Asking 'How' is Killing Your Dreams with Blaine Bartlett | The Grateful Podcast Ep. 127

The Grateful Podcast with Jack Wagoner episode 127
Guesting Blaine Bartlett

He wrote a bucket list at 18 with 20 goals he had no idea how to achieve. By 24, every single one was done — without ever asking "how." 

Blaine Bartlett has spent 53 years studying how people actually succeed. He's coached executives across five continents, co-hosts Office Hours on Apple TV with David Meltzer, and wrote his first book alongside Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, and Brian Tracy. Bob Proctor called his work "some of the best material on prosperity I have experienced."

In this conversation, Blaine reveals why asking "how" too early is the trap that kills every goal, what Napoleon Hill's banned book Outwitting the Devil says about why we drift through life, and why the real purpose of a goal is never to get; it's to grow. He also shares the moment his wife received a terrifying diagnosis and the five words she said that changed their entire journey together.

This is one of the most important conversations I've ever had on this podcast.

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 — Introduction
1:05 — Marcus Aurelius: "Spend Time with the Dead"
2:30 — Your Belief Systems Are Manufactured
5:01 — 20 Goals at 18, All Done by 24
8:11 — Napoleon Hill's Banned Book
10:09 — Why "How" Should NEVER Come Up Early
12:19 — BECOMING the Commitment (Not Just Making One)
17:35 — What He Calls a "Growl"
23:37 — A Letter from Harvard Changed Everything
28:29 — Energy Follows Attention, Not Intention
30:26 — "It Already Happened. I Just Haven't Arrived."
34:08 — Why You Feel Empty After Getting What You Wanted
42:24 — The Duality of Gratitude and Ambition
44:20 — His Wife's Diagnosis: "There Is an Unexpected Opportunity Here"
46:40 — Be a Center of Distribution

🔗 Connect with Blaine Bartlett:
► Website: https://www.blainebartlett.com
► LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/blainebartlett


📖 Blaine's books on Amazon:
→ Compassionate Capitalism: https://www.amazon.com/sk=blaine+bartlett+compassionate+capitalism
→ The Leadership Mindset Weekly: https://www.amazon.com/sk=blaine+bartlett+leadership+mindset

☕ Magic Mind — My daily performance shot:
→ https://magicmind.com/wagoner20
Use code WAGONER20 for 20% off a package or 48% off a subscription.

🧠 More from Jack:
► Website: https://jackwagoner.co
► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jack_wagoner_/
► 1:1 Coaching: jackcwagoner@gmail.com
📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jack_Wagoner

⸻
🎙️ About Jack:
I moved to France alone at 16, started my first business at 17, and launched this podcast because I kept meeting people who had the answers to questions I didn't even know I was asking.  My philosophy: you can set massive goals while being deeply fulfilled right now. That's the duality of gratitude and ambit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Blaine Bartlett, welcome to the Grateful Podcast. Thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Jack, absolutely my pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

It's an honor to be here talking with you. Thank you. That means a lot. You've been studying information on how people can succeed and live their best lives for 53 years. Yeah, we talked before this, and you are still going to get your PhD in philosophy, studying metaphysical foundations of business ethics. I think that that is a fantastic place to start because it shows how committed you are to learning and always improving. Why, I think a lot of people will ask this question: why, even though you've accomplished so much, are you still looking to learn more and grow and keep going?

SPEAKER_02 0:47

I'm hungry. I guess that's probably the easiest way to uh answer that question. Um I am fascinated by the process of learning. And it continues to open new doors. Uh Marcus Aurelius uh quoted um, I believe it was uh uh pecked at us, you know, and this is Stoic philosophy. Um, but the the quotation had to do, and I'll just paraphrase it here: if you want to continue growing in your life, you need to spend time with the dead. And what he was talking about was authors, people that had written books. People, and this I mean, this is yeah, uh around 223, I think it was, A.D. I mean, you know, Marcus Aurelius, you know, Roman Emperor. Um, and I you know, I've always been struck by that. You know, learning, continuous learning, yeah, and this is, I think, the only way that we actually end up sustaining success in life is to continue learning. And what I've discovered in that process is what I believed when I when I was in my 20s no longer holds water. Uh yeah, and and that's not just because the of the rate of change that we experience today and in the new discoveries and whatnot, but we our our worlds and our lives are uh reflections of internal belief systems. And belief systems are not just handed to us when we're yeah, when we're born, and we've got you know, we've got this little package that says, here's the way that reality is structured. We actually begin to form them pretty early on. Some say epigenetically, even in the womb, we we begin to put some of the pieces together. So beliefs are manufactured, and people treat them as if they are absolute truths, and they aren't. Yeah, they aren't. Uh, I mean, just the simple boy, I mean, you look at me, you look at yourself, and you know, the belief we have is I am a man. Well, my body would suggest that. But who's the I that I'm speaking of? Who's the I that uh is actually speaking that language? I am a man. No, my consciousness uh inhabits this form, you know, that you know, this corporeal form, and it happens to have the you know the the attributes of maleness, but I am not a man. I am consciousness that is taking this form, and then I get to execute my life through this form. And I can either be limited by that or I can uh find that to be very expansive. Um so I I I continuously am looking for ways to poke holes in my belief systems.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

That's incredible. And you know, I think that's the opposite to what so many of us do, where so many of us seek out experiences and environments where we can enforce and reinforce our belief systems, right? Because we're scared of what happens if we are gonna start to poke holes in them. Because it after there is there's just a domino effect, right? And that's really scary. So for you, uh at what age did you start to understand that your true growth and what you really wanted came after you started to question your beliefs, not reinforce them?

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Great question. Um that probably happened in my late teens. Uh I came across a book, a science fiction book, um uh Stranger in a Strange Land. And that remains a seminal book in my library. And uh it it spoke to the possibilities that were available to us if we stopped thinking in a narrow box, if we started expanding our sense of of self. And Isaac Asimov, yeah, he was the author, uh, but it was yeah, I started playing a game with myself. What if, what if, what if, what if this was true? And so I I sat down, I was 18, and I wrote a bucket list. And uh there's 20 items on that list, and by the time I was 24, 25, I had done every one of them. And these were, you know, when I wrote those when I was 18, they were just imaginations. I mean, I knew nobody, literally, that had done most of those that had ever done any of those things. I I'd read about people that had done it. I ended up doing it, and a large part of it had to do with I started challenging my belief systems. People will argue for their limitations. And you'll see you'll hear this in the in conversations with people, particularly in business. We can't do that because, and then you counterpoint that at the end of the way. Yeah. And so they'll just, I mean, they will vociferously and agitatedly argue for you don't understand, we can't do it because. I'm going, if you put that much energy into doing doing it, rather than arguing for why it can't be done, what that does is it puts you right smack dab up against your belief systems. And belief systems are boxes. You know, you want to think outside the box, you want to get outside the box.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

So I think that's so interesting because I mean I see it all the time. I actually just wrote something, I forget if I published it online or not, about this because I mean, I've been uh I if you include my podcast, I've had I've run three companies now, and the thing I've noticed is the moments that I feel I'm not making progress, I start to really question my beliefs. And I do a thing that Bob Proctor teaches where you write out what you believe, right? And you write it out in black pen, you draw a line, you write it, and then you write out the other version of that in blue, and you you tear up, you burn whatever with the negatives. And I start to realize that I'm really attached to the things that might be holding me back. I'm really attached to the idea that this problem is really hard to solve, that this problem takes resources I don't have, that I need money to go further, that I need more resources, I need a bigger team. When you're in a spot where it feels illogical to change your belief systems, where everyone around you tells you that information that actually reinforces those negative beliefs, what are your steps to start to change that so that you can change your reality?

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Again, great question. I love that. Um the trap that most people fall into, um, I'll do a longer answer than you were probably expecting with this. Um all good. Go for it. Napoleon Hill, yeah, most people are familiar with Napoleon Hill through Think and Grow Rich. Uh, he wrote another book that was called Outwitting the Devil. And Outwitting the Devil was written in the late 1930s during the Depression, the Great Depression. It did not get published until uh about 2006, I believe it was, because it challenged the church, it challenged political systems, and it challenged societal uh norms. And the family was afraid of the blowback that would occur. Now, what's interesting about that is that dynamic, number one, the the the limitation that was placed on their belief about external circumstances and what might happen. But the other part of it has to do with just the messaging in the book, outwitting the devil. He talks about how human beings end up drifting away from their dreams. And it's typically unconscious. It's sub, you know, it works with the subconscious mind. And a large part of it has to do with paying attention to external reality, quote unquote reality. External reality and believing that that dictates what my future is going to be. So to the point about I don't have enough money right now. Okay, I look at my bank account, and that that just stops me dead. One of the things in the work that I do with the clients that I have in organizations, and this is a test for commitment. As soon as we've you know come up with a goal, and this is it might be useful with one of your companies, as soon as we've come up with this goal or this objective or this thing that we want to do, and people say, Yep, I'm in, pay attention to what the next things are that they talk about. Most people will go to, you know, I'm in, but how are we going to do that? So the immediate move to how are we going to do that suggests that they are paying attention to limitation. They're paying attention to things that they've had experience with that don't match what this new step is going to require. So they immediately begin to block themselves. The question how should never come up early in the conversation.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

Interesting. It should never come up early in the conversation. So if we're relating this to a sales conversation, for example, and this is more for a honestly a personal note for all my listeners, but if you get someone to say yes and you get someone to commit, and then right away they start focusing on the limitations and they start saying, So I'm in, but how are we going to do it? What are we going to do next? What's our next step? What do you do as the person facilitating in that in that scenario?

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Yeah. You work through questions. Yeah. The way that a large body of my work is all around leadership. Yeah. Influencing others in order to co-create coordinated movement in pursuit of a worthy ideal. That's my definition of leadership. Influencing others in order to co-create coordinated movement in pursuit of a worthy ideal.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Now, the worthy ideal is the key to this. Because you can have a vision, you can have a goal or an objective, and people go, yeah, that makes perfect sense. It makes it logical. This is particularly true in a business. That's logical. We can understand why that's important for the business. But it stops there. And this is why people then go to how, because they aren't bought in. It's not meaningful to them at a visceral level. So the question is, okay, if we are going to achieve this, what will make what will that make possible for you to either be, do, or have as an individual? If we're successful at doing this, what does that make possible that is currently not in your experience in terms of being this, doing this, or having this? And is that important to you? Does that matter? And if you can get them to the point of going, that matters. That is so important. How disappears. They're just going to go out and they're going to start doing it. And part of that, honestly, Jack, it has to do with a misunderstanding that people have about commitment. When we're when we define something that we think is important, you'll hear people say, I am committed to that. That language, to that. It's outside of me. It's being here. It should be here. So when I work with for the sake of what, now it matters. What matters is in me. So I become, I literally become a commitment to that outcome. I become, so there's a state of being that gets transformed with that.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Because the commitment has to be to oneself, or is it even a step further? You are the commitment. I am the commitment.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

And I will play with the language around that. I am a commitment to having this outcome. I'm a commitment to this result. I am a commitment. There's a st there's a identity, you know, it basically becomes part of my identity at that point.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

Right. And I think that that has to relate in a way to uh A, B, and C goals, right? Where we have we are not going to truly commit ourselves, or we're not going to become a commitment if something is not emotionally involving us enough for us to do that. Am I correct? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 13:28

And the emotional involvement, the emotional engagement is what we're looking for with this. Yeah, I mean, everything works on frequencies. Everything has a frequency structure associated. I mean, that literally gives it its existence. There's a frequency band. And on that frequency band, anything that is on that frequency band is available to me. This is where the law of attraction comes into play. The law of attraction is a secondary law. The primary law is the law of vibration. So that's why I want to, you know, what matters to me, I vibrate at a frequency level, and this is not woo-woo, this is actual physics. I vibrate at a frequency that is consistent with my belief systems. So when I look around, I see in my life artifacts that are consistent with that frequency band. When I start thinking in a different way, literally thinking in a different way, not just picture, yeah, pictorially thinking, but thinking in a whole body sense where I start feeling that as a reality. It lives in me. It now lives in me as a reality. I have shifted frequency. And in that shift of frequency, all of a sudden, whatever's on that new wavelength, that new band, that new frequency band is now available to me. It wasn't available to me before. It's now available to me because there's a frequency shift. This is a phase shift structure.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So I want to make this real and tangible for people listening because I've gone through training that specifically teaches me to believe in things like that and understand things, uh, things on a frequency level. But to take this back to your life, um, when you were 18, you said you set out and you made a bucket list, right? And by the time you were 24, you achieved all of them. So, what types of goals did you set? How did you go out to set these goals? And how did you go about changing your frequency so that your goals were able to come to you? Because I think this could be really helpful for both me to understand and my audience how you applied this into your life and how this can relate these ideas that sound really good, how they can actually apply and change lives.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Yeah. Well, let's go back to the ABC conversation, ABC Goals. Um, yeah, that first Bob Proctor kind of dropped that one into the into the the vernacular of a lot of people that study this stuff. Uh, I yeah, Bob and I have done a number of programs together, uh, and we taught together. Um and I took that ABC goal format uh and modified it a bit. And I stayed with what he would articulate very well that the purpose of a goal is not to get something. The purpose of a goal is to grow. If you're not growing, the goals you set for yourself end up being irrelevant because you end up just being, you just end up replicating more of what you already have. So he kind of parsed this out. An A goal is something that I already know how to do. I've got a car, I've got a couple of cars parked in the garage, I know how to buy a car. So if I want a new car as a goal, yeah, there's no growth involved with that. I mean, I I know who I know where to go, I know how to, all that stuff. That's an A-type goal. A B type goal is something that I want to have. I haven't really done it myself, but I know people that know how to do it. So I know where to get the information. So that's a B type goal. There is a little bit of growth involved with that. The next level up, I've got to hold on just a moment. I've got a couple of bottoms marking here. Um the next level up from that is something that Bob called uh a C-type goal. I call it a growl. A growl. This is a goal that is designed, literally designed to grow me. I have no idea how to achieve it. I just know, and this is where you know what matters, that for the sake of what comes into play. I just know that this is something that's important for me. And I will grow as I discover how to achieve that. Now that's the um the intellectual piece of it. When I position myself with growls, now I'm on a journey. I set myself for a journey, and this is what I did with in unconsciously. This is what I did with that first bucket list. I set these growls out there. And I had no idea how I was going to achieve them. I didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to them from a how perspective. I just, you know, this is something that I would read, I would love to have this. And that's that's one of the things that defines a growl. I would love to have this. I would love to have this. This is the be do have neodynamic. What do I get to be do or have? I would love that. So I set, I mean, I literally just set it aside, you know, in terms of the writing of it, just again, put it in a pile someplace. I don't know where I put it. Um, but then I started reading, I started studying, I started, yeah, I went back to stuff that, you know, um I had learned kept me uh kept me excited, kept me uh interested, kept me inspired. Inspiration is internal piece, motivation is externally driven. So I was looking for inspiration. So I would keep coming back, I would read uh Thomas Troward, I would read Neville Goddard, I would read, I mean, just you know, philosophy, you know, people that had done things that I'd wanted to do, had been there, had walked this path before. And it's through that repetition that I began to all of a sudden go, you know, maybe if I tried that, that could be interesting. I never thought of doing that. And it was those incremental pieces, the how began to appear, because I was organized around the experience of having that I yeah, that ideal, that worthy ideal, you know, be present in my life. And from 18 to 24, you know, not a whole lot of years, six years, you know, stuff magically started dropping into place. Um what were some of those things? I wanted to be an aerobatic pilot. I didn't have a pilot's license. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like I do know I didn't know anybody that flew. Um I I wanted to travel the world. Uh so uh yeah, when I was uh 19, I was invited to an exchange program uh at the university. Okay. I had no idea. Wow, I grew up on a small farm in Oregon. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

We have some resonance there. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah. So I mean, things like that. Looking back on them, they and this is one of the things at 24, uh, I kind of realized I need to start setting bigger goals for myself.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

Yeah. But at the time, they seem pretty significant.

unknown 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

And I and I've used that process uh pretty religiously since then.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I'm running this podcast, I'm running a business, and I'm also a full-time neuroscience student. Sometimes, no matter how grateful and ambitious I am, my brain just doesn't want to keep up. And I know that you know the feeling of having all these things you value so much that you just don't feel like you have the time or the focus to get done. And that's exactly why I take Magic Mind every single morning. It's a mental performance shot. It's got the adaptogens, the nootropics, and the time-released caffeine so that you don't get the jitters or the 3 p.m. crash, but you get all the energy, all the clarity, and all the focus to accomplish your goals. And I've been taking it every single morning because of those exact things. You guys know that I would never promote a brand that I didn't fully trust would get you the results that you're looking for. So if you're looking for more performance, more clarity, more focus, then go to magicmind.com slash wagoner20, put Wagner20 in at checkout and get 20% off a package of these shots, or 48% off a subscription. Go try it and let me know what you think. Let's get back to this awesome episode. So that that's so incredible, and I I I've seen the same thing happen. In my life, or now it's like, wow, the goals I'm setting for myself right now would have looked like a person was absolutely mad writing them on paper two years ago, even right? And I I'm the same as you, where I am 19 right now, and I said I really want to travel the world. And this year, in the past year, I'm studying in London, and I've been able to visit, I think, 16 countries or something like that. And it's been incredible to in your experience. I'm curious, what influence does traveling and exploring new cultures have on the work that you do and what you've understood about the mind?

SPEAKER_02 22:39

I've lived in Japan, I've lived in Australia, I've lived in Europe, I do work in Africa, uh, I've I've run dog sleds above the Arctic Circle. Uh I mean, yeah, I've floated rivers in Russia, yeah, where we had to build a raft and we had a helicopter come and get us uh because we were so far out into the bush. Um I mean there is so much in life to be experienced that will enhance my sense of what's possible. That when I can find ways to go do it, and it starts with that growl notion. Yeah, I want to grow into something. Yeah, an example um just of a grow in action. Oh, this goes back about 20 years, I believe. Um, in the healthcare space uh here in the United States. I wanted to begin doing, I mean, a lot of my work is around strategic planning, uh leadership and the implementation of strategic plans in large organizations. That's a lot of what I do. I thought it would be interesting to start working in the healthcare system, particularly in hospital systems and that sort of thing, because there was, you know, there was and still is, you know, just all kinds of craziness going on there. I didn't have a medical degree, I'd never been to medical school. Uh I knew the only doctor I knew was my GP. But I just started thinking, you know, I would absolutely love to make a difference there. I would love to bring some of the leadership content that I've developed into these systems. I don't know how to do it, but I would, I just held that idea and I saw myself lecturing to you know to different groups. I mean, literally saw myself, felt myself uh doing that. Out of the blue, and I mean literally kind of quote in quote out of the blue, I got a postal mail. This came in the mail, a letter uh from the American Association of Physician Leadership. Said, we've heard of some of your work. Uh we've uh would be interested in knowing if you would be uh open to exploring putting together a program for our uh group of physician leaders. This is the largest physician leadership education group in the world. And and and they said, you know, they went on to say, we we've got a program that we're doing with Harvard. And if you're interested in it, you you you would end up collaborating with the these practitioners out of Harvard, and you would be the delivering mechanism inside our AAPL conferences. So that you know that was you know 20-some odd years ago. I've been on their teaching faculty ever since, and I've worked with, I've lectured at the University of Colorado Medical School. Um, I mean, just all kinds of stuff. Uh taught, I've taught all over the country uh you know, with physician leaders, with hospital systems, I've you know, consulted with large hospital systems, but it started with that dream. And it was not predicated. I mean, it would have been easy to stop by saying, God, who am I? I mean, I I don't have an ed, I don't have a medical background, I don't know anybody that does this. I mean, but that that was that was not where my brain went. My brain went, God, this would be really cool. I would love to be able to do that. So this is kind of a long answer to the question. A large part of that was informed by travel.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 25:56

A large part of that was informed by travel. Uh, in behind me here, I've got a talking stick. I was made an elder in the uh Maasai tribe in Kenya, you know, through some of the work that we do there. And you know, one of the things that you know, one of my bucket lists was I wanted to be teaching uh leadership uh to indigenous tribes uh around the world.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

And you did it. That's incredible. So, Blaine, I I think something you said there is you could have had all of these negative beliefs come up. You could have talked to yourself and said, Well, I don't know a doctor. Why am I qualified for this? What makes me able to make this change? And you said your mind wasn't there. For everyone listening, do you get those thoughts that come up? Do you have those thoughts? All right, so what do you do when those thoughts enter your mind? What's your reaction to that?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

I just yeah, that's interesting. Not here. I mean, we have the ability, we have the capacity to control our thoughts. Now, they they will pop up. I have no control over what pops up necessarily, but I have complete control over whether I entertain them or not. And that's you know, it pops up, go, nah, I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

That that is not gonna work for me. And did you start to do that once you were when you were 24, 18 to 24? Was that an unconscious habit you had?

SPEAKER_02 27:32

Yeah. I started, yeah. And that came that literally came out of some of the reading I was doing at that point in time. Okay. Yeah, here's here's a technique. Yeah, just you know, recognize it and then dismiss it. Recognize, dismiss.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

So at what point, because it sounds like you went through a phase of what Bob would have called unconscious competent, where you were doing the right things, you were getting the goals, you understood subconsciously frequency, but you you weren't able to explain it, and you didn't know why you were getting the results. So at what point did you start to study and understand what you were actually doing and understand why you were able to uh it's able able to achieve the things you were achieving, or what you were doing with your with your mind and blocking out those thoughts or putting them to the side?

SPEAKER_02 28:21

I don't I don't think that there was a moment that I could identify that said, okay, the the f the switch has been flipped. Um it was more of a slow evol evolution, I guess would be yeah. It was more of a slow evolution. But it was informed by uh both desire, what would I love, but it was also informed by paying attention. Notice what I'm noticing. And yeah, that that meme, notice what you're noticing, has served me very well. Um squirrel. Yeah, okay. Now, why did my attention just get pulled over here? Okay. I noticed that my attention has been grabbed. What's going on there? And what was what was the trigger? What's what was what was you know, what was so compelling about that? So this is where you know that continual exploration starts to really pay dividends is I start noticing what I'm noticing. And and you've I'm assuming I've heard this, yeah, attention uh or energy. Uh energy does not follow intention, energy follows attention. So, where is my attention directed? Because that, you know, the energy that is is hijacked by my attention is not going to be useful in getting me where I say I want to go if it's not aligned. So this is why the you know, the this is the whole notion of drifting again. Yeah, going going back to that uh uh Outwitting the Devil book. Um we find ourselves drifting in life because we are not noticing what we're noticing. And then you know it's very meta. Yeah, it is. It's very meta. Um I mean, when you think about the foundational component of effective leadership, emotional intelligence comes into play. And the the bedrock of emotional intelligence is awareness. And that's another way of saying noticing what I'm noticing. Just becoming aware, just you know aware of what's going on with me, inside me, first of all. But then secondly, what's going on in my environment? You know, situational awareness. You know, what have I never what have I not noticed before that could be useful here? And that's one way that I begin to shift the frequency structures. Because everything is always existing, it's always here. Right. I'm just not paying attention, I'm just not noticing it so that I can leverage it.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Right. Yeah, I think I think I read that one of your favorite things to say, I I wrote it down is um it I it already happened, I just haven't arrived yet. Yeah. And I I love that so much. Uh what does that mean?

SPEAKER_02 31:15

Everything is invented twice. First is an idea, and then the second time is in physical form. It actually is somebody actually takes the reins and goes and does something with it. I mean, everything that will ever exist, everything that has existed, everything that could exist already exists as probability, as potential, and it's just a matter of accessing it. Yeah, Leonardo da Vinci designed the helicopter, and I've got drawings that he did, you know, that was a helicopter. Sikorsky was the one that actually built the helicopter about 400 years after Da Vinci designed it. But the yeah, the helicopter existed, yeah, first as an idea, and then in physical form. Now we yeah, metallurgy and fuel, you know, I mean, all of the stuff that was needed to make it happen got developed. But it was there. It was there. Yeah. So this is, you know, I'll work with my clients with something that I call a thousand-year vision. Okay. And part of the reason I use a thousand-year vision is because it eliminates very quickly the how. So, in a thousand years, what do you see possible for yourself, for your organization? What yeah, what's it look like in a thousand years? And people go, Are you out of your mind? I'm going, yeah, probably, but yeah, let's play with this. In a thousand years, we just so they they start building this castle in the sky sort of a thing. In a thousand years, here's here's what it looks like. Now, they recognize fully that they're not going to be there. So once we get this kind of castle in the sky picture developed, we start stepping it down. Okay, what's the first thing that we need to do today that will make that possible in a thousand years?

SPEAKER_01 33:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

So we I mean, it's it's it's a just an interesting way of playing with the imagination. Carl Jung, the philosopher, uh, said, without the play of the imagination, nothing of significance has ever come into being. So the play of the imagination. Imagination is the gateway to creativity, obviously, but it's also the gateway to the soul. And I don't mean this in a religious sense. It's the gateway to that spirit that gives life to my ideas and my dreams. And yeah, imagination lives at the threshold of the soul. Where do you stand religiously? I'm agnostic in that regard. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Are you spiritual?

SPEAKER_02 33:43

Yeah. I mean, everything has a spirit to it. Everything has a spirit to it. And again, I don't mean that in a religious sense.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

But everything has a life force. I mean, this tree that I'm looking at out here, yeah, there's there's a consciousness that informed its existence. Now, whether that's a sentient consciousness or not, it's a completely different conversation. But there's a consciousness that said, tree. I mean, in the acorn, there is an oak tree wanting to be, yeah. So there's a spirit in there, and yeah, all of the you know, all of the elements that it are needed, except the external nutrition, yeah, are present. Everything in the universe has a has that. Yeah, Max Planck, who was the father of quantum physics, uh, in 1908, I think it was, he said, we can get behind everything. And this is a reductionist uh philosophy that uh physicists were working with. We can get behind everything, we can get behind an atom, we can get behind an electron, we can get behind a proton, we can get behind everything. We can't seem to get behind consciousness. Consciousness is the first cause of everything.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

I've never heard that. I really like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna look that Max Planck, you said his name is. I love that. Um so another thing I wanna I want to talk about is we we spend a lot of time talking about our goals and reaching goals, right? And working toward goals and accomplishing goals. But something that I've struggled with, I'd say one of the biggest pains in my life, and something I see many of my listeners and people I talk to struggle with. Uh the highest performers, we're talking the best athletes in the world, the richest people in the world. Almost all of them at some point experience this pain where they get their goal and they're happy for maybe a minute, maybe a day, if they're lucky, a week or two, and then they feel lost because all they do is set a higher goal again. What do you do to sustain fulfillment while still reaching our goals? Because something I've realized myself is there is there's always going to be another goal, right? Always. And that is okay. And that's actually amazing because progress fuels our fulfillment. But how can we do this in a way where when we reach that goal, we don't feel empty or lost?

SPEAKER_02 36:19

That loss or that experience of emptiness or loss is a function of the meaning I've attached to the achievement of or the realization of that goal. The goal is simply a symbol of something, which is where the problem actually exists, because most people will assign it as a symbol of happiness or fulfillment or success when I get this promotion, when I get this car, when I get this spouse, yeah, yeah, it means I've I have achieved this, whatever this is. It's just a placeholder. That's all it is. And the purpose of a goal, again, is not to get, which is what most people think the goal is about. The purpose of a goal is to grow. And I'm if I'm continuously thinking about how do I grow who I am, yeah, I'll have goals as stepping stones along the way, but I am not, and this is the key to this, I am not attached to the goal. I'm attached to the growth that I'm experiencing. That's what I'm paying attention to. Am I growing? Now, if I get the goal, wonderful. If I don't get the goal, I'm still growing. So it it you know, it's not the end of the world if that goal doesn't manifest in the way that I thought it should. Yeah, I mean you measure that.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

How do you measure growth?

SPEAKER_02 37:45

Um, most of that has to do with an internal experience of um am I am I how am I different from what I was last year? How am I different? Okay. So um I want to be different than I was. I want to be different than how I was uh five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago. I want to be different in some significant way that is meaningful to me, that uh suggests that uh I've expanded, uh expanded my capacity, expanded my energy, yeah, whatever it is, but there's an expansion that comes. If I'm not expanding, I'm contracting. And contraction has to do with yeah, death and dying. Expansion has to do with life and vitality. I mean, I'm 77, and and I'm I have a ball.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I love it. And I can tell, you know how the energy on this call, I mean, I think that anyone listening and watching can feel it, but your smile, your energy, you it's radiant. It's it's incredible. And you don't have to I don't think the words that you're saying are so powerful, and it's incredible what you are saying, but the way that you're saying it is another thing within itself. And I think that's something that is hard to speak to. Um but I have so I have so much respect for it, and it it edifies you in such an amazing way. Uh so just to compliment you, I I I really I really do feel it, and I I can see that you've lived so much and that you've changed so much, and that you truly are emotionally involved in what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Yeah, I I'd I'd like to believe that that is absolutely true. Yeah, part and parcel of who I am in my life today. Uh I yeah, I don't take myself too seriously. And this is kind of an answer to the attachment that people have to goals. We take ourselves way too seriously. We take the outcomes in our lives too seriously. I mean, this you I an example. I was um I just got back from Egypt. I spent three and a half weeks in Egypt. And um it was amazing. It was absolutely phenomenal. Uh, and just the learning that took place there. And one of the things that I learned, and part of that trip, I was on uh the Nile River, uh, cruised the Nile for about eight days. And the Nile River, I came to learn, is 36 million years old. It's the oldest river on the planet. It's 36 million years old, and it is in the same riverbed that it has always been in. The riverbed has not moved, which is unbelievably unique for rivers on this planet. Now, where that moves to is because of the stability, because of the continuity, that Nile River Valley gave birth to in these incredible dynasties that literally was the font of civilization. Yeah. And I mean, I uh I get chills just thinking about this. But yeah, I was floating on a river that was 36 million years old in a place that you know King Tut. And I was in Tuts, you know, I was in Tut's bedroom. And I mean, yeah, that's incredible. But but the lessons, I mean, to just to be able to play with the notion of what what does this make possible? This kind of continuity, this kind of uh lack of attachment. And this is you know, this is part of this. I mean, I I can't count the number of dynasties that were present in yeah, ancient Egypt all the way through, you know, when Alexander the Great came through. And I mean, you know, I mean, yeah, five thousand years minimal of yeah, archaeological exposition uh exists there. Five thousand years. And the con yeah, the the ability of uh human beings to transition, to be able to, you know, the rise and fall of dynasties. This universe is 33 billion years old. I mean, what I you know, this outcome that I'm sweating bullets over in the greater scheme of things, it's kind of like, yeah, I'd better laugh at this.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

Yeah. I think laughter is so important. I I sometimes just try to, if I'm feeling anxious or stressed or whatever word you want to attach to it, just start laughing. And it you feel your body just get lighter, and all of a sudden it things just feel they feel easier.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Um that's a vibrational shift, Jack. That's a vibrational shift. And when it becomes lighter, more things are accessible.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Yeah. It's Tony Robbins calls it changing his state. Uh it's all the same same thing. Something I want to uh I want to talk to you about is thinking uh thinking on our attachment to goals. I created everything I'm doing with this podcast and my speaking and coaching around an idea that I called the duality of gratitude and ambition. I want to hear what you have to say about it, so I'll explain it to you. Basically, I was 17 years old and I was I had a business with four employees. I was living in France because I studied abroad. I went from not speaking the language at all to being certified and fluent, and I was I I had everything I thought I wanted, yet I felt empty, like we talked about. And I'm I remember standing in front of my mirror and looking at myself and just seeing so much fatigue and being confused. I thought life had betrayed me. It hadn't. What I'd done is uh what I call I'd built a ceiling without a floor. I had I wasn't grateful enough for what I had, and something I see so many people talk about these days with the big motivators of the world, like David Goggins, is like they they want to put. Push forward. They want to push forward out of almost a hatred for their current circumstances. And what I decided is that I didn't want to chase happiness through goals. I wanted to reach my goals while standing on top of happiness, right? And use that as my platform. So I call it the duality of gratitude and ambition, being extremely grateful for our current circumstances and saying, I have everything I want right now, yet I still can want more, and that's okay. And right now is perfect. What do you think about that as a framework, as an idea for uh for solving this problem of attachment?

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Attachment comes from a belief in scarcity. It's an abundant universe. I don't need to be attached to anything. It's an abundant universe. I cannot outgive the universe. So gratitude is just an acknowledgement of the abundance that is available to me in my life. I'm either experiencing it right now or it's already happened. I just haven't arrived. When I arrive, I'll experience it then. So gratitude is a very high vibrational state. It really is. I mean, I've got a daily gratitude practice that I work with. I mean, that's just part of my ritual in the morning. And it's it's not just a one and done. Yeah, both my wife and I, you know, we practice gratitude as an elemental piece of the way that we live our lives. I'm grateful for this. Um, yeah, she was diagnosed with a very uh serious illness two years ago. And just as a uh reference point on this, I mean she had brain surgery, and there was just, I mean, it was serious. And when the first diagnosis came in, yeah, she made the comment to uh the neurologist. I said, There is an unexpected opportunity here. I'm not sure what it is yet, but there's an unexpected opportunity, and I'm going to find it.

unknown 46:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

And that is wow.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

That that has informed her entire journey and my journey with her uh the last two and a half years. And she's doing great now.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

She's doing great. She's doing great. Yeah. I love to hear that. Wow. Blaine, this has been so incredible. I really, really am grateful, unironically, for our time together that we got to meet. Uh I originally reached out because I I had an amazing conversation with David Meltzer, who you work with at the Napoleon Hill Institute. And uh I've learned so much from you. I I really appreciate what you're doing. I'm so inspired by the fact that you continue to learn and prioritize learning and everything you've done. I I really appreciate you. Uh thank you, Jack.

SPEAKER_02 46:50

And I do too. I'm I'm I am very grateful that you are 19 years old and you are working with this material. You're gonna make an incredible difference. You are, you're gonna make an incredible difference in the world. And uh I I I take my hat off. Yeah, you remind me of me when I was 19.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

That's I love to hear that because uh I look up to you. So to end to end this conversation, what is one thing? I think action's a great thing to end on, right? So if anyone's listening to this and they've been inspired, which I don't know how they can't be, and they feel like they want to take action toward a goal that they really, really want. What what do you recommend?

SPEAKER_02 47:31

That for me, that's an easy answer. I uh I love that question. Uh I mentioned I grew up on a farm, and nature has probably been one of my greatest teachers. And if you walk around nature and you really are paying attention, just noticing what goes on there, there is nothing in nature that is exclusively serving as a uh center of accumulation. Now, water will accumulate in a pond, but but it's always being distributed in some way, shape, or form. Everything in nature serves as a center of distribution at the end of the day. So we are all parts of nature. So the the suggestion I've got for people is in your daily life, find a way to be a center of distribution. Give something away, give it, yeah, whether it's a hug, a smile. Um, yeah, on my website, you know, we've got all kinds of resources that we give away. I mean, I give away probably 80% of my material. Um centers of distribution. It's it's always in flow. So find something to do and a way to be that puts that that calls on you to be a center of distribution in life. I mean, that's what you're doing with your podcast. Yeah, you're you're distributing the information, knowledge, goodwill, all of that. And that makes a difference. Yeah. Nature is the only truly free market economy on the planet. Everything else is a is a very poor facsimile. So find a way to give. Find a way to give. Find a way to give. Yeah, center of distribution. And it doesn't have to be a big deal. It puts you in the position of recognizing that abundance is your birthright. That's so important. You can't outgive the universe, so you just keep giving.

SPEAKER_00 49:25

Yeah, yeah, that's so true. I love that so much. Blaine, thank you so much for this conversation. Uh, everybody, this has been the Grateful Podcast.