Ho’ Oponopono: UNLOCK this Powerful Teaching! with Joe Vitale

Alex Ferrari 0:09
I'd like to welcome to the show, Joe Vitale. How're you doing, Joe?

Joe Vitale 0:13
I'm doing great.

Alex Ferrari 0:14
Thank you so much for being on the show my friend. I've I watched you I was introduced to you obviously, by the way, many people were introduced to you by watching the secret all those many years ago and I am of I'm of an age that I remember how big of a deal the secret was, when I was

Joe Vitale 0:30
Still is!

Alex Ferrari 0:31
Still huge secret. But I mean, it was like, it was in Costco. I remember walking in Costco

Joe Vitale 0:38
Best everything.

Alex Ferrari 0:39
As I saw DVD set was like, the secret I'm like, holy cow, it is it is arrived, it is at Costco.

Joe Vitale 0:48
It's still going around the world. It's still people who didn't know anything about it. It's still getting cultures to wake up to a principle that's been around for a very long time. So the movie has done well for being out there for about 16 years.

Alex Ferrari 1:02
Yeah, it's it's it's a pretty good documentary series kind of documentary. Film. Yeah, most of it. Most documentaries don't have the life span of 16 years plus,

Joe Vitale 1:12
Tell me about it. I was in about 20 other movies after the secret, most of which you never heard of even the title, let alone saw the movie.

Alex Ferrari 1:20
Exactly.

Joe Vitale 1:22
The secret knew what it was doing.

Alex Ferrari 1:23
Now, let me ask you, can you tell me your origin story? How did you get started down this path? And in this kind of work because I'm assuming when you were five, you didn't go, Hey, this is the path.

Joe Vitale 1:35
No, it was closer to seven. Okay. But when I was five, my father had me working on the railroad doing labor. And I mean that very, literally, intentionally, consciously, it was the truth. He wanted his son to know what it was like to earn money. And for him, it was labor. So five years old, I go to work with my father, but I didn't know what I was going to be doing. For the next decade and a half. I remember thinking, I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this, which led to me exploring what did I want to do, I was and still am in love with books. So along the way, even though I thought about all these different personalities that can be in vocations I can have, I did early on decide I wanted to be an author. And of course, there's no such thing as an overnight success unless you redefined overnight as something like 30 years. Because that's pretty much what it took me to get anywhere near my first publication, and begin the road, the hard road, to get to get noticed and be able to make a living from it. So I did start early, maybe not at five, but I was laboring at five,

Alex Ferrari 2:47
You were laboring at five. But when you discovered your kind of calling your kind of path that you were going to choose how old were you when you decided that?

Joe Vitale 2:54
Probably 12 or 13 years old. And I it was because of all the reading I was doing that I was led to be more introspective. And it was also because I was so unhappy growing up, doing things that my father wanted us to do. It was an ex Marine, and he was the price fighter. He was fresh out of the Marine Corps. He was a laborer. He was very physical, domineering, he wasn't pleasant. What's pleasant to be around. And so my mind went to oh, I can be an actor. I can be a baseball player, I can be an attorney, I could be a private detective, most of which were influencing me from the television shows I was watching at the time. But when I looked around, said wait a minute books, like even look right behind me. Now that's not a green screen. Those are real. These are my books. These are my friends. These are my babies. These are my relatives. These are my relied on allies. They were then and they they are now. So I would really say 1213 years old, saying you know, I'm gonna write.

Alex Ferrari 3:55
Now, were you homeless at one point in time?

Joe Vitale 3:59
I was probably around 1977 in Dallas, Texas. And all of this was in the pursuit of a dream. I wasn't into drugs or alcohol or doing anything that was self aborting. I was trying to follow a dream. And along the way, because there were so many limiting beliefs, so many issues that I had to recover from. I self sabotage myself into being homeless in Dallas, Texas, and in poverty for 10 years after that in Houston, Texas. So I know what it's like to struggle I know what it's like to starve. I know what it's like, sleepless nights. I know what it's like to go through the dark nights of the soul that don't seem like they're ever going to end.

Alex Ferrari 4:45
How did you how did you keep going during those days? Because I mean, being being in being in that world. I mean, it look it's it's really easy to speak about spirituality and finding your bliss when you're in a comfortable place. When you're in an uncomfortable place for not only for a little bit, but it seemed you said 10 years of poverty, how did you keep going everyday because I know a lot of listeners listening right now are in dire straits, some some of them and want to know how you kept going?

Joe Vitale 5:14
That's a beautiful question. And I love how you are sincerely and politely probing. Because that that was not a party that was not those were not good times. And I did almost take my life. I mean, I when I had a shotgun, and I wouldn't use that I fired it to be sure it worked, then the next thing I was gonna aim it on was me. In the thing that stopped me, and this is what I attribute it to was curiosity. It was curiosity. I kept thinking, what if it all changes tomorrow? What if it changes next week or next month or even later in the year? And I ended up I pulled the plug now by my own hand, what? What will I have missed out on? And thank God that curiosity kept me going. Because I've had a life that I that guy never dreamed of. That guy never imagined. He just wanted to be published and earn a living from it, to have the kind of levels of success and all the different areas I've had was profoundly otherworldly. It was surreal, and would be to that person back then. So I would say the first thing that kept me going was curiosity. And the second thing was, I was on another interview fairly recently, and they said, what's the one thing that always works? You've written all these books, and you've read all these books, and you've done this, you've done that out of your entire career? What's the one thing that always works? I was a little frustrated, because I'm thinking there's lots of things that work, and there's a lot of things you need to do. But they backed me into a corner. And I remember thinking and saying, yeah, there is one thing. And one thing I utilized even in homelessness and in poverty, it's the one thing that beats talent. It's the one thing that beats luck. It's the one thing that beats connections. It's one thing that beats all the things we think we need to have the money, the resources, and everything else we use as excuses most of the time. And that one thing is persistence. Persistence, I was freaking persistent. I got up every day. And I wrote, I sent my manuscripts out, you gotta remember, it's before the internet, you had to print them out, you had to put them in or type them. That's what I was doing, typing them, typing up extra copies of them, putting in manila envelope, sending them out and waiting three weeks to three months to six months to get your rejection letter, and then being devastated, then having to do the inner repair work, boost myself back up again, go back to persistent, send it out again, and go through the whole cycle over and over and over and over and over again. So curiosity and persistence.

Alex Ferrari 7:50
Yeah, and I can feel you because I've had to deal with that in my industry, which is the film industry, being a film director and all that, as you can imagine, not an easy business to be in.

Joe Vitale 8:00
Alright, I can only imagine I've been trying to make a movie of one of my books for about 10 years, it's finally happening this year. But the point is, it took freakin 10 years.

Alex Ferrari 8:10
Oh, and that's fast. In our business in the film industry, that's fast.

Joe Vitale 8:16
Well, it took 30 Some years for my first book was 1984. And so if I decided to be an author in the 60s, I was born in 1953. Think about how long it took. And 1984 was the first book which came and went. And there wasn't another book for another 10 years after that. So none of this

Alex Ferrari 8:35
But you kept going, that's what I find so fascinating. The resilience of your spirit, you just like, I got no other choice, I have to kind of keep going on this path.

Joe Vitale 8:45
I've been on the railroad since I was five years old, I wasn't gonna go go do that. That was not the backup plan.

Alex Ferrari 8:53
So that was so that was for you the thing the motivating factor going, if I don't keep doing this, I'm going to have to go back to the railroads. And I'm not going to go back to the railroad. So even the worst day of me trying to get my is the best day. Like being in a railroad track.

Joe Vitale 9:12
It was and I do vividly remember doing the labor work and it was all labor. I'm not running a machine or something. I'm spiking spikes in the railroad ties by hand, which is amazing exercise. You get giant shoulders and everything. But at the same time I hated it. I remember thinking to myself and daydreaming I guess in a way I was practicing visualization before I knew the power of visualization. Because I was mental imaging myself into a different life into a different lifestyle into the vocation of being an author and making my money that way. And I did tell the people around me and they just good naturedly were like hey, yeah, go for it. Never thinking never got to get published. You know, you're gonna be here next week. tampin ties and pounded in the spikes and just like the rest of us.

Alex Ferrari 10:00
Now did you remember listen to an interview of yours years ago? Is it Do you self publish now you through your own publishing company? Or do you have a publishing company? How does that work now?

Joe Vitale 10:11
Yeah, I been published in every way shape and form that you can imagine from print on demand to the digital to the traditional to the self publish the vanity publisher. Boy, do I have a databank of stories and information about how to do it, I would say these days, I tend to do it myself, I use Amazon's publishing program, it's very easy. Anybody can be in print on Amazon, write your book and upload it, you know, using their their formatting software with a cover and everything, and you're listed on Amazon the next day. The problem with that is, you're only listed on Amazon, there's no marketing, and nobody's ever heard of you. So nobody's gonna buy the book, and you'll just die and it will die. But because of my career, and the list I have in the following I have and whatever brand I have, and whatever followers I have, if I put a book on Amazon itself, and I can usually even make it a best seller with a couple notices on social media and a couple email. So unless the publisher comes to me and really offers a lot of money, to publish my next book, demonstrating that they're going to actually market it. I just assumed market it myself and publish it myself.

Alex Ferrari 11:21
It's exactly what I did with my first book, my first book had a publisher, I saw the first check. I'm like, give me the book back. And they were nice enough to give me the book back and I self published all of them. And it's I do the exact same thing. And it's, but I have an audience, I'm able to push it myself without the marketing, you can do anything. Now. Now, how did you get involved with the secret?

Joe Vitale 11:41
Yeah, I had written a book called The Attractor Factor. And that book had its own story and its own evolutionary process. But it got noticed the New York Times wrote about it, it became one of my first bestsellers on Amazon way back in the early days. This was 2004 2005. And a woman in Australia had been given a copy of The Attractor Factor, she read it, liked it, and she called me up. And she said, I'm a movie producer, TV producer in Australia, I want to make a movie about the law of attraction, which is what my book was about. She said, I read your book, and I'd like you to be in the movie. And I thought she was a flake. I mean, I would get phone calls from people with big ideas. And I would encourage them, and then I never hear from them. Sure. You know, most people don't take any action. And I just figured she's gonna be the same. So I was very polite and very professional and just said, you know, if you get it together, and you raise some funds, and you got a script, and you actually go to do this, give me a call, and everything, and I hear from her. A month later, she didn't give me a call. And I was so busy. I almost didn't go into the movie. But she talked me into it. She said, I want to fly into Chicago. I was in the Austin, Texas area. I'll fly into Chicago, I only need two hours of your time. And I'll fly you right back first class first class travel, you won't be gone the whole day at all. I reluctantly agreed. But of course, I am very glad I agreed. Because this movie ended up shattering records and making history. And for whatever reason, there's 24 teachers in the movie, I somehow ended up being one of the four or five that seemed to be the most memorable. I don't really know why. But I'm grateful for that part. And I'm grateful for the movie. I didn't endorse it. I'd promote it, whether I was entered or not. So the short answer is I was invited because of a book I wrote.

Alex Ferrari 13:34
Now. Well, I mean, that's how a lot so many people were introduced to you as by the secret that we said earlier and I remember watching it and it blew my mind. It was the first time I'd ever heard of the concept of the law of attraction and, and all of that. I have to ask you about a little bit about money. There's so many myths around money. Are there some myths that you want to kind of debunk hear about money and wealth?

Joe Vitale 13:58
Oh, god, yes. I've written several books on money I've become a bit of the money whisper in a sense where I because I went through so much with the homelessness and with the poverty and with the self reflection and the inner work I on earth the whole lot of the beliefs that we have as a humanity that we're sharing, and I've written several books the awakened millionaire talks about it Money loves speed talks about it attract money now talks about it. And the secret to attracting money talks about it. I have a new book coming out the abundance paradigm talks about it. What is that a half a dozen books, despite my audio programs and everything. So let me say a couple things there. There is a key belief, a key belief that is shared by virtually everybody on the planet. When it comes the money and this belief is in our collective unconscious. It's in our subconscious mind our unconscious mind collective unconscious depending on what psychology you sign on to you. It's in our control. wiseness and I've been to every country, the last one before COVID hit was Iran. And I was in Russia before that Ukraine. Before that Poland, Italy. Every single country has this. I saw it from stage. And so I'm going to demonstrate it and then we're going to explain it away. So people can be free right now. Okay, so if I can have the floor for just a moment, absolutely, certainly, thank you very kind to do this. But this is great for the people watching. Money is the root of all. You and everybody here just said evil. Money is the root of all evil. So let's stop and think about this. We have that phrase as a belief in our consciousness. Money is the root of all evil. Do we want evil? Do we want evil, we don't want evil, we're gonna keep it away, we'll self sabotage ourselves. In an attempt to keep money away from us. We won't say we're self sabotaging, will say oh, the economy's bad. COVID Interrupting things the President's bad, vaccinated people. unvaccinated people will blame something or someone, but we won't look at our own belief system. And it's our own belief system that's keeping money away. And when I've done one on one work with people, I would point out, have you ever noticed that you do get money. But usually in the nick of time, the money comes in it squeaks in under the door, you write your check for your rent, or your house payment or whatever it happens to be, and then you're broke again, why you didn't want evil in your life, you had to have it come through long enough to go pay your bills. But when evil showed up, you got rid of it. So what do we do about this, we got to clean but clear the belief from our consciousness. The way to do this is with an explanation. The first part of the explanation is money is the root of all evil is a fragment of a longer phrase. And both of the phrases are from biblical literature, which to me means they're suspect. They've already been downloaded and translated and popularized and retranslated. And we don't even know what the hell was originally meant at all. But if we go with what's been fed into our minds over history, we think money is the root of all evil. The longer phrase is the love of money is the root of all evil. Well, that's a little bit better, because now we're not making money. The problem we're making love the problem. So what I have found out and what I teach people is you don't want to love money. One of my favorite teachers was Arnold patent and Arnold patents said, I'm pausing for theatrical emphasis here. The sole purpose of money is to express appreciation. The sole purpose of money is to express appreciation it's not about loving money. It is not about hoarding money. It is not about just desiring money. Money is a wonderful tool. Money is a hammer, it is a pen, it is anything that we use to get something done. But money in and of itself is meaningless. It is just paper, it is just coin. We're the one projecting survival and projecting solutions and everything else to ourselves. So we want to realize that all you have to do is appreciate money. Now, when I first heard the Arnold patent, quote, I thought, Well, surely there's an exception to that. The sole purpose of money is to express appreciation, that can't be right. And then I started thinking, Well, wait a minute, when I pay the utility bill, I'm grateful I have lights. When I pay a house payment, I'm grateful to have a roof. I didn't have one for the longest time when I make a car guy. So I love cars. If I'm making a car payment or insurance payment for the car, I'm grateful to have the car I'm grateful to have the insurance. So this completely flips our relationship to money. And this will free us to be able to allow it to come in whether you think you're attracting it, you're achieving it, you're earning it you're working for however it's coming now you're free to welcome it.

Alex Ferrari 19:05
Simple as simple as that. But you're absolutely right. I mean, so many times so many people. I mean, I mean, I've had a dysfunctional relationship with money. Most of us have had a dysfunctional relationship with money. Unless you're raised in an environment that has a different kind of different kind of appreciation with money like I even have one of my daughters is like, I love money. I'm like, no, no. I go first of all you want for nothing. You want for nothing. If I gave you a million dollars, you even know what to do with it. And she's like, I know but I just wanted I don't know, I think you want something else and we start digging into why she wants money is that what is it for? Is it the power? Isn't the control? Is it what is it so you start digging it but these are conversations that I definitely didn't have 10 years old after you don't have those either?

Joe Vitale 19:53
No, my father told me growing up he says the best way to double your money was to fold it over and put it back in your pocket. And I thought I thought my dad's a genius that is so smart, double my money, put it back. And it wasn't until poverty and homelessness.

Alex Ferrari 20:12
That trick didn't work, That trick didn't work

Joe Vitale 20:13
I started questioning and going, Wait a minute, maybe he was wrong. He was born in the Great Depression that really influenced him. No wonder he wanted to fold the money over and put it back. And the other thing he said was the best friend you can have in your life is $1 bill in your pocket. All of this was scarcity, thinking all of this was lacking limitation thinking all of this was contaminated prosperity thinking. And yet, and this is what we all go through. We download this from our parents, we're not conscious enough to judge whether this is a useful bit of advice or not. And we end up living on our entire lives often struggling and often never even realizing it never having to wake up until if we're lucky. There's a moment like today with you. You're showing me and people go well wait a minute, what my parents said, maybe that should be questioned. And then you step towards freedom.

Alex Ferrari 21:08
I know. Absolutely. I mean, I was raised with I was raised with my parents constantly having lack of this. And the rough, like money is hard to get in the struggle. And you have to struggle with this and struggle with that. So that was the mentality. So I just knew even at an early age, I was hustling. I was 1011 years old, I had garage sales making money. I was like I was I was always hustling hard. And I never actually took my wife years later, to tell me you need to slow change your hustle, because you're still hustling to pay the bills. But you need to, you need to hustle, the larger picture. You can't hustle, just attend $5 into $10. That's nice, great skill to have. But you can't scale that.

Joe Vitale 21:53
Good wife good person, good advice

Alex Ferrari 21:56
Can't scale that. And I was like, because right now even when I go out to a garage sale or something like that, I'll look and I'll take the Amazon app out just to see what it's retailing on eBay for what's it. And my wife's looking at me like, I'm just checking, I'm just checking old habits are hard to break. But I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna my time is better spent somewhere else like speaking to you. So should I speak to you for an hour? Or should I be on Amazon trying to flip $50 into $100 for an hour? Yeah, that's the that's the question. It depends on where you are in your life. But it is a lesson has taken me a long time still learn the turning the turning part, the turn to turn off the hustle or at least refocus the hustle a little bit. Now is there a way to transform money into a spiritual tool, because there's such this belief of, if you're rich, you can't be spiritual, because the idea of heavy spirituality is of the poor, the yogi, the priest, that is, you know, devout. And to a certain extent there is I understand that position of the religious, not religious, but just of the spiritual seekers that are those people. But there's no reason some of the most spiritual people in the world have been very wealthy, and has done an immense amount of good in the world, not just for them, but for society at large. So how can you transform money into spiritual into a spiritual tool,

Joe Vitale 23:16
I have so much to say about that. I can not sit in my seat. So why don't want to jump out and go strangle everybody into shape them? Look, the greatest spiritual teachers of all time used money. They used money, whether it was Mother Teresa flying around and asking very wealthy people for money for more money, and then channeling it to where she wanted it to go, or Deepak Chopra, building an empire of his own, and acquiring money and selling product and services and all of this, throughout history, they brought in money, they may have acted like well, it's not my it's not my, I'm using it for something else. And there is some truth to that. Because what they're using it for is their mission. Right. And that's the way we want to think about money. When we start thinking about money, as a tool, to enable us to fulfill our dreams, or our life mission or our spiritual calling, or our heartfelt desire to make a difference in some way, then it's really cool to bring money in and you're a steward for it, to direct it where it needs to go. Now in the book that I wrote, called the awakened millionaire, I say that what we really want the awakened Millionaire is the person who is spiritual and material, who realizes there are two sides of the same frickin coin. It's not dismissing one or the other. And in fact, there's many quotes about people who say that money is evil or they're dismissing it because they're talking about poverty. There's a spiritual snobbery that's coming from those people. And in fact, one of the sneakiest versions of the ego is the spirit Get your ego. Oh acts like it's better than everybody else.

Alex Ferrari 25:04
I'm so much. I'm so much more spiritual than you, Joe. That's my ego.

Joe Vitale 25:09
That's the spiritual ego, right? And you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'm sure many of the people that are watching know what I'm talking about here. I went to an event decades ago it was to hear rom das speak, who was one of the greatest storytellers of all time. And I had gone with a friend. I don't know, whatever happened to him. But we were talking about characters and personalities and ROM Das is he is spiritual, is he enlightened? Is he whatever. And my friend said, you know, none of us are here without an ego. I never forgot it. I never forgot it. i It caused me to always look not so much within other people, but to look within myself, and to see, and to see what my reasons and what my rationale are to do things in various books of mine. And I think it's in the awakened millionaire. I quote Walt Disney, who Walt Disney said, I did. He said, I want to make money from my movies. So I can continue making movies. Right? That's it. That is the heartfelt, spiritually driven approach. I want to make money from my books. So I can continue writing books. I'm a musician, I got 15 albums. I want to make money from my music, so I can make more music. It's not about just accumulating dollars. It's about using that money and directing it someplace your life mission or cause you believe in it. From that standpoint, you completely transformed your relationship to money. I mean, growing up and in railroad days, and poverty days and homeless days, and all of that I only wanted money so I can eat the sleep. Arm and it was basic, frickin survival. That's it. But let

Alex Ferrari 26:55
But let me ask ask you

Joe Vitale 26:56
That's more like, let's make a difference.

Alex Ferrari 26:57
Right! Exactly. And it's hard for people when you in because I've been there as well, I almost fall bankruptcy. I almost went into a depression for three years. And I wrote a whole book about my whole journey. But when you can't think about if your only thought is like I need to eat, I need to find a roof over my head, it is very difficult to think larger. And then to break through, let's say after, like you, you would that 10 years in poverty, it probably took you a minute to get away from that mindset of like, I gotta eat tomorrow. No, no, no, you've got money, I bet it's like my I was just telling you my story. I'm like, I gotta turn that five into 10. I did that for so long, that it was hard for me to break that routine that because my mind was like, You need to keep making money keep you can make money, as opposed to sit back and go, no, no, there's a larger, larger game here. This is a much larger field of play here. You're just looking at the ball sitting on on the on the on the field, you're not looking at the field. So how do you suggest people, you know, break through that mindset that that that mindset of like I got it, you know, the lack of mindset and mind you it's sometimes it is lack, because you literally can't drive no food in your life. But generally speaking, breaking the breaking through that one level to the next level of, of mindset that can take you to another place.

Joe Vitale 28:16
It's a beautiful question. And I really want to give a practical, heartfelt answer. The very first thing is to realize that the way we're looking at the money, the lack and limitation, and the realization at this point that we want to go to the next level is because of a habitual belief system. So in other words, we acquired the belief system, maybe when we were kids, and we didn't have any choice about it at that point, we just downloaded statements from your father, we want to double your money, fold it over, put in your pocket. And so it's it's tucked away in your brain, and you keep reinforcing it, because you keep believing it. And so at a certain point, you watch the show, and suddenly, there's an awakening, there's an aha, people go, Oh, wait a minute, I don't have to do that. And wait a minute, money is not the root of all evil. And wait a minute, maybe I can use money to fulfill my mission. But now we have to, we have to change the habitual thinking. And at first, like with any new habit, there's a little bit of conscious effort to get the ball rolling, we're starting to turn the wheel to go in a new direction. So we have to consciously do that. But we can do it fairly easily by things like reading the books that support that. listening to the podcast and the positive information that support that watching the shows like this one that support that. Anything that you take in media wise, whether it is a movie or anything that you are listening to music wise, you want to be aware of what it's doing to your mind. This is one of the reasons I became a musician is that I wanted to call myself the first self help singer songwriter, even though there are some out there before me, and I it was to help program people with the lyrics that they were listening to. So my whole point here is you have to become aware of What you're feeding your brain, so you are intentionally feeding it the new direction you want to go in. And now the biggest secret of all, all of this becomes a lot easier if you're in a group. If you are in a group of people who believe the same thing, and this is what Napoleon Hill would call a mastermind I love masterminds, I wrote a book called Meet and grow rich with Bill hibler, because they're so powerful. And a mastermind can be done virtually in case people are still concerned about COVID and pandemics. So you could put a mastermind together of people who can support each other. And this is profound, because those people can help keep you up, and you can help them stay up. And that Win Win put you into a new state of consciousness. So all of what I'm saying right here is to move you in a new direction. I guess I would say one more thing. This is like Dr. Joe's bag of tricks here. The other thing I would do is change your environment. I've done a lot of events where I'll tell people at the end of it, I said, you're gonna go home and you're inspired, and you're motivated. And this is just zinging with energy in your life. But you got to go back to the same old surroundings, you've been in for the longest time, which is going to remind you of your same old way of being, and it's going to remind you of your same old way of thinking, change something in your environment, to anchor the new you. And I don't mean move out, though, in some situations, that might be the case, but but a painting up or change the carpet or buy a piece of furniture or move the desk from here over there. Do something so unconsciously, subconsciously, every time you see it, it's a trigger that says, Oh, I'm now the prosperous Alex, I'm now the prosperous Joe,

Alex Ferrari 31:44
So many people out there, you know, they take the job because they have to make a living. And listen, we all got to make a living, we all have to pay our bills, we all have to have a roof over our head and buy our food and so on so forth. And at a certain point, when you start off a lot of times when you start off in life, you take those jobs, too, I was I worked in in areas of the industry of the film industry that and I was lucky enough, four or five years ago to retire from that world, I closed my company down. I was like, I don't want to deal with clients anymore. I don't want to deal with this stuff anymore. I'm going to do what I do full time. And I did and I was lucky enough to do that took me a long time to get there. But it should have taken me I should have gotten there a little bit sooner. Is there a way that you think that you can help people transform their passions, into wealth into a career into a mission that can fast track themselves out of where they're at, into their like nine to five.

Joe Vitale 32:41
Yeah. Start now. Start now, right now, today, right after this, this interview, go and do whatever the very first thing is that moves you in the direction of making a live living from your passion. I am not saying completely run out the door and quit your job if that's what you've got going. I would say that keep that going right now. But you can find time you can always find time for what you truly want to do. You can find time to begin with ever that business is that product is that ebook is digital product, whatever it happens to be in every particular case. I'm fond of quoting Theodore Roosevelt, who said, do what you can with what you have, right where you are.

Alex Ferrari 33:25
But Joe I have to watch the new episodes of this or that I don't have time to to start a new business. Yeah. Or I don't have time to start writing that book I want or to do nothing. I've got episodes to write. I mean, I've had those two TV shows there's movies to see. There's there's really are so many things to do. I mean Netflix alone, I could sit there for 20 lifetimes and never see everything they have. How can I break through that? And that's the question I'm being I'm joking about it, but it's the truth. So many people do that. They're like oh, we I have no time. I'm like how many hours a night Do you watch television? Oh three or four? There's three or four? What time do you wake up? Oh, I sleep in wake up an hour earlier. You know? I love what Arnold Schwarzenegger his quote is like sleep faster.

Joe Vitale 34:12
Yeah, that I love that quote too. Well, look, it's how bad do you want it? I know I was working for an oil company in the 1980s. And I hated it. It was a job that I cried going to work and I cried going home. And yet I still had the the desire to be an author. So I'm off the railroad. I'm off of poverty. I'm off of homelessness, but I'm not happy. I'm not happy. Because I'm a frustrated dreamer, who has this big noble dream. I want to write things that make a difference in people's lives. What's wrong with that? Why doesn't the world support me in doing that? And so I'm going to work and it takes me an hour to drive there with traffic and Houston an hour to drive back with traffic and then whatever you do when you get home to feed yourself and I was living in a dumb, you know, and I was married at the time and were two lonely people just trying to to support each other and survive through life and the confusion, what we were going through. And I remember thinking I still want to write. And I would read stories of people like Erma Bombeck, who was the famous humorist who wrote lots of best selling books, and had a syndicated column all over the world. She was a housewife raising kids when she started writing. And she said, I would get up at 430 in the morning, before the family got up. And I would do writing before she had to get over to the kitchen and start cooking for her brats and her husband, who all go off and do their things in the orbit of life. She made time to do it. And I remember thinking, well, Erma Bombeck can do it, look where she's at. Maybe this is the clue. And so when I was at this job I hated and everybody at lunch went off to the fast food court at the local mall. I stayed. There was a typewriter there. And I started typing what became my first book, my first book was 1984. I typed it over lunch. I typed it on my, my lunch, 45 minute breaks that we were given back, then you find a way to do it, if it's important to you, and I know you were kidding about the movies and everything. I love great movies. I love great movies. Sure. But if I've got something that's an inspired idea that I'm passionate about the movies gonna wait. It'll be there later. So I can watch it next week, next month, next year. My next life, who cares? The mission is more important.

Alex Ferrari 36:31
Now you've you've spoken a lot about the Hawaiian the secret Hawaiian system to wealth, health and peace. Can you kind of touch upon that a little bit? I've heard you talk about it before.

Joe Vitale 36:43
Yeah, I've talked about it a lot, because it dramatically altered the direction of my life about 15 years ago, it is to Hawaiian healing method called Ho oponopono. Whoa, oponopono don't have to remember the word don't have to spell the word. But I will tell people what it's all about. Around 2003 2004, I had heard the most remarkable story of an unusual therapist who helped heal an entire ward of mentally ill criminals. But he didn't actually work on him in a traditional therapeutic way. He used this crazy Hawaiian method to do it. And when I first heard the story, I thought, if this is at all true, the world needs to know. Because of this, whatever the method was actually helped mentally ill criminals, then surely would help you and it would help me and would help family and friends. And so I went on the quest and I found a therapist, Doctor Who Len, and I interviewed him, then I ended up working with him, then we co authored a book together, then we did three events together, and made audios and this, that and the other. How opponent pono is an inside out approach to change in the philosophy of whole upon upon of the Hawaiian healing system. There's really nothing on the outside, in this version of whole oponopono, you realize that everything that you are reacting to is actually a projection from inside you. Or from a Carl Jung standpoint, it would be like saying your shadow self is what you're condemning on the outside or reacting to, but what you think is on the outside is actually in you. So all of the work is done inside. If there's something or somebody or some problem or some challenge that is bothering you, irritating you keeping you up at night, doing whatever it's doing to you, you have to realize that it's not that that's doing it. Because everything you're feeling isn't out there. It's here. It's all in here, all of it is in here. So whole oponopono says we got to go inside. And what it wants to do is change our belief system, because it is an error in perception. So now we're in perception. To give you an example, from the most dramatic example there is, when Dr. Hulan was working in that mental institution, those patients were so unpredictable and dangerous that they were shackled or sedated daily. So he's there. And instead of working with them one on one, because they were pretty much unapproachable. He looked at their charts. As he's looking at their charts, he finds out their stories, and this is pretty unnerving. This is Friday to 13 times three these guys. They were killers, they were rapists. They were violent. They were you know, they did bad things. So as Dr. Hulan looks at the files, he's feeling responses, anger, rage, grief, embarrassment, shame, all of these things. But instead of trying to change the therapist, or the the inmates, he wants to change them self. He goes inside himself feels what he's feeling and then he takes it to his understanding of the great something that divine God the universe cosmos and he's As a kind of prayer for statements. I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. That's it. I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. So inside himself, he's feeling his rage is embarrassment. And he's pretending he's talking to will say the divine. And he saying, I love you. I'm sorry, please forgive me. Thank you, I love you. I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you. It's a petition, it's a prayer requesting the divine to cure him. Not the not the inmates him as he finds inner peace by doing this process, this is where the miracle takes place, the inmates get better, the inmates get better, within a very short period of time. They don't have to be shackled. They don't have to be sedated. And within months, some of them were pronounced normal again, okay, you can go home, and I let them go. This is the power of holla pono pono. It can be used for anything at this point, I've written three books about it. The first one with Dr. Hulan was called Zero limits. But I've written three books about it. I've heard everything from everybody. They've worked on themselves, relationships with their pets with financial issues with virtually everything that you can name. And they've all done this inner work of saying I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me thank you to the Divine, in a request to heal their perception of what they are seeking outside.

Alex Ferrari 41:32
And it's not just doesn't work on people. But it also works on belief systems within yourself like about money and things like that.

Joe Vitale 41:38
That's exactly what it's working on. It's not working on people, it's working on their programming, what whole oponopono calls, it is data. So the data in you, which we would call beliefs, or programming or a paradigm or a mindset, whole upon upon calls it data that the belief system it's working on, it's our data that needs cleaned.

Alex Ferrari 42:01
So that's so so many there's so much vitriol in the world today. It is it's I've never seen anything like it in my my lifetime. Where the internet, I think and social media has definitely amped all of it up a lot. The trolls, the people who write negative ideas and thoughts and just or start attacking people just for some one word they say or something along those lines. I always find it when someone you know, I've been in the public eye now for you know, a while now, in my small way. And anytime I get a negative review or negative comment, I feel bad for them. Because like, oh, you felt so bad about this, that you needed to sit down. Think about writing this, and posting it to make yourself feel better. As opposed to not. And it's in it's like it's something within them. And I always use when I when I speak publicly sometimes. As to filmmakers, I'll go every how many people here know an angry and bitter filmmaker, or an angry bitter writer, you know, a screenwriter or writer, and people raise their hand I go, Whoever didn't write, raise their hand, you're the angry and bitter filmmaker that everybody else knows. And and it's so true because I was so angry and bitter about my career not going exactly, and we all wanted to be Steven Spielberg. You know, when you're writing, you want to be Stephen King, you want to be as popular as JK Rowling, you know, all this kind of stuff. But I found that that it was just that inner work that you're saying that exactly what those that technique, which is fantastic. Sounds fantastic. And I can't wait to start applying it in my life. It's very simple. It's very simple idea.

Joe Vitale 43:45
It absolutely is simple. So if you don't mind, I want to point out something that'll help illustrate how whole upon upon the works. So the way you respond or responded to somebody that leaves a negative comment is a very loving and rational way of responding. In whole oponopono you wouldn't necessarily respond at all, because you would realize the other person and their comment is actually coming from you. In a way they're playing a character if you can look at your whole life as a movie, and everybody in it, including me right now we're all characters and you unconsciously wrote this script. And you brought us all in. And this from time to time will bring a plot twist, and a new character introduction. And all of this is to add to the drama and to keep things going. So you look on Facebook or wherever you saw the review. And there's somebody who kind of kind of hit you with a baseball bat. Well, that in whole pono pono terms is actually you kidding yourself. And what the invitation would be is to find out okay, based on what they said, how much of that do I actually believe You see, we're going even deeper. We're not saying here's the person who has a belief about my film. It is here is a person who is voicing what my unconscious mind feels about my film. Let me give it to you a different way. I was on a radio interview with Dr. Hulan. Now, Dr. Hulan, passed just a few days ago. So there's some sadness in my heart, as I tell these stories, is deeply I got chills, he deeply influenced me. We were on a radio show. And the the host was kind of flippant, and kind of bitter. And I was embarrassed and we went to a break, but we're still on the air. I mean, we're off the air. But we're gonna come back to the air. We're on a little break for station identification kind of a thing. I apologize to Dr. Glenn, I said, I had no idea that this was the nature of the show, I didn't know that they would attack I'm sorry for what this guy is saying. And Dr. Hulan said, it's not the person. It's their program. And it really is kind of just sliced through all of the thinking about oh, this guy is an ass. You know, who is treating both of us and treating my guru with this disrespect. And Dr. Lambert was looking like, he's a cool guy. But he's got a bad program. And instead of blaming him in all upon opponent, you go inside yourself and say, Okay, I've noticed this program. Apparently, I have it, because this person just mirrored it for me. And you go to you for your connection to God, the divine great something. And you're saying, I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, which is I'll take one second to explain this. It's shorthand for a longer request, you're basically saying I'm sorry, for any beliefs I have that would have created this situation, please forgive me for being unconscious. Whether this came from my ancestors, this whole boat upon believe it could have come from, you know, way down the line, and you inherited it, or anywhere else, thank you for resolving this. Thank you for correcting my perception whole oponopono means to make, right. And then I love you for the process for my life, all of statement of gratitude. You can say these in any order. You don't say them to another person, you don't usually say them out loud, you say them inside yourself as you're feeling whatever's going on. But you're saying them to, you know, you call up God and you say, here's what's going on.

Alex Ferrari 47:30
So so the deeper conversation here is what I'm because when you were saying is something kind of just turned on and me is that we we are everything that comes towards us where it's a reflection of us. So you know, it comes to us. So, you know, so many times, you know, I got when I got into a car accident when I was younger, or someone hit me, I was there were certain things going on in my life during that time that it was just like, it wasn't like I was in a peaceful blissful mode, that I had found enlightenment. And all of a sudden I get sideswiped by a car, it was different, there was a different energy that I was attracting towards me. So when you when you bring these kinds of people into your life in one way, shape, or form, however that might be could be at a supermarket, could be on radio show could be a million different ways. When you bring them into your orbit, they are a reflection of where you are, and maybe work that you need to do on yourself. And if you can, it's kind of like looking at a person as a computer. It is not if the program is not running. What do you don't throw the computer against the wall? Some people do. That's it. But other people will just go you know what, let's put the age myself, we'll put the CD ROM back in and reinstall the software.

Joe Vitale 48:48
Let's reboot,

Alex Ferrari 48:48
Let's reboot the software. Let's change the programming, let's upgrade the system and see if it's going to function in a better way. But you're saying to do that within yourself as opposed to trying to change someone else? Because I don't know about you. But whenever I've tried to change somebody else, it never works out. Not once in my life has it worked out.

Joe Vitale 49:09
Yeah, well, we're gonna look at it like you probably don't want somebody changing you either. I don't want anybody coming directly at me to change me either. So it all ends up being an inside job. As you know, before the secret I was known as an internet marketer and a hypnotic copywriter and mastered the art of persuasion and influence. But I can tell you now decades later that the best way to actually influence anybody is simply to inspire them by what you're doing. So work on the inside of us and then follow our life mission. And by example, people can see what we're doing and maybe do something different.

Alex Ferrari 49:49
Now, can you give any can you give people any advice on how to get through these really tough times and because this is an unprecedent time in human history right now. You No, it is economically hurting, a lot of people are hurting. Obviously, physically and mentally I mean mentally the mental health of the world, there's never been a moment in time that I can think of in the history of humanity, where the entire world is feeling the same thing at the same time. You know, the whole world is dealing with COVID at the exact same moment, and we're all dealing with isolation and fear and this and that might be different flavors of it, depending on the country you live in. But generally speaking, we all are experiencing this. That's a pretty powerful thing that's going on and it's going to, it's gonna reverberate for generations to come. How can we deal with these tough times any advice you can give us to kind of get through these tough times?

Joe Vitale 50:47
Well, the first thing that I want to explain is the last three years have been the worst of my life, including homelessness and poverty. And so why do I say that? Well, I filed for divorce three years ago, and because I was the one filing and I knew this would hurt my ex, that basically offered her everything, which was refused, and instead began a persecution of my life and business. As persecution came along, which I didn't know how to handle and didn't expect, and I'm not used to a court system or divorce attorneys or the Theatre of the justice system in quotes. And my father died, my best friend died, family member attempts suicide, I develop a new relationship with a woman who develops neuro Lyme disease and is basically on her deathbed and I'm her caretaker during divorce and persecution and grief and all of these other things. And I'm still traveling all over the world going to countries I didn't even know existed when I was growing up and failing geography. And here I am going there and going on stage. And through all of this COVID hits, COVID hits and it does hit every one of us differently. We're all in different boats, but we're in the same sea going through the sea changes. And for me, it wipes out all of my travel my biggest income from the speaking engagements. It's all gone. All of this. And there were days that were agony, fucking agony. I mean, get up. And I was trying to make Instagram videos, which I do virtually every day to give pep talks to people and I'm still doing it. But during that time, I'm getting up with tears in my eyes making a one to three minute video and then tears in my eyes again, because I'm back to the struggle that I was going through. And I'm doing whole oponopono I'm Believe me, I know the bag of tricks. I know everything from I know the self help teachers and leaders and the best selling authors out there. I'm friends with them. Which added actually to my misery, because I'm thinking I'm the Law of Attraction guy. How did I attract this? I'm the whole pono pono guy, how come this hasn't been raised yet. And also that just adds more whipping and pain to what I'm already going through. So what helped me I went back to ancient stoicism. I went back to Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and the gang, most of which had been popularized by Ryan Holiday, who's right there in Austin, where you're at? And I would, I would really take it to heart and these guys went through worse things than we ever did. I mean, Marcus Aurelius definitely had a plague and he was also trying to rule the Roman Empire at that time, but they lived in very dastardly, uncertain, unpredictable, dangerous times. So how do they get through it? All of it was about using their mind. All of it was about using their mind. Seneca said, everything hangs on your thinking, what, what has become so far my favorite quote from Seneca is where he said, You have choice. You can make things seem and the word seem as important you can make things seem hard, or easy, or even amusing. And I remember thinking, he said, I can make them seem that way. He didn't say I can actually change them. But I can make them seem that way. Which means it's how I'm viewing them. How I'm viewing it. So I'm going through a divorce is that hard, easy or amusing? Feels pretty hard. Well, could I see it as easy? That would take a little work, but I started working on it. And I started to say, Okay, I got people I got a whole team of attorneys. I mean, I got support before protecting me and I didn't do anything wrong. This is all all good. Just write it out. And then Marcus Aurelius has a famous quote where he says, oh, goodness, I actually have it on the wall over there. And it was about suffering. He says, if you can hear this, if you can endure it, that indirect Stop complaining. And I go for walks at night in the dark smoking a cigar talking to the cosmos. doing whole oponopono. And I would ask myself, can I endure it? And I'd say, I don't want to. But I can. Well, if you can endure it, endure it. So all of these became tools that I was using. And my favorite refrain ended up being one day at a time, it's all fine. One day at a time, it's all fine. I still say that. Every one of these days when I were still playing touch and go with COVID. And we don't know what's happening, there's still so much uncertainty and nobody knows the facts with any sort of agreed authority. So I use things like that the mindset and I will give you one more. So all of this is about you have choice on how you view what's going on, you have options on how you pick your choice. We also have the internet, which is, which has been the saving grace, look what we're doing right now by using zoom zoom, whoever invented zoom was probably a billionaire or should be at this point. All those times when people said, Boy, if I had the time to write, or I had time to open my business, or I had the time to learn how to play the saxophone, or I had time to learn how to speak Polish, you can do it now. You're at home, you got the computer, it's all free. You to Google all of it, that's all free, there's you can go ahead and apply it. And then the other thing I would say and it's gonna seem silly at first, but this I mean this with the utmost sincerity. I play the Pollyanna glad game. The Pollyanna glad book came out in 1913. I think it was the greatest self improvement book of all time, it's a children's story. Most people have seen the movie or one of the movies, there's been several with Hayley mills and Mary Pickford and somebody else. And it's all about a little girl who learned to play the glad game because she was struggling, she had been in poverty, she lost her father, she was abandoned, she was an orphan. She's adopted, plays the glad game, the glad game is you look for something to be happy about. You look for something that is good in every person and every situation, because it's always there. Now, some people have criticized Pollyanna saying, Oh, don't be a Pollyanna, she's got her head in the sand. That wasn't true at all. In fact, the author Helen Porter had said at one point, Pollyanna was very much in touch with reality. She knew when things were bad, she was hit by a car one point in the book, and she has to buck up and double take and regroup in order to keep going. She knew when things were bad, but she also knew that even in the bad will say even in COVID, there is always something to be glad to be positive about that there was good that you can build on all of this is the nature of an answer for you.

Alex Ferrari 57:49
A fantastic answer it is. Now I'm going to ask you a couple questions I asked all of my guests, what is your mission in this life?

Joe Vitale 57:59
To inspire people to go for and achieve their dreams.

Alex Ferrari 58:03
And why are we here?

Joe Vitale 58:07
Do you mean as a as a as a humanity?

Alex Ferrari 58:09
As humanity Why are we here? Why have we been chosen to come down here and or up here wherever it is, and and play this game and be parts in like Shakespeare says this The the world is a stage and we are much all only actors. I feel I've so feel that is so true. Now it's like we all are just actors playing a part. This isn't real. We are not in a human experience where we're spirit having a human experience as opposed to a human having a spiritual experience and all these kind of things. I truly, truly believe that and the older I get, the more these things start to open themselves up to me, you start seeing these things a lot clearer. But I'd love to hear your point of view. Why do you think that we're here playing this is part this game, if you will,

Joe Vitale 58:57
We are the divine awakening to our own divinity. And what I mean by that is, we are the divine itself, who wanted to experience lack and limitation and awakening. So we come in to this world experience to to enjoy the struggle, and the drama. And along the way, learn how to awaken to the divinity that we began with. It's almost like a game. Much like a football game at the beginning. You know, there's two sides, both are praying to God. And you know, if God granted both wishes, it would just be a tie. And it's just for them to go through the experience of playing that game, getting to the end of the game and then celebrating.

Alex Ferrari 59:45
It's kind of like, a Go ahead. No, go ahead. No, it's kind of like actors. If if actors would play a part in a movie, and you know, when they and they could be doing very bad things in a movie, they'd be playing villains. They could be killing people, they could be doing all this kind of stuff. And yet, when they say cut, they can go back to another place. And let's say that's the divine, where the acting part is, but we are stuck believing that we are whatever we are the part that we play in the movie. And if you understand that this is a movie, you understand that we are all actors. And we're here for the different type of experiences. And I believe that we've chosen these experiences, because we need to learn these different kinds of lessons. And you know, what, you know, having an experience as a woman, in the 40s is a lot different than having an experience as a woman here and having a being living in America is very different than living in Africa, and so on and so forth. There's so many different experiences that we can have. But, you know, it's almost an insanity, that we believe that we are this this is it that this is the reality, in my opinion, this is just my humble opinion. I don't believe that this is the reality. I think this is a wonderful movie. Fantastic virtual reality. Fans. This is the matrix we are in the matrix. It was one of my favorite, favorite movies of all time is the matrix because I think it did, believe it or not, and 99. When that came out, it clicked in it touched on on the idea that wait a minute, this is not real.

Joe Vitale 1:01:20
Right! I think it gave us a glimpse. It gave us a glimpse, so we can explore that glimpse, just to see how big the window can be.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:28
Exactly, exactly. Now, where can people find out more about you and the wonderful work you're doing, Joe?

Joe Vitale 1:01:33
Well, I'm all over the internet. So quick search will turn off a whole lot. I have a new book. It's called Karmic Marketing. And Karmic Marketing is basically the secret of my success. It's something I've been doing for decades but never wrote about before. So it's on Amazon, as well as all my other books that we've been talking about. So that's karmic marketing. I just started an online weekly television show. Lux media is producing it. They've got studios on Rodeo Drive in LA. And the show is called Zero limits living. You can watch it on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire YouTube, I put up a website to make it easy. It's zerolimitsliving tv.com zerolimitsliving tv.com people can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, I post every day videos hopefully invigorating and bubbly and inspiring. And I'm Dr. Joe Vitale on those places Dr. Joe Vitale, main website vitalelifemastery.com vitalelifemastery.com.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:37
Joe, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show and talk to my audience and I appreciate everything you've done throughout your career and the work that you're continuing to do. And inspiring people throughout the world and I appreciate you and what you do my friend so thank you again for being on the show.

Joe Vitale 1:02:52
And in case you were wondering, the t shirt I'm wearing says I'm billing you for this conversation.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:57
That's a great t-shirt.

Joe Vitale 1:03:01
And of course I'm not thank you for having me here. I greatly enjoyed it. So Godspeed to you and all your viewers.