1 00:00:00,920 --> 00:00:03,608 Yo, what's up? It's Owen from RSD. 2 00:00:03,608 --> 00:00:06,225 Just lookin' at the shot I got here. 3 00:00:06,225 --> 00:00:11,655 [yawning] And, uh, I had a long day, so ... 4 00:00:14,228 --> 00:00:19,097 Been getting a lot of questions about meditation [coughs] 5 00:00:19,097 --> 00:00:22,788 and I thought today would be a great day to answer them. 6 00:00:22,788 --> 00:00:24,338 So let's do it. 7 00:00:28,995 --> 00:00:34,618 Had a lot of questions asked about this for a long time. 8 00:00:34,618 --> 00:00:37,793 People are curious, my thoughts on the topic of meditation, 9 00:00:37,793 --> 00:00:40,967 so, even though I'm not the best person to answer these questions, 10 00:00:40,967 --> 00:00:43,317 'cause there's a lot of different people that are experts at it, 11 00:00:43,317 --> 00:00:45,673 a lot of people were curious what my thoughts were on it, 12 00:00:45,673 --> 00:00:50,163 so I'll give you my opinion, and if you like the sorts of ideas I throw at you, 13 00:00:50,163 --> 00:00:53,942 then what I'd encourage you to do is go out and find a better teacher, 14 00:00:53,942 --> 00:00:56,259 someone who is really, really good at it, 15 00:00:56,259 --> 00:00:59,378 and they can teach you how to do meditation in a more detailed way. 16 00:00:59,378 --> 00:01:02,398 But I guess a lot of people were curious about my opinions on it, 17 00:01:02,398 --> 00:01:05,177 because I'm not some, like, spiritual woo-woo guy, 18 00:01:05,177 --> 00:01:07,521 I'm just kind of like a practical dude, 19 00:01:07,521 --> 00:01:10,178 and interested in the more practical ramifications of it. 20 00:01:10,178 --> 00:01:12,877 So, uh, y'know, if you want my thoughts on it, here they are, 21 00:01:12,877 --> 00:01:16,429 and otherwise you can go out and look elsewhere. 22 00:01:16,429 --> 00:01:23,537 Meditation is basically the idea that you spend 20 minutes a day doing nothing, OK? 23 00:01:23,537 --> 00:01:28,297 No thinking. No thinking about the future, no thinking about the past, 24 00:01:28,297 --> 00:01:32,931 but literally just resting your awareness in the present moment. 25 00:01:32,931 --> 00:01:38,663 All right, so, say I was gonna do that. Sit here with you and do it right now. 26 00:01:38,663 --> 00:01:40,797 I'm gonna cross my legs, but actually, funny enough, 27 00:01:40,797 --> 00:01:43,538 and this is the first thing I'll teach you, you don't need to cross your legs, actually. 28 00:01:43,538 --> 00:01:47,681 I'm not even very flexible. Look at this: I can barely even cross my legs. 29 00:01:47,681 --> 00:01:50,717 Probably some people that are into yoga could teach me how to do that. 30 00:01:50,717 --> 00:01:54,461 But I'm not flexible at all, so usually I'll just sit in a chair in my home 31 00:01:54,461 --> 00:01:57,480 and do it. I want to get as comfortable as possible. 32 00:01:57,480 --> 00:02:00,923 And basically, just resting my awareness on the present moment, 33 00:02:00,923 --> 00:02:04,329 I would do the following: 34 00:02:25,905 --> 00:02:27,341 (laughs) 35 00:02:27,341 --> 00:02:30,955 OK, fun stuff, huh? All right, well, that's basically all that meditation is. 36 00:02:31,375 --> 00:02:33,978 So you just sit down -- you could lie down if you want, 37 00:02:33,978 --> 00:02:36,682 I guess you could stand up. I usually just sit in a chair, like I said, 38 00:02:36,682 --> 00:02:39,881 and you don't think. 39 00:02:40,121 --> 00:02:43,029 All right, so, if I tell you not to think, what's going to happen? 40 00:02:43,029 --> 00:02:46,256 Well, the first thing you're probably going to be prone to doing 41 00:02:46,256 --> 00:02:49,016 is judging yourself for how much you're thinking. 42 00:02:49,016 --> 00:02:52,236 So you'll be like, OK, don't think. Wait, now I'm thinking! 43 00:02:52,236 --> 00:02:54,004 Shit, now I just said I'm thinking! OK, don't think. 44 00:02:54,004 --> 00:02:57,589 But look at that leaf over there. It's green. Shit, I'm thinking about the leaf. 45 00:02:57,589 --> 00:03:01,709 I'm so bad at this! How do they do this? How could you spend 20 minutes doing this? 46 00:03:01,709 --> 00:03:03,606 How could someone spend a week doing this? 47 00:03:03,606 --> 00:03:06,468 Right, so that's usually what happens when someone first tries meditation. 48 00:03:06,468 --> 00:03:09,085 So what we'll do right now is an exercise, 49 00:03:09,085 --> 00:03:12,241 where I'm gonna ask you to not think for, say, five seconds, 50 00:03:12,241 --> 00:03:15,442 and rather than not think, since that's not gonna be effective, 51 00:03:15,442 --> 00:03:19,333 what I want you to do is simply shift your awareness. 52 00:03:19,333 --> 00:03:25,937 So fuck not thinking, and simply shift your awareness into your breathing. 53 00:03:25,937 --> 00:03:32,953 OK, so as you breathe, just be like [inhales and exhales slowly] 54 00:03:32,953 --> 00:03:36,764 what I do there. Just shifted my awareness to my breathing, OK? 55 00:03:36,764 --> 00:03:40,563 So let's spend right now five seconds -- only five seconds -- 56 00:03:40,563 --> 00:03:43,563 just basically shifting your awareness from all the thoughts that you have 57 00:03:43,645 --> 00:03:46,848 projecting into the future of things you gotta do and concerns that you have, 58 00:03:46,848 --> 00:03:48,840 or possible paths you're gonna take. Stop thinking about the past, 59 00:03:48,840 --> 00:03:51,714 and all those things that happened to you and analyzing them, 60 00:03:51,714 --> 00:03:55,367 and simply shift your awareness away from those 61 00:03:55,367 --> 00:03:57,773 and onto the fact that you are currently breathing. 62 00:03:57,773 --> 00:03:58,559 OK. 63 00:04:08,590 --> 00:04:12,586 All right, maybe you're watching this and you had no problem doing that whatsoever, 64 00:04:12,766 --> 00:04:15,232 but on the flip side, maybe you're watching this 65 00:04:15,232 --> 00:04:17,785 and that was actually very difficult for you. 66 00:04:17,794 --> 00:04:21,400 If it was very difficult for you, again I gotta really emphasize, 67 00:04:21,400 --> 00:04:25,824 stop judging. Stop getting caught up in how well you're doing, 68 00:04:25,824 --> 00:04:28,489 and if you do have a thought like, How well am I doing? 69 00:04:28,489 --> 00:04:30,464 what I want you to do is let it go. 70 00:04:30,464 --> 00:04:34,127 So any time that you do meditation and a thought comes into your mind, 71 00:04:34,169 --> 00:04:38,002 rather than analyzing it, or rather than clasping onto it like a pitbull, 72 00:04:38,016 --> 00:04:40,866 just simply watch it float by, so to speak. OK? 73 00:04:40,866 --> 00:04:43,258 Sounds kind of funny, but, y'know, watch it float by. 74 00:04:43,258 --> 00:04:46,880 So say you're meditating, you're like [sound indicating focus: zhooop!] 75 00:04:46,880 --> 00:04:49,124 and you're present, no thoughts at all, just [focusing sound], 76 00:04:49,124 --> 00:04:51,057 just aware of the sounds, feelings in your body, 77 00:04:51,057 --> 00:04:53,920 aware of the energy in your body, that's it, 78 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:56,719 and then suddenly you think, Oh, do I have to pay my rent? 79 00:04:56,719 --> 00:05:00,201 Rather than say, Shit, I have to pay my rent. Fuck! Oh, I thought -- shit! Fuck! 80 00:05:00,201 --> 00:05:03,449 -- like that, instead just be like, I have to pay my rent, and then go, like, 81 00:05:03,449 --> 00:05:06,106 kind of like be aware, like, oh, I had a thought, but just be aware 82 00:05:06,106 --> 00:05:08,366 that you had a thought, and then [focusing sound] back out. 83 00:05:08,366 --> 00:05:12,327 So it's almost like when you're present to the moment, OK, present to the moment, 84 00:05:12,327 --> 00:05:16,273 again, not in the future, not in the past, but [focusing sound] right here, 85 00:05:16,273 --> 00:05:18,866 you're just present to the moment. 86 00:05:18,866 --> 00:05:21,786 When you lose that focus, either into the future or the past, 87 00:05:21,786 --> 00:05:26,360 it's almost like a set of binoculars or a camera that's like zhooooooop! 88 00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:29,338 like that, right back into your head, and then you gotta [reverses the sound] 89 00:05:29,338 --> 00:05:33,486 back out, OK? So it'd almost be like if I took this camera lens and went zhooop, 90 00:05:33,486 --> 00:05:37,928 like that, and then [reverses sound] back out. 91 00:05:37,928 --> 00:05:40,054 That's basically how you wanna think about it. 92 00:05:40,054 --> 00:05:45,452 OK, now, let's say that you do this for, um, 20 minutes a day, OK? 93 00:05:45,452 --> 00:05:47,806 Let's say you're doing 20 minutes a day of this. 94 00:05:47,806 --> 00:05:51,388 What you're gonna find is that sometimes you'll have a couple of seconds, 95 00:05:51,388 --> 00:05:55,307 or even a couple of minutes, where you're really, really present to the moment. 96 00:05:55,307 --> 00:05:58,305 It's really clear. It's a very relaxing feeling. 97 00:05:58,953 --> 00:06:03,440 You're not eager for it to end, you're just completely clear. 98 00:06:03,440 --> 00:06:05,944 You're just aware of your boring room. 99 00:06:05,944 --> 00:06:11,915 Now of course, this is probably one of the most beautiful places on the planet, 100 00:06:11,915 --> 00:06:16,549 at least in my opinion, so don't worry about the fact that you're not there. 101 00:06:16,549 --> 00:06:20,131 I usually do this in a room. In fact, to be honest, 102 00:06:20,131 --> 00:06:24,221 if I was sitting in my family room, it would probably be easier to do than here, 103 00:06:24,221 --> 00:06:27,731 which most people would probably disagree with, 104 00:06:27,731 --> 00:06:31,482 but that's just my personal prerogative, 'cause I'm used to doing it at home, right? 105 00:06:31,482 --> 00:06:34,844 At home I can just stare at the wall. I literally just stare at the wall. 106 00:06:34,844 --> 00:06:39,376 Now you might have questions like, should you stare at one specific point? 107 00:06:39,376 --> 00:06:43,035 What happens if you look around? What happens if you cough? 108 00:06:43,055 --> 00:06:46,349 What happens if you shift? So here's some of my answers for that. 109 00:06:46,399 --> 00:06:50,588 What I like to do is I like to do it for 20 minutes, 110 00:06:50,588 --> 00:06:53,892 so I'll set my alarm on my phone, actually for 21 minutes, 111 00:06:53,903 --> 00:06:58,481 and I do that so psychologically I've given myself one minute to shift around. 112 00:06:58,481 --> 00:07:01,579 You'll find when you first sit down, you want to scratch little itches, 113 00:07:01,579 --> 00:07:04,067 you want to swallow a bunch of times, 114 00:07:04,067 --> 00:07:07,575 you want to maneuver yourself so that you're comfortable, 115 00:07:07,575 --> 00:07:11,240 and if you don't limit that to around a minute or two -- 116 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:14,468 y'know, I use about a minute -- you'll keep wanting to scratch, 117 00:07:14,468 --> 00:07:16,795 wanting to shift, keep wanting to make it better. 118 00:07:16,795 --> 00:07:19,105 But what's kind of weird, this is really weird about meditation, 119 00:07:19,105 --> 00:07:22,241 is that if you just stay still and you accept it -- so for example, 120 00:07:22,241 --> 00:07:25,578 when the itch comes, much like the thought that you don't clasp onto, 121 00:07:25,578 --> 00:07:30,252 you simply accept that the itch is there, and don't analyze it or try to resist it, 122 00:07:30,252 --> 00:07:34,691 you just sort of let it go and surrender to the fact that this annoying itch is there, 123 00:07:34,691 --> 00:07:38,218 or this annoying posture that you're sitting in is there, 124 00:07:38,218 --> 00:07:41,538 you'll find it kind of goes away, which is intense, right? 125 00:07:41,538 --> 00:07:43,121 It's intense to think about that. 126 00:07:43,121 --> 00:07:45,668 I even find -- I don't know if anyone else finds this -- 127 00:07:45,668 --> 00:07:48,423 but I find that I don't even need to swallow saliva as much 128 00:07:48,423 --> 00:07:51,473 if I'm very present to the moment. It just doesn't seem to come up, 129 00:07:51,473 --> 00:07:54,889 and I don't know if that's completely delusional, but that tends to be what I find. 130 00:07:54,889 --> 00:07:58,149 Now, I'm not gonna do this perfectly. So if I meditate for 20 minutes, 131 00:07:58,149 --> 00:08:02,265 it's pretty unlikely that I'm honestly gonna sit there for 20 minutes perfectly. 132 00:08:02,265 --> 00:08:04,096 At some point I'm probably gonna shift around. 133 00:08:04,096 --> 00:08:06,831 At some point I'm probably gonna swallow. At some point I'm probably gonna cough, 134 00:08:06,831 --> 00:08:10,469 maybe once or twice. But notice that you shifted it from an ongoing need to do this 135 00:08:10,469 --> 00:08:12,729 to maybe just a few different times. 136 00:08:12,729 --> 00:08:15,833 If it's distracting you to the point that it's messing up your session, 137 00:08:15,833 --> 00:08:18,804 then just deal with it, but otherwise don't worry about it. 138 00:08:18,804 --> 00:08:24,998 Accept it and just let it flow past. Now how about as far as how long to do it? 139 00:08:24,998 --> 00:08:29,041 Why do I like to do it for 20 minutes? Well, for me 20 minutes is really good 140 00:08:29,041 --> 00:08:35,663 because I find that around maybe the 8- to 16-minute mark, type thing, 141 00:08:36,690 --> 00:08:42,350 I'll become very present. So definitely the first five, ten minutes for me, 142 00:08:42,550 --> 00:08:45,291 I'm not gonna slip into it as easily. 143 00:08:46,084 --> 00:08:50,224 And then a little bit later I'll become very, very present, 144 00:08:50,224 --> 00:08:53,691 and I'll slip into it no problem at all. 145 00:08:53,691 --> 00:08:55,472 So, um -- what's up, dude? 146 00:08:55,472 --> 00:09:02,374 So ... the reason that I wanna do it a little bit longer is just that 147 00:09:02,374 --> 00:09:06,192 if I only do it for one minute, it's really not that different 148 00:09:06,192 --> 00:09:08,211 than just sitting down for a minute. 149 00:09:08,211 --> 00:09:13,195 If I do it for too long, then I'm utilizing huge chunks of my day 150 00:09:13,195 --> 00:09:17,531 to practice becoming present, and that's not really something 151 00:09:17,531 --> 00:09:20,129 that I'm interested in doing, to tell you the truth. 152 00:09:20,129 --> 00:09:25,284 So, the way that I like to do it is I like to just become present 153 00:09:25,284 --> 00:09:29,664 for about 20 minutes, and ideally I kind of slip in and out of states of like being 154 00:09:29,664 --> 00:09:33,002 very, very present to not being that present, and then, uh ... 155 00:09:33,592 --> 00:09:38,933 what'll happen is usually in the last maybe 12 minutes to say, 4 or 5 minutes, 156 00:09:39,049 --> 00:09:42,741 I'm really, really present. But I don't want you to be analyzing it. 157 00:09:42,741 --> 00:09:45,547 I don't want you to be saying, How well did I do with meditation today? 158 00:09:45,547 --> 00:09:47,611 Did I do well, did I do bad? You'll kinda know, 159 00:09:47,611 --> 00:09:52,079 because some sessions are just so clear, and other sessions are, uh [laughs] 160 00:09:52,079 --> 00:09:55,912 pretty slow-going and not that different than just sort of sitting there 161 00:09:55,912 --> 00:09:59,171 and thinking and thinking and thinking. But that doesn't really matter, OK? 162 00:09:59,171 --> 00:10:03,041 It's a lot like going out and learning game, where some nights are amazing 163 00:10:03,041 --> 00:10:05,580 and you're in the zone, and other nights you're just not. 164 00:10:05,580 --> 00:10:09,692 Meditation parallels this to a freakishly similar extent. 165 00:10:09,692 --> 00:10:12,459 How 'bout eyes open vs. eyes closed? 166 00:10:12,459 --> 00:10:16,292 OK, so I like to do eyes open because when I keep my eyes open, 167 00:10:16,292 --> 00:10:19,710 that means that when I go up to a woman, I'm talking to her, 168 00:10:19,710 --> 00:10:23,315 I can look at her like this ... 169 00:10:23,315 --> 00:10:27,112 and I don't have a lot of flinching going on. 170 00:10:27,112 --> 00:10:30,176 So I'm not going "Hm?" Like y'know, she gives me a, say she says, 171 00:10:30,176 --> 00:10:33,456 You're a pasty white, short, balding ginger. 172 00:10:34,156 --> 00:10:38,975 Instead of going Mmm, like, twitching and getting upset, I'm just like ... 173 00:10:41,230 --> 00:10:44,892 Mm-hm. Y'know, something like that, right? I'm kind of like overthinking this now. 174 00:10:45,107 --> 00:10:46,215 [laughs] 175 00:10:46,379 --> 00:10:50,045 But anyway, that tends to be how I am. So meditation with my eyes open 176 00:10:50,785 --> 00:10:55,100 trains me to actually become present in a dynamic environment. 177 00:10:56,499 --> 00:10:59,059 A lot of people are into meditation as a sub-culture. 178 00:10:59,112 --> 00:11:05,036 So for example, they're in it to try to become spiritually enlightened. 179 00:11:05,285 --> 00:11:11,135 And that's cool. If you wanna become spiritually enlightened, that's pretty cool, 180 00:11:12,022 --> 00:11:14,899 but the reason that I'm focused on it [laughs] 181 00:11:14,899 --> 00:11:21,701 is that I like the day-to-day practical benefits, so that's why I like to do it 182 00:11:22,053 --> 00:11:24,177 with my eyes open, so that I'm not, like, present, 183 00:11:24,177 --> 00:11:27,721 like, I'm like a little ball of light, then I open my eyes I'm like ahh! 184 00:11:27,721 --> 00:11:31,358 Like that, y'know. I wanna train myself to be present in my everyday life. 185 00:11:31,961 --> 00:11:35,628 So I like to go eyes open, seated anywhere, 186 00:11:35,628 --> 00:11:41,852 and I put on the alarm because I don't like to wonder how much longer I have. 187 00:11:42,093 --> 00:11:45,153 I've personally just found that if I don't know how long I have, 188 00:11:45,153 --> 00:11:49,060 that I'm gonna keep wondering about it, and now that I do it all the time, 189 00:11:49,060 --> 00:11:52,754 I can generally sense the 20 minutes, but I prefer to just put an alarm, 190 00:11:52,754 --> 00:11:55,021 and different people have different opinions about this. 191 00:11:55,021 --> 00:11:58,838 I do it before bed because I'm a night person, 192 00:11:58,838 --> 00:12:03,099 and if I do it in the morning I just find it's completely, uh, 193 00:12:03,099 --> 00:12:06,391 almost like a waste of my time. Sometimes I'll do a couple minutes in the morning, 194 00:12:06,391 --> 00:12:10,765 but then I do it properly every night. But most people, funny enough, 195 00:12:10,765 --> 00:12:14,501 conversely, like to do it in the morning. [laughs] 196 00:12:15,881 --> 00:12:19,523 And they like to do it in the morning because they find it sets off their day right. 197 00:12:19,523 --> 00:12:23,912 I'm just not a morning person. That could be from years of going out late at night, 198 00:12:23,912 --> 00:12:26,095 it could be for any reason. I don't know why. 199 00:12:26,095 --> 00:12:28,457 I just find that I'm really, really clear-thinking late at night. 200 00:12:28,457 --> 00:12:29,673 Now funny enough, you'd think to yourself, 201 00:12:29,673 --> 00:12:31,956 well, if you do meditation right before bed, 202 00:12:31,956 --> 00:12:36,551 would the benefits of being more present to the moment carry over into the next day? 203 00:12:36,551 --> 00:12:38,746 And what I find is that they do. 204 00:12:38,746 --> 00:12:43,027 Basically what happens is that meditation kind of trains your mind 205 00:12:43,027 --> 00:12:47,473 to stay in a different zone. So for example, I hiked in here about 11 miles, 206 00:12:47,473 --> 00:12:52,248 and what you'll tend to find is with an 11-mile hike, which is up and down cliffs, 207 00:12:52,248 --> 00:12:54,914 so if you look at the cliffs in the background, you're hiking along 208 00:12:54,914 --> 00:12:57,574 the sides of stuff like that and stuff actually a lot more sketchy, 209 00:12:57,847 --> 00:13:00,148 is that the first mile, you really resist it. 210 00:13:00,411 --> 00:13:03,551 You're like, ugh, this is miserable, I'm so tired. 211 00:13:03,906 --> 00:13:07,095 And then the joke that I like to give -- and this is just a joke, 212 00:13:07,095 --> 00:13:10,571 'cause I like to be kind of like ironic -- is I say you have to give up hope. 213 00:13:11,234 --> 00:13:14,107 I'll say this to my buddies, they're like, how much longer is this, is it hard? 214 00:13:14,147 --> 00:13:19,685 I'm like, Give up hope! There's no hope! This is all there is: endless pain! 215 00:13:20,557 --> 00:13:24,763 And I'll say that to them and it's a joke, but what I'm trying to say, 216 00:13:24,763 --> 00:13:27,077 'cause you know I like to be pretty sarcastic a lot of the time, 217 00:13:27,077 --> 00:13:29,914 just kind of clown around, I'm trying to say don't resist it. 218 00:13:29,914 --> 00:13:32,829 Don't sit there thinking, How much longer do I have? 219 00:13:32,829 --> 00:13:35,199 How much longer is this gonna be? This is uncomfortable. 220 00:13:35,199 --> 00:13:38,051 Just get rid of all that. Just surrender to it completely. 221 00:13:38,051 --> 00:13:41,531 When you do that, rather than thinking, How far have I gone? 222 00:13:41,531 --> 00:13:46,855 Or rather than thinking, How much further is it for me to get here? 223 00:13:47,022 --> 00:13:49,578 What you'll find is you just think about the next step, 224 00:13:49,578 --> 00:13:54,201 and when you're focused on the next step, what that does is it draws your perception 225 00:13:54,201 --> 00:13:59,400 out of the mind and towards each step that's in front of you. 226 00:13:59,400 --> 00:14:03,281 That is so vital on a trail like the ones that you see here, 227 00:14:03,281 --> 00:14:09,122 because if you roll your ankle out here, or hurt your knee, or cut yourself up, 228 00:14:09,122 --> 00:14:13,552 y'know, I'm sure you'll find a way out one way or another [laughs] 229 00:14:13,857 --> 00:14:18,735 but it's gonna be completely miserable. So you do not want that to happen. 230 00:14:18,735 --> 00:14:22,849 You wanna be fully immersed in each step that you take. 231 00:14:22,849 --> 00:14:26,913 This is no different than, say, building a business that might take a decade or two. 232 00:14:26,913 --> 00:14:30,158 If you start thinking about how far you have to go, you could go crazy. 233 00:14:30,158 --> 00:14:34,677 So you wanna think to an extent, because you wanna be thinking about your plans, 234 00:14:34,677 --> 00:14:40,477 you wanna kind of change the direction, but then once you change the direction, 235 00:14:40,477 --> 00:14:45,329 you can kind of come back out of your thinking mind and just stay present 236 00:14:45,329 --> 00:14:50,985 to exactly what's in front of you. If you see the type of work I do right now, 237 00:14:50,985 --> 00:14:55,315 I like to do my free tour events -- you've probably seen videos of that -- 238 00:14:55,315 --> 00:14:58,717 then I have my Hot Seat event, and then I do Bootcamp, 239 00:14:58,717 --> 00:15:02,939 and I've been doing that, actually, on tour for a couple of years now. 240 00:15:03,265 --> 00:15:07,260 So every single time I do a free tour, when I walk to the free tour, 241 00:15:07,260 --> 00:15:10,006 I know that I'm gonna go do it, I don't think ahead. 242 00:15:10,006 --> 00:15:13,483 I've seen a lot of people who do jobs similar to mine, they psych themselves out. 243 00:15:13,483 --> 00:15:16,569 I don't do that at all. I'm just in a good mood, and I get there, I'm like, 244 00:15:16,569 --> 00:15:20,343 Oh, I'm at the free tour, and then I kind of melt into the moment, I merge into it, 245 00:15:20,343 --> 00:15:24,575 I just rock it, and I love being up there because it makes me very present 246 00:15:24,575 --> 00:15:27,338 and time just breezes by. There's nowhere else I'd rather be. 247 00:15:27,338 --> 00:15:30,961 And then when I do Hot Seat, oftentimes I'm on like two or three hours sleep only, 248 00:15:30,961 --> 00:15:34,063 because I like to run my Bootcamps really late, because once I start doing Bootcamp 249 00:15:34,063 --> 00:15:37,062 I'm having so much fun I don't like to sleep, and I'll just keep running them. 250 00:15:37,062 --> 00:15:40,418 So sometimes I'll run them really, really late, and then I wake up in the morning 251 00:15:40,418 --> 00:15:43,937 to do my Hot Seat event early in the morning, and I'm totally exhausted, 252 00:15:43,937 --> 00:15:47,526 and I think, How am I gonna do this? And again I just don't think. 253 00:15:47,526 --> 00:15:50,911 And then I just get there and I start to get into it, and I start to love it. 254 00:15:50,911 --> 00:15:53,321 And then I get onto Bootcamp and I think, Oh man, I'm gonna have to 255 00:15:53,321 --> 00:15:57,347 approach all these girls, and it's gonna be all crazy. Again, I just don't think. 256 00:15:57,347 --> 00:16:00,516 You just go about it. You merge into the process. 257 00:16:01,034 --> 00:16:03,980 So you get away from thinking about the outcome, 258 00:16:03,980 --> 00:16:06,454 and you take the joy in the process itself. 259 00:16:06,801 --> 00:16:10,529 So the paradox of being completely immersed in the process 260 00:16:10,529 --> 00:16:14,751 is that you wind up getting to the outcome more effectively. 261 00:16:15,436 --> 00:16:20,860 It's like, if you approach a girl, and you're having so much fun talking to her, 262 00:16:20,935 --> 00:16:24,354 as long as you have a general idea of the general direction that you wanna go, 263 00:16:24,354 --> 00:16:28,588 when you're fully immersed in the process of it, you're having so much more fun, 264 00:16:28,588 --> 00:16:31,645 you're just such a cooler guy, that you wind up getting her. 265 00:16:31,645 --> 00:16:35,225 You'll notice this especially even in the late phases, when you've 266 00:16:35,225 --> 00:16:38,422 got the girl in your room and she's not sure if she's gonna sleep with you or not. 267 00:16:38,422 --> 00:16:42,165 When you're just completely present with her, just completely there, 268 00:16:42,165 --> 00:16:46,935 she detects no outcome from you, you're a lot funnier, you're a lot more sexual, 269 00:16:46,935 --> 00:16:50,715 you're a lot more in the moment in terms of your sexuality, 270 00:16:51,455 --> 00:16:54,889 she just winds up hooking up with you. Meanwhile if you're like, I gotta get laid, 271 00:16:54,889 --> 00:16:59,522 gotta get laid, right? Then you're less likely to do it, less likely to be funny, 272 00:16:59,522 --> 00:17:05,795 less likely to entice her. So from doing meditation regularly, 273 00:17:06,628 --> 00:17:12,563 it's similar to the 11-mile hike in here, where that first mile, your brain is still 274 00:17:13,302 --> 00:17:16,751 caught up in this continual mode of getting to the next outcome, 275 00:17:16,751 --> 00:17:20,075 getting to the next outcome, getting to the next outcome. 276 00:17:20,243 --> 00:17:25,129 But when you hike for 11 miles, after a while it really just breaks you down. 277 00:17:26,159 --> 00:17:28,891 It just gets you to the point of complete surrender, 278 00:17:28,891 --> 00:17:32,172 and you start to enjoy the hike itself. What you realize is 279 00:17:32,172 --> 00:17:35,815 that it's not the destination but the journey that's actually fun. 280 00:17:37,077 --> 00:17:43,062 And really this goes for life, because the end destination of life is to be dead. 281 00:17:43,252 --> 00:17:45,632 So the journey of life is the fun itself. 282 00:17:45,632 --> 00:17:50,532 So when you do meditation every day, you're actually training your mind 283 00:17:50,532 --> 00:17:55,482 to get into that zone, that sweet spot. You're conditioning yourself to do this. 284 00:17:56,435 --> 00:17:59,752 You can also do this by going out. 285 00:17:59,752 --> 00:18:02,985 You can also do this by any type of flow state activity. 286 00:18:02,985 --> 00:18:06,145 So any activity that actually puts you into a flow state 287 00:18:06,145 --> 00:18:09,508 you'll find will achieve a similar benefit to meditation, 288 00:18:09,508 --> 00:18:13,919 but what I find is that sometimes people will use flow state activities 289 00:18:13,919 --> 00:18:18,958 as an excuse not to do meditation. Or they'll use thinking a lot, 290 00:18:18,958 --> 00:18:24,044 and planning their day a lot, as an excuse not to do meditation. 291 00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:26,614 So sometimes I'll tell people about meditation and they'll say, 292 00:18:26,614 --> 00:18:29,165 Oh, that's kind of like what I do, I'll be in the shower, 293 00:18:29,165 --> 00:18:33,669 and I plan out my day for like an hour. That was a buddy of mine who said that. 294 00:18:33,712 --> 00:18:39,835 Or they'll say, I'll just go out into the woods and really think about my life 295 00:18:39,835 --> 00:18:45,292 and what I'm doing with it. And that's very different. That's a different activity. 296 00:18:46,247 --> 00:18:52,086 I know with girls, they'll say that dancing can be a very good flow state activity. 297 00:18:52,086 --> 00:18:56,171 Or surfing, y'know, things like that, and again, these are amazing activities, 298 00:18:56,171 --> 00:19:00,123 just like for me public speaking and teaching are my flow state activities 299 00:19:00,123 --> 00:19:04,509 that I love more than anything, but meditation is actually a 20-minute 300 00:19:04,509 --> 00:19:09,679 chunk per day where you're spending it with a deliberate intention 301 00:19:09,679 --> 00:19:12,850 of training your mind to slip into that spot. 302 00:19:13,328 --> 00:19:16,582 Eckhart Tolle, who wrote the books The Power of Now and A New Earth, 303 00:19:16,582 --> 00:19:20,676 two of my favorite books ever, he talks about the analogy of a bicycle tire 304 00:19:20,676 --> 00:19:25,892 that's spinning, and it has its own momentum, so when you stop pushing 305 00:19:25,892 --> 00:19:29,989 on the tire, what winds up happening is eventually it loses that momentum 306 00:19:29,989 --> 00:19:33,482 and becomes still. Another example would be like crossing a stream. 307 00:19:33,935 --> 00:19:39,950 So if you're gonna cross a stream, and you want to see what's at the bottom of it, 308 00:19:39,950 --> 00:19:44,524 if you keep shaking up the bottom of it, you'll never see it. It'll never be clear. 309 00:19:44,524 --> 00:19:49,092 But if you stop shaking the bottom of it, eventually you'll be able to see with clarity. 310 00:19:49,097 --> 00:19:52,465 Or maybe a better analogy than a stream, 'cause that's always kinda moving, 311 00:19:52,465 --> 00:19:56,952 would be like a little body of water, some little small body of water, right? 312 00:19:56,987 --> 00:20:00,092 If you keep kicking the dirt around, you won't get clarity. So you need to stop. 313 00:20:00,582 --> 00:20:03,414 That's really what meditation is, is you're training your mind to stop. 314 00:20:03,693 --> 00:20:08,768 So say that I sit here and I'm like, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I'm thinking, 315 00:20:08,768 --> 00:20:13,152 right? And then I go like, OK, I'm onto my breath now. [breathes] 316 00:20:15,365 --> 00:20:19,712 Well, that kind of trained me one way to get presence, but then let's say that I, 317 00:20:19,712 --> 00:20:25,541 y'know, I go back into my head. And then maybe I shift my awareness to the sounds. 318 00:20:28,977 --> 00:20:31,254 Which are actually pretty cool. I don't know how well you can hear it 319 00:20:31,254 --> 00:20:34,692 through the mike. I hear birds and waves and wind, so, can't beat that! 320 00:20:34,692 --> 00:20:38,458 That's pretty good. You know, if you're at home you probably hear 321 00:20:38,458 --> 00:20:42,568 a refrigerator or something like that. So that could be another way 322 00:20:42,568 --> 00:20:48,248 to get presence. Another way could be to take conscious breaths, 323 00:20:48,973 --> 00:20:51,895 and you shift your focus to that, but funny enough, 324 00:20:51,895 --> 00:20:56,731 another way could be to just observe the breath and not put any deliberate 325 00:20:56,731 --> 00:21:00,508 energy into animating your breath, and some people find that to be better. 326 00:21:01,368 --> 00:21:06,328 Sometimes I find just, I get into a zone where I'm just completely out of my head 327 00:21:06,328 --> 00:21:10,729 and I'm just there. It's like locked in. That's kind of intense too, 328 00:21:10,729 --> 00:21:14,079 'cause you can be present for, like, 7, 8 minutes straight doing that, 329 00:21:14,079 --> 00:21:18,617 and when you kind of knock back into it you're like whoa, that was fuckin' presence. 330 00:21:18,617 --> 00:21:22,347 So when you're present, I think a lot of people are assuming they're gonna get 331 00:21:22,347 --> 00:21:26,946 some kind of extreme bliss out of it, and I don't think that that's the case. 332 00:21:26,946 --> 00:21:29,738 But rather what you get is a sense of general peace, 333 00:21:29,738 --> 00:21:33,904 so you're not thinking very much, and your body is not having these 334 00:21:33,904 --> 00:21:39,498 cortisol adrenaline responses that you would normally be having throughout the day. 335 00:21:39,498 --> 00:21:44,349 So there's a great book by a guy named Herbert Benson, 336 00:21:44,529 --> 00:21:50,133 who was a Harvard medical doctor, and he called that book The Relaxation Response, 337 00:21:50,133 --> 00:21:53,749 so you can look that up, The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson, 338 00:21:53,749 --> 00:21:56,793 and what he basically explained there is that we have something called a 339 00:21:56,793 --> 00:22:03,003 fight or flight response. And a fight or flight response is the idea that in nature 340 00:22:03,003 --> 00:22:09,975 you would experience stress in short bursts. So for example you might bump into a lion 341 00:22:10,181 --> 00:22:13,635 and get this huge surge of adrenaline that shuts off your body's natural 342 00:22:13,635 --> 00:22:19,210 repair mechanisms, and basically just directs all of the body's energy 343 00:22:19,210 --> 00:22:23,088 into being really alert and having a lot of energy. 344 00:22:24,003 --> 00:22:27,108 So that would be good in nature because then you'd run away from the animal, 345 00:22:27,108 --> 00:22:29,796 and you could go back to your village and you'd be totally fine. 346 00:22:30,648 --> 00:22:34,629 But what happens in modern society is that the threat might be something like 347 00:22:34,629 --> 00:22:39,188 coming up with rent money, or some kind of social scenario that's bothering you, 348 00:22:39,188 --> 00:22:44,005 or different complexities of modern life, and that fight or flight response 349 00:22:44,005 --> 00:22:50,282 is at like a refrigerator-hum low level that's almost unnoticeable when you're in it 350 00:22:50,282 --> 00:22:56,726 and it stays there permanently. So this causes people to get sick, shortens your life, 351 00:22:56,726 --> 00:23:00,767 compromises your immune system. It's not a good stress. 352 00:23:01,298 --> 00:23:04,931 Y'know, a positive stress, they call that eustress, OK? Eustress. 353 00:23:04,931 --> 00:23:09,748 And that's something more like where you go on like a roller coaster ride 354 00:23:09,748 --> 00:23:13,584 or play an exciting sports game, or watch an exciting sports game, 355 00:23:13,584 --> 00:23:15,696 where the stress is actually invigorating, 356 00:23:16,060 --> 00:23:19,099 but chronic, low-level stress is not healthy for you. 357 00:23:19,709 --> 00:23:22,653 So what meditation does, and this is what Herbert Benson explains, 358 00:23:22,653 --> 00:23:27,286 is it elicits a relaxation response. It actually flushes the cortisol 359 00:23:27,286 --> 00:23:29,602 and adrenaline out of your system. 360 00:23:29,602 --> 00:23:33,908 Some people also believe that when you meditate, you're actually summoning 361 00:23:33,908 --> 00:23:38,879 like a recharging of energy that goes very, very deep into the cells. 362 00:23:39,654 --> 00:23:43,490 So while you're sitting there you might feel like you're accomplishing nothing, 363 00:23:43,490 --> 00:23:49,803 but actually you're recharging. You are soaking in good, present energy. 364 00:23:50,462 --> 00:23:55,101 See, what most people tend to do is they get addicted on either stimulus, 365 00:23:55,101 --> 00:23:58,013 like, Huh? Facebook? Twitter? Facebook? Twitter? Like that, right? 366 00:23:58,979 --> 00:24:01,279 Y'know, energy drink? Redbull? [laughs] 367 00:24:02,471 --> 00:24:06,812 Gossip? Bullshit? Shit talk? Whatever? What do people think of me? 368 00:24:07,076 --> 00:24:10,468 Y'know, shit like that? Validation? I guess I got a lot of these. 369 00:24:10,468 --> 00:24:14,468 Or what they get addicted to is lower consciousness, like alcohol, bleahh! 370 00:24:15,081 --> 00:24:20,068 Pizza, carbs, bleahh! They wanna become unconscious. 371 00:24:21,143 --> 00:24:26,041 Well, what meditation teaches you to do is, it teaches you rather than being, 372 00:24:26,041 --> 00:24:30,868 uh, it teaches you to stop the cycle of being addicted to stimulation, 373 00:24:30,868 --> 00:24:35,212 or to being unconscious, and instead it grounds you in an energy more like 374 00:24:35,212 --> 00:24:40,546 [energy sound effect -- zhhhhh] 375 00:24:40,546 --> 00:24:46,224 Like that, OK? Except instead of the sound of zhhhhhh -- 376 00:24:46,224 --> 00:24:49,055 instead of that sound, you just hear nothing. 377 00:24:50,216 --> 00:24:53,849 But it's kind of like that. And this is why teachers of meditation 378 00:24:53,849 --> 00:24:58,937 will use things like little bells that go dingggg, or a candle 379 00:24:58,937 --> 00:25:02,108 that just kind of stays there, flickering constantly, 380 00:25:02,108 --> 00:25:04,669 because you're training your mind to be present. 381 00:25:04,673 --> 00:25:08,765 The more that you can train your mind to be present, what's happening is that 382 00:25:08,765 --> 00:25:12,403 you're removing yourself from the cycle of basically being run 383 00:25:12,403 --> 00:25:18,408 by biological impulses and external social influences, 384 00:25:18,408 --> 00:25:22,590 and you're creating a center of gravity within yourself 385 00:25:22,590 --> 00:25:26,104 where you start to develop your own willpower, 386 00:25:26,104 --> 00:25:28,988 your own sort of ... 387 00:25:30,007 --> 00:25:33,789 How could I put it? I mean, think of it like all through society, 388 00:25:33,789 --> 00:25:36,830 and just through biology there's like these different forces 389 00:25:36,830 --> 00:25:39,749 that are at play, and you're kind of sponging them up, 390 00:25:39,749 --> 00:25:43,396 and then spewing them back out. Well, what meditation does 391 00:25:43,396 --> 00:25:46,328 is it makes it so that you are the center of gravity, 392 00:25:46,328 --> 00:25:52,368 and your ideas, or your intentions in life, are coming from within 393 00:25:52,368 --> 00:25:59,177 and going outwards. So what you'll find is that whether you're happy or sad, 394 00:25:59,177 --> 00:26:01,718 or say having a good experience or a bad experience, 395 00:26:01,718 --> 00:26:04,806 are not as relevant to you any more when you do meditation, 396 00:26:04,806 --> 00:26:08,425 because you realize that you can be peaceful just within yourself. 397 00:26:08,425 --> 00:26:13,228 So it takes the pressure away of constantly achieving certain life goals, 398 00:26:13,228 --> 00:26:17,378 and allows you just to enjoy the process. It's kinda crazy, right? 399 00:26:18,508 --> 00:26:22,659 Some people, when they do meditation, it really messes them up, actually, 400 00:26:22,659 --> 00:26:27,125 because they realize that they can achieve complete contentment and happiness 401 00:26:27,125 --> 00:26:30,663 on a deeper level than even making money or even getting laid, 402 00:26:30,663 --> 00:26:33,981 which is kinda crazy to think about. And so they think, Why should I get girls? 403 00:26:33,981 --> 00:26:37,088 Why should I make money? Why should I do anything? I just wanna sit here. 404 00:26:37,088 --> 00:26:41,668 That's pretty, I think, kind of low-level thinking for most people, 405 00:26:41,668 --> 00:26:45,459 unless your life's purpose is gonna be to teach presence, 406 00:26:45,459 --> 00:26:48,297 and to just be that source of present energy for other people, 407 00:26:48,297 --> 00:26:51,392 and you wanna just sit there for hours and hours so you can be that person. 408 00:26:51,392 --> 00:26:53,897 But unless you're gonna do that, I don't think that's ideal. 409 00:26:53,897 --> 00:27:00,628 Rather what I think is that when you do meditation it helps you and prods you 410 00:27:00,628 --> 00:27:05,548 to reconsider your life, reconsider what drives you or what motivates you, 411 00:27:05,548 --> 00:27:09,500 and to align yourself with your life's purpose, 412 00:27:09,660 --> 00:27:12,293 and that can be a really tough one for a lot of people, 413 00:27:12,293 --> 00:27:16,905 because finding your life's purpose is, that can be a doozy, to say the least. 414 00:27:17,822 --> 00:27:22,584 But when you find it, you find that you get your main enjoyment in life 415 00:27:22,584 --> 00:27:26,259 out of being engaged in the process of whatever your life's purpose is. 416 00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:31,001 So for me it's kind of funny, but ... 417 00:27:31,001 --> 00:27:33,876 you probably can tell this if you watch my stuff, 418 00:27:33,876 --> 00:27:36,475 what I love the most is doing videos like these, 419 00:27:36,475 --> 00:27:40,858 teaching live, which is huge for me, and then practicing game, 420 00:27:40,858 --> 00:27:42,945 and I like to practice game because I teach it, 421 00:27:42,945 --> 00:27:44,926 so I like to teach something really awesome. 422 00:27:44,926 --> 00:27:47,775 And then the other thing I really like doing is meditation [laughs] 423 00:27:48,448 --> 00:27:50,844 because that helps me with my life's purpose. 424 00:27:51,789 --> 00:27:53,967 So that helps me to bring a lot of presence into it. 425 00:27:54,417 --> 00:27:58,688 A lot of people will say about my videos, it's like addictive, or it's like crack, 426 00:27:58,688 --> 00:28:02,048 things like that, and I laugh at that. I think that's so funny, 427 00:28:02,048 --> 00:28:05,111 because the reason why people, I think, if they like my stuff, 428 00:28:05,111 --> 00:28:08,057 which some people do and don't, but the people who do like it, 429 00:28:08,057 --> 00:28:10,368 the reason why they say it's addictive, what they don't realize 430 00:28:10,368 --> 00:28:14,294 is that because I do meditation, 431 00:28:14,294 --> 00:28:19,419 if I do a video from a place of presence, which some have that element 432 00:28:19,419 --> 00:28:24,246 and some probably have that much less so, like a lot less so, but the ones that have it 433 00:28:24,246 --> 00:28:29,339 help people to become regrounded in their own present energy. 434 00:28:29,488 --> 00:28:34,044 So they think it's the video that's addictive, but actually what it is 435 00:28:34,044 --> 00:28:35,692 is that it's coming from a place of presence, 436 00:28:35,692 --> 00:28:38,796 which is conditioned from that 20-minute- a-day meditation habit, 437 00:28:38,796 --> 00:28:41,667 and then it's putting them in touch with themselves, 438 00:28:41,667 --> 00:28:45,413 so they're actually addicted to themselves, which is funny to think about. 439 00:28:46,623 --> 00:28:49,600 That's what they like. They see -- it sounds very cheesy -- 440 00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,188 they see someone else's inner light [laughs] 441 00:28:52,706 --> 00:28:55,659 and it puts them in touch with their own inner light -- 442 00:28:55,659 --> 00:28:59,220 and I know it sounds very cheesy -- and then they attribute that 443 00:28:59,220 --> 00:29:01,714 to what they're seeing, but it's actually them. 444 00:29:01,714 --> 00:29:04,827 So if there's a musician who you really like, for example, 445 00:29:04,827 --> 00:29:07,678 someone whose music you really get into, really connect with, 446 00:29:07,678 --> 00:29:11,208 you're thinking it's the music that you love, and you do love the music, 447 00:29:11,208 --> 00:29:14,261 but what you also love is what it's reconnecting you to in yourself. 448 00:29:14,917 --> 00:29:18,644 And meditation every day is something that can help you to do that. 449 00:29:18,644 --> 00:29:22,028 It's amazing for pickup in the sense that it teaches you self-amusement, 450 00:29:22,028 --> 00:29:25,192 it teaches you not to rely on women for good emotions at all, 451 00:29:25,192 --> 00:29:29,333 so it totally takes their power away from you, not to sound win/lose, 452 00:29:29,333 --> 00:29:32,176 but it really does. When you do meditation every day, 453 00:29:32,176 --> 00:29:34,608 women have a lot less power over you than when you don't, 454 00:29:34,608 --> 00:29:38,077 because you've removed yourself from the cycle of being addicted on their validation. 455 00:29:38,083 --> 00:29:41,788 At least minimized it quite a bit. It lets you go in a lot stronger, 456 00:29:41,788 --> 00:29:44,767 you're funnier, you're sharper, your game basically goes up, I don't know, 457 00:29:44,767 --> 00:29:49,246 three to four times. But, yeah, you just, basically ... 458 00:29:50,392 --> 00:29:55,465 You basically get so good in game because again you enjoy the process so much, 459 00:29:55,465 --> 00:29:59,804 so you're just so sharp, so good with the process, that it really just improves it. 460 00:29:59,897 --> 00:30:02,184 It's really just awesome. 461 00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:07,404 I guess what I would kind of emphasize here, and I love that the sun's going down, 462 00:30:07,630 --> 00:30:12,758 it's fucking gorgeous, is that what I think you learn from meditation 463 00:30:12,758 --> 00:30:19,977 is rather than feeling like you're a person, y'know, like you're a person, 464 00:30:19,977 --> 00:30:24,305 which is what most people think, they think, I'm this separate entity -- 465 00:30:24,755 --> 00:30:27,420 and by the way, we gotta check out this sunset, check this out -- 466 00:30:28,571 --> 00:30:31,019 you realize that actually everyone's kind of connected, 467 00:30:31,019 --> 00:30:34,349 so you look at this ocean here, and you see the different waves on it, 468 00:30:34,349 --> 00:30:39,052 you think that you are this unique person, but in fact you're part of something 469 00:30:39,052 --> 00:30:42,120 bigger than yourself, right? You see the sun going down there. 470 00:30:42,487 --> 00:30:47,633 So you think that you're this really unique individual, 471 00:30:47,633 --> 00:30:54,435 and this person who is on their own in life, but in fact what's happening 472 00:30:54,757 --> 00:30:59,620 is you're really just like this energy that has congealed together temporarily, 473 00:30:59,997 --> 00:31:04,095 will kind of express itself, much like how one of these waves expresses itself, 474 00:31:04,438 --> 00:31:10,464 and then will sink back into the whole, OK? So that's what meditation teaches you. 475 00:31:11,050 --> 00:31:15,415 I'll try to re-establish our shot, make it look real nice. 476 00:31:17,232 --> 00:31:18,910 That looks nice, I think. OK. 477 00:31:19,267 --> 00:31:24,671 So ... um ... good enough. 478 00:31:26,299 --> 00:31:30,192 I guess you can't really go wrong with a shot in an environment like this. 479 00:31:30,261 --> 00:31:32,610 You can't really fuck this up. 480 00:31:33,868 --> 00:31:39,654 OK, so point being that in meditation, because you become very present, 481 00:31:39,654 --> 00:31:42,577 try to follow me here, you become present to the moment, 482 00:31:42,795 --> 00:31:48,970 what happens is that you come to the realization that ... 483 00:31:49,697 --> 00:31:53,908 it's almost like you have ... the different wants, 484 00:31:53,908 --> 00:31:59,353 that the biological entity of yourself has, and then you have a higher consciousness, 485 00:31:59,353 --> 00:32:03,421 which is that present energy. And what's kinda crazy is that everybody has 486 00:32:03,421 --> 00:32:06,306 that higher consciousness in them. It's kinda nuts, right? 487 00:32:06,568 --> 00:32:10,586 When you become present, they call that a higher consciousness. Sounds very funny. 488 00:32:11,570 --> 00:32:15,026 And you realize that everyone has that in them, and that light is almost 489 00:32:15,026 --> 00:32:21,000 pushing through you, and so you're like this crystal that lets the light come through, 490 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:25,778 and some people, the crystal's very closed off because they're caught in their head, 491 00:32:25,778 --> 00:32:30,605 so they get trapped in different energetic cycles that can be very negative, 492 00:32:30,605 --> 00:32:34,058 like they get a negative thought kind of jumps onto them and they go crazy. 493 00:32:34,631 --> 00:32:39,214 But when you become present, that energy, that higher consciousness, 494 00:32:39,214 --> 00:32:43,147 can shine through you, and you're like the crystal that it shines through 495 00:32:43,147 --> 00:32:46,781 and makes different patterns. And you realize that even when you die, 496 00:32:47,241 --> 00:32:52,703 and you will die, that although the biological entity, like the crystal's gone, 497 00:32:52,703 --> 00:32:57,032 that light is still there. And essentially through meditation what you're doing 498 00:32:57,032 --> 00:33:02,814 is you are becoming more and more identified as the "silent observer" 499 00:33:02,814 --> 00:33:07,942 behind the thoughts, instead of as this petty little individual 500 00:33:07,942 --> 00:33:11,362 who has all these different problems and isn't getting the results that you want. 501 00:33:12,063 --> 00:33:16,064 So the more that you're identified with that higher consciousness, 502 00:33:16,064 --> 00:33:22,363 and the more you're grounded in that, there is a less urgent fear of death, 503 00:33:22,363 --> 00:33:26,442 which sounds funny, because you realize that if you're that light, 504 00:33:26,442 --> 00:33:31,934 that that light is everywhere. So the form dies, but the light continues on, 505 00:33:31,934 --> 00:33:36,442 and if you're very identified with the form, then death is really scary, 506 00:33:36,442 --> 00:33:41,462 but if you're identified with the light, then it's not as scary. Still pretty scary. 507 00:33:42,016 --> 00:33:43,945 [laughs] Not gonna lie, right? 508 00:33:44,458 --> 00:33:50,657 But a lot less scary, and in fact, what tends to happen in frightening situations, 509 00:33:50,657 --> 00:33:53,204 like say you're walking along the side of the cliff, 510 00:33:53,204 --> 00:33:56,575 that light starts to shine through so much stronger 511 00:33:56,575 --> 00:34:02,789 that you actually have no fear at all. So in a situation that is scary to you, 512 00:34:02,789 --> 00:34:05,742 the presence actually emanates through so strongly that you 513 00:34:05,742 --> 00:34:10,202 completely dissolve into presence, and you actually feel fucking amazing. 514 00:34:10,840 --> 00:34:14,643 So that's another reason why, when you do things that scare you a little bit, 515 00:34:14,643 --> 00:34:18,264 but you learn how to become present to the moment through meditation, 516 00:34:18,264 --> 00:34:21,741 it's really an amazing feeling. It's an amazing, amazing feeling. 517 00:34:22,272 --> 00:34:26,936 And as you go through life, you're actually dissolving more and more, 518 00:34:26,936 --> 00:34:30,015 your identification with your form is dissolving more and more, 519 00:34:30,015 --> 00:34:32,754 with all these thoughts that you're having, which are generated through 520 00:34:32,754 --> 00:34:34,722 thinking about the past or going into the future, 521 00:34:34,722 --> 00:34:40,042 you're more identified with that present moment, "higher consciousness" 522 00:34:40,042 --> 00:34:44,958 and as you get older and older that creates more space for that higher consciousness, 523 00:34:44,958 --> 00:34:47,989 and you become almost like a young person again. 524 00:34:48,462 --> 00:34:52,407 So you see some older people become more and more identified with their form, 525 00:34:52,407 --> 00:34:55,711 and because their form is breaking down, they can be pretty miserable, 526 00:34:55,711 --> 00:34:59,354 and then other people as they get older can actually become more childlike, 527 00:34:59,354 --> 00:35:02,663 but even in spite of being childlike, they're more intelligent, 528 00:35:02,663 --> 00:35:06,223 and that's what Eckhart Tolle called flowering. So basically it's like 529 00:35:06,223 --> 00:35:08,904 sometimes you have a ... he calls that a flowering of consciousness, 530 00:35:08,904 --> 00:35:14,404 so you have like a plant, and some plants will get the nice flower and others won't, 531 00:35:14,404 --> 00:35:19,267 depending on how much sun it gets, so if it flowers, that's almost like 532 00:35:19,267 --> 00:35:25,301 a human being who has gone back to that childlike present-moment awareness 533 00:35:25,301 --> 00:35:30,442 but through that sort of crystal that it's shining through of all the life experiences 534 00:35:30,800 --> 00:35:34,118 and knowledge and abilities and all that, so it's a really nice combination, 535 00:35:34,325 --> 00:35:38,516 because a childlike awareness is beautiful but it is a child, right, it's limited, 536 00:35:38,516 --> 00:35:42,592 whereas somebody who has gone back to that childlike awareness 537 00:35:42,592 --> 00:35:47,720 but is highly intelligent, resourceful, competent, driven, those kinds of things, 538 00:35:48,766 --> 00:35:54,214 what happens then is that just their manifestation of their different intents 539 00:35:54,214 --> 00:35:57,484 that they have becomes really amazing to watch. It's really, really cool. 540 00:35:57,666 --> 00:36:01,713 Awesome, right, and some of the top people in the world have that. 541 00:36:02,782 --> 00:36:08,738 But let's get back to practical stuff: so we'll think about the game-related stuff, 542 00:36:08,738 --> 00:36:15,412 just to kind of conclude with it. People who are kind of into meditation 543 00:36:15,412 --> 00:36:17,638 like for the chill reasons and stuff, they wanna be very chill? 544 00:36:17,638 --> 00:36:21,311 They're kind of already converted. They already are doing this, 545 00:36:21,311 --> 00:36:24,633 so I don't wanna really relate with people that are in that mode, 546 00:36:24,633 --> 00:36:27,248 but what I'd really like to do would be to relate to somebody who wants to 547 00:36:27,248 --> 00:36:33,321 make a lot of cash, fuck really hot women, and be a gangster, all right. 548 00:36:33,321 --> 00:36:35,541 Not a gangster like a real gangster, although it could be a real gangster too, 549 00:36:35,541 --> 00:36:38,129 but a gangster in life, OK, a dominator. 550 00:36:38,165 --> 00:36:41,656 What I would tell you is that a lot of the top business people do this, 551 00:36:41,656 --> 00:36:46,603 because when you think about the difference between, for example, 552 00:36:46,603 --> 00:36:51,400 a boss who's effective vs. an ineffective employee, what's the common difference? 553 00:36:52,148 --> 00:36:55,475 The ineffective employee gets upset when they don't get their petty little things 554 00:36:55,475 --> 00:36:59,049 going in their direction, whereas the boss can always look at the bigger picture 555 00:36:59,049 --> 00:37:03,521 and solve the damned problem. Well, the boss has to be very present to the moment. 556 00:37:03,814 --> 00:37:08,935 The boss has to not get caught up in their emotions, whereas the ineffective employee 557 00:37:08,935 --> 00:37:14,999 has the luxury of whining and complaining because it's not gonna tank the whole company, 558 00:37:15,291 --> 00:37:17,953 right, they just get their little problem fixed and they're happy. 559 00:37:17,953 --> 00:37:21,572 So if you wanna be a boss in life, you don't wanna be overly reactive 560 00:37:21,572 --> 00:37:25,957 to your emotions. Also, the highs and lows, 561 00:37:26,132 --> 00:37:29,574 you don't wanna be so identified with the high that when it goes low you're upset, 562 00:37:29,574 --> 00:37:31,870 and you don't wanna be so identified with the low that you stay there. 563 00:37:31,917 --> 00:37:34,993 So you wanna be kind of even-keeled. On top of that, if you wanna be effective, 564 00:37:34,993 --> 00:37:37,236 you wanna be fully immersed in whatever you do. 565 00:37:37,248 --> 00:37:40,992 If you're gonna win an NBC championship, you wanna be pretty immersed in that, right? 566 00:37:41,052 --> 00:37:44,829 So this is the kind of thing that helps you to think more clearly, 567 00:37:44,829 --> 00:37:48,248 it makes you more effective, it makes you funnier. 568 00:37:48,393 --> 00:37:51,312 I can say for sure that my public speaking is much, much sharper, 569 00:37:51,312 --> 00:37:54,102 three to four times sharper, when I do meditation every day. 570 00:37:54,102 --> 00:37:58,461 I can say for sure that my game, my results, 571 00:37:58,461 --> 00:38:02,909 are wild when I do meditation every day, and go down substantially, 572 00:38:02,909 --> 00:38:07,980 and shockingly, when I don't. And I can basically just tell you that a lot of 573 00:38:07,980 --> 00:38:10,835 really smart individuals do this, OK? 574 00:38:11,519 --> 00:38:14,491 So it's funny that as you start to move up in the world, 575 00:38:14,491 --> 00:38:18,099 your mind starts to take note of different habits that people that are 576 00:38:18,099 --> 00:38:21,578 making a lotta cash and getting a lot of success have, 577 00:38:21,578 --> 00:38:24,181 you're seeing different habits they have that you wouldn't have noticed 578 00:38:24,181 --> 00:38:28,169 when you weren't as successful, because you just weren't thinking how they think, 579 00:38:28,169 --> 00:38:31,986 and meditation is one of those habits, it's one of those elite-level habits 580 00:38:31,986 --> 00:38:35,259 that a lot of people have. Now some people again would say, 581 00:38:35,371 --> 00:38:39,630 why not just be motivated by results? If I just wanna fuck hot women and make money, 582 00:38:39,630 --> 00:38:44,632 what's the problem with that? Well again, you're getting identified with stimulation, 583 00:38:44,632 --> 00:38:47,724 and that's not the deepest level of contentment that you can have, 584 00:38:47,724 --> 00:38:52,179 and you're basically entrapping yourself in a less mature paradigm of life. 585 00:38:53,176 --> 00:38:57,393 So what you kind of realize, for example, say you come out to a place like this, 586 00:38:57,393 --> 00:39:01,499 say that I wanted to go climb up every little peak, and hit up every beach, 587 00:39:01,499 --> 00:39:04,534 and I'm rushing around trying to get to each one, I get there and I go, 588 00:39:04,534 --> 00:39:08,764 Oh, I'm at the beach now, yeah! OK, the cliff! And then I go do that. 589 00:39:09,088 --> 00:39:13,565 I might go do all that, but I could actually be just as stressed as I am in the city. 590 00:39:15,052 --> 00:39:18,903 So then let's say at the end of the day I stop and do meditation for 20 minutes a day, 591 00:39:19,091 --> 00:39:21,990 and then I become completely content. I realize, oh shit, 592 00:39:21,990 --> 00:39:26,044 it doesn't really matter if I go to every peak, or hit up every beach. 593 00:39:26,617 --> 00:39:30,028 I'll just go to some of them, and be fully present while I'm there. 594 00:39:30,394 --> 00:39:32,811 So it doesn't matter the individual things that I'm doing, 595 00:39:32,811 --> 00:39:37,716 what matters is my experience of it, and I wanna maximize my experience of that. 596 00:39:37,716 --> 00:39:42,420 You could go, say you slept with 50 girls. You might notice that you can barely 597 00:39:42,420 --> 00:39:45,190 remember the majority of those girls. 598 00:39:45,573 --> 00:39:48,873 Well, if you're very present to the moment usually the sex becomes a lot hotter, 599 00:39:49,323 --> 00:39:52,485 and you have a better memory of it, it has more meaning to you. 600 00:39:52,932 --> 00:39:56,797 So you wanna be fully present for whatever experience you're having, OK. 601 00:39:56,973 --> 00:40:01,660 So it just basically boosts your results up, all right, it's pretty gangsta shit, 602 00:40:01,660 --> 00:40:03,843 does some amazing things. I'm gonna wrap up, actually. 603 00:40:04,063 --> 00:40:08,265 I was asking on the forum on RSD Nation what questions people had about meditation, 604 00:40:08,663 --> 00:40:12,645 so I'm just gonna go through them to wrap up here. 605 00:40:12,884 --> 00:40:17,341 OK, so first question was: style, length, time, time of day, position, eyes, 606 00:40:17,341 --> 00:40:21,605 posture, alarm. I think we went through that. Style's just whatever you want, 607 00:40:21,605 --> 00:40:24,595 length, I like to do 20 minutes, you can do whatever you want. 608 00:40:24,877 --> 00:40:27,702 Notice a big key here being whatever you want. 609 00:40:27,702 --> 00:40:32,373 Time of day, whatever you want, I do night-time. Position, whatever you want. 610 00:40:32,908 --> 00:40:37,114 Eyes, I like to do open. You should do ... whatever you want. 611 00:40:37,900 --> 00:40:40,977 What kind of thoughts you have? Again, they're in there for a bit 612 00:40:40,977 --> 00:40:43,885 and then they kind of clear out. Posture, whatever you want. 613 00:40:43,885 --> 00:40:46,187 You know, all these different meditation people will tell you you have to 614 00:40:46,187 --> 00:40:48,963 cross your legs and this and that to get to the cosmic energy. 615 00:40:50,798 --> 00:40:52,413 Whatever you want. 616 00:40:53,403 --> 00:40:55,765 And then the alarm, I like to do so I don't wonder about it, 617 00:40:55,765 --> 00:40:58,554 but again, whatever you want. How does it feel? Calm. Like this. 618 00:41:05,101 --> 00:41:08,346 Nice and calm. Demonstration? I just did it. 619 00:41:08,738 --> 00:41:11,433 Some people were asking do I like things like Holosync 620 00:41:11,433 --> 00:41:15,966 or different meditation aids? I think for some people it's probably great; 621 00:41:15,966 --> 00:41:21,395 for me, I like to do meditation to train myself to be present in day-to-day life, 622 00:41:21,395 --> 00:41:24,773 so I don't like using it, but some people get great results with it. 623 00:41:24,822 --> 00:41:27,396 Me, I just do it the way I do it. 624 00:41:28,460 --> 00:41:32,917 How does it help game? Immerses you in the present moment, makes you funnier, sharper, 625 00:41:32,917 --> 00:41:36,702 less needing validation, more self-amused, more drawing state from within, 626 00:41:36,702 --> 00:41:42,487 more of a fucking gangster, more aggressive, more effective, 627 00:41:42,487 --> 00:41:46,303 makes you enjoy sex more, makes you more sexual ... 628 00:41:47,368 --> 00:41:52,605 Uh, yeah. [laughs] Dude, if you're into game, 629 00:41:52,605 --> 00:41:54,253 you're spending three, four hours a night going out, 630 00:41:54,253 --> 00:41:56,761 add the 20 minutes of fucking meditation, OK? It's obvious. 631 00:41:57,133 --> 00:42:00,165 Another thing it's good for is creating vacuums with girls, so you can talk to them 632 00:42:00,165 --> 00:42:01,673 and just be like ... 633 00:42:04,162 --> 00:42:07,513 and then they wanna talk back to you, so we call that creating a vacuum. 634 00:42:07,514 --> 00:42:13,556 Skipping a day vs. starting over? Yeah, y'know, sometimes you miss a day 635 00:42:13,556 --> 00:42:16,937 and that's not good, so this is actually a really important lesson, 636 00:42:16,937 --> 00:42:19,808 this is actually a great question right there, really good question, 637 00:42:19,808 --> 00:42:22,033 probably the most important part of the back end of this video, actually. 638 00:42:22,477 --> 00:42:26,210 I make a deal with myself that come hell or high water, I'm gonna do it. 639 00:42:27,009 --> 00:42:31,006 So when I say come hell or high water I'm gonna do it, what I mean is that, 640 00:42:31,006 --> 00:42:35,384 say I stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning, and then I really need to go to bed. 641 00:42:35,799 --> 00:42:39,446 I will still do it. And the reason why is because you'll find that at first 642 00:42:39,446 --> 00:42:42,270 when you do meditation, the biggest challenge is that you're always finding 643 00:42:42,270 --> 00:42:46,160 a reason not to do it. It's pretty intense, OK? You're always finding a reason 644 00:42:46,160 --> 00:42:49,901 not to do meditation, so you gotta make yourself do it. 645 00:42:50,804 --> 00:42:54,474 If you don't make yourself do it, come hell or high water, 646 00:42:54,474 --> 00:42:58,138 what you'll find is that you will never, ever, ever do it. 647 00:42:58,336 --> 00:43:01,610 You will literally go months without doing it. It will shock you, 648 00:43:01,610 --> 00:43:04,113 and the reason why is 'cause you're addicted to that stimulation/ 649 00:43:04,113 --> 00:43:07,453 unconsciousness cycle, and you're actually resisting doing it, 650 00:43:07,453 --> 00:43:10,410 so you have to make that deal with yourself that come hell or high water, 651 00:43:10,410 --> 00:43:12,697 even if it's gonna make you sleepy, you'll do it. 652 00:43:12,706 --> 00:43:15,644 Look, even if you're down to only getting 4 hours of sleep that night, 653 00:43:15,644 --> 00:43:19,890 4 hours of sleep vs. 4 hours and 20 minutes of sleep is not that different. 654 00:43:20,056 --> 00:43:23,332 So you have to do it. What you'll find is that when you make yourself do it, 655 00:43:23,332 --> 00:43:26,020 you'll become more responsible, and you'll get it done every night. 656 00:43:26,175 --> 00:43:30,403 I even do it after I pull, most of the time, so put that in context. 657 00:43:31,867 --> 00:43:36,073 My routine I talked about. Insights I gained, I'd say the main one again 658 00:43:36,073 --> 00:43:41,209 is that you start to express from the inside out your real intent, 659 00:43:41,209 --> 00:43:43,691 because there's a real, independent willpower there; 660 00:43:43,900 --> 00:43:46,940 as opposed to just being the socially-conditioned entity 661 00:43:46,940 --> 00:43:50,016 and then being driven by biological impulses, you develop a much stronger 662 00:43:50,016 --> 00:43:54,356 prefrontal cortex, independent willpower type of situation, OK? 663 00:43:54,746 --> 00:43:57,251 That's probably the main thing I gain from it. 664 00:43:57,577 --> 00:44:01,985 Why is freedom from outcome important? Because it immerses you in the process, 665 00:44:01,985 --> 00:44:09,190 so you're more effective. Could you expand on the tree roots vs. height analogy? 666 00:44:09,845 --> 00:44:14,382 Sure. One analogy I love is that the higher you can grow as a tree, 667 00:44:14,382 --> 00:44:18,415 or the higher that you do grow, if you're a tree, if you were a tree, 668 00:44:18,415 --> 00:44:21,103 the better developed the root system has to be so it doesn't tip. 669 00:44:21,103 --> 00:44:26,085 Meditation is the root system. For example, take a celebrity 670 00:44:26,085 --> 00:44:27,867 who just gets what they want and gets what they want and gets what they want, 671 00:44:27,867 --> 00:44:33,733 without that meditation-type activity every day, it destabilizes them 672 00:44:33,733 --> 00:44:37,528 when things don't go their way. Something like meditation reminds you every day 673 00:44:37,528 --> 00:44:41,066 that no matter how hectic things get, you're gonna return to calmness, 674 00:44:41,066 --> 00:44:44,989 so you're not completely desperate for an outcome because you can feel happy either way. 675 00:44:45,196 --> 00:44:48,460 That's very fucking key right there. You might wanna rewind and listen to 676 00:44:48,460 --> 00:44:51,156 what I said to you right there if you didn't fully catch it. 677 00:44:51,846 --> 00:44:54,616 Why is it not as good as going out? We talked about that. 678 00:44:54,616 --> 00:44:57,946 It's because a flow state activity is phenomenal, but that 20 minutes 679 00:44:57,946 --> 00:45:00,628 forces you to learn the channels to become present. 680 00:45:00,628 --> 00:45:04,105 If you really can't do this, then just go with purely a flow state activity, 681 00:45:04,105 --> 00:45:06,327 but I encourage you to try to stick with this. 682 00:45:06,906 --> 00:45:09,826 Depends on the person, though. Some people I think just can't, and that's fine, 683 00:45:09,826 --> 00:45:12,500 then just do a flow state activity, you should be good. 684 00:45:14,234 --> 00:45:18,127 Let's see. How long until you see changes? The first 20 minutes of meditation 685 00:45:18,127 --> 00:45:21,555 is like the longest 20 minutes of your life. It's brutal. 686 00:45:22,658 --> 00:45:27,461 You'll have little tiny gaps of being present, and within around the first week 687 00:45:27,461 --> 00:45:30,102 you might start to see some changes of becoming more present, 688 00:45:30,102 --> 00:45:33,939 and after about a month you'll find that you become more actually present 689 00:45:33,939 --> 00:45:38,896 for some nice little gaps. After a couple years, the presence gets so grounded 690 00:45:38,896 --> 00:45:42,178 and deep into you that you just slip into it naturally, 691 00:45:42,178 --> 00:45:44,529 and actually at that point, the biggest challenge becomes even wanting to spend 692 00:45:44,529 --> 00:45:47,340 the 20 minutes on it, 'cause you don't notice that much of a shift. 693 00:45:47,340 --> 00:45:50,246 That's a good thing, but funny enough, then you fall off the habit, 694 00:45:50,246 --> 00:45:55,659 and then you go back to a lot of your old negative emotions, and then you wonder why, 695 00:45:55,659 --> 00:45:58,193 and you realize it's 'cause you stopped. So you'll find with meditation 696 00:45:58,193 --> 00:46:02,046 you'll fall off and fall back into it again and again. 697 00:46:02,046 --> 00:46:06,667 It's like you need to fall off to learn why you shouldn't fall off. It's pretty funny. 698 00:46:09,206 --> 00:46:14,049 Initial hurdles? Again, I think it's constantly finding an excuse not to do it. 699 00:46:14,350 --> 00:46:19,155 It's shocking to see how many excuses you'll find not to do meditation. 700 00:46:20,621 --> 00:46:24,346 What else? Does it help you to get in state when you're out? Oh yeah. 701 00:46:24,396 --> 00:46:27,872 When you do meditation you tend to slip into state much, much easier. 702 00:46:28,224 --> 00:46:32,466 It's really shocking how quickly you slip into state when you go out to meet girls 703 00:46:32,466 --> 00:46:34,684 if you do meditation every day. I mean it's really shocking. 704 00:46:34,684 --> 00:46:37,370 If you're someone with approach anxiety, you gotta be doing this. 705 00:46:39,296 --> 00:46:42,358 Why do you pull hotter women? That's because usually when you approach 706 00:46:42,358 --> 00:46:46,285 a really hot girl you become outcome- dependent, so it makes you act weird. 707 00:46:46,467 --> 00:46:50,963 Meditation essentially simulates abundance, so if you had 10 girls at home, 708 00:46:50,963 --> 00:46:55,485 you'd be very calm and present with a hot woman, or you could just kind of, 709 00:46:55,485 --> 00:47:01,366 uh, simulate it with meditation. So it's an amazing simulator of meditation -- 710 00:47:01,639 --> 00:47:05,303 you see it with guys that do meditation, you can almost sense it in their eyes, 711 00:47:05,303 --> 00:47:09,186 they have a steadier eye contact, similar to guys that are in abundance with girls. 712 00:47:09,272 --> 00:47:11,537 Pretty much identical, actually. 713 00:47:12,506 --> 00:47:16,005 Do you need to do guided meditations? I think no, but do whatever you want. 714 00:47:16,007 --> 00:47:19,215 Notice a big theme of do whatever you want. Try different stuff, 715 00:47:19,215 --> 00:47:22,737 figure out what works for you. Um, what else? 716 00:47:28,571 --> 00:47:31,199 Do you have plateaus with it? Sure. Yep. Just like game. 717 00:47:31,199 --> 00:47:34,006 Meditation is freakishly similar to game. 718 00:47:34,925 --> 00:47:40,306 Definitely, uh, definitely, uh ... freakishly similar to game, 719 00:47:40,306 --> 00:47:44,073 where you'll blast ahead and have, like, the most amazing meditation sessions 720 00:47:44,073 --> 00:47:46,947 of your life, it's just like the best part of your day, and then other times 721 00:47:46,947 --> 00:47:50,058 you'll struggle with it. You will have plateaus, and that's expected. 722 00:47:52,278 --> 00:47:55,612 If you're sleepy, should you still do it? Yes. Train yourself to do it sleepy. 723 00:47:55,612 --> 00:47:58,379 What I'll do, if I'm doing it sleepy, is I'll be like [snoring sounds] 724 00:47:58,379 --> 00:48:03,049 and back like that, back like that, and if I completely pass out the alarm will wake me up. 725 00:48:03,267 --> 00:48:07,378 But you have to do it no matter what, because even if that's the most 726 00:48:07,378 --> 00:48:10,964 waste-of-time, ineffective session, you wanna do it to keep the habit, 727 00:48:10,964 --> 00:48:14,129 so you don't keep missing and missing and missing, OK? 728 00:48:16,064 --> 00:48:19,706 What is the difference between guys like Eckhart Tolle, who said to be present 729 00:48:19,706 --> 00:48:23,564 all the time, vs. meditation? Be present as much as you can, that's great, 730 00:48:23,974 --> 00:48:29,842 but meditation is a no-bullshit, like, let's condition your mind into this 731 00:48:29,842 --> 00:48:33,190 type of behavior. All right, so, that's, in my opinion, the difference. 732 00:48:33,628 --> 00:48:38,179 Does nutrition help? Yes. The more nutrition in your diet, 733 00:48:38,179 --> 00:48:41,820 the more present you're gonna tend to be. The more that you get addicted 734 00:48:41,820 --> 00:48:44,346 to being present to the moment, the more that you're gonna want 735 00:48:44,346 --> 00:48:47,466 to put good food in your body. There's actually entire subcultures in California 736 00:48:47,466 --> 00:48:50,756 that link nutrition to being present. It's pretty wild stuff on the west coast. 737 00:48:54,700 --> 00:48:59,240 Um ... which successful people do it? The really successful guy that promotes 738 00:48:59,332 --> 00:49:01,876 the heck outta meditation is Russell Simmons. 739 00:49:02,351 --> 00:49:06,017 You can read the books Do You and Super Rich where he explains how to do it. 740 00:49:06,271 --> 00:49:09,099 Highly recommended. I've met Russell Simmons in real life. 741 00:49:09,332 --> 00:49:13,512 The dude is a pimp gangster who makes tons of cash and fucks extremely hot women 742 00:49:13,512 --> 00:49:18,129 and has incredible frame control. So check out Russell Simmons' stuff. 743 00:49:18,352 --> 00:49:20,717 In his book he just seems so positive, you see him in real life, 744 00:49:20,717 --> 00:49:24,981 he's a pretty big gangster, actually. The vibe you get off him is pretty strong. 745 00:49:25,332 --> 00:49:28,805 Does it help eye contact? 746 00:49:30,588 --> 00:49:36,732 Yeah. Prefrontal cortex development? Yes. It develops the prefrontal cortex, 747 00:49:37,252 --> 00:49:41,214 gets you outta autopilot and into the conscious willpower part of your brain. 748 00:49:43,161 --> 00:49:47,372 Drugs or alcohol compared to meditation? Meditation basically simulates 749 00:49:47,372 --> 00:49:51,433 the benefits of drugs and alcohol, while being extremely sharp and clear-thinking. 750 00:49:52,184 --> 00:49:55,712 If you drink or use drugs, I'd recommend that you do meditation, 751 00:49:55,712 --> 00:49:58,772 and drop the alcohol and drugs. You'll be happy you did, 752 00:49:58,772 --> 00:50:02,837 and you can join such people as Russell Brand, who did the same thing. 753 00:50:04,632 --> 00:50:09,492 What if your mind just won't quiet? My recommendation personally, 754 00:50:09,492 --> 00:50:12,275 and you'd probably wanna do your own research, is suffer it out. 755 00:50:12,462 --> 00:50:14,573 Literally just suffer it out. 756 00:50:16,127 --> 00:50:19,148 Seriously, just suffer it out, because eventually you'll train yourself, 757 00:50:19,148 --> 00:50:23,833 and keep reading books by people that are into this, to learn more about what it means 758 00:50:23,833 --> 00:50:27,399 to be present to the moment, not thinking about the future or ruminating about the past 759 00:50:27,399 --> 00:50:30,184 but just [whoosh]. Bang. 760 00:50:31,991 --> 00:50:35,157 Um, let's see here. 761 00:50:40,071 --> 00:50:42,087 I guess that's about it. [laughs] 762 00:50:44,401 --> 00:50:47,416 Do you actively stop thought, I guess was kind of the last question 763 00:50:47,655 --> 00:50:53,085 that I was sort of answering. Again, if you try to actively stop thought, 764 00:50:54,483 --> 00:50:58,973 what's more prone to happen is it's ineffective, because if you're like, 765 00:50:58,973 --> 00:51:01,386 don't think, don't think, don't think, that's not effective, 766 00:51:01,814 --> 00:51:06,655 so the 20 minutes of meditation, what they do is they actually train you to just 767 00:51:06,655 --> 00:51:11,562 shift awareness into the present moment, all right? 768 00:51:11,562 --> 00:51:16,203 So again, meditation is just not thinking for 20 minutes a day, 769 00:51:17,049 --> 00:51:19,007 but if you say Don't think, that doesn't work, 770 00:51:19,007 --> 00:51:21,925 so simply train yourself to shift your awareness to becoming present. 771 00:51:21,925 --> 00:51:24,273 Meditation, I want you to think of it as very selfish. 772 00:51:24,273 --> 00:51:27,905 It's 20 minutes a day just to focus on you. It's 20 minutes a day to relax. 773 00:51:28,340 --> 00:51:30,529 It's 20 minutes a day to ground yourself. 774 00:51:30,529 --> 00:51:32,711 It's 20 minutes a day to ground yourself to the present moment. 775 00:51:32,930 --> 00:51:36,070 Think of meditation like taking creatine for lifting weights. 776 00:51:36,569 --> 00:51:39,600 If you just take creatine, that's not really gonna do a lot. 777 00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:43,004 If you lift weights and take creatine, it would do a lot, right? 778 00:51:43,847 --> 00:51:46,416 Or you could compare it to, say, high amounts of protein, 779 00:51:46,665 --> 00:51:50,178 if you don't wanna take creatine. Say you take a ton of protein, 780 00:51:50,178 --> 00:51:52,147 is that effective if you don't lift weights? No. 781 00:51:52,147 --> 00:51:54,815 If you do meditation, and you don't go out, is that effective? 782 00:51:54,815 --> 00:51:58,495 No. It will do nothing, OK? It will just make you more chill. 783 00:51:59,340 --> 00:52:05,278 But if you take massive action, and then you add the 20 minutes of meditation a day, 784 00:52:05,278 --> 00:52:10,269 then it does a lot. Just like if you lift weights and are hittin' it up hard in the gym, 785 00:52:10,269 --> 00:52:15,403 if you do a lot of protein it'll help you to grow, OK. So think of it like that. 786 00:52:15,403 --> 00:52:20,109 It's not the end in itself, assuming that you're like a young guy who's not just 787 00:52:20,109 --> 00:52:23,540 like training yourself to be an anchor to the present moment for other people, 788 00:52:23,588 --> 00:52:27,390 but it's something that's just absolutely amazing that when combined with 789 00:52:27,390 --> 00:52:33,170 massive, massive action, it's really good, OK, 790 00:52:33,170 --> 00:52:35,884 and I kind of emphasized that because when I see guys that just get into medi -- 791 00:52:36,132 --> 00:52:38,481 "Uh, I focus on the meditation, not all this other stuff," 792 00:52:38,481 --> 00:52:45,506 I'm like, ugh! Ugh! Especially people that don't ground that experience 793 00:52:45,506 --> 00:52:49,012 of the present moment to reality, I think that can get even more whack, 794 00:52:49,012 --> 00:52:52,949 because actually you see a lot of people in this stuff getting identity out of 795 00:52:52,949 --> 00:52:56,024 being above the fray, and on the mountain top. 796 00:52:56,559 --> 00:52:59,702 They make this whole identity out of it, and when things break down, 797 00:52:59,702 --> 00:53:01,891 they're the most whiny little bitches you'll ever see. 798 00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:06,488 So I love the combination of keeping one foot in each world: 799 00:53:06,488 --> 00:53:10,970 the world of intent, like taking action, and the world of freedom from outcome, 800 00:53:10,970 --> 00:53:14,030 which is being present and bringing presence into whatever you're doing. 801 00:53:14,473 --> 00:53:23,390 I love that. So, yeah. Master the art of both, OK? Manifestation of your intent, 802 00:53:23,390 --> 00:53:27,137 and getting more and more in touch with what your real intent is, 803 00:53:27,137 --> 00:53:30,844 but also stripping away the layers of attachment and becoming free of outcome. 804 00:53:30,844 --> 00:53:34,232 So meditation helps you with one part, massive action is the other part. 805 00:53:34,335 --> 00:53:36,842 That's why you've seen these really intense speeches from me, like, 806 00:53:36,842 --> 00:53:40,269 Take fuckin' action! Gangster! Dominate! Things like that, and then you see 807 00:53:40,269 --> 00:53:42,605 these other speeches from me like, Free from outcome! 808 00:53:42,605 --> 00:53:45,608 There actually is no ultimate point! Actually there's no point in this shit at all. 809 00:53:46,642 --> 00:53:50,009 So be present, right, and that's kind of what the human existence is like. 810 00:53:50,855 --> 00:53:54,902 Meditation is a habit that a lot of successful people use to achieve massive success. 811 00:53:54,902 --> 00:53:58,431 You'll find it to be highly invaluable to you. You'll love it. 812 00:54:00,319 --> 00:54:03,448 Take the time to learn it. Look into other sources than me. 813 00:54:03,448 --> 00:54:06,755 Look for conflicting opinions. Look for people who have different opinions than mine. 814 00:54:07,411 --> 00:54:11,242 Don't go so far into it that you become a woo-woo, weirdo person, 815 00:54:11,242 --> 00:54:15,532 'cause that's just another form-based identity to take on, it's another trend, 816 00:54:15,532 --> 00:54:19,041 no different than being like a hip hop-type guy or a punk, 817 00:54:19,041 --> 00:54:22,629 or a, y'know, a preppie. Being a spiritual woo-woo guy 818 00:54:22,629 --> 00:54:26,553 is just another one of those things. But look into it anyway, 819 00:54:26,553 --> 00:54:30,284 and look for other people that can, y'know, teach it to you. 820 00:54:30,649 --> 00:54:33,097 And basically it's just something you do. 821 00:54:33,097 --> 00:54:38,426 So, sit here, wrap up for a second, show you how it's done, 822 00:54:38,426 --> 00:54:41,861 'cause that was requested here. Again, I was cross-legged for a second there, 823 00:54:41,861 --> 00:54:43,849 now I'm just getting comfortable. 824 00:54:57,172 --> 00:55:02,646 First minute, what do I do? Little scratches, shift around, 825 00:55:02,844 --> 00:55:07,902 get comfortable, give yourself that permission. 826 00:55:09,549 --> 00:55:11,506 Look around a bit. 827 00:55:22,324 --> 00:55:25,412 [distant sound of waves] 828 01:02:43,789 --> 01:02:47,186 In case you didn't figure it out, you were supposed to keep going for 20 minutes. 829 01:02:50,460 --> 01:02:54,935 Just because I stop, it doesn't matter. Do the 20 minutes. You'll like it, aight? 830 01:02:55,499 --> 01:02:58,756 I got you started. [snaps fingers] Do it. I'll see you soon.