they take risks, they open up apertures that make it so possible for

508
01:21:36.210 --> 01:21:42.589
Leo Lourdes: greater acceptance. So, I'm not saying we shouldn't be for something, but don't be so angry about it.

509
01:21:43.040 --> 01:21:53.860
Leo Lourdes: You know, I'm for something, I'm against something. This means your energy is always, like, very, like, hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold. So, a guru in India taught me this. He said, when you come across something.

510
01:21:54.020 --> 01:22:02.919
Leo Lourdes: that's low energy, or that you don't like, don't be against it. Because if you're against it, you're still drawing its energy into your sphere.

511
01:22:02.990 --> 01:22:16.310
Leo Lourdes: You're still saying, I have a view about this, I don't like you, and I'm gonna die… I'm gonna put energy into not liking you, I'm gonna put energy into being angry with you, I'm gonna put energy into cursing you, and that's still your energy going into something negative.

512
01:22:16.550 --> 01:22:20.480
Leo Lourdes: he taught me something that really was beautiful, which I think

513
01:22:20.530 --> 01:22:36.259
Leo Lourdes: your viewers would find very useful. He says, whenever you see something that has low energy, that's denser, that's darker, it might be your own emotions, it might be something someone says, and people say things all the time, and people say things they don't mean, and it can break your heart.

514
01:22:36.290 --> 01:22:54.939
Leo Lourdes: Someone, you know, you could be dressed up for a night out, and someone could be like, I don't think that dress fits you well, because you… you might be a bit overweight, and that could break your confidence at night. But actually, the truth is that person never said that. You could have been dancing all night, free, and you might have met a hundred people, because you're… because that person didn't say that.

515
01:22:54.940 --> 01:22:58.419
Leo Lourdes: So people say things all the time, and also.

516
01:22:58.770 --> 01:23:16.600
Leo Lourdes: people say things they don't always mean, but it still breaks your heart. So you have to be… you have to understand sometimes, you know, when people do bad things, they don't always do it intentionally. And we have to practice forgiveness so we can move on. But when these people do things that are negative, or it's denser or darker.

517
01:23:16.870 --> 01:23:21.460
Leo Lourdes: All you do is you say this, I'm not that. I am not that.

518
01:23:22.030 --> 01:23:36.590
Leo Lourdes: So you're just saying, I'm not that? You're not saying I'm against it, you're not saying you're for it, you're saying, I'm not that. It means you're saying you're not that energy. And you bless it, and that energy, that darkness, and I say this in my book somewhere, but I say, you know.

519
01:23:37.520 --> 01:23:44.049
Leo Lourdes: That darkness wants to realize itself through you, because darkness is still attracted to light.

520
01:23:44.150 --> 01:24:01.660
Leo Lourdes: Darkness, you might not believe it, wants to become light. Even to this day, I promise you, if you believe some of the older religions, that Lucifer was one of the… God's most famous… not famous, most loved angels, he fell from grace because he was jealous of God and he became Satan. To this day, if…

521
01:24:01.710 --> 01:24:07.640
Leo Lourdes: Lucifer went back to God and said, I'm sorry, I kind of, like, fucked up over the last few centuries.

522
01:24:07.640 --> 01:24:12.180
Josephine McGrail: It was one big misunderstanding!

523
01:24:12.180 --> 01:24:15.869
Leo Lourdes: standing, and I'm really, I'm really sorry, I want to come back.

524
01:24:16.020 --> 01:24:20.030
Leo Lourdes: I bet you universal consciousness will say, welcome.

525
01:24:21.160 --> 01:24:30.400
Leo Lourdes: So, around darkness, sometimes, this is what people don't realize. When you're on your spiritual path, and you're doing well, you say, why am I attracting negativity?

526
01:24:30.740 --> 01:24:40.919
Leo Lourdes: Because negativity wants to become light, it hangs onto it, but it clips at your heels, and you have to learn to say, I'm not that, because if you don't say it, it drags you down.

527
01:24:40.920 --> 01:25:05.899
Josephine McGrail: I really, really love this, and it's also, you know, saying the same thing, but slightly different words, perhaps. It's just this thing that, again, what it does is it brings your energy back to you. So it's that thing of, whatever it is you're thinking about, right? You're consumed about, obsessing over, even if it's something that you dislike, but you can't stop thinking about it, talking about it, somehow being around it, right? You know that thing, obsessing

528
01:25:05.900 --> 01:25:30.860
Josephine McGrail: thinking, I'm sure we've all done it in different degrees, right? If it's something that you dislike, you're literally pouring your energy into it. You are surrounding it with your energy, right? So it's that by saying those words, I am not that, you're just reminding yourself to bring your energy back into yourself again, right? And the same thing with things that you love, experiences that you love. Of course, there can be times where it's beautiful to talk about it, obsessively, think about

529
01:25:30.860 --> 01:25:32.580
Josephine McGrail: all of that, but…

530
01:25:32.770 --> 01:25:51.130
Josephine McGrail: at the same time, we keep… if we continue to do that, then we continue to be excited about everything and everyone else that's outside of us, right? And that can make us feel great when the outer world, the external world, seems to be responding in a way that makes us feel really good about ourselves, right? We're like, yeah!

531
01:25:51.190 --> 01:26:13.050
Josephine McGrail: My empty space is still today! And then, then the external dirt world… oh, Zoom is asking if I'm playing music, that was just my little voice. And then when the external world seems to be behaving in a way that we perceive, interpret, as a way, as a declaration, confirmation that somehow we are not enough, somehow we didn't whatever enough.

532
01:26:13.360 --> 01:26:20.970
Josephine McGrail: then it's that same thing, right? Then we constantly have our energy and our eyes everywhere outside of ourselves, so by saying those words.

533
01:26:21.180 --> 01:26:27.969
Josephine McGrail: We are just returning back home to ourself, and I really love that, Leo. That's, you know, so simple.

534
01:26:28.310 --> 01:26:36.499
Leo Lourdes: mine, it's my gurus, and he shared it with me, so I'm sharing it with you, and I'm sure some of you would share it with other people, and that's how it works, you share it, you pass it on.

535
01:26:36.500 --> 01:26:37.470
Josephine McGrail: Keep us in!

536
01:26:37.470 --> 01:26:41.320
Leo Lourdes: But remember, also, you can say, I'm not that, to things you love.

537
01:26:41.560 --> 01:26:43.739
Josephine McGrail: That was my point, right? Exactly.

538
01:26:43.740 --> 01:26:45.109
Leo Lourdes: Otherwise, you have attachment.

539
01:26:45.110 --> 01:26:46.529
Josephine McGrail: That's exactly the… yeah.

540
01:26:46.710 --> 01:27:03.320
Leo Lourdes: I need that, I need to feel good, or I need to have that feeling. And nowadays, we live in this world where we need that dopamine hit, like, we always need to feel excited, and always need to feel brilliant, and always need to feel the best, and I'm like, actually, no, a psychologically balanced person has a range of emotions.

541
01:27:03.510 --> 01:27:13.720
Leo Lourdes: It has a range of emotions, so this kind of post-capitalist world we live in almost has… is built on these dopamine cycles, you know, these quick hits, quick hits, quick hits, quick hits.

542
01:27:13.720 --> 01:27:30.939
Leo Lourdes: whether someone's taking cocaine on a Saturday night, or they're eating crisps and watching nighttime Netflix TVs, you know, not going to bed, it really doesn't matter. It's the point that they're going for that quick fix. And what it does, it does a disservice to you, because, like, sugar gives you that huge hit.

543
01:27:30.970 --> 01:27:36.440
Leo Lourdes: And then the huge drop, it's not authentic. True spiritual energy is more wholesome

544
01:27:36.740 --> 01:27:42.420
Leo Lourdes: Sometimes, you go through things that are heartbreaking, heartbreaking.

545
01:27:42.870 --> 01:27:45.280
Leo Lourdes: But they are really good for you spiritually.

546
01:27:45.510 --> 01:27:47.660
Leo Lourdes: They help you grow, they help you evolve.

547
01:27:47.980 --> 01:28:02.049
Josephine McGrail: I totally agree, and it's like, I love to relate everything to nature, just because it simplifies everything for my brain. Also reminds me that we are nature, so you know, none of our plants, none of my plants at home, outside, in nature, in the forest, or in the parks.

548
01:28:02.400 --> 01:28:12.000
Josephine McGrail: Nothing blooms forever. Like, and nature fully accepts, even, like, stands tall in the dissolving process, you know?

549
01:28:12.300 --> 01:28:20.510
Josephine McGrail: like, none of my flowers are going like, well, Josie, I know I'm not gonna be pretty forever, but I'll hang on to my youth, right?

550
01:28:20.920 --> 01:28:35.140
Josephine McGrail: they don't start to cry when they start to get wrinkled, and they're losing moisture, and, you know, one day they will fall out and apart, and also the scent will no longer be sweet and beautiful, it'll be kind of yucky, and… but that's part of life, and that

551
01:28:35.240 --> 01:28:57.530
Josephine McGrail: Everything that this beautiful bunch is doing right now, that will fertilize my ground, the soil, right? Like you said, the greatest heartache can be your greatest, you know, heart-blossoming renewal. Like, through the processing of the dissolving and the allowing, we're fertilizing the ground. We are, you know, that is part of the medicine, it's part of the wheel of life.

552
01:28:57.530 --> 01:28:59.300
Josephine McGrail: And, yeah.

553
01:28:59.300 --> 01:29:02.630
Leo Lourdes: I agree, and this is why my yoga is called Brahma Yoga, because…

554
01:29:03.550 --> 01:29:09.649
Leo Lourdes: Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva. So, Brahma is the creation force, Vishnu is preservation.

555
01:29:09.810 --> 01:29:23.329
Leo Lourdes: And Shiva is the transmuter. And you have spring, when things come into being. You have summer, when things just are… all the fruit's grown, all the deers have been born, everything is like, la-la-la, it's summertime!

556
01:29:23.660 --> 01:29:27.810
Leo Lourdes: Right? And then also, Started to break down.

557
01:29:28.120 --> 01:29:35.560
Leo Lourdes: And this is the… this is the process, and I think, you know, and this is why Brahma Yoga, I respect that process, and…

558
01:29:35.560 --> 01:29:48.770
Leo Lourdes: the asanas and the mudras and the mantras in the book. There's 108 mantras that are based on… I was showing Josie the other day, based on the mala beads. So, mala beads always have

559
01:29:48.770 --> 01:30:03.049
Leo Lourdes: 108 beads, always 108. And the reason being is if you had one of the beads representing the moon, if you have 108 moons next to each other, that would be the exact distance, precisely, from planet Earth to the moon.

560
01:30:03.340 --> 01:30:18.539
Leo Lourdes: If you had 108 suns next to each other in one row, that would be precisely the distance from planet Earth to the Sun. And this is why Malahs have 108. In my book, I have 108 mantras in the book, which are,

561
01:30:18.540 --> 01:30:29.870
Leo Lourdes: a lot of them will carry the energy of what Josie and our conversation has today. Some of them people will read and they'll dismiss them, some of you might disagree with them, some of you will change your life.

562
01:30:29.870 --> 01:30:45.319
Leo Lourdes: But they will make an impact, because they… they're designed to do that. Astrologically, they're designed to help you go through your process. And ultimately, you are always a process. You're not a noun. Your name is…

563
01:30:45.620 --> 01:30:52.610
Leo Lourdes: Josie, my name is Leo, but we're not a noun, we're a process. So you are constantly processing

564
01:30:53.040 --> 01:30:55.720
Leo Lourdes: You're not… don't believe your name.

565
01:30:55.880 --> 01:31:02.519
Leo Lourdes: Don't believe your sexuality, don't believe your gender, don't believe your race. Stop believing in it.

566
01:31:03.060 --> 01:31:04.580
Leo Lourdes: be like, I'm a process.

567
01:31:04.580 --> 01:31:29.089
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and because, again, that's the same thing about attachment, right? So it's that same thing, you know, with the name, or with our past, or whatever it is, you know? We can get so attached to, well, I am who I am today, because, you know, this was my past, and this was this and that, and funnily enough, again, as we are changing, and we're allowing ourselves to change and be curious about these changes, our past changes too.

568
01:31:29.090 --> 01:31:45.260
Josephine McGrail: else does our future, right? And so we are always in movement, and everything in nature, again, is in movement. I heard this beautiful man one day, and he was talking about exactly the same thing as you just said. So he was like, you know, most conflict in life.

569
01:31:45.270 --> 01:31:59.090
Josephine McGrail: the wars we fight internally, the wars we fight externally, they all come down to the fact that we are somehow attached to the wrong identity. We forgot that we are the universe. Not only that we are all one.

570
01:31:59.110 --> 01:32:03.379
Josephine McGrail: But we are, we are nature, and nature is us, right?

571
01:32:03.380 --> 01:32:05.019
Leo Lourdes: Jersey, we're always transiting.

572
01:32:05.020 --> 01:32:05.950
Josephine McGrail: That's it.

573
01:32:06.160 --> 01:32:09.949
Leo Lourdes: We're always processing, we're always moving, you're not, you're not still.

574
01:32:10.750 --> 01:32:11.580
Leo Lourdes: Science.

575
01:32:11.730 --> 01:32:16.660
Leo Lourdes: Has proven now that whenever you access a memory, you change it.

576
01:32:16.660 --> 01:32:17.920
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, exactly!

577
01:32:17.920 --> 01:32:25.859
Leo Lourdes: the memories aren't static, and this is why people, when they're 90, they go, oh, you know, when I was a young person, I remember it this way, and you're like, no, that didn't quite happen that way.

578
01:32:25.860 --> 01:32:43.279
Leo Lourdes: And because every time you access the memory, you create new neuroplasticity, which changes it, which means a wonderful thing. It means if you've gone through trauma, if your heart has been broken, if you've lost everything, it doesn't matter. Every time you access the memory, you're gonna have a different relationship, a different meaning to that event.

579
01:32:43.280 --> 01:32:44.360
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

580
01:32:44.360 --> 01:32:58.529
Leo Lourdes: that meaning. So if you were abused, if you were hurt, if someone broke your heart, if you lost everything, all those events, when you look at them with new frames of reference, you will change the dynamic.

581
01:32:58.790 --> 01:32:59.800
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

582
01:32:59.800 --> 01:33:12.169
Leo Lourdes: talking about containers. She talks about, you know, like, you have all this energy, but you have containers, and you have rituals that you do, and what you need to do is, whatever you're going through, you need to create a new ritual. Say, okay, this happened to me.

583
01:33:14.490 --> 01:33:16.349
Leo Lourdes: Could that be something good in it?

584
01:33:16.570 --> 01:33:23.570
Leo Lourdes: Is there something in it that I don't see currently that… that is bringing goodness? Well, I went through this.

585
01:33:23.870 --> 01:33:42.400
Leo Lourdes: is it… is this something that's made me stronger? Although it broke me, it's inoculated me, like, when you get sick, and then your immune system gets stronger, has this event… has this terrible, like, spell of bad relationships improved my relationship immunity? Am I actually going to be better in relationships because of this? Like, we…

586
01:33:42.400 --> 01:33:50.649
Leo Lourdes: Instead, we go, oh no, someone's gonna break my heart again, or oh no, I'm gonna be heartbroken again, or I'm gonna lose this again. Like.

587
01:33:50.910 --> 01:33:56.349
Leo Lourdes: We lose the purity of a child, You know, children fall down.

588
01:33:56.730 --> 01:33:59.590
Leo Lourdes: They cry, they get up, and they don't stop walking.

589
01:33:59.590 --> 01:34:04.160
Josephine McGrail: Hmm, oh. I use that example all the time, I love that!

590
01:34:05.580 --> 01:34:10.999
Leo Lourdes: And why, you know, as adults, we don't function the same way. We need to, frankly.

591
01:34:11.210 --> 01:34:14.549
Leo Lourdes: We need to be… Taught to be more childlike.

592
01:34:14.550 --> 01:34:15.820
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

593
01:34:15.820 --> 01:34:16.540
Leo Lourdes: hardlight.

594
01:34:16.540 --> 01:34:20.749
Josephine McGrail: And every day, start a new game. Every day's a new playday.

595
01:34:20.910 --> 01:34:33.560
Leo Lourdes: everything is a play date, and you… you might make an enemy in the sandpit, but you shake hands and you… especially, you look at little boys, they do this a lot. They might have a little fight, but then eventually they're playing football again. There's no resentment. They're just like…

596
01:34:34.360 --> 01:34:37.209
Leo Lourdes: And… but unlike us as adults, we get…

597
01:34:37.600 --> 01:34:47.820
Leo Lourdes: Josie, we get… we get so particular, we cross our arms, we get defensive, we're like, oh my god, I can't go there again, I can't do that again, the pain is too big.

598
01:34:48.270 --> 01:34:49.790
Leo Lourdes: And we stop living.

599
01:34:50.180 --> 01:34:50.630
Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

600
01:34:50.630 --> 01:35:01.229
Leo Lourdes: And you do yourself the hugest disservice. Like, for me, I don't know… I mean, with my partner, it was for 9 years, we were very happy, and then it came to a natural end.

601
01:35:01.230 --> 01:35:14.779
Leo Lourdes: And then I kind of fell in love with marriage as a concept. And I kind of said to myself, I never want to get married again, especially after planning a destination wedding in Marrakesh with hundreds of people going, and cancelling it four weeks before.

602
01:35:14.780 --> 01:35:21.470
Leo Lourdes: And everyone's going, what the hell has happened? I almost became like, I'm never gonna get married again. I will fall in love again.

603
01:35:21.470 --> 01:35:30.430
Leo Lourdes: But I don't want to do the whole wedding planning, I don't want to do that whole thing, I felt. But then recently, like, for example, yesterday, there's a friend of mine that has a beautiful

604
01:35:30.430 --> 01:35:45.989
Leo Lourdes: healing space in, near Old Street. It's called Prana Voice. It's a beautiful space. If anyone's interested in wellness, or Qigong, or Tai Chi, or yoga, or if you're a teacher, you want to hire a space, this is one of the most beautiful spaces in London I've ever seen.

605
01:35:46.290 --> 01:36:02.269
Leo Lourdes: And because I'm writing my second book now, which is not a yoga book, but it's an autobiography, I have a lot of time in my hands. So I said to my friend, look, you know, two days a week, I can help you with your health center. I can help you grow a business, I can help promote it, I can help you because I believe in what you're doing, and

606
01:36:02.400 --> 01:36:14.049
Leo Lourdes: And I want to help you. And he was like, are you sure? Like, Leo, I can't afford your rate. I'm like, don't worry, we'll come to an arrangement. I want to do this, we'll make it happen. I really believe in your project. And he's, like, literally.

607
01:36:14.050 --> 01:36:26.640
Leo Lourdes: over the last couple of months, the business has been growing, growing, he's getting all these bookings, and things are really changing, and honestly, I think it's on its road to being one of the best wellness spaces in London. It's called Prana Voice.

608
01:36:26.830 --> 01:36:31.199
Leo Lourdes: So here I was, yesterday, looking after some of the bookings.

609
01:36:31.400 --> 01:36:50.889
Leo Lourdes: And it was a choir booking, so the big space can be used for anything, for yoga, for tai chi, but it can also be used for filming and everything like that. So he had a choir booking with a guy called Johnny that was having a choir. And I remember thinking, oh my god, there's gonna be treatments like acupuncture in the rooms, there's gonna be someone else doing Feldenkrais.

610
01:36:50.890 --> 01:37:00.270
Leo Lourdes: this choir gonna be too loud? I was, like, I was a bit worried, because I thought the loud sound of the choir might lead to complaints from

611
01:37:00.270 --> 01:37:02.280
Leo Lourdes: The people in the treatment rooms.

612
01:37:02.280 --> 01:37:04.780
Josephine McGrail: A little bit too much parano for that voice, yeah.

613
01:37:05.060 --> 01:37:09.719
Leo Lourdes: Exactly, exactly. I was really concerned about it. Anyway, Johnny turns up in his bicycle.

614
01:37:10.080 --> 01:37:28.040
Leo Lourdes: And I'm like, tell me about this choir. What are you doing? Is it, like, a religious thing? Is it like a choir recital? He says, no, actually, in a week, I'm getting married. I said, wow, that's amazing! He said, yeah, so I've got 15 people coming now that are some of the guests from the wedding, and we're preparing some songs that we're going to sing at my wedding.

615
01:37:28.040 --> 01:37:28.550
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

616
01:37:28.550 --> 01:37:38.249
Leo Lourdes: Wow! He says, yeah, what's gonna happen, though, is the other guests are not going to know. They're all going to be sitting in the congregation, and at certain points, they can just break out into songs, right?

617
01:37:38.250 --> 01:37:40.330
Josephine McGrail: That's it. Amazing.

618
01:37:40.330 --> 01:37:54.069
Leo Lourdes: And yesterday, they did their practice, and it was so musical. It was beautiful. They were singing so many beautiful songs, like, famous songs, and they were practicing it, and they're doing the harmonies and everything.

619
01:37:54.070 --> 01:37:54.600
Josephine McGrail: Whew.

620
01:37:54.600 --> 01:38:02.590
Leo Lourdes: And I checked in with the treatment rooms, and they said, no, no, we can hear it, but it sounds very nice, we don't mind, don't worry about it, it was fine. So nobody was complaining.

621
01:38:03.620 --> 01:38:08.240
Leo Lourdes: But yesterday, as much as my heart had hardened.

622
01:38:08.460 --> 01:38:15.880
Leo Lourdes: about marriages, about weddings. When I saw what Johnny was doing for his wedding, I thought, Leah, maybe…

623
01:38:16.390 --> 01:38:19.369
Leo Lourdes: Maybe you could get married again, with the right person.

624
01:38:19.550 --> 01:38:29.460
Leo Lourdes: maybe you don't have to worry about the destination wedding in Marrakesh, where you lost tens and thousands of pounds for cancelling four weeks before, and disappointing so many people.

625
01:38:31.910 --> 01:38:38.279
Leo Lourdes: Maybe it's possible. And this is what I'm trying to stay for. We need to live in a place of possibility.

626
01:38:38.280 --> 01:38:38.780
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

627
01:38:38.780 --> 01:38:47.069
Leo Lourdes: Don't be like… and I said this to Josie in one of the yoga classes after class, I'm the kind of person, if it's not a yes, it's a no.

628
01:38:47.770 --> 01:39:00.180
Leo Lourdes: If you don't feel a vibrational shift, but you feel sure about something, you don't have to do it. You can just say, no, I'm not gonna do it, right? Nobody says you have to do anything beyond your boundaries, or beyond your will, or whatever.

629
01:39:00.350 --> 01:39:01.380
Josephine McGrail: Take good note.

630
01:39:01.600 --> 01:39:03.089
Leo Lourdes: But just have hope!

631
01:39:03.300 --> 01:39:20.910
Leo Lourdes: Per possibility, and what happened yesterday in front of voice, was in my hardened heart that we'd broken up after a 9-year love affair with someone I loved, and I canceled this wedding and disappointed hundreds of guests, and canceled it, and it was all dramatic, and everything was sad, and…

632
01:39:20.910 --> 01:39:33.620
Leo Lourdes: My heart was broken, and her heart was broken, and my parents' hearts were broken. All the people that imagined a future of me and her together, had to go through the grief of realizing that future was not happening.

633
01:39:34.760 --> 01:39:41.010
Leo Lourdes: Yesterday, when I heard all the singing, and the joy, and the excitement for Johnny's wedding, I was like, it's okay.

634
01:39:41.010 --> 01:39:58.810
Leo Lourdes: it might be possible. And now I'm happy, because I'm not… I'm not saying I'm against marriages anymore. I'm not that guy anymore. I'm not that guy that's saying I'm not… no longer gonna get married. I'm that guy that's saying, well, maybe if I get married, I could have a constellation with someone where we do get married.

635
01:39:58.840 --> 01:39:59.940
Leo Lourdes: And it's okay.

636
01:40:00.340 --> 01:40:01.540
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

637
01:40:01.540 --> 01:40:03.300
Leo Lourdes: This is how we heal our heart.

638
01:40:03.730 --> 01:40:06.260
Leo Lourdes: You open that box of memories.

639
01:40:06.740 --> 01:40:09.799
Leo Lourdes: You let the tears stream down your face.

640
01:40:10.120 --> 01:40:16.750
Leo Lourdes: You let your heart race, or slow down, And you say to yourself, I got this.

641
01:40:17.200 --> 01:40:19.990
Leo Lourdes: I've got this. I can do this.

642
01:40:20.500 --> 01:40:25.199
Leo Lourdes: and you believe in yourself, and Beyonce says this… I mean, I've not met Beyonce yet.

643
01:40:25.200 --> 01:40:44.659
Leo Lourdes: But she's got my book in her house. Her team requested it, so Beyonce, I don't know when she's having her, you know, morning coffees, looking at the yoga books, getting ideas. And what I love about it is, you know, she might get an idea for an album cover. It might not be yoga, it might just be an inspiration. But she says that you have to believe in yourself.

644
01:40:44.660 --> 01:40:46.139
Leo Lourdes: When nobody else does.

645
01:40:46.630 --> 01:40:55.840
Leo Lourdes: And she also says, whenever she has performances, she always feels nervous, and she knows it's good that she feels nervous, because it's gonna be a good performance, because she cares.

646
01:40:56.160 --> 01:41:11.110
Leo Lourdes: So we can learn from Beyonce there, we can learn from sitting with our own truth, and even feeling the fear, and feeling the fear and doing it anyway, and giving yourself that permission to say, hey, maybe I had this view about marriages because I had that breakup.

647
01:41:11.290 --> 01:41:20.290
Leo Lourdes: Which lasted me for many years, but along comes a guy called Johnny in his bike, with his 15 people from his wedding that are gonna sing a random song.

648
01:41:20.610 --> 01:41:28.900
Leo Lourdes: and suddenly my heart can be open again. So, like a child, we stay open, stay aware, Stay present.

649
01:41:29.380 --> 01:41:34.050
Leo Lourdes: You never know, like, you just have no idea what the universe has in store for you.

650
01:41:34.050 --> 01:41:38.930
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and isn't that so delightful? Thank God for that.

651
01:41:38.930 --> 01:41:39.650
Leo Lourdes: Yes.

652
01:41:40.290 --> 01:41:58.700
Josephine McGrail: I really… I mean, I love all of that, and thank you so much for sharing all of that. And also for, you know, we can't force the outcome, right? So your heart was ready to reach that… that state of acceptance of… acceptance of possibility, and open… attached to nothing, open to… open to everything, right?

653
01:41:58.700 --> 01:41:59.930
Leo Lourdes: 10 plus a lot, yeah.

654
01:41:59.930 --> 01:42:14.079
Josephine McGrail: You know? But we don't force that, because again, there's a natural period that we go through, right? And again, healing is not linear, far from, right? You know, many themes will keep coming back, and it's okay, but that thing, like you said, of…

655
01:42:14.090 --> 01:42:21.149
Josephine McGrail: I really get that, and I… because actually, just briefly about myself, so a few years ago,

656
01:42:21.990 --> 01:42:46.620
Josephine McGrail: me and my then-best friend, who is also my boyfriend, we, and I thought… I think both him and I thought we would be together forever, and we decided to split up, and that same year, so I moved out of his house, and I bought my first flat, and then I couldn't live there, because it was a buy-to-let mortgage, I had to move somewhere else, and my cat died. My point is, everything was kind of dissolving, right? And of course, I knew it would be good going forward, but when you're in it, it's…

657
01:42:46.620 --> 01:42:55.470
Josephine McGrail: you know, it's heavy, it's intense, it's really sad. It's all of that. And in the midst of the whole grieving process, I was getting my keys to my new flat.

658
01:42:55.470 --> 01:43:05.879
Josephine McGrail: But what was so interesting was I got those keys, and I looked at them, and it'd been 20 years. For 20 years, I'd been saving to buy my own flat, right? And I looked at these keys, and all of a sudden, I was like.

659
01:43:06.100 --> 01:43:25.010
Josephine McGrail: oh, I'm someone who can own a flat by herself in London. And then I was like, oh, what else am I capable of? And all of a sudden, because this is it, right? Like, once your brain, brain and heart in coherence, once they are accepting of new possibilities, a new sense of identity.

660
01:43:25.290 --> 01:43:30.790
Josephine McGrail: then when we can… we can continue that thing. So I was walking down the street, and even though I was, you know, this is another thing in my book, I was like.

661
01:43:30.880 --> 01:43:47.579
Josephine McGrail: you know, you are allowed to feel good even when you're grieving. Many things can be true at once, right? So part of my heart was completely breaking and aching and all of it, and then another part of my heart, with my new keys, were like, huh! I'm someone who can own a flat, and I'm walking down the street, I'm like.

662
01:43:47.610 --> 01:44:07.010
Josephine McGrail: maybe I'm someone who can have a dog. I literally had that thought, you know? And I've been self-employed my entire life, I've traveled all over the world, my main thing was always my own freedom, right? I knew that was so important to me, so I never wanted… anyway. And then I'm looking, and I've never thought… never really thought about kids, and I'm looking at this woman who's, like, walking with her prom, and I'm like…

663
01:44:07.010 --> 01:44:12.689
Josephine McGrail: maybe I'm… maybe it's possible for me to be someone who's pregnant and has a child! And I was like, what?

664
01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:32.330
Leo Lourdes: No, it's so funny you said that, because for me, what it was is, like, being an author. It was, like, once I did my first book, and as you know, I'm working on my second book, the working title for my book is called Red Soul, and it's an autobiography. So some of the stories I've shared today, they'll be in the book, but other stories, including

665
01:44:32.330 --> 01:44:48.409
Leo Lourdes: childhood trauma, and some of the great adventures I've been through in my life, and I think it'll be a very inspirational book for people to read. It's called Red Soil. Hopefully it'll be out next year or the year after, so I'm currently writing that at the moment. But I do agree with you. You sometimes say, am I that person? Can I be that person?

666
01:44:48.420 --> 01:44:48.920
Josephine McGrail: Mmm!

667
01:44:48.920 --> 01:44:50.550
Leo Lourdes: I'd be that person that…

668
01:44:50.780 --> 01:44:55.760
Leo Lourdes: that takes risks? Can I be that person that allows myself to fall in love?

669
01:44:56.040 --> 01:44:56.770
Josephine McGrail: Right!

670
01:44:56.770 --> 01:45:01.320
Leo Lourdes: You know what I mean? And also, can you… can I be someone that has an affair with myself?

671
01:45:01.320 --> 01:45:02.485
Josephine McGrail: Right!

672
01:45:03.650 --> 01:45:15.519
Leo Lourdes: devious and cheeky with myself. Can I… can I self-love? And can I… can I… can I… can I… I might not be in a relationship, but on Valentine's Day, can I be that person that books a table for two, and…

673
01:45:15.650 --> 01:45:24.500
Leo Lourdes: goes for dinner, and takes my favorite book, or my favorite podcast, and listens to it. Can I be that person that's not going to be limited by what I don't have?

674
01:45:24.620 --> 01:45:27.079
Leo Lourdes: Mom didn't have money.

675
01:45:27.660 --> 01:45:38.120
Leo Lourdes: only buy burgers, and she could only buy value chips, and she made burger curry. And I tell you what, nowadays as adults, sometimes we still say, Mom, can you make us burger curry?

676
01:45:39.740 --> 01:45:45.069
Leo Lourdes: I have other things now, but it just… it just has nostalgia to it, because my mom…

677
01:45:45.340 --> 01:45:51.490
Leo Lourdes: She cooks with love, and one thing I always say is, even if you don't have much, do it with love.

678
01:45:52.290 --> 01:46:11.809
Leo Lourdes: you know, you might be there, and you might be starting a new career, and only… you might only have a few clients, but with those clients, can you do it with love? You might be on dates, and on speed dating, or you might be going through apps and meeting people, but even the people you meet, even if you're not fully connecting, can you still do it with love?

679
01:46:12.170 --> 01:46:18.959
Leo Lourdes: You might not have much money, but you go to the shop and you buy whatever ingredients you have. Can you still cook that food with love?

680
01:46:19.080 --> 01:46:23.709
Leo Lourdes: Do it with love. Do it with love, and you'll always be fine.

681
01:46:25.140 --> 01:46:46.279
Leo Lourdes: And, you know, I have… I do coaching as well, so I do my yoga by my… because of my psychology background, I do executive coaching and some… something along those lines for people. And I still have some clients I've had for years, and they're like, I know you're this big shop, best-selling author now, and you're a yoga guru, but can you still do my coaching? I'm like, yeah, okay, I'll do my coaching for you.

682
01:46:46.280 --> 01:46:53.579
Leo Lourdes: And… One of the things I really, really believe is that when you… when you do things.

683
01:46:53.940 --> 01:46:55.920
Leo Lourdes: You have to do it with love.

684
01:46:55.920 --> 01:46:56.780
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

685
01:46:57.370 --> 01:47:01.009
Leo Lourdes: And if love is not present, you've got to be like, what the hell am I doing here?

686
01:47:01.360 --> 01:47:09.279
Josephine McGrail: 100%, Leo, and it's also that thing of, like, I mean, first of all, our life is made out of everyday moments.

687
01:47:09.280 --> 01:47:09.780
Leo Lourdes: Yes.

688
01:47:09.780 --> 01:47:13.830
Josephine McGrail: It's that simple, you know, like, it really is. And so, if you, you know.

689
01:47:13.830 --> 01:47:29.979
Josephine McGrail: and I'm not saying, you know, like, you know, I've been fortunate, so have you, to find things that you love, and you can also make a living from, and all of that, right? And you've been creative, as have I. But even if what you do for a living is not really where you're like, well, that's my major love, but…

690
01:47:29.980 --> 01:47:46.269
Josephine McGrail: can we still find a, you know, an aspect of that that is lovable? So maybe, is it bringing in a steady income that therefore can provide a gorgeous, beautiful home for, like a haven for yourself and loved ones? Whatever it is, right? Because, you know.

691
01:47:47.360 --> 01:47:50.920
Josephine McGrail: A, our life is made out of everyday moments, but also B,

692
01:47:51.110 --> 01:47:56.860
Josephine McGrail: You know, if you find something, and ideally a few things, that you are in love with with your life.

693
01:47:57.040 --> 01:48:09.780
Josephine McGrail: You will do it when it's raining, when it's sunny, when there's a global pandemic, when you lose everything, when you win everything, when you are in love, when you are going through the greatest heartache of your life, you'll still do it.

694
01:48:09.970 --> 01:48:21.759
Leo Lourdes: Exactly, exactly, and it's funny, it's funny you say that, because I used to have a Russian billionaire client. He's still my client, but I see him once in a while, and he made himself a lot of money.

695
01:48:21.760 --> 01:48:36.439
Leo Lourdes: Just from scratch. So, he was very poor, like, like, forget burger, curry, and chips. He sometimes had days without food. So, we're talking about the Soviet, old Soviet Union, and he was very struggling. He became a very successful, billionaire.

696
01:48:37.190 --> 01:48:39.800
Leo Lourdes: But he is very funny about money.

697
01:48:40.310 --> 01:48:50.090
Leo Lourdes: Like, he's literally like, what's that director doing? Is he taking money? This person, they're taking money. He'd literally go out for dinner with his mum, and he'd expect his mum to pay for half the meal.

698
01:48:50.690 --> 01:48:52.230
Leo Lourdes: And I said to him.

699
01:48:52.500 --> 01:48:57.709
Leo Lourdes: I said to him, you might be wealthy with money, but your heart is poor.

700
01:48:58.170 --> 01:49:01.109
Leo Lourdes: Your heart is poor, because you're not… you're not sharing.

701
01:49:01.470 --> 01:49:14.010
Leo Lourdes: You're literally watching everything, and you're worrying about everything, and you're worrying about money, and yes, you've amassed a lot of wealth, but you're still that poor kid, because you're worried there's not enough money. You could pay for your mum's dinner.

702
01:49:14.290 --> 01:49:26.869
Leo Lourdes: you could… you could do stuff like what I do with the orphanage in Himalayas. I go and I help with the orphanage. I take a task force of people. Every couple of years, we go to this orphanage and we teach the kids, we look after them, we play with them.

703
01:49:26.870 --> 01:49:43.139
Leo Lourdes: And we also do some trekking in the Himalayas. I teach the yoga, but for free. I don't charge for it. It's not like a yoga retreat. It's like a volunteer project, so you get your own tickets, you get your own accommodation, your own food, but I provide the yoga, but you come and you help and look after the children. That's all I want you to do.

704
01:49:43.380 --> 01:49:58.929
Leo Lourdes: So I've taken doctors, fashion designers, teachers, I've taken all these people that are clients to this orphanage many times. And what, for me, is the most joyful feeling is when you do something and your heart feels rich.

705
01:49:58.930 --> 01:49:59.870
Josephine McGrail: Hmm?

706
01:49:59.870 --> 01:50:12.639
Leo Lourdes: No, it's not like the money. It's not like, have I got this money? Is my shares going up? Or is… oh, I paid this for dinner, and he's not paid that for dinner, or… it's not none of that. It's like, how rich is your heart?

707
01:50:12.940 --> 01:50:17.030
Leo Lourdes: How wealthy is your heart? Are you a billionaire in your heart?

708
01:50:17.200 --> 01:50:20.649
Leo Lourdes: Like, can you love so unstoppably

709
01:50:20.950 --> 01:50:28.949
Leo Lourdes: That you could literally have a harem of husbands and wives, and be in a polyamorous relationship, and have enough love to go around.

710
01:50:28.950 --> 01:50:34.210
Josephine McGrail: Yes. Right? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

711
01:50:34.210 --> 01:50:39.959
Leo Lourdes: That's not for most people. It's not for me anyway, but what I'm trying to say is that, are you rich in your heart?

712
01:50:39.960 --> 01:50:59.240
Josephine McGrail: 100%. It's that thing of, you know, are you… are you scared? Because, again, it's a scarcity mindset, right? So, scarcity mindset is… it lives in the body, right? It's a somatic experience. It's that… it's that same thing. Are you holding on to your love because you're scared you're gonna run out, right? Are you holding on to your money because you're scared someone is going to steal it? Whatever it is, it's that thing of…

713
01:50:59.240 --> 01:51:14.600
Josephine McGrail: You know, and whatever it is we hold onto, not only do we perhaps potentially keep fear out, but we also stop ourself from actually feeling and feeling the richness of our life experience, feeling the love, letting love in, letting love meet us, right?

714
01:51:14.720 --> 01:51:15.760
Josephine McGrail: Yeah.

715
01:51:15.760 --> 01:51:20.790
Leo Lourdes: And do you know, it's funny you say that. You always… also, I think that it's important to act as if.

716
01:51:21.390 --> 01:51:26.920
Leo Lourdes: So, like I did with photography, look, I'm not the best… I'm not ranking, but ranking is my friend.

717
01:51:26.920 --> 01:51:41.509
Josephine McGrail: And also, can I just share, because I have just looked at your beautiful book yesterday, and the photos are incredibly beautiful. And by the way, I was a model for 14 years, so I do know a little bit about what I'm saying. Yeah. There we go.

718
01:51:41.620 --> 01:51:51.000
Leo Lourdes: I surround myself with people that I said that are better than me, that can teach me, that can… like Jimmy Nelson, who's one of the most respected anthropologists, photographers.

719
01:51:51.000 --> 01:52:04.150
Leo Lourdes: He's literally, on my book, he's the one that's helped me with it, and he's shaped it, he's given a great review for it. Like, this guy I respect so much. On the global stage, he does the most beautiful anthropological photographs.

720
01:52:04.150 --> 01:52:22.609
Leo Lourdes: Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, they do the most beautiful photography of ancient African tribes. They're my best friends, and literally, they helped me with my books so much. They helped get… helped me get the deal with the publisher, because they believed in me. They're like, hey, there's this guy who does yoga, you should do a book with him, and they were like, okay, then everything started to happen. Same thing.

721
01:52:23.000 --> 01:52:30.700
Leo Lourdes: It's like, the way I look at it is, you know… You have to…

722
01:52:30.830 --> 01:52:32.940
Leo Lourdes: You have to have an open heart.

723
01:52:33.720 --> 01:52:37.700
Leo Lourdes: You know, so if things break you down, strike you down, whatever.

724
01:52:37.900 --> 01:52:43.179
Leo Lourdes: you'd be like, okay, these are battle wounds, but let me get back out there. Let me get…

725
01:52:43.440 --> 01:52:48.580
Leo Lourdes: You know what I mean? And not giving up on yourself. Back to what I said about what Beyonce said, just never give up on yourself.

726
01:52:48.580 --> 01:52:54.469
Josephine McGrail: Oh, 100%, and it's also, you know, like, it's just that thing of, like.

727
01:52:55.250 --> 01:53:09.930
Josephine McGrail: just get really good at failing. Like, get really good at, you know, like, if the worst thing in the world for you is a no, or a rejection, or someone being ridicul- you know, ridiculing you, I don't know how you say it in English, but, you know, that thing, like, putting you down.

728
01:53:09.930 --> 01:53:30.840
Josephine McGrail: You know, yeah, but… so it's that thing of, like, what if I fall? Yes, but what if you fly? And if you do not ask, then it's 100% certain it won't happen, you know, right? So it's that thing of, like, I love how you said, and thank you so… Honestly, Leo, thank you so much for sharing your life and yourself and your heart so extremely honestly.

729
01:53:30.850 --> 01:53:44.920
Josephine McGrail: Thank you. Because, you know, but this is so important, because that's why, that's why I do these podcasts in the first place, right? So, yes, I have amazing people on, but it's not just the, oh, ABC, look at me. It's people like yourself that are like, fuck, I have all these things going on.

730
01:53:44.920 --> 01:54:05.840
Josephine McGrail: And it's not like it was easy for me to just ask the, you know, the first and the right person, all of that, but I did it anyway. And also, you were fully open, because that's the same thing, right? So, open to everything, attached to nothing. You will ask a question, you will ask for help, but if it doesn't happen, it's okay. There will be another way, right? So it's that thing of… similar to, you know, I have…

731
01:54:05.840 --> 01:54:06.700
Josephine McGrail: So…

732
01:54:06.700 --> 01:54:31.540
Josephine McGrail: again, I was a dancer, and people would… I remember very early on when I came to London, I became friends with people that were a lot older than me, which was such a privilege. Also made sense, because, you know, I was 16, it just… I was, of course, drawn to people that felt a little bit more stable in certain ways, but sometimes… I guess they were drawn to me because I had so much enthusiasm and so much excitement, but they would… I remember I once had this woman with me, and she was crying her heart.

733
01:54:31.540 --> 01:54:36.559
Josephine McGrail: cried out, and she was like, JC, all I wanted to do in my life was dance and be a singer.

734
01:54:36.560 --> 01:54:54.670
Josephine McGrail: You know, she was in her mid-30s, and I was like, well, why don't you dance and sing? Like, I'm not even talking about, like, but without the pressure of it having to be your full-time career, and you having to be on Broadway, like, if that happens, great, but do what you do, because you can't not do it. Like.

735
01:54:54.670 --> 01:55:04.069
Josephine McGrail: Start dancing around in your house at home. That's dancing! Do you know what I mean? Like, start singing! Woo! Right? Like, I know you produce music as well, you sing, like…

736
01:55:04.140 --> 01:55:15.559
Josephine McGrail: do all these things out of love. Like, don't do it with an agenda. Don't do it with, like, oh, I must do XYZ, and then everything's gonna be great. Like, life happens here and now.

737
01:55:16.070 --> 01:55:17.180
Josephine McGrail: Yeah, so…

738
01:55:17.180 --> 01:55:17.680
Leo Lourdes: And dump?

739
01:55:17.980 --> 01:55:19.120
Leo Lourdes: This is the…

740
01:55:19.250 --> 01:55:23.929
Leo Lourdes: And both you and I know this, and we've discussed this in the past, but time is not linear.

741
01:55:23.930 --> 01:55:24.520
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

742
01:55:24.690 --> 01:55:39.780
Leo Lourdes: time is happening now, and in the present moment, and that's why, like, some of the cultures, the older cultures, like Egyptian culture and so on, they live through time. They don't really believe in, like, you know, past, present, future. It's like, you're in the eternal present of now.

743
01:55:40.410 --> 01:55:43.239
Leo Lourdes: And so, if you are someone

744
01:55:45.020 --> 01:55:49.260
Leo Lourdes: Might be open… you might be open-minded, and you might be like, okay.

745
01:55:52.440 --> 01:55:55.480
Leo Lourdes: So, like, I'm literally… it's going so well.

746
01:55:55.480 --> 01:55:59.050
Josephine McGrail: We're going so high that all I see is the sky.

747
01:55:59.710 --> 01:56:05.409
Leo Lourdes: But, it's… I completely lost my track of thought. What was I just saying?

748
01:56:05.410 --> 01:56:09.569
Josephine McGrail: You're saying… you're talking about the Egyptians and how they… time isn't linear?

749
01:56:09.570 --> 01:56:25.729
Leo Lourdes: Yes, you live in the eternal moment of now. So, I don't know, people have different beliefs, but, for example, if you were open to the concept of reincarnation, you're not just living now, you're living all your past lives, and also all your future lives. So, like, if you…

750
01:56:26.680 --> 01:56:44.899
Leo Lourdes: I write this in my book as well, and I think the important thing to remember about my book is, it's me. I've literally given birth to something that is like a… and you said it, and it was such a compliment, thank you, Josie, you called it a legacy. So it's a book that has a legacy. But I say in my book, in the context of forever.

751
01:56:44.950 --> 01:56:47.079
Leo Lourdes: You have all the time in the world.

752
01:56:47.890 --> 01:56:56.650
Leo Lourdes: So if you are a spiritual being having a human experience, or a human being having a spiritual experience, like Dr. Wayne Dyer said, who's another amazing

753
01:56:57.820 --> 01:57:22.430
Leo Lourdes: Everyone should read Dr. Wayne Dyer. He's late now, but he's one of the best spiritual authors I've ever come across. And even if you go on YouTube and you look for his 101 affirmations, you'll love it. It'll be very transformative. If you're going through a tough time, or you're uncertain or difficult, the 101 affirmations will really help you spiritually be back on track. And it's available for free on YouTube. Just search 101 Affirmations.

754
01:57:22.670 --> 01:57:25.120
Leo Lourdes: by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

755
01:57:25.120 --> 01:57:25.620
Josephine McGrail: that…

756
01:57:25.620 --> 01:57:26.300
Leo Lourdes: Bob?

757
01:57:26.470 --> 01:57:37.910
Leo Lourdes: Anyway, he says, are you a human being having a spiritual experience, or you have a spiritual being having a human experience? And my belief is you're a spiritual being having a human experience, so you've incarnated now.

758
01:57:38.020 --> 01:57:44.059
Leo Lourdes: I've incarnated into this, you know, half Indian, quarter French, quarter Malaysian.

759
01:57:44.300 --> 01:57:52.699
Leo Lourdes: version of George Clooney, I believe, for my confidence, it might not be true. You might look at it and be like, okay, I can't see the George Clooney thing. Maybe I could…

760
01:57:52.700 --> 01:57:56.350
Josephine McGrail: Come on, you're super charming, and you know…

761
01:57:56.350 --> 01:58:05.290
Leo Lourdes: Yeah, and you know, maybe in the 20s I could do it, I can't do it anyway, but anyway, anyway, George Clooney. It's… I've incarnated in this time to be Leo Lords.

762
01:58:05.390 --> 01:58:14.679
Leo Lourdes: And maybe in my past, I've been a woman. Maybe in my past, I've been a man. Maybe in my past, I've been a dog, or a cat, or a flower, or a pebble.

763
01:58:14.960 --> 01:58:34.329
Leo Lourdes: But this is not a new soul. And if you're truthful to yourself, and you go deep, you realize, especially when you're familiar with things, you go through life, you're like, I recognize this, or I feel like I've learned this somewhere before, or I've been to this place, but I can't… I don't know why, but I resonate with it on a deep level.

764
01:58:34.330 --> 01:58:44.539
Leo Lourdes: If you come from that viewpoint, you are a human being that maybe has been around before, has been born, and has died, and has come back, and will continue to do so.

765
01:58:44.990 --> 01:58:48.569
Leo Lourdes: And you have the absolute ability

766
01:58:48.960 --> 01:58:54.530
Leo Lourdes: To use all of that, not just your current life, but potentially your past lives.

767
01:58:54.530 --> 01:58:55.320
Josephine McGrail: Mmm.

768
01:58:55.320 --> 01:59:01.790
Leo Lourdes: your other existences. You know, if you're not patient, you could be like, hey, you know, in incarnation before, I was a pebble.

769
01:59:02.800 --> 01:59:06.609
Leo Lourdes: So let me, let me channel my pebbleness.

770
01:59:06.800 --> 01:59:11.469
Leo Lourdes: To be liable, so I can make sure I get through this challenge.

771
01:59:11.800 --> 01:59:12.520
Leo Lourdes: You know?

772
01:59:12.670 --> 01:59:22.380
Josephine McGrail: I loved it so much, Leo, and it's so sweet, because my ex-boyfriend, he used to, because he was always, he was very good at handling conflict, he would just be, like, very calm.

773
01:59:22.380 --> 01:59:22.850
Leo Lourdes: God.

774
01:59:22.850 --> 01:59:35.440
Josephine McGrail: And then we would have this joke that he would always be like, be the pebble. So when you were saying it now, you were like, I'll channel my inner pebble! I was like, I did 6 years of inner channeling the pebble! I am!

775
01:59:35.600 --> 01:59:37.789
Josephine McGrail: the pebble!

776
01:59:37.790 --> 01:59:40.469
Leo Lourdes: Oh, here you go, there's the pebble, you know, it's like…

777
01:59:40.650 --> 01:59:46.529
Leo Lourdes: Pebble. But it's, it's, it's, yeah, just entertaining, and I don't really want to, like.

778
01:59:47.330 --> 02:00:06.329
Leo Lourdes: step on people's beliefs. Some people might be like, no, no, no, I don't… I'm atheist, or… but so what? Even if you're atheist, you can still believe in the beauty of nature, you can still believe in the seasons of nature, you can still believe in life and death, you might not know what happens before and after, but at least you're being honest, right? At least you're saying, hey, I don't know.

779
02:00:06.330 --> 02:00:26.539
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and also just the miracle of the physicality, right? Like, so think about it, we spend 9 months, right? 9 months inside in creation, right? Yes. And whilst we're in there, we're not lying there going, hey, I need to talk to my AI, ChatGBT, making sure I get the perfect 5-finger hand, right?

780
02:00:26.540 --> 02:00:28.760
Josephine McGrail: It just happens, right?

781
02:00:28.760 --> 02:00:33.859
Josephine McGrail: We allow whatever it is. We don't even allow it! We're like, it's happening, we're in the making!

782
02:00:33.860 --> 02:00:44.130
Leo Lourdes: And do you know what the interesting thing is, Josie? It's, like, probably the most comfortable hotel in the world, to go back to that experience, because you're literally in a hotel where you have 4-hour room service.

783
02:00:44.270 --> 02:00:44.780
Leo Lourdes: Literally.

784
02:00:45.460 --> 02:01:00.770
Leo Lourdes: is provided. You have no gravity, you're literally living in this… we're almost like a dolphin. We're not… we're almost like a fish, living in that embryonic environment with water, no oxygen. We're living like that for 9 months. We're almost like a fish, or like…

785
02:01:00.770 --> 02:01:08.839
Leo Lourdes: Like a dolphin or a whale, and we come into this world with hard edges, and oxygen, and falling, and crying, and blood.

786
02:01:09.220 --> 02:01:11.580
Leo Lourdes: wounds and… Gross.

787
02:01:11.810 --> 02:01:13.030
Leo Lourdes: Hardship.

788
02:01:13.780 --> 02:01:16.330
Leo Lourdes: You know, half of us…

789
02:01:16.470 --> 02:01:21.859
Leo Lourdes: would love to have that experience again. If someone invents that, like, please, I'm in.

790
02:01:21.860 --> 02:01:37.840
Leo Lourdes: I think Josie's in as well. If you could take me into an experience where I could recreate being in the room, and sometimes I've had that. I've had that feeling in flotation tanks, you know, you can go in these flotation tanks, and it's got lots of salt, and you lie on it, and they cover all the sensories away.

791
02:01:37.870 --> 02:01:50.180
Leo Lourdes: And I've had a couple of experiences, like, in flotation tanks where I've come close to experiencing what it was like in wombs. I know some therapists, they do rebirthing. I know there's different feels.

792
02:01:50.640 --> 02:01:51.640
Leo Lourdes: do that.

793
02:01:51.640 --> 02:02:07.669
Josephine McGrail: There's two things here that's really interesting. So, first of all, I think we would need to… we would need to get the heartbeat of your mother, and then get the heartbeat in there, you know, in earphones, like, just to really make it as authentic as possible, because it's that heartbeat, right? It's her heart rhythm, and it's also…

794
02:02:07.670 --> 02:02:32.470
Josephine McGrail: how, you know, that informs your nervous system, and how that, I mean, obviously carries through your genetics, through your life. You know, your mom's nervous system, her heartbeat, right? All of that. And also that her heartbeat, you're not hearing it through your ears, you're feeling it. It's a vibration, right? It's a movement, it's a wave, so you're feeling her heartbeat in you. It's… I mean, it's wild, so there's that. And then there's the second thing, I know you want to say something, but just a second.

795
02:02:32.670 --> 02:02:48.059
Josephine McGrail: You and I could literally talk for fucking million of days and miles, and probably have been several lifetimes, and I love it. But, the second thing, right, which just blows my mind, so think about it, when we were in there.

796
02:02:48.460 --> 02:03:13.449
Josephine McGrail: you know, and this again depends on your beliefs, and I'm not gonna say, you know, again, similar to you, I'm so for everything and nothing all in one, and so, you know, but when we're in there, from a physical perspective, that is all we know, right? It's literally all we know. It's our entire cosmos, right? It's how we experience life at that moment in time. Then we arrive to this planet, and now we have another knowing, and again, once you know something.

797
02:03:13.450 --> 02:03:17.049
Josephine McGrail: can't unknow it. Once you've seen something, you can't unsee it, right? Once you've…

798
02:03:17.260 --> 02:03:36.899
Josephine McGrail: gone into that state, literally. So then what's so exciting is, so then, you know, of course, some of us may have, you know, strong ideas, or even memories of previous lifetimes, or also what dying feels like, right? Or what happens in the space in between death, and then the next rebirth if you're into reincarnation, like I am. So.

799
02:03:37.240 --> 02:03:40.650
Josephine McGrail: Many people have different experiences, but it's just that thing of…

800
02:03:41.260 --> 02:03:43.920
Josephine McGrail: Because sitting here right now, right here.

801
02:03:43.920 --> 02:04:06.890
Josephine McGrail: I'm not fully 100% sure, like, so then the dying process, how does that feel, and what do we enter then, right? Because we can sit here and go, well, when we were in the room, because again, from the psychological perspective, the brain always loves what it knows, right? So we're like, well, womb was good! Like you said, food on tap? Tick! Love on tap? Tick! Safety?

802
02:04:06.940 --> 02:04:21.660
Josephine McGrail: you know, flowy things, yummy, hmm. All needs, all needs supplied at any time, right? But then we come out here, and like, yes, of course, all the other things, and we also have a thinking brain now, and, you know, separation, all of that, but also…

803
02:04:21.730 --> 02:04:38.760
Josephine McGrail: it's still all we know here, right? So, like, we… so then, if we go to the next, wherever that next is, could be a different planet, could be the process of dying, could be afterlife, could be in between lives. There's so much unknown, right? But… but we could be looking back and going, but, well, when I was on Earth, right?

804
02:04:38.760 --> 02:04:57.469
Josephine McGrail: when I was on Earth, because something that, I mean, I'm fascinated with people that have had near-death experiences, and I've read several books by people that were hypnotized all of that, but what people talk a lot about is this thing that we come to Earth, we may choose to come to Earth, and again, there's different beliefs.

805
02:04:57.470 --> 02:05:22.299
Josephine McGrail: But actually, people… people miss feeling. They miss the physicality of being a human being with a human heart, the tangibility of all of the emotions, right? Which is so funny, because it's such a contradiction, because we're here as human beings in life now, we're like, well, the emotions are intense at times, right? And then on the other side, apparently, sometimes what people are missing is the…

806
02:05:22.580 --> 02:05:35.839
Josephine McGrail: wow, the ability to feel the highest highs, the lowest lows, like, all of it, like, the layeredness of the human being experience. Anyway, just wanted to add that in on a little philosophical note.

807
02:05:35.840 --> 02:05:49.039
Leo Lourdes: No, that's beautiful, and I really relate to that, because I think… I think it… it doesn't really matter if people believe in reincarnation or not. It's back… back to that thing of whether you believe in process, whether nature has a cycle.

808
02:05:49.040 --> 02:05:49.680
Josephine McGrail: That's it.

809
02:05:49.680 --> 02:06:02.350
Leo Lourdes: As we come from, you know, we come into flesh and bones, and eventually we become ashes, and we get recycled, and we literally have stardust in us, because of the way the whole cosmos works.

810
02:06:02.730 --> 02:06:09.399
Leo Lourdes: even if you're someone that's atheist, or you're unsure, or you're agnostic, so you're saying it's so big, I don't understand it.

811
02:06:09.400 --> 02:06:09.900
Josephine McGrail: Okay.

812
02:06:09.900 --> 02:06:11.879
Leo Lourdes: matter, I think have some humility.

813
02:06:12.100 --> 02:06:14.420
Leo Lourdes: And always look at nature with a big N.

814
02:06:14.420 --> 02:06:15.180
Josephine McGrail: But maybe…

815
02:06:15.180 --> 02:06:17.349
Leo Lourdes: Nature is like our grandparents. It knows everything.

816
02:06:19.100 --> 02:06:25.049
Leo Lourdes: And when you spoke, it made me think about two things in particular. One is, technically.

817
02:06:25.280 --> 02:06:30.980
Leo Lourdes: The hardest, most traumatic experience in our life We've already been through.

818
02:06:30.980 --> 02:06:31.850
Josephine McGrail: Right.

819
02:06:31.850 --> 02:06:33.910
Leo Lourdes: We went from the womb.

820
02:06:33.910 --> 02:06:34.590
Josephine McGrail: Exactly.

821
02:06:34.590 --> 02:06:39.610
Leo Lourdes: harmonious space of food on tap, 24-hour room service, everything.

822
02:06:39.990 --> 02:06:42.039
Leo Lourdes: Love, everything.

823
02:06:42.530 --> 02:06:48.370
Leo Lourdes: And… and also, we're in this weird environment, like an… like a fish, or like a whale, or a dolphin.

824
02:06:48.400 --> 02:07:04.389
Leo Lourdes: But at the same time, we're hearing, like, the hollow sounds of the outside world. You know, there's a theory that psychologists have why babies… when mothers hold babies, they try to stop the baby crying, but they pass the baby to the father, and the father talks to the baby, and the baby stops crying.

825
02:07:04.390 --> 02:07:14.090
Leo Lourdes: And there's a theory which is, when the mother talks to the baby when she's pregnant, because of all the amniotic fluid, the mother's voice sounds like a male voice.

826
02:07:14.310 --> 02:07:28.430
Leo Lourdes: Because of the sound. By the time the sound travels, it sounds deeper. So when the baby's crying, and the mum's saying, oh, please, oh, baby, please, please, please, and pass it to Dan Dad, he's like, okay, are you okay? And the baby's like, oh yeah, I'm fine.

827
02:07:29.370 --> 02:07:44.439
Leo Lourdes: Because of deep voice. So these two things, you've got this… the fact we're curious about this outer world that we're hearing through the womb amniotic fluid, but at the same time, we go from that beautiful environment, which is controlled conditions.

828
02:07:45.090 --> 02:07:59.850
Leo Lourdes: a tight birth canal, into some doctors slapping our bottoms so we start breathing, and then someone cutting the umbilical cord. Hang on, what are you doing? For 9 months? I've had that cord, everything's been provided, what are you doing? Stop, stop, stop!

829
02:08:00.210 --> 02:08:15.780
Leo Lourdes: And then it's like, and then we get that first breath, the lungs know what to do, and we might cry, we might not cry. And then we also know how to grab the finger of the doctor. You know, you feel the finger of a baby's grip, it's so strong, because it's saying, don't let go, I need you.

830
02:08:15.860 --> 02:08:35.270
Leo Lourdes: biologically, I need you, you can't… I can't survive on my own. The grip is so strong. For a little baby, that grip is super strong. And then it also knows to go for the mother's breast. And also, it's a funny thing, as a guy, when you carry a baby, sometimes they try to go for your nipple, because they, like, they're so used to searching for the nipple. So one is nurture.

831
02:08:35.620 --> 02:08:44.139
Leo Lourdes: On one hand, it's nature, and from the day you're born, that nature and nurture starts to kick in, and you start taking risks.

832
02:08:44.410 --> 02:08:49.569
Leo Lourdes: You start living every day, you go through the tears, you go through… and you know, you…

833
02:08:49.640 --> 02:08:57.820
Leo Lourdes: we think that in life, you know, all you have to do is say yes. You know, maybe a lot of us are yes people. We say yes to our boss, you know.

834
02:08:57.820 --> 02:09:10.640
Leo Lourdes: your boyfriend or girlfriend says, oh, tonight should we have, you know, like, Moroccan food? You're like, yeah, but really you want Chinese food. But you just say yes, because you want to keep things sweet. So we say yes, and I think there's something beautiful about saying yes to the universe.

835
02:09:10.690 --> 02:09:12.850
Leo Lourdes: But where you've got your power.

836
02:09:13.430 --> 02:09:17.650
Leo Lourdes: Your first power was not with yes, but was with no.

837
02:09:18.070 --> 02:09:28.739
Leo Lourdes: That's when you first stated your first boundary. So you were getting this white stuff called milk from your mother's breast, and everything was fine, and along came broccoli!

838
02:09:29.940 --> 02:09:34.439
Leo Lourdes: On this fork, you're like, what the hell is that?

839
02:09:35.970 --> 02:09:55.960
Leo Lourdes: You just won the white stuff, you just won the milk. Frankly, most men would be happy with breast milk for the rest of their lives. They behave right, attached to their mothers forever, you know, like, not really letting go. But the truth is, we're kids, we're getting this breast milk, and everything was provided, and everything was great, and then along comes broccoli and ruins everything.

840
02:09:55.960 --> 02:09:56.610
Josephine McGrail: Right.

841
02:09:56.610 --> 02:10:00.650
Leo Lourdes: You know what you do? You see that broccoli, and you kind of go, no!

842
02:10:01.680 --> 02:10:19.990
Leo Lourdes: And at that point, you stand… you literally are standing up to the giant who has been feeding you, cleaning your poo, doing everything for you, and you little thing, you little human being, you baby, baby, chicka-poo-poo, you get the confidence to stand up to the giant and say no to broccoli.

843
02:10:20.210 --> 02:10:22.200
Leo Lourdes: Because we want your milk.

844
02:10:23.040 --> 02:10:24.909
Leo Lourdes: So, when we get our power.

845
02:10:25.180 --> 02:10:31.619
Leo Lourdes: This is the power of no. Yes, we can say yes, but sometimes you've got to say, no. I'm not that.

846
02:10:32.880 --> 02:10:33.600
Leo Lourdes: Right?

847
02:10:34.390 --> 02:10:46.639
Leo Lourdes: So, yes, we say yes, but also, no, you're no. And the other day, we were talking about that after class, Josie, if you recall, when I was… was saying the difference between boundaries and thresholds.

848
02:10:46.640 --> 02:10:58.020
Leo Lourdes: And I write about this in Red Soul, I write about this as one of the key learnings, because for me, it's such an important thing. So when you have a boundary, is when you set a parameter where you say, no, that's not okay.

849
02:10:58.090 --> 02:11:01.810
Leo Lourdes: Oh, please don't touch my body without my permission. Sorry.

850
02:11:02.510 --> 02:11:08.470
Leo Lourdes: please don't do that. You know, I might be in Italy, and you might think it's kind of cool to pinch my bum, but I'm actually a feminist, and…

851
02:11:08.620 --> 02:11:21.730
Leo Lourdes: I'd rather pinch your bum. You know, so it's like, it's… you gotta know what the no's are, you've got to know what your boundaries are, and these are usually based on values and principles, and we should all have boundaries, so some of us

852
02:11:21.730 --> 02:11:29.500
Leo Lourdes: Today, we should get a piece of paper and just say, what are my boundaries? Let me really get this down. What are my no's? What are my non-negotiables?

853
02:11:29.500 --> 02:11:30.470
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

854
02:11:30.470 --> 02:11:37.800
Leo Lourdes: But then, Alternately, you also have thresholds. So you have these… these parameters

855
02:11:38.010 --> 02:11:41.419
Leo Lourdes: Where life invites you to go a bit further.

856
02:11:41.580 --> 02:11:47.839
Leo Lourdes: You might have a bit of fear around it, you might be taking a risk with an investor in a business, you have a hunch.

857
02:11:48.130 --> 02:12:04.589
Leo Lourdes: you don't know what it is. This person, you know, might not have the credentials, but you believe in them, and you take a risk, and you're like, I'm gonna take a risk on this person because I believe, and they are the next, you know, Elon Musk or whatever, right? You just don't know. Take a risk, and you feel a feeling, you feel a hunch.

858
02:12:04.850 --> 02:12:17.509
Leo Lourdes: So thresholds are where we have a feeling, but we actually are invited, karmically, to go into it, because we can grow, we can evolve, we can try that. So it might be that you… you might be a woman.

859
02:12:17.890 --> 02:12:21.390
Leo Lourdes: You've never been kissed by a woman, but you might be a bit curious.

860
02:12:21.650 --> 02:12:34.489
Leo Lourdes: okay, you might have a boundary, you might be like, actually, I don't want to do that because it's not what I'm doing for religious reasons, whatever reasons, and if that's what… that's what you feel, then don't worry about it, that's okay. You've made a decision, you can rest with it, you can have a happy life, don't worry.

861
02:12:34.650 --> 02:12:39.800
Leo Lourdes: But you might be that woman that's like, actually, I'm gonna take a risk and kiss a woman.

862
02:12:40.000 --> 02:12:55.560
Leo Lourdes: And you might have the most beautiful moment where you kiss a woman, because that's a threshold. Does that make sense? It's something in you that's curious, you try it, and you might try it and be like, no, it's not for me, or it might be at the beginning of a beautiful adventure, where you experience something, and guess what?

863
02:12:55.560 --> 02:13:00.849
Leo Lourdes: To love someone of the same gender, you're going against society, technically.

864
02:13:01.190 --> 02:13:19.119
Leo Lourdes: So imagine how powerful that love is, that you're willing to hold someone. This is why when I walk through London, I see two gay guys holding hands, I see two women holding hands, I can't stop myself. I have to say something. I say, I even stop and say, I'm so, so wonderful you're holding hands. It makes me really happy.

865
02:13:19.120 --> 02:13:29.490
Leo Lourdes: Or if I don't get a chance to talk to them because they're in the conversation, I just give them the biggest smile, saying, I love that you're holding hands, because you're going against society's norm.

866
02:13:30.040 --> 02:13:30.580
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

867
02:13:30.850 --> 02:13:48.340
Leo Lourdes: Society might say, this is not normal, but you're saying, this is my love, and I'm willing to love beyond gender, beyond sex, and I'm willing to go against what society believes is right in order to feel love. And this comes back full circle, Josie, to what we're talking about. Do it with love.

868
02:13:48.790 --> 02:13:54.739
Josephine McGrail: 100%, 100%. And actually, a little add-on to that, which I really love, so this whole thing about…

869
02:13:54.740 --> 02:14:18.400
Josephine McGrail: when we say no to something, what we're really doing is actually creating the space to say yes to the aligned choice, the aligned opportunity coming up. And I think for many of us yes-sayers in the world, I've definitely done a lot of yes-saying in my life, which also has, you know, great opportunities, all of that, but in my head, changing it to understanding that

870
02:14:18.400 --> 02:14:21.000
Josephine McGrail: when I'm saying no to something.

871
02:14:21.140 --> 02:14:25.100
Josephine McGrail: I'm really creating the space, I'm really saying yes to what's truly in my heart.

872
02:14:25.100 --> 02:14:25.640
Leo Lourdes: Yes.

873
02:14:25.640 --> 02:14:41.920
Josephine McGrail: That's a really nice way to work with it, I think, especially for people that might, you know, where saying no might be a really big thing, and a really new thing, and maybe you're really good at saying no, setting your non-negotiables in certain areas of your life, but then there are other areas where we're just all over the place in history, everything, right?

874
02:14:42.170 --> 02:14:54.830
Leo Lourdes: Exactly, and Josie, there's a great theorist called Levi Strauss, and he's actually a theorist, he wasn't… it's not the jeans company, they named it after him. He said… he called them binary opposites. He says you can't have hot without cold.

875
02:14:54.830 --> 02:14:55.590
Josephine McGrail: Yes.

876
02:14:55.590 --> 02:15:05.690
Leo Lourdes: up without down, you can't have black without white. And actually, what you have in your life is you have this enormous opportunity to explore the spectrum of the human experience.

877
02:15:05.690 --> 02:15:06.420
Josephine McGrail: Hmm.

878
02:15:06.420 --> 02:15:08.740
Leo Lourdes: Your question is simply, how do I choose?

879
02:15:09.030 --> 02:15:17.759
Leo Lourdes: Like, literally, how do I choose? Do I… do I choose this? Do I choose that? Okay, I'm saying no to this, so what does this mean? I'm saying yes to that, so then I'm gonna try that.

880
02:15:17.910 --> 02:15:23.500
Leo Lourdes: So… What we have is this enormous platter

881
02:15:24.050 --> 02:15:29.310
Leo Lourdes: Call life. With… with infinite variables of what you can choose.

882
02:15:29.930 --> 02:15:34.520
Leo Lourdes: And guess what? The sanctity… the heritage

883
02:15:34.650 --> 02:15:38.529
Leo Lourdes: The privilege, that's the real word, that you get to choose.

884
02:15:39.640 --> 02:15:46.920
Leo Lourdes: And always make new choices. You know, don't act as if choices already exist. Sometimes you have to carve out your own choice.

885
02:15:46.920 --> 02:15:47.410
Josephine McGrail: You look.

886
02:15:47.410 --> 02:15:53.980
Leo Lourdes: Look at some of the most successful companies, like, you know, people have taken risks and opened new markets that never existed before.

887
02:15:53.980 --> 02:16:05.500
Josephine McGrail: 100%, and like, you know, look at your own life, right? And look at your mom, and look at your dad, like, your dad came, like, had already created an amazing career, and yet was like, hang on a second.

888
02:16:05.550 --> 02:16:21.389
Josephine McGrail: this is not gonna go on forever, and he could have thought, okay, well, maybe the next natural choices, next best step will be, I'll become a coach, I'll teach kids how to become, you know, professional football players, right? But actually, he took a massive chance, also a risk.

889
02:16:21.390 --> 02:16:44.149
Josephine McGrail: you know, relocated your entire family into a one, you know, one bedroom after having lived a different lifestyle with the… and also, he was in his early 30s, mid-30s, to go, I'm not gonna study to become, you know, a lawyer, right? And this is such a… such an intense training already, and at that time and age, again, you know, and he was from a different country, like, it took a massive risk.

890
02:16:44.150 --> 02:16:49.269
Josephine McGrail: Like, we don't have to look… all I'm saying is we don't have to look very far for examples of…

891
02:16:49.330 --> 02:17:04.259
Josephine McGrail: take a risk, and if you're willing, you know, take a risk, but only take risk on things that you're actually really… you are in love with the idea, you're in love with the dream of it, because otherwise, your risk won't persist. Like, you won't be persistent.

892
02:17:04.700 --> 02:17:07.020
Josephine McGrail: With the pursuit of the dream.

893
02:17:07.020 --> 02:17:07.760
Leo Lourdes: Yes

894
02:17:08.580 --> 02:17:14.489
Leo Lourdes: Totally. I totally agree with you, and I think also, it shows you that you… we all… we all have heroes.

895
02:17:15.869 --> 02:17:23.799
Leo Lourdes: consciousness, highest consciousness, whatever we call that, we label it God, we label it Buddha, whatever.

896
02:17:24.419 --> 02:17:26.699
Leo Lourdes: Sends us nothing but angels.

897
02:17:27.139 --> 02:17:33.849
Leo Lourdes: Literally, every day you have signs. Every day, something is saying to you, keep going.

898
02:17:33.979 --> 02:17:36.269
Leo Lourdes: Keep trying. Keep believing.

899
02:17:36.749 --> 02:17:41.399
Leo Lourdes: And, you know, we all have, I, I…

900
02:17:42.019 --> 02:17:49.809
Leo Lourdes: We all have traumas, like, for example, with myself, there's something called ACE score, which means Adverse Childhood Experiences.

901
02:17:49.989 --> 02:17:57.979
Leo Lourdes: And the psychologists, when they work with children that are abused or whatever, they give you a score out of 10.

902
02:17:58.379 --> 02:18:00.369
Leo Lourdes: I have a score of 9 out of 10.

903
02:18:00.699 --> 02:18:02.899
Leo Lourdes: So technically, I shouldn't be here.

904
02:18:03.149 --> 02:18:14.539
Leo Lourdes: I should have given up, I shouldn't have that, but I'm doing what I'm doing, I go through my traumas, I live my life, I celebrate my life, and I share it. I don't sit there hiding, I'm writing a book about it.

905
02:18:14.729 --> 02:18:37.809
Leo Lourdes: You know, so whatever you've been through, and remember, there's no… there's no rank in pain. Pain is pain. Josie might stub her foot, and that's as bad as someone having a breakup with a boyfriend. She might deal with it the same way. No one's here to assess whose pain is bigger than my pain. Is my trauma bigger than your trauma? Oh, my trauma's so big! Oh, your trauma's so small. No, trauma is trauma. Pain is pain. The brain still experiences it.

906
02:18:37.809 --> 02:18:40.199
Leo Lourdes: As a, as, as a situation and problem.

907
02:18:40.539 --> 02:18:44.239
Leo Lourdes: And there's huge impact on how we can

908
02:18:44.359 --> 02:19:01.669
Leo Lourdes: have an impact on your health, and your psychology, and all kinds of things. So, we're not joking here. You know, if you have a trauma or pain, you can't ignore it. You don't want to ignore it, because it becomes an illness, or it becomes a problem. You want to face it, and go into your therapist, or talk to a friend, or find a way to

909
02:19:01.669 --> 02:19:06.799
Leo Lourdes: process the trauma. But the main point to remember is it's all learning.

910
02:19:06.929 --> 02:19:15.639
Leo Lourdes: Whatever you go through, It's learning. Whether it's difficulty, whether it's trauma, whether it's difficulty, pain.

911
02:19:16.129 --> 02:19:18.379
Leo Lourdes: Everything is teaching you a lesson.

912
02:19:18.379 --> 02:19:19.279
Josephine McGrail: Exactly.

913
02:19:19.280 --> 02:19:27.150
Leo Lourdes: Let's never give up on yourself. That's my… that's my ultimate message, never give up on yourself. Like, even if everyone else says, no, they don't believe in you, or…

914
02:19:27.450 --> 02:19:32.169
Leo Lourdes: Or opportunities doesn't happen for you, or things are really difficult.

915
02:19:32.230 --> 02:19:38.259
Leo Lourdes: You must… you must promise yourself that you're gonna be the last person that stops believing in yourself.

916
02:19:38.260 --> 02:19:54.299
Leo Lourdes: And you've got many examples of this, and you know, you and Josie and me are sharing some great examples for you today, but some of you may have read books, and there's so many autobiographies of really interesting people out there that followed their dreams, and even through hardship, have done things,

917
02:19:54.300 --> 02:20:08.230
Leo Lourdes: One of the people that I have a wonderful connection with, and it goes back to doing yoga in the Himalayas, is Oprah Winfrey, and Oprah publicly talks about her sexual abuse, she talks about the problems she's been through, and she's still a very, very successful person.

918
02:20:08.230 --> 02:20:20.620
Leo Lourdes: And the great thing about Oprah is who she is on TV is who she really is. And I've met a lot of successful people, they have a two-face, you know, they present themselves one way publicly, but when you meet them privately, they have their ego.

919
02:20:20.620 --> 02:20:30.980
Leo Lourdes: They have the entourage, but Oprah, okay, she has a bodyguard sitting close by, but when you're with her, she's fully present. When she… she… she hugs you, she massages your shoulder. I…

920
02:20:31.090 --> 02:20:34.370
Leo Lourdes: tricked myself into believing that Oprah gave me superpower.

921
02:20:34.560 --> 02:20:42.279
Leo Lourdes: Because when she was hugging me, she'd always massage my shoulders, and I'd be like, oh my god, I feel this energy, I can't describe it. But, you know.

922
02:20:42.430 --> 02:20:50.799
Leo Lourdes: people like her, and she's not the only example. Some of the examples are your schoolteachers. Some of the examples are your father, your mother, your sister, your brother.

923
02:20:50.800 --> 02:21:03.549
Leo Lourdes: It's the lady, the old lady that's always angry across the road, but if you took 5 minutes to speak to her, you might learn about her life and realize what she's been through, and she might become your hero. You're surrounded by heroes, so…

924
02:21:03.790 --> 02:21:11.489
Leo Lourdes: Don't live isolated. Don't be like, I'm living in a world where I have no examples. Find the people. Always find people better than you.

925
02:21:11.630 --> 02:21:31.140
Leo Lourdes: And I don't mean that to dismiss people that are not better or better, but always don't shy away from brilliance. Does that make sense? So, like, with my photography, I spent months with the best photographers, like, you know, with the psychologists that I've worked with, that I've hired in my first company, I used to have, like, lengthy coffee conversations with them about the mind, about…

926
02:21:31.140 --> 02:21:43.190
Leo Lourdes: principles of the mind, about ideas about psychology, and some of those ideas formed my adult life. So, who you share your energy with is so important, and never shy away.

927
02:21:43.190 --> 02:21:48.720
Leo Lourdes: for meeting people. Does that make sense? Don't, don't… don't… don't think there's some kind of…

928
02:21:49.040 --> 02:21:53.830
Leo Lourdes: Benefit in being so humble that you don't ask a question.

929
02:21:54.890 --> 02:21:55.260
Josephine McGrail: It's…

930
02:21:55.260 --> 02:22:09.600
Leo Lourdes: You might be a journalist, and you might be reporting for a particular newspaper. Don't be afraid to ask Donald Trump that question that everyone has in their mind, but no one… everyone's afraid to ask that question. Ask Donald Trump that question. Hold authority to account.

931
02:22:10.030 --> 02:22:25.780
Leo Lourdes: Does that make sense? Don't… don't be afraid, don't shy away, don't think there's something… there's some… some kind of brilliant, reason of shying away, of keeping quiet. You know, there's people through the Second World War that risked their lives hiding Jewish people and feeding them.

932
02:22:25.850 --> 02:22:43.039
Leo Lourdes: They hid them in their basements. They put their lives at risk by… because they were like, that guy with the dodgy mustache from Germany is doing some bad things, and they knew in their heart it was wrong. And so they had Jewish people living in their own homes, in the basement, feeding them quietly for years.

933
02:22:43.400 --> 02:22:46.560
Leo Lourdes: Because they knew it was wrong. In their heart, they knew it was wrong.

934
02:22:47.250 --> 02:22:48.440
Josephine McGrail: 100%.

935
02:22:48.440 --> 02:22:52.809
Leo Lourdes: So, there's no prize For shying away from life.

936
02:22:53.160 --> 02:22:54.850
Josephine McGrail: Oh, I love that.

937
02:22:54.850 --> 02:22:57.570
Leo Lourdes: I'm a barren, and some of you might swim.

938
02:22:57.680 --> 02:23:04.560
Leo Lourdes: Some of you might float, some of you might paddle, some of you might hang on to the edges with your floats and everything.

939
02:23:04.720 --> 02:23:06.669
Leo Lourdes: But get in the water.

940
02:23:07.150 --> 02:23:09.099
Leo Lourdes: debt in the garden center.

941
02:23:09.790 --> 02:23:16.899
Josephine McGrail: God, I love that. I mean, I could speak to you all day, but I'm sitting here with goosebumps. I think that last metaphor was just…

942
02:23:17.010 --> 02:23:25.470
Josephine McGrail: So profound. Get in the bloody water, fuck fear, and leap into life.

943
02:23:25.470 --> 02:23:28.549
Leo Lourdes: Trust life. Choose life. Choose life.

944
02:23:29.050 --> 02:23:32.869
Leo Lourdes: Josie, it's such a pleasure, and you know what? I really hope

945
02:23:33.140 --> 02:23:51.179
Leo Lourdes: the people that are listening to this have had some transformations themselves, maybe some… maybe, you know… again, one of the things I wanted to share is, like, I… being, I think, quite a relatively still a young person, I still technically… some people start businesses at this age, but I started at 21,

946
02:23:51.180 --> 02:24:11.869
Leo Lourdes: So I have 20-plus years' experience of being in business, and one of the things I've had the ability to do is work with some of the best people in their field, leading people in music, in fashion, in business, you know, some of the best, like, Blackstone, for example, are one of the top investment companies, and I'm their yoga master, and they're amazing, and…

947
02:24:11.870 --> 02:24:17.579
Leo Lourdes: I love the way they invest, and the integrity, and how they do things.

948
02:24:17.580 --> 02:24:22.349
Leo Lourdes: But one of the things I've learned about all the most successful people I've worked with.

949
02:24:22.430 --> 02:24:26.109
Leo Lourdes: It's not that they had difficult lives, or difficult challenges, or…

950
02:24:26.520 --> 02:24:34.350
Leo Lourdes: who took the biggest risk, or whatever. The thing I've learned about these people that are the highest in their fields is the following.

951
02:24:34.930 --> 02:24:37.999
Leo Lourdes: They're not afraid to have difficult conversations.

952
02:24:38.000 --> 02:24:39.510
Josephine McGrail: Mmm…

953
02:24:39.510 --> 02:24:52.790
Leo Lourdes: afraid to have different conversations. That might be difficult conversations with investors, might be difficult conversations with their family, might be difficult conversations with their customers. They're not… or their staff, they're not afraid to have difficult conversations.

954
02:24:52.790 --> 02:24:59.960
Leo Lourdes: And that's what we have to be able to do. We have to be able to have difficult conversations with our own interpersonal dialogue with ourselves.

955
02:25:00.910 --> 02:25:12.480
Leo Lourdes: We might… we have to not be afraid to have difficult conversations with other people, but you must have those conversations, and you must make those moves, because if you're not in the game, then you will never know if you'll win or lose.

956
02:25:12.930 --> 02:25:13.810
Josephine McGrail: Right.

957
02:25:14.200 --> 02:25:16.340
Josephine McGrail: I absolutely love that.

958
02:25:16.340 --> 02:25:39.250
Josephine McGrail: 100%. Don't, don't shy away from the, from the fear of, of conflict. Yes. And also, because the thing is, you know, like, so… oh my god, here we go again. Last little thing! Last little thing! I remember when, when me and, you know, my now partner, when we first started going out, we, we used to argue a lot, and

959
02:25:39.250 --> 02:25:58.359
Josephine McGrail: And I… I reached the conclusion, I remember turning around to Carl, and I told him, I was like, I shared with him, I was like, actually, it doesn't really matter how many conflicts we go through, what matters is what happens on the other side. Like, through that conflict, do we feel even closer, even more connected, even more, you know, in love?

960
02:25:58.360 --> 02:26:14.939
Josephine McGrail: or do all these conflicts actually pull us apart? But through all of these conflicts, you know, I was learning about me, he was learning about himself, and then we were learning about each other. And by continuing to choose each other, even through these conflicts, like, just that thing of, in life.

961
02:26:15.160 --> 02:26:26.439
Josephine McGrail: Doesn't matter how many times you have an argument, or a disagreement with someone, or you have those difficult conversations, what happens is, what comes out of it? What comes out on the other side, right? So, yeah.

962
02:26:27.340 --> 02:26:41.619
Leo Lourdes: Definitely, and I thank you for inviting this opportunity for us to connect, and for your love, for all the podcasts you've done. I give all my blessings and all my love, and all the people that are listening. I hope your heart feels bigger.

963
02:26:42.150 --> 02:26:48.980
Leo Lourdes: I hope your mind feels larger, I hope your consciousness has risen in some way, and that you feel curious.

964
02:26:49.560 --> 02:26:50.620
Leo Lourdes: feel curious.

965
02:26:50.940 --> 02:26:54.080
Leo Lourdes: Right? Like I was as a child, to smell that big flower.

966
02:26:54.080 --> 02:26:54.900
Josephine McGrail: Cheers.

967
02:26:55.110 --> 02:27:05.599
Leo Lourdes: Maybe you feel a bit audacious, mischievous, and you're gonna steal that magazine from the top shelf. Or maybe, like me, you're gonna take a risk and fall in love, and then lose it, and still fall in love again.

968
02:27:05.870 --> 02:27:12.310
Leo Lourdes: So whatever it is, I hope it's done in blessings, I hope consciousness protects you.

969
02:27:12.530 --> 02:27:16.940
Leo Lourdes: And I wish you the most audacious and extraordinary life.

970
02:27:17.130 --> 02:27:19.620
Leo Lourdes: That's my wish for you, and I hope to see you soon.

971
02:27:19.950 --> 02:27:40.240
Josephine McGrail: Oh my god, Leo Lortz, it's been amazing to have you here, thank you so much. I will put… kindly send me all the links to where people can find your books. I know I have some of them, but send them to me, and then I will put them in the show notes. Please say… feel free to tell listeners now as well, where can they find your amazing book?

972
02:27:40.240 --> 02:27:54.340
Leo Lourdes: You can go to Waterstones, you can go to Amazon, if you're in the US, Barnes & Noble, Target. You can get my book in Dubai, you can get my book in Mexico, you can get it in Canada, you can get it anywhere, so it's available. And I think Josie's gonna bring the book now.

973
02:27:55.000 --> 02:28:16.069
Josephine McGrail: It's… you know what's really cute? I called up my mom today, and I was like, so… and she was like, oh, is that, you know, you're doing that podcast about, you know, the coffee table book. I was like, no mom, it's more the size of a temple. It's huge! It's heavy, but it's so good. So here's the experience.

974
02:28:16.070 --> 02:28:17.410
Leo Lourdes: by 12KG.

975
02:28:17.750 --> 02:28:18.940
Josephine McGrail: I love it.

976
02:28:18.940 --> 02:28:24.600
Leo Lourdes: So if you don't like yoga, you could just buy the book and then lift it up and down and work on your biceps.

977
02:28:24.970 --> 02:28:28.850
Leo Lourdes: Like someone, throw the book at them, you know? Whatever, use the book any way you wish.

978
02:28:28.850 --> 02:28:33.810
Josephine McGrail: Undead, happy night.

979
02:28:33.810 --> 02:28:38.570
Leo Lourdes: such a beautiful energy, and, you know, from the moment I came to your class, and I'm sure

980
02:28:38.650 --> 02:28:58.379
Leo Lourdes: your clients feel this, and your listeners feel this, you have a beautiful, open heart, you have an enormous heart, and that really comes across in your… in your being and the way you are with people, and it's… you know, it's wonderful, because with the book, I did a lot of podcasts, and, you know, because of being a psychologist and a

981
02:28:58.380 --> 02:29:06.900
Leo Lourdes: motivational speaker, I do… I do speeches all around, and, you know, when I was 23, I… I did one with 12,000 people, like, it was… it was big.

982
02:29:06.900 --> 02:29:12.520
Leo Lourdes: And… what I love about you is the intimacy

983
02:29:12.640 --> 02:29:15.469
Leo Lourdes: And, purity and the truth

984
02:29:15.570 --> 02:29:18.050
Leo Lourdes: Truthfulness in how you handle things.

985
02:29:18.050 --> 02:29:39.330
Leo Lourdes: You know, you really care, and that comes across. And so, you know, sometimes I talk to magazines and newspapers and the media, and it's like, they're going through their questions, and by the time you've done it, you're like, you're like, oh my god, you know, like, it feels like Groundhog Day a bit, especially with the promotion around my book. I found it quite tiring eventually, because I was just sharing the same things.

986
02:29:40.230 --> 02:29:49.610
Leo Lourdes: But with this, I feel like we've explored things I've never explored before. I think it's fresh, it's, it's fun, and I thank you so much for this opportunity.

987
02:29:50.080 --> 02:30:10.490
Josephine McGrail: You're so welcome, Leo, and honestly, you know, the world is a better place with you in it, so thank you for being a co-creator, and thank you for continuing to create. I think this was something that really stood out to me today, amongst everything else that we covered and journeyed through and traveled through together. This thing of how you were like, I'm here to create.

988
02:30:10.490 --> 02:30:25.470
Josephine McGrail: we all are as human beings, right? Like, we're all creative, whether you're into us or not, like, this conversation was a creation, a co-creation. Okay, we were gonna talk about your book and you, but other than that, we came up and down, in and around, right? Past, present, future, all of it.

989
02:30:25.470 --> 02:30:32.439
Josephine McGrail: we're all creators, and I think this is something that you really empowered and inspired today, but also

990
02:30:32.550 --> 02:30:42.740
Josephine McGrail: that's just your natural thing, you know? You really empower and inspire everyone to stay curious and continue to create in a way that feels great. Yay!

991
02:30:42.960 --> 02:30:43.290
Leo Lourdes: Thank you.

992
02:30:43.290 --> 02:30:47.559
Josephine McGrail: So much. Stay on the line just for a second, but to listeners out there, thank you so much.