The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
Have you been questioning how to live your dreams and enjoy greater happiness, health, and wellbeing? I'm James Granstrom, male model turned international speaker and wellbeing teacher. Join me every other week for new lessons, tips, and conversations on personal growth, health, healing and spirituality with my inspiring guests or straight talk from myself. I'm here to guide you to become your best self and enrich your life, so you can tune and tap into your own natural state of wellbeing.
The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series
A Glimpse Beyond: Mike McKinsey’s Near-Death Experience and the Light That Changed Everything
A wedding week. A sudden collapse. An operating room that opened into something luminous.
In this deeply moving conversation, Mike McKinsey shares the near-death experience that transformed the ruptured appendix into a profound awakening of meaning, faith, and purpose. He recalls the moment he says Jesus took his hand, the breathtaking landscape of living light and domed cities, and the jolt back to a hospital bed.
It’s a story told with honesty and detail — one that gently reminds us there’s more to life than the body.
We explore what came after the vision just as much as the vision itself: pneumonia, ICU nights, and a second encounter that arrived as a quiet but unmistakable voice — tell our story, expect valleys, keep walking. Over two decades, Mike has learned to live by that guidance, listening for small promptings, testing them through action, and meeting scepticism with empathy. His message now reaches millions through podcasts, books, and the near-death experience community.
💡 In this episode, you’ll discover:
- What near-death experiences reveal about consciousness and divine connection
- How to ask for guidance without forcing outcomes
- The difference between blind faith and tested faith
- Why beauty, gratitude, and silence can anchor a restless mind
- How to live with greater peace, purpose, and trust in life’s unfolding
Whether you call it God, Jesus, or the Universe, the invitation is the same:
Pay attention, act on the light you have, and let hope guide your next step.
If this episode resonates, please follow the show, share it with someone who needs encouragement today, and leave a review with the question you’d most want to ask Mike. Your reflections help shape what we explore next.
Thank you for listening
They wheel me into surgery before they put any mask on, before they gave me any medication. I'm I get slid over from the gurney to the surgical table, and I look to my right, and Jesus walks into the operating room. It was like the surgeon walked in, but it's Jesus wearing a white robe. And I look at him like, what the heck is going on here?
SPEAKER_00:Hello and welcome to the James Granstrom Podcast Super Soul Model Series. This week we are joined by Mike McKinsey. Mike is an accomplished author and real estate investor whose life took a profound turn back in 2004 with a near-death experience. The moment became a catalyst for Mike with deep exploration in consciousness, spirituality, and the interconnectedness of life. Grounded in his Christian faith and guided by firsthand insight into the afterlife, Mike's work invites others to see life through the lens of divine purpose, love, and awakening. Welcome to this episode, Mike. Thanks so much for having me, James. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mike. So tell us a little bit about the beginning of how the near-death experience all came about. I think if you cast us back to about 2004, that's probably um well.
SPEAKER_01:We've traveled about five hours away from our home to to attend my son's wedding. He was living down on the coast in California. And um so we got there like I think four days early. We got there on a Wednesday. The wedding was going to be on a Saturday. And my boys, my other two boys wanted to play baseball, so they brought their wiffle balls and and bats. And we went out to the park and played some baseball. So I did a lot of uh a lot of physical activity, a lot of twisting that I normally don't do. I was a baseball coach for a long time, but I didn't really play that hard, you know. But we played for a couple hours. And uh man, Wednesday night I started feeling sick, and I thought, gosh, great time to get a flu. You know, my son's wedding's coming up on Saturday. Uh so I just kind of passed it off as no big deal. Thursday I got sicker. Friday we had the rehearsal dinner. I got really sick then. And um Friday night before the wedding, I didn't sleep at all because I was just in so much pain. Um but I didn't, I didn't really know what it was. My son was in the medical field and we were sitting at the bar after uh after the rehearsal dinner having a glass of wine. And he says, You know, Dad, maybe it's your appendix. And I said, I don't think so, Ben. You know, it's it, I don't have that point tenderness. You know, they always say you can touch that one little spot and you go through the roof. But um I didn't have that. And I just I just said, Yeah, I think it's the flu. And he says, you know, you should probably get checked out. And I said, Well, you know, after after the wedding, I'll I'll go to the hospital, get checked out before we before we travel back home. And uh so we made it through the rehearsal dinner or through the wedding. Wedding was beautiful. It was on a golf course out there, wedding was you know, the weather was perfect. Um, and then after the wedding was over, the reception and all that, I told them I gotta go get checked out because by then I was sweating. I'd checked my temperature, it was 104. Okay, and I was just really pale. Uh, all the wedding pictures, my favorite ones are the ones in black and white because you can't see how pale I am.
SPEAKER_00:You didn't do like a ghost or something.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's terrible. Um, so anyway, I go to the hospital and and I'm laying back in the emergency room, and the lady's kind of pushing on my my stomach, and she says, You know, I think that's your appendix. It sounds a lot like your appendix. And she's pushing on my abdomen. She says, Does that hurt? And I said, No, not really. I mean, I I think I just got the flu. I'm telling a nurse, you know, what my problem is, right? Um, she says, Well, I think it's your appendix. And so she takes out this little rubber mallet and she taps the bottom of my foot and she says, Does that hurt? And I said, No, I kind of laughed. I thought, you know, why are you checking my feet? It's weird. But then she tapped the other foot, and man, the pain in my abdomen made me scream. And she says, Okay, that's your appendix. It's probably ruptured. She says, Uh, have you done any like physical activity in the last couple of days? And I said, Well, you know, Wednesday, I played some baseball in the park with my kids for a couple hours, and her expression changed. You could just see like panic set in. She says, Wednesday, and she's thinking, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, this is three days. If your appendix ruptured, then uh we have to get you back there pretty quick. So she called in a surgeon. They wheel me into surgery, and um before they put any mask on, before they gave me any medication, I'm I get slid over from the gurney to the surgical table, and I look to my right, and Jesus walks into the operating room. It was like it was like the surgeon walked in, but it's Jesus wearing a white robe. Right. And I look at him like, what the heck is going on here? You know, and I kind of looked back at at the rest of the room and just sort of all faded away, like it just got all like foggy and like with these um like like sparkly fog. It was really weird. And Jesus walks up to me and he holds out his hand and he says, I want to answer your prayer. Now I'm thinking, my prayer, you know. I before I went in, I said a little prayer that everything would go well, and sure doesn't look like it's gonna go too well. Jesus is taking me to heaven here, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because uh what was he wearing? What you know, like because there's you must have surgeons in the room, and then suddenly Jesus is in front of you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh he was he was the only person that I could see, but it was a very physical encounter, like it, like I said, like like I thought he was a surgeon. He's wearing a white robe, goes all the way down to the floor. Uh he had darker skin than what I than what I had been shown as a kid, you know. As a as a kid in in California, uh I was shown a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Jesus, and he was not blonde-haired and blue-eyed. He did have deep green, uh, greenish, almost blue eyes, but they were very dark green.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh he had, like I said, dark skin, um, looked like an Arab man, uh, which was, like I said, totally because that's the part of the region where he he was born. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which makes sense. But you know, as a kid, I never really thought about it. Um, and his hair was kind of wavy about down to his shoulders, a little past his shoulders.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:And um I I I could just I felt this love radiing, radiating from him. Um, and I've always said when his eyes looked into my eyes, he looked into my soul. It was like he was my my father, my brother, my best friend, all wrapped up in one. And and so he's holding out his hand, saying he wants to answer my prayer. And I I thought, well, if I take his hand, like, am I is that it? Am I dead? You know, I I figured maybe so, but what are you gonna do? Jesus says, I want to answer your prayer and holds out his hand. I can't really say no. So I I grab his hand immediately when I touched his hand. I found myself standing on this grassy hill, still holding his hand, and I'm looking around, and everything is white, like the whitest white I've ever seen. I I can't really see anything except the grass below my feet. And my senses were heightened to the point where I could count every single blade of grass that was touching my feet. It was like I knew instantly how many blades of grass there were. And so I'm looking around and then I see, like kind of off to my right at about my my height, there's this round, almost basketball-sized light that's lighter than the rest of the light, and it's kind of shimmering, and it starts sending off these light beams, like coming towards me. And they look like fluorescent light tubes, but they're short, they're a couple feet long, they're smooth, they're a little bit fatter than fluorescent light tubes. And one of them comes at me and hits me right in the forehead. And as it hits me, it makes this kind of like a light buzzing sound. And when it goes through me, it warmed me like all the way down to my feet. It was really an amazing feeling. And then as I look back where these things are coming from, it's like somebody took a curtain, the white, the all that white that was in front of me, it was like it was a curtain and somebody pulled it from my right to my left, and it just revealed this beautiful scenery. So now I see at the bottom of, I am standing on a hill. At the bottom of the hill, there are there are these uh like beautiful pastel colors um of flowers, and they're kind of dancing like they're like there's a little bit of wind, uh, but there's no wind. And at the bottom of that hill, there's a huge city, but that white, that white fog settled in the city in the valley. So all I can see is rooftops sticking through the fog. And there's um there's this big giant like golden dome almost in the middle, but uh way off in the this city's huge, it's like miles across. And there's other golden domes that are sticking through the fog, and there's a lot of like white rooftops too, like and there's a lot of church steeples that look like church steeples, but they didn't have crosses on the top of them, which I thought was odd, because all all the steeples that I've seen have a cross at the top, or almost all of them, and then on the other side of that city there's another mountain, and that's a big mountain. Uh, and it's covered in these pine trees. They look like pine trees, but they're just perfectly shaped. And now all of a sudden, all those light beams that were coming at me are going across the city, across the tops of the buildings, and they're going over and they hit the trees. And when they hit these trees, there was like uh it was like they had diamonds on the tips of them because when one light beam hit it, it burst into hundreds of tiny light beams. And they were just like going off all over the place. And there they were um they were contrasted by the sky behind it that was it was like the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen, but there was no sun. So there's you know the sky above these trees is like reds and and oranges and just super vivid colors, and these things are popping everywhere, and it's like fireworks, but they were all white. And I just thought, wow, this is just so amazing. I just stood there in awe and I look back at to to where the where they were coming from, these light beams, and Jesus says to me, It's the glory of the Lord. And when he said that, I just got weak in my knees. I got so filled with emotion, I couldn't stand. And so I fell to my knees, and the instant my knees hit the ground, they shocked me in the hospital and they brought me back. So now instead of this beautiful scenery, I've got a doctor leaning over me wearing a mask, and he says, Do you know your name? And I'm thinking, like, what the heck? Where, you know, where did this beautiful scenery go? Where'd Jesus go? And he says, Again, do you know your name? And so I my throat was like really dry, uh, probably from the anesthesia. And I I struggled to get my name out, but I did say Mike. And he says, Okay, good, do you know where you are? And I said, Ventura, that was the city on the coast where the where the wedding was. And um, he says, Okay, good, he's back. And now he starts talking to other people in the room, and I realize that there's like five or six other nurses, they're all wearing these blue scrubs, running around. And I look and I see the crash cart. One of one of the people are putting the paddles back on the crash cart and they wheel it by me. And he says, uh, he says, Let's get him up to ICU. Um, and so I spent uh about four days in ICU and 12 days in the hospital. I developed a few complications, so it took me quite a while. So the next next day, I thought this was interesting. The next day, the surgeon comes in and he says, uh, he says, Oh, glad to see you stuck around. I hear we had a little incident last night. And I said, Yeah. And uh he says, You know, yours is the worst case I've ever seen. And this is like a 70-year-old man telling me this.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And I was like, Wow, you're kidding. And he turns around and he and he leaves after he's checking my stitches and you know, doing all the stuff that he had to do. He turns back around and he says, You know, I said it was the worst case I've ever seen, but that's not exactly true. Yours is the worst case I've ever seen where the patient lived. And he actually said to me, God's not done with you yet. He said that to you. He said that to me, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Nice to hear. How did that make you feel when you heard that from him?
SPEAKER_01:I thought, you know, maybe there's more to the story. Turns out there there was. Um, you know, I I just so I I went on this. Uh it's funny how how this whole thing just sort of unfolded in my life. You know, I had this beautiful NDE. And after then 24 hours later, I started developing pneumonia. I could, I woke up, I could barely breathe. And Jesus actually walked back into the hospital room 24 hours later, and I had a three-hour conversation with him. Now, when I told people that part, yeah, uh, you know, like my I came home and I told my friends about the NDE, and they're sitting there crying with me. These are 45, 50-year-old men holding my hand, crying right along with me as I'm telling this, this story. And then I got to the part where I said, Yeah, and Jesus came back 24 hours later. And you could just see that the the expression on their face went from, wow, this is amazing, to dude, you're crazy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know? And I thought, okay. And I and I heard after about the fifth person that I told, I heard Jesus whisper to me, you don't have to tell this part yet. And I thought, well, okay, that's good. So I'm just gonna shut up about that because I'm losing all credibility here. They're not gonna believe a word I say now if I tell them that.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Can I ask a question here? Number one, when you're on the operating table, did you feel as though your spirit went somewhere, or were you just closing your eyes and then you're waking, awake up with a whole new set of visuals?
SPEAKER_01:It was uh it was it was very strange. It wasn't like you know, you hear a lot of near-death experience. People say they hovered above their body, they could see what was going on. That didn't happen to me. Mine was like a physical thing. Jesus touched my hand, I felt his hand as a physical person, and all of a sudden I'm gone. So it was just this super physical, heightened awareness.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And when you were speaking to your friends about the first aspect of your NDE, people you said that grown men were were crying and you know, listening warming to your story. That's really beautiful. Did you question yourself when you have these uh unusual heightened experiences?
SPEAKER_01:You know, I never really questioned it because I knew I knew what I went through. Yeah, um, and I knew how real it was. It was it was hard to believe, but I knew what happened. Yeah, and then as I as I started, you know, starting to think about it, I thought, well, maybe it was just hallucination. And then I thought, well, hallucinations don't take you somewhere. I can't, I don't feel things as a hallucination. If it, you know, it should have just gone away if it was just hallucination. And then I don't know, the as I've gone, this happened 20 years ago, 21 years ago now. As I've gone through this, it's like I can hear the voice of God talk to me, sometimes audibly. And I and like there's this one crazy time that I heard him say, I want you to give a thousand dollars to this church function that we were doing. And and this voice in my ear says, I want you to give a thousand dollars. And I go through all this questioning, like, are you talking to me, Jesus? And you know, it was the same voice. And then so I ended up giving the thousand dollars, and the voice said, You'll get it back. So the next day I go home and in my in my stock trading account, one of my stocks had gone up by exactly a thousand dollars. I I cash out and I got the thousand bucks back, like the very next day. So it's like, oh, that was Jesus, and he's he's tested me to see if I can hear him.
SPEAKER_00:You know, you talk a lot about faith, but you know, each of us have to have our own sense of faith. Your experience uh allows us to go, wow, this is possible, this is happening. Well, it might not be happening to me, but I believe the authenticity of Mike's story and so many other near-death experiences of people. I've had my own unusual experiences that I haven't actually even voiced on my show yet, and I've been going for six years because there's a couple that's like wow. And I'm still kind of waiting to share. But you know, you talk about faith. How how can we increase our faith? I mean, we haven't even talked about our second part of your your you know, we came back to say I really want to get there, but I really just want to talk about this word faith because we need it. We need faith. Your story brings to mind that you know your life. You weren't finished yet. Right? In my experience, I had a car crash at the age of 19 and I went through the windscreen and there's nothing on my face. I've only got a few cuts on my back, and I've told this story on my podcast before, but you know, I I crashed that car at 110 miles an hour rolling on a wet uh winter's night, and a friend of mine had one stitch in his head, and yet we walked away unscathed. I thought to myself, oh, well, I've been spared, you know. I've been spared. I've got to find out at my tender young age how to help people because my life now isn't just about me, you know, and even with all my logical thinking at that time, it couldn't work out how I walked away from that, just a bit like yours. So, you know, faith, Mike, what does that mean to you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, first, let me just say that um, you know, the surgeon came in and said, God's not done with me yet. Uh, I think the same thing could have been said for you and after that car crash. It wasn't up with you. You know, there's there's purpose, there's a purpose for everyone's life. And uh faith is uh it's a journey, you know, for some of us. We just have faith in God, we believe in uh, you know, in in Jesus, and uh we just take it, it's easier for us to understand. I have this analytical mind that, you know, I've always said I need to take apart a watch to see the gears and the springs to know how it works. And that was one of the things that I kept asking, Jesus, are you sure this is real? Does this really happen? And he kept talking to me, saying, Yes, it's real, it's really happening. You're not imagining this. Um, but I think um I think the the best place to start in faith is is to just start asking God, reveal yourself to me. Let me let open my eyes, let me see this. Because it's easy for me because I look around at the beautiful world that we live in. And I think there's there's only one, there's only one way that this could happen. And I know, you know, unbelievers will look at it and go, well, yeah, it was the Big Bang or whatever. But to me, it just doesn't make sense. Nothing, nothing makes sense except that God created it because it all works so well together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but we were not created with the ability to comprehend that. We can't, we cannot ever get to the point where we can say, okay, I understand eternity, I understand how God could be here forever, because it doesn't work in our mind. But uh, you know, a lot of people will take the other way. They'll go, okay, well, carbon dating or science or you know, global warming, this this is easy stuff for me to get my my head around because I understand it and I comprehend it. Uh I don't think we're ever going to get to the point. I mean, even with me, I've I've heard God's voice, I've seen proof of the existence of God, but uh but I still question faith sometimes. Sure.
SPEAKER_00:Everybody does. I think I like to leave it up to everybody. And it does bring with it a sense of compassion after you go through something really tough. Maybe someone you love has passed away, or maybe you're on a massive health crisis, scare, or something. You know, it means that you have to turn to something, an energy. Some people call it the universe, some people call it life, God, Jesus. It does it doesn't matter what you call it. I really, really believe that energy is an aspect of us that we just have to tune and tap into. And then when we do that, there's this shelter, there's this comfort, but that requires faith to even ask. Because if you don't ask, it won't reveal itself sometimes. Right, right. Um, and you've got to come from a place of even asking, even if you've got any doubts. Like, look, if you are of there, show me. Show me. Right. And but you've got to get to that place, right? It's like, you know, I've heard all of these things, I've watched all of these shows, you know, I've read books, but ultimately I haven't had my own experience.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And so when we have the gift of you on the show, Mike, you know, you've had your experience, you can share it. When you were in the ICU, you were there for a few days, but you said within 24 hours he was back, and you were reluctant to share the message. So I use that.
SPEAKER_01:I wasn't ready. When I was in the ICU 24 hours later, I woke up, I couldn't breathe. I mean, I was really struggling to breathe. I was so weak I couldn't pick my hands up off my chest. That's how sick I was. Um, and I woke up and I had the call, they put the call button on my chest, so they, you know, because they knew how bad I was.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:So I pushed the button and I and I tell the lady, I can't breathe, the nurse. And she comes running in and she listens to my chest through a stethoscope, and I'll never forget her words. She says, Oh, honey, you're developing pneumonia. And my first thought was, Great, pneumonia. That's why Jesus showed me heaven because I'm gonna die. That's that's where I'm going. He wanted to comfort me before I died. And she calls in about three other nurses, they packed me in ice. I had still 104 temperature. They packed me in ice, they put oxygen in my nose, they gave me this spirometer to breathe into. She props it up on my chest, she puts this thing in my mouth, and you're supposed to blow into it to raise this little marble, you know, to get your lungs working, to get some air flowing. And she says, do that 10 times an hour. And so everybody else left, and I just feel this holy presence enter the rooms. Best way I can describe it. And she sat down, one of the nurses, the original nurse, sat down in a chair next to me. And she says, I'm gonna keep an eye on you, keep reminding you to breathe into this brometer. And all of a sudden I hear the voice of Jesus again, but I can't see him this time. But it's like he picked up a chair and sat down. He's at the end of my bed, but I cannot see him. And so I'm thinking, man, this is really weird. Um, but uh, the first thing he says is, uh, I had to get you away from the distractions and put you flat on your back so you could hear me. And it was like an audible voice, like someone was standing at the end of the bed talking to me. But like I said, I couldn't see him. And I thought, wow, you know, away from the distractions. Now I had a really stressful job. I had kids in athletics, so I was running around. We're raising four kids. One of them, of course, was off, you know, off and gotten married. Um, but it was just super stressful job, stressful life, running in and out. I was running all these organizations, doing coaching, and there was just never a moment of rest. It was just, and every day it was the same lather, rinse, repeat. Get up in the morning, go to work super early, come home, throw the baseball equipment or whatever. And you know, it was just raising kids was just hectic. And so I didn't have time for God. I didn't have time, I barely had time for church. Every once in a while we'd go to church because I thought it was good for the kids, but didn't really mean anything to me.
SPEAKER_00:I I love that because you don't have to be a big believer for something um un incredible to happen.
SPEAKER_01:It is incredible. No, no, and I and I wasn't. And you know, I I had I if somebody said, Are you a Christian? I'd say, Yeah, of course. Uh, but it just, like I said, didn't mean anything to me. Uh it was just what you did on Sunday, Sunday mornings. That was it. Sunday afternoon, you come home, you watch the football games, and you know, you forget all about Sunday or Sunday school. And um, so he says, I'm I'm calling you out to do more for my kingdom. And I thought, well, you know, I'm about to die here, so what am I gonna do? And he says, You're gonna make a full recovery, and at at the right time, I'm gonna call call you out to do more for my kingdom and tell our story. And he said, Our story is going to reach millions. And I kind of laughed. I said, You got the wrong guy. I'm not Billy Graham. Now, if you think about like 20 years ago, most of my story's been heard on YouTube. We have NDE story and ND channels telling the stories, millions of views, millions of views, podcasts, yeah. Yeah, so that part of it came true. It took 20 years, but uh you know, when I finally went public with my story, um when was that guy posted posted contacted me and they wanted to put my NDE story in one of their books, and I thought, well, I better do some marketing for them, you know, help them sell some books. Um, and so that I contacted a podcaster, and that first one led to a lot more, you know, it's it's just the NDE community has is pretty tight. Yeah. So when he said you're gonna talk to millions, I thought, you know, Billy Graham standing in front of this this big crowd of you know, hundreds of thousands of people. And I said, That's not me. I mean, I'm not comfortable talking in front of a crowd. And he just chuckled, you know, like you like you have two ideas, right? Yeah, um, so that part of it did come true. Um, and he said, you know, he just pretty much told me you're you're gonna have uh some valleys to walk through, but uh I'll I'll carry you through it. You're gonna have some tough, tough things that go on, and I and I did.
SPEAKER_00:But ultimately, when you're trying to speak your truth, you're gonna be tested, you know. Sure. And speaking truth is not always easy, but as long as it's honest from you, that's the only thing that's important. I think we're all designed to be built differently and question, and and I think that's healthy. I don't think it's healthy for us all to think the same thing. No, but I I do think it's healthy to question, and I think your story will make people question. And if people attack, it's only because they haven't asked the right question yet. That's all my and I think that if you're unsure, question everything until you get your own experience, your own feeling. So I think that some of those contrasting moments that you might have experienced or have experienced are just people still trying to catch up, trying to ask those right questions. But naturally that's part of your journey of speaking the truth, which you were reluctant to in the first place. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that that's important. But everybody, like you said, everybody's on their own journey. Everyone's on their journey. It's gonna happen at at the right time. That yeah, you know, but just you know, that's that's kind of my whole message, too, is just stay curious, you know. Yeah, dig into it, you know, do do your own research. And um, maybe I hate to say it, but maybe not all on YouTube.
SPEAKER_00:But um, you know, I think when you ask really good questions, I think life has a wonderful way of showing you answers to those questions. I remember when I was first curious and uh after the car crash a few years later, I was still drinking heavily and I and I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to continue living at this rate because the pain is so much from the the contrast and the emotional that I'm feeling. And then I remember like asking, I was like, look, there's got to be more to life than what I'm seeing, even though I'd been to church. I'd grown up going to church, but I I hadn't quite grasped really what it was all about. It felt quite dogmatic. But I received a book from a friend the next day and I devoured it. A book, and I was like, man, this is answering a lot of questions. And from that book, a load of other books came into my experience. And I from about the year 2000 onwards, I devoured thousands and thousands of books until one day, in my experience, I was like, that's enough, you can put the books away now. Now it's time to share. And I was like, whoa, nor me, whoa, whoa, whoa, nor me. I'm flawed. I was like, that's exactly why you're I want you to be a messenger. Yeah. That's exactly why you want you to be a messenger. And after lots of pain and suffering and breakups, now it's your time, off you go. And that was six years ago, Mike. So I understand where you're coming from, but also I'm listening and really feeling the people tuning in today. Listening to this episode to go, listen, question as much as possible. Like Mike said, be curious.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, absolutely. Very important. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So what what did he say when he came in? You know, he said, Look, I I understand I want you to share, teach millions of people. Was there anything else as as well as that?
SPEAKER_01:Um it was just, you know, pretty much this is what I want you to do. Um, and did he give you any specificity what he wanted you to do? You know, it's a that's funny that you ask that because I I always ask for specifics. I always say, What does that mean? You know, tell me more. What what does that mean? What's that gonna look like? Am I supposed to write a book? Am I supposed to, you know, what am I supposed to do? And it's always dead silence. Anytime I've heard Jesus talk to me, it's always the details are up to me. Okay, you know, and and I wish you would just say, Here's what I want you to do. I want you to write a book, I want you to go to this, you know, church and talk to these people and do this and this. No, it's just all, it's all no. I want you to tell our story, and that's it. You know, the rest details are up to me.
SPEAKER_00:So I love that. That's beautiful because then it gives you the choice, the free will, so to speak, to be able to share your truth. When did you start sharing the the story, actually, Mike? How long ago was it? Because the experience was like 21 years ago. But when was it when you began to actually reach out and share the story on YouTube and other areas?
SPEAKER_01:Uh it was it was about it was almost 20 years ago after it happened. So I was reading an online comment. Uh well, that was that was to get to the second part. I was reading an online comment that said, um your hallucination was caused by your high temperature. And I used to always think, when I've read those comments, I used to think, Well, my temperature when Jesus was in the room talking to me for those three hours, after the first hour, the nurse checked my temperature and was down to 100. So I thought, well, that's not high enough to cause a hallucination. And it happened for two hours after that. Uh the first time I started sharing was when Guidepost printed my story in their in their book, uh, Glimpses of Eternity. And I was watching a podcast on on YouTube, and I just heard that same voice, Jesus' voice, say, I want you to contact this guy. And I thought he was talking about the guest, because the guest was a religious guy. Okay. And he was talking a lot about Jesus. And I thought, well, okay, I'll figure out how to get a hold of him, you know. Um, and then I realized that when I looked up his information, the same voice was saying, No, you're supposed to contact the host. And so I did, and like within a week, I was in his office. He lives about three hours away from me. I was in his office and he has a studio downstairs in his in his house.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I was down there recording the whole message. He calls me a couple of days later and he says, That was a great interview. I spent three hours with the guy, over three hours in his studio doing this first podcast. Sure. He called me and he says, Hey, we lost all the audio. I don't know what happened. He said, I checked the audio before we started. I checked it, you know, we took a break. I checked it during the it was all there. He says, We're gonna have to do it again. I mean, unless unless you just want to do something else, you know, meet meet me halfway.
SPEAKER_00:I have to ask you a question. Were you really anxious to tell the story? Did you have a fear inside of you of some sort?
SPEAKER_01:Sure.
SPEAKER_00:I did. Yeah. I don't I definitely I would love to say that everything in this world after understanding energy now for the last 20 years is that everything is a response to the energy we're emitting. So when we've got fear, that can show up and not uh uh a video or an audio coming on. I know that because that's happened to me when I've done these podcasts. I've had somebody in I was like, I was so anxious, and then when I got it, I didn't have the visual. I was like, oh no. But I managed to put out the audio, but not the visual. And I know how I was feeling when I was going in there because it was one of my first authors that I had spoken to, and and I was like, so I know how it feels to know how it feels to feel like you've got anxiety or fear before. But I know that as soon as you sort of get up to speed with the rhythm of sharing a story, it's not a big deal anymore because it's just part of Mike, it's an extension. Yeah, that's true. Very true. What do you feel like the main message that you've taken away from this near-death experience?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I think it's kind of what you were talking about, you know, just giving people some hope, you know, that that we don't just go in the ground and and become worm dirt, you know, or worm food. We there's there's life after this life, and and that's that should give everybody hope that there's a better place. Um it's cliche, you know. Somebody dies and they say you're he's in a better place. Well, it's true, but it's just so hard to imagine. Um, but then that gets back to the curiosity, you know.
SPEAKER_00:You've had a personal experience of a glimpse of that better place, and then you're brought back to say, hey, it's okay. I mean, my dear uncle passed away yesterday, and that's okay. And I knew when I saw him at Easter time this year, I I felt that was the last time I was gonna see him physically. But it's nice to know from your experience that there is a beautiful place that that we will go to when this physical life is finished, our infinite life won't finish, but this physical suit will have its time. It's how do you make use of your time now? I know you're renovating your house and you're doing a massive job right now. Yeah. Yeah, but from that heightened experience that seems so vivid and real, and you've been able to disclose that with us so openly and beautifully, Mark, you know, how how do you take that into your day-to-day life?
SPEAKER_01:What I've done is just said, okay, Jesus wants me to tell this story, so that's my mission in life. I'm I'm gonna share it with as many people as as I possibly can. Um, you know, when when he's there's another there's another crazy part too to this to this whole thing. Um as I'm reading this this other comment where that I told you about just a minute ago about the hallucination, sure, high fever, I hear the audible voice say, now's the time to tell the whole story. And it's the same voice, same voice of Jesus. He says, Now's the time to tell the whole story. The world is ready, and so are you. Hold nothing back. And I thought, okay, well, the the world is ready. Yeah. And I thought, I'm ready. And I thought, you know, this is 20 years afterwards. I was very reluctant to tell any part of the story in the beginning. But I thought, what's changed in me in 20 years? And I have become, um, as I've gotten older, I've become more empathetic. I don't, I don't get mad at somebody for not believing me, because I, you know, I would tell a few friends about the NDE and they look at me like you're nuts. And back then I would just go, well, screw you. I don't care what you think. And I thought, well, that's not a very good representation of Jesus, you know. So you gotta work on your own heart. But he did, he changed me. And and now I, if somebody says, I don't believe you, I say, I'm sorry you feel that way. And do you mind if I pray for you that you have an open mind, that you that you become curious and you know, and do a little searching on your own. And uh, so that's that that was the big change for me during those 20 years.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:When he told me, tell the whole story. That's when I wrote the new book. And, you know, I just I put in all the crazy God stories that I have. And yeah, well, remind us of the title of the book so people can like order it and read it.
SPEAKER_00:The book is called I Held the Hand of Jesus in Heaven. I have that. I'll have I'll make sure we have a link for that so you guys can read it. Mike, it's been an absolute joy speaking to you, very inspiring and enlightening. And and I think that the the main word here to take away is hope. And and I think faith is another word I really think is important today. And I think that we can all hold hope in our hearts in our own way when whether whatever we're going through, maybe there's a health challenge, a financial challenge, you know, a f any type of challenge, a death, you know, this makes us like feel like there's got to be more. And I think that if anyone's listening to this, you are made for more. You just might have forgotten temporarily. And I think that sometimes tuning into that higher aspect of yourself, gee, God, Jesus, energy, universe, whatever you wish to call it, I just think it's really important that you tune and tap into it because you're gonna get guidance. And and I think Mike's story is a a wonderful display and sharing of that guidance that he got. What thing could you share with people to take into everyday life?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'd say just um, you know, be be patient in and appreciate God's beautiful creation here. You know, death becomes part of of this earth. Uh, but you look around, I mean, the there's beauty everywhere. There's sunsets. Man, my picture, my my phone is full of pictures of sunsets and flowers, and I just can't get enough of it. Um, but just stay curious and stay hopeful.
SPEAKER_00:Beautiful. Well, thank you, Mike. Mike McKinsey is this week's super soul model. Thank you very much. Thanks so much, James. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode, please remember to like, subscribe, and share.