Jason starts this Flash Back Friday show with thoughts on cycles of opportunity. Then he talks about the upcoming Jason Hartman University and how he’ll be teaching how to evaluate properties. Later on the show, he hosts Dan Millman, author of 17 books, including his new book, The Four Purposes of Life. He shares more on his private life discussing numbers that are used as a special life calculator helped to enlighten you about your life path.
Jason Hartman 0:00
Welcome to this week’s edition of flashback Friday, your opportunity to get some good review by listening to episodes from the past that Jason has hand picked to help you today in the present, and propel you into the future.
Announcer 0:12
Enjoy. Welcome to the creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You’re about to learn a new slant on investing some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world’s most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine self made multi millionaire who’s actually been there and done it. He’s a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who’s owned properties in 11 states had hundreds of tenants and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason’s footsteps on the road to your financial independence day. You really can do it on now. Here’s your host Jason Hartman with complete solution for real estate investors.
Jason Hartman 1:04
Welcome to the creating wealth show. This is your host Jason Hartman Episode Number 646, Forero and listeners from 164 countries around the world. You know what that means? It means this is a 10th episode. So we’re going to discuss something of general interest life success, more effective living today. And we have Dan Millman back on the show for a second time. No, this is not a flashback Friday episode. This is brand new stuff from Dan Millman. We’re going to talk about the four purposes of life, finding meaning and direction in a changing world. Of course, we’ll talk about the way of the Peaceful Warrior as well but mostly his his newest work. He’s just he’s really got some good stuff some good information. I enjoyed this interview thoroughly, and I think you’re going to like it too, as we do a 10th episode today every 10 episodes Something of general interest life success more effective living content there. Gosh, what is going on in the world of real estate? Well, I’ll tell you clients, I just want to say thank you so much You have made us so busy. Last year, we had an absolute record here. I mean, it was a really good record. It was much better than any other year, at least in recent history. It was and shaping up the same way today, you know, you guys are buying properties at an amazing clip. They are flying off the shelves and the constant battle is to just keep finding good inventory. We have all kinds of people approaching us every single week that say, you know, sell our stuff, sell up this stuff, we’ve got that product, we’ve got that product, we’ve got this one off deal. And you know what, it’s really tempting for us because I know, I know we could probably increase our income by 50 To 100%. But as they say, you only get one chance to have a reputation. You know, if you only get one of those in life, it’s kind of a little bit unfair if you think about it, you know, I mean, if someone wants to declare bankruptcy, what are they can do that what every seven years I think, or 10 years, I think it’s every seven. Some people do it like it’s a business plan. That’s pretty awful. Not ethical. But you know, you only get one chance and so you got to do it, right. You got to keep being forever vigilant, to be really, really picky. There’s just all kinds of crappy property out there. And I’ll tell you something I have noticed I mean, I have noticed this for a long, long time. Back when I was 1920 years old. I remember taking all of the investment classes through century 21 real estate company I started with many, many years ago, when I was taking these classes. I remember one of the great instructors. We had was a guy named Dennis McKenzie. He wrote a bunch of real estate textbooks for California real estate courses. And he talked about, and I remember also Tony router, she also was a great instructor there. And you know, they used to have some really good classes. I don’t, I doubt it’s that way anymore. Just looking at the company, but I hate sorry, century 21. I may be speaking out of turn there. But you had some good stuff. In the old days there for sure. I remember we really both of them. And other people have talked about this too. When here’s the thing that happens as we have the business cycle and the overall economy as we have the real estate cycles and the housing market cycles. And I’m going to coin a new one maybe as we have the opportunity cycle, okay. Where opportunities there when when there are a big supply of opportunities and maybe sometimes offer Opportunities are in short supply, right? So everything is a cycle opportunities. In general, real estate deals when the market is flying and it’s going crazy and properties are flying off the shelf left and right. And then you have the time when opportunity dries up where there’s nobody wants to buy anything, regardless of you know, could be real estate could be just the overall business cycle where supply exceeds demand, right? So you have these constant cycles of the supply demand curve. And what happens when you get this really high flying time? And I would say we’re, I don’t know, we’re kind of in one of those or we have been, certainly to some extent for the past couple of years, really. But it seems as though it’s getting even more so and I sense this huge distrust for wall street that is rightfully placed because Wall Street is the modern version. have organized crime. And so people are looking at alternative investments. And so many of them have come to the most historically proven asset class in all of world history. And that’s income property. Of course it is. And when you get these high flying times where everybody’s buying everything, it becomes more of a job of being a sorter of sorting things, of evaluating opportunities. In the general world of business today, it’s the same way. We have so much coming at us. We have so many tools available and so many opportunities and so many, you know, different options. We got to like run down and we got to figure them out. And when when times are like that, every flake, and every like dishonorable character comes out of the woodwork. And when that happens, it’s incumbent upon us number one us as your team. Team in growing an investment property portfolio with you, but you as well, it becomes the real job, the real value that you have to bring to the table is the value of sorting things of figuring out what is the wheat and what is the chaff. You know, what is good, what is worthwhile and what is junk, because there is just so much junk out there. It is amazing to me how much crap there is. And people approached me constantly. They’re asking about this property about that property about this deal about that deal. And the I don’t know, it kind of amazes me. Like, they listen to this podcast. And how did you like that, by the way? I said, like, just like a Gen Y kid, right? Like a millennialist. Yeah, you know, anyway.
Jason Hartman 7:55
So they come and they bring these properties to me and they say, Well, what about this deal? And I think, are you listening to the podcast? Like, did you listen to all this stuff? I told you on the last 200 episodes You said you told me listen to, it just kind of blows my mind. So be a sorter. I know how it feels, you know, we all get in this position. Sometimes we got like, the money is burning a hole in our pocket, right? Like, we got to deploy it, we got to spend it. And that’s true. Look, you know, that is conceptually true, for sure. Because if you are not deploying your money, it is not working for you. You know, if you have way too much cash in the bank, or you’ve got too much equity in your house or your houses or your entire portfolio. It’s not working for you, you’ve got to deploy it, you’ve got to put it to work, of course, but at the same time, let’s have some reasonable amount of moderation so that all these promoters out there that are throwing absolute crap at us. Do not get our attention because they don’t deserve our attention. They have junk. So sorting, sorting, sorting, that is one of the big things, we’ve got to do statistics. So I’m constantly talking about these articles, you know, I’ll share them a lot. And they’ll say the best markets to invest the best markets, for renters, the best markets for landlords, you know, the best markets, they’re going to have the most appreciation, blah, blah, blah, this and that, right. The unemployment rate is the inflation rate is the Consumer Confidence Index says all of these different stats, they are so amazingly, amazingly misleading. Let me give you another example. Just quickly here before we get to Dan Millman. Now, this doesn’t have anything to do with real estate, but I’ll bet you most of you participate in what I’m about to talk about. And that’s driving. Most of you listening probably have a car. And you know soon, you may not need one. In fact, if you got kids under 10 I think there’s a very high likelihood they may never learn to drive they may never need to imagine if in suburban neighborhoods, and really all areas around the world of course, but suburbia, particularly because I have predicted the resurgence of suburbia. Okay, like most people think that’s a weird prediction, isn’t it? Well, you know, we’ve had the pendulum swing back and forth. And by the way, I’m on a tangent here. I’m going to get to that article I was going to tell you about in just a moment. So you know, of course, we had the post World War Two baby boomer era, and we had Levittown and we had this whole resurgence or not resurgence, but really the creation of the concept of suburbia. You know when the Romantic era Have the automobile in America. And really, most countries weren’t like that. They didn’t have that. That was kind of an American concept of the the big 57 Chevy and happy days. And all this. All this romance and nostalgia was built around the automobile. Because of course, we have the interstate highway system. And we had lots of land and not all countries were like this. A lot of countries still, you know, existed around city centers and so forth. Certainly European countries were like that. They didn’t have the, the rise of suburbia, the way the US did. So the US had this huge suburban sprawl thing going on for decades. And then the pendulum has swung back and forth, right. And recently, it’s swung back to the cities. Now, I know that’s still the hot trend. But I’m making a prediction that the autonomous car, though maybe maybe there’ll be those little ugly Google cars that you’ve all seen by now, right? They have no steering wheel, no gas pedal, and no brake, amazingly, and so maybe those little autonomous cars will be just driving around virtually everywhere, or they will be a moment’s access, and you’ll have that car picking you up. And you won’t even need to own a car. And so say you live in suburbia, say you now live 45 minutes from the city center. And you think, Well, you know, you live there because it’s less expensive because you’re practicing the drive until you qualify concept. Yes, that’s what people do nowadays, they drive until they can qualify for a loan. Yeah, until they can buy a house and afford it. And so with the resurgence of suburbia, that is a strong possibility with the autonomous vehicle and cheap energy, right.
Jason Hartman 12:57
These cars will just come pick you up and take you anywhere you need to go. And they may go a lot faster because the concept of traffic will be virtually eliminated 90 miles an hour bumper to bumper traffic, but moving so fast because the cars are all networked together. They’re, they’re like a virtual train. They don’t have a physical hitch, but they’re all hitched together electronically. So this is an amazing thing. I mean, it’s a game changer. I’ve said it before. My Tesla just got its second software update. And now the Tesla parks itself. You can summon the car and it will come to you. Do you really need valet parking people anymore? It’s a game changer. I’m telling you everything changes. This is a massive shift. And it has massive impact on real estate values. So if people are paying huge premiums to be in the city center area, where real estate is very expensive, I mean, even where I live in Scottsdale, right? It’s is amazing people think Arizona is inexpensive, but you get into Old Town Scottsdale. And I mean it is, well, it’s not Los Angeles, but it’s expensive. Okay, you know, it is not cheap. You get into suburbia in Arizona, you know, you go to some of the outlying areas, and they’re not really outlying. They’re all their own little sort of communities. But you know, they’re generally considered suburban markets and the price goes down dramatically. I mean, you can buy a big beautiful home for a lot less money. And the reason is, is because the proximity, but if proximity becomes a non issue, it’s a game changer. So back to how to lie with statistics, then let’s get to our 10th show guest Dan Millman and talk about his great stuff. So here are the cars that get the most and the least tickets. I just thought I’d share this kind of funny thing because it applies to everybody. Right? So which cars get the most tickets? Which cars get the least tickets? Okay, well what’s what’s the worst if you drive a Nissan 303 50 z? You’re gonna get a lot of tickets, or an Alexis s 300 or a Dodge Charger, or a Volkswagen Jetta GL, or a Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Okay, now check this out. Here are the drivers or the not the drivers but the five cars with the least number of tickets. Okay. The Buick Encore the Lexus IS 350 the accurate I LX the Cadillac a Ts and the Chevrolet Express. What is a Chevrolet I don’t even know what that is a Chevrolet Express. Remember, you’re listening to flashback Friday. Our new episodes are published every Monday and Wednesday. But anyway, that’s according to insurance calm All right. That’s who gets the most in the least traffic violations. Now, they didn’t talk about the color of the car. We’ve all heard that, you know, red cars get a lot of tickets, right? Which may well be true. What is the gaping hole here? What is the gaping hole in this theory about getting a lot of tickets? And you know, people will look at this article and think, well, gee, I’m not going to get myself a Nissan 300 z because I’m gonna get a lot of tickets. They’ll think that they might think well, what’s that bukhan core look like? Let me check that out. Maybe Maybe that cars Okay, maybe I’ll get that one. So I won’t get so many tickets. I have a lead foot. Do you know years ago? I don’t know if they still do this Oregon listeners Tell me Is this true? Okay, so years ago, I had this assistant, Marlee and she was from Oregon. She told me that in Oregon, if you get too many speeding tickets, they send you to a psychiatrist, or psychologist.
Jason Hartman 16:58
Isn’t that funny? Yeah, you gotta go have your Mental Health examined if you get too many speeding tickets, you know, how was your childhood? Was it slow or fast while you drive slower? I don’t know. It’s just funny. But what did they not tell you in this article? You don’t know how many of each of these cars exist. It’s not based on the concept of a per capita concept. There’s no proportionality to this. It’s totally stupid. Right? For example, if the Nissan 300 or 350 Z, if there’s maybe there’s way more of those than Volkswagen Jetta has. I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t checked this stuff. But you know, maybe there’s just not that many Buick concours and Chevrolet Express’s out there. So of course, they don’t get as many tickets because not as many of them exist. Thank God. I mean, seriously, I know I know. I know. Our audience. I know dear listener, you get this right. You understood this without me even pointing it out. But how can this stuff pass is flipping news in this country? You know, this is a this is an AP article, right? It’s on that it’s on the Associated Press wire and all these news media outlets around the world will pick this stuff up and in talk about this like it’s news yet it doesn’t tell the story. So that is the the lack of proportionality is just it’s just staggering that that’s totally missed. It’s not even mentioned here. So we’ve got some great properties at Jason Hartman, calm they are flying off the shelf. Go check them out on our website. Jason Hartman, calm go look at those. I’ll tell you personally, I’m doing another real estate deal myself while I’m I do lots of real estate deals. I’ve been doing some in Grand Rapids lately. I know. I never thought it’d be buying a property there. Right. But you know, I’ve been doing that too. Create land contracts for buyers who want to buy the land contracts. So that’s been good. By the way, for those of you not interested in owning the physical property. The second best thing are these land contract deals we have, these are great, you buy them at a discount. You know, we’ve done shows about that before. So I won’t belabor the point now, but I am selling one of my properties again, to do a 1031 tax deferred exchange. did one of those last year I was, you know, I kind of like a few years go by and you don’t really pay much attention to these properties. And you get such a pleasant surprise. They’ve gone up in value. Imagine that. And so I’ve got this one property in Houston. It’s worth like $220,000. You know, I only paid like 150 for that property, I think and heck, I’m gonna sell it. I’m gonna do a 1031 tax deferred exchange, income properties the most tax favored asset in America. I’m going to buy two more properties in Memphis just bought to last year on another exchange there in Memphis, I sold a property in North Carolina, that was also appreciated a lot more than I was even aware of, because I wasn’t really looking at it wasn’t really paying attention to it went up in value a whole bunch, I sold it, I bought two properties and increased my cash flow dramatically. My rent to value ratios improved dramatically. So you know, I’m in this game every day. I’m constantly doing deals and constantly looking at deals. And this just makes total sense. So, again, here, I’m gonna go from probably, what did I rent out for last, I think 1550 per month. And I’m probably going to take this up to about 21 or 20 $200 per month, no tax implication 1031 tax deferred exchange, and boom, I’ll increase my cash flow by basically about, you know, somewhere in the neighborhood of 25%. Isn’t that phenomenal? I love income property, the most historically proven asset class in the entire world. So go check out those deals at Jason hartman.com. If you want to learn how to evaluate properties better, go to property tracker comm or go to the App Store for your iPhone or your iPad, and look up property evaluator great little software to help you do that. Also, we’ve got our Salt Lake City event coming up. This is going to be an awesome Jay h you live where we’re going to do the math on evaluating properties, building portfolios, working together. This is a really interactive event that we do it’s only our second Jay Chou event. The first one was a little too easy. Some people said so we made this one a lot more challenging. So we’re going to test your your your knowledge and abilities and push them a little bit. And that’s in Salt Lake City on March 12. You can register for that at Jason hartman.com and we’d love to see you. And if you’re already a JH member, remember, we’ve got an incredibly special deal for you. So contact your investment counselor about that. Oh, here it is. It’s Jason hartman.com slash contest. And you can enter to win free tickets for the Salt Lake City event. So if you enter, and you buy a ticket, if you’re selected in the raffle, we will simply refund your money. We’ve done that several times over the years when we’ve done contest. So entering only takes 20 seconds. Go to Jason Hartman comm slash contest and enter to win free tickets for Jay Chou live Jason hartman.com slash contest. And just to hedge your bets, buy your ticket, and do that at Jason hartman.com in the events section. All right, let’s get to Dan Millman. And let’s see what he has to say about the four really important areas of life and how to be more successful in them again, it’s great to Have him back on the show. So let’s go to Dan Millman.
Jason Hartman 23:04
Hey, it’s my pleasure to welcome back a great guest. We had him on the show a while ago, and it’s Mr. Dan Millman. You probably know his name. And you probably know his work. He’s the author of 17 books, I believe now. And he’s out with a new one called the for purposes of life, finding meaning and direction in a changing world. He’s probably most well known for the awesome book, the way of the Peaceful Warrior, a book that changes lives, the creative compass, writing your way from inspiration to publication, so he helps authors to, he’s a former director of gymnastics at Stanford University. And I gotta make one comment before we start with Dan and hear about his latest work. You always hear the constant refrain of the intellectual snobs out there who say, whenever a book is turned into a movie, well, the book was better. Actually, the book and the movie of the world. Have a Peaceful Warrior are both fantastic. So that’s a rarity.
Dan Millman 24:04
But Dan, welcome. How are you? Oh, doing great. Glad to be here with you.
Jason Hartman 24:08
Good to have you and you have moved since we talked to you last. You are now in the very hip and trendy Brooklyn, New York. Hmm.
Dan Millman 24:16
I have moved Jason and we moved to for three reasons two daughters and a grandbaby and well it wasn’t
Jason Hartman 24:21
the weather huh?
Dan Millman 24:24
We like to call the four seasons are fine we have to be in California. All those years we we do enjoy running through the snow, that sort of thing.
Jason Hartman 24:33
Good stuff. Good stuff. Well, hey, tell us about your latest work the for purposes of life.
Dan Millman 24:38
Well, I every one of my books has to justify itself. I’ve never written a book just to have the book out after way of the Peaceful Warrior was published way back in 1980. It started taking off by word of mouth over time, but I didn’t write another book for 10 years. I felt I’d said what I have to say, which I think is kind of refreshing. But after in around 1990 1989 in the late 80s, I met a rather unusual mentor was exposed to a lot of new and very exciting information perspectives on living. So I started writing it after that about a book a year. So it culminated most recently with a for purposes of life. Because it puts my work into context. It’s a small book on 150 pages, but it’s packed with information to clarify where people are crystallize their life, to help them understand themselves, and where they’re going better. Hmm, interesting.
Jason Hartman 25:33
So you say in a changing world, I mean, we certainly all feel that pressure of the world changing so quickly. What did you mean by that when you made that the subtitle of the book?
Dan Millman 25:45
Yeah, when I wrote my first, you know, 30 years ago, I get my first talk in Southern California and even then, I predicted I said, you know, it’s hard to predict anything accurately these days because the variables are so many we don’t know about our confer See, but I said One thing seems to be happening. This was 30 years ago, I said, the pace seems to be accelerating the energy is building. And I have no idea where to go. This is before the internet before apps before, you know smartphones. But the pace is definitely increasing. And you know, this whole idea of disruption of staying pace with technology, and the news, the Daily News, whether it’s economic changes happening so fast the workplace, so to help people ground out and take a deep breath, and say, Okay, what is my life right now? What do I need to do in fact, jumping Well, let me just say what these four purposes are. So people get a sense because
Jason Hartman 26:45
Right, right, that’s a great place to start. Yeah. Okay.
Dan Millman 26:47
The book Jason is is like, it sounds like hubris because I didn’t say for purposes of life, I wrote a book titled, The for purposes of life. You know, and a friend of mine, a friend of mine said to me, Dan, I know the purpose of It’s learning to love. Whatever the question Love is the answer. You know, I couldn’t argue with that. It sounds like a great purpose in life. Another friend said, Well, wait a minute, we’re here to, you know, we produce and keep the species gone. Another friend said, No, we’re here for enlightenment for awakening. Everybody has a different idea of what the big cosmic purposes are of life. But just as we divide the points of the compass to the four primary directions, and the days of the year into four primary seasons, by looking at our lives through these four purposes, it does give a sense of meaning purpose connection in terms of connecting our life with the bigger picture. And those four purposes are first learning life’s lessons. The second one is finding our career and calling and understanding the difference between the two. The third purpose is more mysterious, and it’s intriguing, believe me, it’s called finding on life path, which is different from the career or calling. And the fourth purpose, maybe the most important one of all, which is attending to our purpose in this arising moment. And so that summarizes what those four purposes are. There’s a tremendous amount behind each of those summaries.
Jason Hartman 28:22
Yeah, well, we’ll get into those. I’m particularly intrigued, like you said, by attending to the moment because when, when I had you on the show last you said, you kind of summed it up as the one the one overriding theme of your work. I remember very well what you said, although I am not a good practitioner of this. But it’s what you said. And I’ll remind you damn it, you probably know, but it was be here. Now. That’s what you said, in that concept of presence is a big theme in your work. You know, maybe before you go into these different purposes. Do you want to just address that one, maybe even more generally than you did, specifically in the book? Because I, I think in what you just said, you’re alluding to that again?
Dan Millman 29:09
Well, I am and of course, I don’t know anybody who is on, at least in the developed world who reads, who hasn’t heard or read many times about living in the present, but it’s good to do. I mean, certainly, it’s not fresh with me. It’s, you know, Eckhart Tolle restated his book. Rom das wrote the book be here now. Robert Frost, the poet talked about it. It’s not a new idea, because, you know, Marcus or realist, it’s been around a long time. But what does it really mean? Today, this term mindfulness has become very popular. Everybody is mindfulness is mindfulness, that it’s popular because nobody’s doing it. Nobody aren’t doing it consciously. You know, like all mindfulness means essentially Three things paying attention. The second thing is to the present moment we don’t. It’s not about paying attention to the past or future memory or imagination. It’s right now what’s in front of us. And the third thing is without judgment. It’s just noticing, being aware. So they have mindfulness meditation, where you do that formally, please sit with your eyes closed, or half open. And then but in everyday life, just being mindful of the present moment. So when I talk about attending to your purpose, it’s not just about the stock trades live in the present. It’s about what is your purpose in this present moment. You know, we may not all know what our cosmic purpose is. But you and I know our purpose right now. It’s sharing with each other is talking having a conversation. It’s very clear. Most of us with all the concepts around can get come back right now, sharing now, that what needs doing right now what is my purpose, and the quality of our moments, as I said, end up being the quality of our lives. Because the better attentionally pay to eat your rising moment and noticing what’s going on, by and doing it purposefully, you know, the better the quality of our lunch turns out to be. Robert Byrne once said the purpose of life is a life of purpose. So it’s not just about being in the present that sounds abstract, and how do you do that? But it’s permanent is recognizing that there is no such thing, actually in reality, as the past or future, the future never comes tomorrow never comes. It’s always tomorrow. And the past is only a set of neural impulses recall memory, but it’s not here anymore. So most of us, you know, Mark Twain once said, that many troubles in my life, most of which never happened.
Jason Hartman 31:46
Yeah, they’re always it’s just the worry. Yeah, thinking about how they might happen.
Dan Millman 31:49
Yeah. Thinking about past and future. But in the moment, you know, we just address what we need to in the moment. So that’s what the fourth purpose it brings us back It helps again, after helps pull us out of the concepts and all the things we have to remember and do and simplifies our life in measurably My life is quite busy. But it’s very simple because I’ve recognized Finally, I can only do one thing at a time really. I know many young people, Millennials say I’m a good multitasker. But that’s somewhat of an illusion. It’s been proven, it’s been shown in almost every case, because attention is a zero sum game. We have so much attention for this moment. If we’re paying attention to walking, then we’re paying attention to walking. If we’re paying attention to chewing gum, we’re paying attention to chewing gum, but that old joke is true. You really can’t walk and chew gum at the same time. You’re looking at you’re attending to one or the other. Have you ever talked to someone on the phone and you know they’re doing their email at the same time, most everybody’s multitasking in one way or another nowadays, but you can tell the quality of attention isn’t really there. It’s like, Oh yeah, well, I really are. So they’re not flowing with you. So people are thinking multitasker just splitting their attention into various ways that some people drive like that. It’s a little scary, you know?
Jason Hartman 33:13
Just a reminder, you’re listening to flashback Friday, or new episodes are published every Monday and every Wednesday.
Jason Hartman 33:24
Okay, so first of all, I want to ask you a question about that. But I also want to share a quote that I just love about this. And you quoted a lot of great people. You didn’t quote augmon Dino, though, and I bet you’re a fan of his. He was one of the other greats along with Dan Millman. And he says, I will live as all good actors do when they are on stage. Only in the moment, I cannot perform at my best today by regretting my previous acts mistakes or worrying about the scene to come. And, you know, that’s like a great actor, you know, they’re there. They’re in the now you know, you can just tell and it’s, it’s something you could never Sort of academically quantify, I guess, but we just know it. You just know, great acting versus mediocre acting is. Yeah, yeah, maybe you couldn’t quantify it, but you just know. And we all have experienced that certainly. But I come on, you know, when we drive we’re in an alpha state, you know, a lot of people when he I’ve been guilty, certainly, of driving around for many years listening to your audio books, and those of many other greats. Is that bad? I mean, I don’t think that deteriorates from the quality of my driving. Certainly, I think texting and driving does, that’s very dangerous. I mean, aren’t we always walking and chewing gum, you know, we’re all doing multiple things, right.
Dan Millman 34:38
And, you know, we can walk and chew gum, obviously, and we can drive while listen to the radio or book on tape. I do the same thing. Even I go for bike rides to Prospect Park, and I’ll listen with your phone in one of my ears and listen to it that way. I get to travel with different people. By the way, that was a great quote you read by dogs and you know, I really enjoyed that. And the metaphor of acting is wonderful because it’s a transcendental art nitrogen improvisation. And the more we, the better actress, we are playing different roles as we need them, the better our life goes. So I think it was very appropriate. You’re you’re raising that. But yeah, of course, nobody’s saying just completely have tunnel vision, their time somebody is speaking with us. But the more we bring attention, quality of attention and presence to what we do, the better by the way, you mentioned acting and there’s a great story about sir Laurence Olivier. He did this masterful performance, got a standing ovation and went into his dressing room slammed the door, and someone knocked on his door to Larry, what are you upset? That was the greatest performance I’ve ever seen you do? And he said yes. And I don’t know how I did it. So as you say, there’s no trail of breadcrumbs. Sometimes we bring a lot of presents, we play golf, some people can see the line to the hole to that Other times, it’s all fuzzy. So these these things do come and go. Okay, let’s
Jason Hartman 36:06
go into the let’s go into the different the different four purposes if we if we could I didn’t want to get too off on that tangent, because I want the audience to hear about the new book specifically, what are these four purposes, while you told us what they were, but like, drill down on them and see what
Dan Millman 36:20
now learning life’s lessons sounds kind of mundane? Oh, yes. We’re all here to learn from our life experience. Turns out there’s a lot more to it. In terms of, versus a school, daily life is our classroom. You know, no one needs to read my books, or any books or attend any seminars in order to evolve as a human being people were evolving before books and seminars. So what then people ask me Well, why do you write books, data, teach seminars, because any good information, good perspectives that I share? Can you help people learn the lessons of life a little more gracefully with a little less pain? Because it helps clarify the lessons of life. But that’s why learning life lessons is so important. In fact, there are 12 courses we need to pass in order to graduate and I summarized all those 12 courses. In that first chapter. There are also school rules. If allegedly school there are rules in any school, and we call them universal laws. So I’ve summarized what that is about. So there’s, it’s really packed with understanding that it’s impossible to fail at anything. If we’ve learned from it. Learning is not just the icing on the cake, it’s the whole cake that if we start to appreciate, what have I learned today? How have I changed? How do you know if you’ve learned something? This is an important question. People say I learned things all the time. There are two ways to know if you learned something. The primary way is an action changes, something changes. The second way is your perspectives expand. And you know people have said to me about Your first book changed my life Dan, you know the way of the Peaceful Warrior and I want to ask them, What do you mean by that? And it usually comes back to me as I have a different perspective now. And that’s not a small thing. It’s a better part of wisdom perspective. So that’s what learning life’s lessons is about. It is paying attention and recognizing that life is a form of spiritual weight training. You know, if we don’t lift any weights, we don’t get any stronger. So some people feel bad about having some kind of challenge or adversity. But if we look back on those times, we’ve experienced difficulty in our lives. We’re here we are, you know, you the Japanese saying fall down six times get up seven times. Point is, every adversity has a hidden gift, in terms of most people who’ve gone through difficulties will recognize you’re a little bit wiser, they’re a little bit stronger now. And that’s that’s the value. We don’t have to pretend to look for adversity, but when it happens, we can appreciate That element, that it that’s what makes us stronger. And that makes us grow those challenges. So learning life lessons is about all those things. And again, there’s a lot in that chapter. It’s not just yeah, we’re here to learn from our life experience, because many people don’t.
Jason Hartman 39:15
Yeah, that’s a good point. I remember reading former President Richard Nixon’s book in the arena, which was written years ago. It’s a great book, by the way. And he just, I mean, that’s a man who had some big successes and some spectacular failures, right? They he had a lot of, he had a roller coaster life. And he talks about how you can’t fail if you learn. You’ve always succeeded in learning something. And you know, the famous Edison quote, and everybody says, it’s a different amount of trials where he failed to invent the light bulb, you know, 25,000 1000, who knows? It’s so, so changed over the years, but I’ve succeeded in knowing what doesn’t work. And Nixon, I remember he quoted Sophocles, and he said, One must wait until evening to see how splendid The day has been. That’s not really about learning as much as about perspective, but there’s some brilliant wisdom there. Yeah, that’s that’s great, Dan. Good. Yeah, I appreciate them.
Dan Millman 40:12
Yeah. What else do you do you want to go into the next one or more on this well careering calling just so people, your listeners can understand that the picture of the book, career in calling first defines the difference between career and calling. You know, we’re told do what you love, and the money will follow well, that doing what we love is about following our heart following or calling. Some people it’s playing the guitar on another musical instrument or people are called to the clergy or the military. They’re their hobbies people have calling may or may not have anything to do with money. Calling is something we’re just drawn to do in our discretionary time is something we find meaningful and enjoyable about it. Whereas a career whether we call it profession, job, whatever their many words, career is about producing an income to To support ourselves and family if we have one. And we may like a lot of things about our career, we need the people we work with when you find it meaningful. But if you weren’t getting paid anything, we’d have to find something else. So that’s the difference between the two. And it’s important for like young artists to understand they’re not showing out by getting a day job, and then practicing their art in their spare time. Otherwise, it’s hard to produce an income. So we need to balance career and calling other people devalue anything that doesn’t make the money. And they’ve abandoned the calling that really they enjoyed it might enrich their life. So that’s why it’s important to understand the difference between the two. And that’s why the second purpose in the book is finding our career and calling and I emphasize self knowledge so important. If we don’t know ourselves, clearly, we end up making the right choices for the wrong person. The one we thought we weren’t So I go into specifically what does it mean self knowledge? It means understanding what am i talents? What are my interests? And what are my values? And it can take 10 years to get that, you know, that’s why they call them the trying 20s when young people are trying this, trying that and trying this, because they’re exploring themselves in the world, what are my interests? What am I values, they’re learning to differentiate between what they think they should do, or someone else thinks they should do, and what they really want to do. And that can take into the 30s to really discover that nobody wants to hear it is young. But that’s what a for purposes of life is especially intended for people going through some kind of transition, graduating from school, retiring, any other changes or dislocations in their life? It’s a good time to read it to regain perspective. Yeah,
Jason Hartman 42:51
it sure is. And that’s career in calling. It’s so important. I mean, we spend a good third of our lives In that, maybe more and it’s it’s just a huge part of our lives. It’s like saying is sleep important? Of course it is, you know, it’s a big deal. And so I don’t think that should be minimized.
Dan Millman 43:12
Okay, we learn a lot about ourselves and that search for work. Some people search for a soulmate other search for sole job, but really, there’s a lot in that particular section. Now, we’ve touched upon the fourth purpose too, which is attending to this present moment, what is my purpose? The third one is the most mysterious and most controversial, and I took a risk even bringing this, this to the, to the fore in another book called the life you were born to live. But the third purpose finding our life path involves Well, the best way I could put it is to invite your listeners to go to peaceful warrior.com click on the life purpose link. It’s right there on the left. They will be taken to a life purpose calculator. All they do is put in their date month and you of birth, and they will see a number, the number won’t mean too much to them. But there’s some words associated with each digit. And there’s a paragraph about about a paragraph, a teaser, a taste, to give them a flavor for their life path there 43 different life paths for people born since 1900. And I’ll leave it to people to see how accurate the material is. I can’t explain how working with the numbers of your date of birth can give valid, reliable, accurate information. But I challenge your listeners just to take a look to get a sample of this material. Or they can get the life purpose app online. If you have an Android or iPhone. The app is very good, it gives you access to all the information but it’s really helpful
Jason Hartman 44:45
so you’re saying that I mean that’s that’s about numerology? Well,
Dan Millman 44:48
again, I don’t even use the word because I’ve never been very interested in numerology 10 but 40% accurate to me at least, I could be wrong about that. But then this unusual mentor showed me an image interpretation of the numbers that are different from many neurological systems more simple, straightforward, and I found it just life changing, actually. So I started working with other people when I went to an advanced training series of lectures he gave, and I started working with it. Unlike many people, I was completely immersed in it for about eight years before I started teaching it and finally wrote a book about so it’s one aspect of my teaching that I can’t see as well.
Jason Hartman 45:32
Damn, I mean, you know, some people are gonna hear you say that they’re gonna go oh my god, isn’t that like astrology? Come on. Tell us why do you think it’s so credible? I had that analysis done once you know, my life path number and I think it was five maybe or something like that. And it was it was uncanny how accurate it was. kind of blew my mind. Yeah, yeah, well, a good numerologist can can do that. Again, it’s trans rational. I don’t want to call it irrational, but I can’t explain it. But you know, you can Explain how aspirin works. scientists don’t know yet exactly all the mechanisms, they just know it has certain results, I will freely admit and agree with you 100% that there are many things we have yet to understand. And if you want to say, Well, you know, these very empirical, scientific, logical people will say, Well, you know, I just go with the science. Well, you know, science used to believe in bloodletting and leeches and the world is flat and you know, the universe revolved around the Earth. I mean, science used to believe all sorts of crazy stuff that we don’t believe anymore. There’s lots of stuff we don’t understand. So get over it. That’s what I say.
Dan Millman 46:35
I’m a big fan of science has pulled us out of the dark ages of superstition data set method to testing empirically. But then, you know, if science becomes a fundamentalist religion, then faith becomes heresy. And I think both are valuable. So I don’t want to be out in quote, unquote, woowoo land. I can only say this I was a psychology major at Berkeley. I understand empiricism, the scientific method And I’ll tell you, I mean, I’ve studied the various system, the enneagram, and mmpi, and all the different inventories. In terms of self knowledge. This is one of the most accessible, clear, useful methods I’ve seen. That’s why I chose to share it. And I work really hard writing that book, and the for purposes of life, to help give some perspective on these four purposes that can really lend a lot of clarity in people’s lives. So that’s why I’m okay.
Jason Hartman 47:28
Did you Did you finish your thoughts on the purposes? I just want to make sure we got that in?
Dan Millman 47:32
No, I think I did. I think for a summary for the time we have I think that’s just people a flavor
Jason Hartman 47:37
and it’s great that it’s 150 pages, you know, quicker read. I think a lot of authors are just still stuffing books to make them. I mean, they still think they’re selling them by the pound when so many people are buying them digitally anyway. So I like shorter, concise books. I think that’s great. What else would you like people to know? I mean, your body of work is so exciting. have just anything you know about Dan Millman or about your work the way the Peaceful Warrior, which I think is, I mean, you would consider that to be kind of your magnum opus, right? It’s a signature book. It’s my best known book. Yes. But each one has had to justify itself and has its own purpose.
Dan Millman 48:20
I would say, My background is an athlete and a coach has helped me to stay grounded because it’s easy to get lost in abstract concepts. And really, we want something that has actionable things we can do that has actually outcomes that is practical and useful. And that’s what I tried to convey in my various books, including the fourth purpose. And do you want to mention anything on the 12 required courses in the school of life? I mean, for purposes, 12 courses? Sure, I don’t really want to overwhelm people. But you know, it’s a fair question. If we’re here to learn what courses are we here to learn? And when we think oh, I have to learn about relationships or money or Education and the physical body, those are all useful things. Daily Life will deliver lessons in all those areas. But actually, it’s it’s deeper than that. It, it actually summarizes the entire field we call personal growth and personal development. And these 12 areas, I can fire them off at your really quickly. But basically, it’s discover your worth. And by the way, it’s different from self esteem, but I can’t explain that now. Discover your worth. Reclaim Your will energize your body. manage your money. tame your mind, trust your intuition. Accept your emotions, face your fears. eliminate your shadow, embrace your sexuality, Awaken your heart, and serve your world. And if you can come up with a 13 plan, I’d like to hear it but that really comprises the entire field of personal growth. And I work very hard to summarize a paragraph to define it. clarify what each of these areas are. There’s another book I wrote, which is a major book called everyday enlightenment, which covers all these gaps, all these 12 areas, but I wanted to summarize it in the for purposes of life. Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff.
Jason Hartman 50:16
Well, Dan, give out your website one more time if you would, and you know, tell people they can find the book and all the usual places, I assume Amazon, etc.
Dan Millman 50:22
Yeah, it’s online and in bookstores on and my website is peaceful, warrior calm, and it has a listing in description of all my books, basic seminar, various seminars around the world. And there’s some online courses as well that are pretty cool like the Peaceful Warrior workout.
Jason Hartman 50:40
Excellent, good stuff. Well, Dan Millman, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Again, it was great to have you back and just keep up the good work here. Your messages are awesome and we all need to remember them and be, you know, stay grounded in some of this stuff as we live in this changing hectic busy world with Information and stimulation overload. There’s so much coming at us all the time. So keep up the good work. And thanks again for joining us.
Dan Millman 51:06
My pleasure, Jason.
Dan Millman 51:08
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Dan Millman 51:15
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Dan Millman 51:17
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Dan Millman 51:28
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Dan Millman 51:40
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Dan Millman 51:51
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Dan Millman 52:00
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Dan Millman 52:16
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Dan Millman 52:30
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Dan Millman 52:49
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Dan Millman 52:56
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Dan Millman 53:04
store. If you want to be able to sit back and collect checks every month, just like a banker Jason’s creating wealth encyclopedia series is for you. This show is produced by the Hartman media company All rights reserved for distribution or publication rights and media interviews, please visit www dot Hartman media.com or email media at Hartman media.com. Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax legal real estate or business professional for individualized advice. opinions of guests are their own. And the host is acting on behalf of Empowered Investor network, Inc. exclusively.