The 200th Episode! Life Hacks, Reflections, and Highlights with Orion Talmay

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Get Yourself Optimized with me, Orion. Today, I’m going to be interviewing Mr. Stephan Spencer, who is a wonderful SEO, world-renowned, a beautiful man inside and out, my best friend, and my husband. Mr. Stephan Spencer, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, baby.

Thanks for having me, literally. Let’s start talking about your podcast, which is awesome. What I’m really impressed with it is how so many people, when they see you in person or even send you emails or Facebook messages, they tell you how much this podcast changed their lives and how sometimes they will binge listen to the podcast. It’s just beautiful and profound. It makes me happy and I know it makes you happy, knowing that you are changing the world, one listener at a time. Tell me, why are you doing this? What’s the mission behind Get Yourself Optimized?

When I first started it, as you know, it was the Optimized Geek. I wanted to do research for a book about personal transformation and I wanted a whole bunch of interviews to be part of the fodder for the book. I hired a ghostwriter to help me with it. He was going to do the interviews and then get them transcribed, these little bits and pieces and throughout the interviews. I’m like, “That’s a waste. I’ll do the interviews and I’ll use them as podcast episodes.” That’s how it started.

But then, as things progressed, I got to have such amazing conversations with these different thought leaders, best-selling authors, and stuff. I’m thinking, “Wow, this is so much bigger than just a book, this is an opportunity to really make a difference for people through the podcast regardless of whether there’s a book or not.” I just have been at this now for almost four years, doing this podcast. I get inspired by the folks that I interview and I just want to share their light with the world and with my listeners. That’s why I do this.

When you imagine the ripple effect of your podcast on the listeners, what do you think it does to them? How does it affect them?

I think that folks are getting shifts in their mindset, in their health and wellness. Greg, who we know through The Society, had a big weight loss success from listening to the episode with Mark Sisson. He actually recorded a little video of how much he lost and what it did for him. It was just all from one specific piece of advice from Mark – it was around going from just heart out, high-intensity workouts to lower intensity and targeting 180 minus your age as your target heart rate. He did that. He used to go heart out with his workouts, he dialed it down, and then he dropped the weight within weeks. It was amazing.

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That’s amazing. That’s really life-changing when somebody can get into the sense of health and wellness. You are doing great work in the world. The reason why I’m interviewing this amazing man today is because we are celebrating the 200th episode of Get Yourself Optimized. Yay to the 200th episode. It’s amazing. It’s a milestone. How do you feel about it?

I feel great and surprised, actually, that I’ve been at this for almost four years. It doesn’t feel like four years.

I know. Time passed so fast. Let’s talk about some of the episodes from the last hundred episodes. There are so many incredible guests in the topics of financial mastery and health, mental health, some woo-woo stuff, some spirituality, pets, my favorite topic, dating and relationships, productivity and outsourcing, leadership and business, and health and biohacking, so many. Let’s start talking about finance, are you affected by your guests? Do you learn from them?

Of course. I’ve implemented a lot of suggestions from the guests that I’ve had on. For example, Loral Langemeier, that was episode 102. She had suggested setting up a trust which we’re in the process of doing right now. That’s a pretty ninja piece of advice. She suggested having multiple companies, one that holds your IP or intellectual property that’s separate from your operating company, I’ve done that. I’ve had these companies set up so that one finishes its year-end at a different time from the other so you can move money between the two and that gives some more options for tax minimization, which is pretty clever. I just got a lot of value. We’re actually part of her mastermind, The Big Table, together.

Are you going to be speaking? You already spoke in the mastermind a few times.

Yup, I’ve spoken there and I’m speaking again in about five-six weeks.

You’re a great speaker.

There was another episode that is financial in a sense, partially at least, that was episode 129 with Robert Allen. He is really inspirational in what he shared about real estate investing and taking somebody off the street, who I think was unemployed even, turning him into a real estate investor and helping him build up wealth within a very short period of time was inspiring and awesome. I think the world of Bob. He was just on your show, too.

Bob Allen. He is incredible. I love this guy. We talked about making money in the mindset of success. We talked about the cycle of success and how, in order to achieve a goal, you do need to have an accountability partner, somebody you’re accountable for and even a price that you’re going to pay if this goal is not going to be manifested in time. I also went deeper with Bob and we talked about his spiritual belief and spirituality and even got a little teary on the show which was so beautiful.

You definitely want to check out Bob Allen’s episode on Stellar Life. I didn’t get him close to crying on my episode but if you want to hear that, you definitely want to tune in to Stellar Life Podcast. He’s the author of Cash in a Flash.

The One Minute Millionaire.

Yup, and Nothing Down.

So many books.

He sold millions of copies.

We studied from him, we visited him in his mansion in California. They moved to Utah.

They’re in Utah now. The Author in You was his mastermind that we joined in. That was really cool.

We joined so many masterminds because we like to evolve and get better. The better we get, the better our teaching gets and the more light we can share with the world, which is really beautiful.

We’re all about growth and contribution. Lifelong learning, applying it, and becoming the best person you can be.

And one of the ways to becoming the best person that you can be is taking care of your health.

Yes. Health includes biohacking. I’m a huge biohacker. I love using my body as an experimental playground, trying different things and seeing what works. We’ve done stem cell therapy  and 40 years of Zen together, a weeklong intensive doing Neurofeedback. We’ve done AIM Clinics, the spec scan of our brains, QEEGs and all that. We do a lot of crazy biohacking stuff. It’s pretty cool. Live blood analysis, food sensitivity testing.

And I still can’t fly. One day.

You still can’t fly?

I want to be a superhuman. We’re doing all these things that are cutting-edge technologies like, “When can I fly? I want to be like Iron Man but the woman version of it.”

Someday, and I’m not joking. There’s actually something called utility fog. I learned about it when I read Michael Crichton’s Prey. It’s a swarm of nanobots that can lift you up and fly you around.

You visited Abundance 360.

I did that.

You’re such a geek when it comes to future technologies and you are very well-connected. You know a lot of people in high places and you do have access to the leading edge information. That’s why your guests are so amazing and that’s why one of your passions is futurism.

Yes. It’s identified as one of my top strengths according to StrengthsFinder, which is a great assessment. I love personality assessments, but StrengthsFinder is my favorite of them all. My first strength is futuristic. I get to see where things are heading and figure out how to leverage that, which is pretty cool. Abundance 360 is not just a weekend seminar/conference. It’s also a year-long program in a community where they have webinars and group Zoom meetings, where you can meet other people in the community and stuff. It’s a really cool program and it gives you a sense of where things are heading, 3D printing, nanotechnology, longevity and health, AR—augmented reality, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, esports.

I know it’s hard to distinguish the things that you learned outside of your podcast guests by going to seminars and just being on top of things to what you learned from your guests. When it comes to longevity, for example, what are some of the greatest tips you learned from your guests?

Aubrey de Grey is one of the leading minds when it comes to longevity. That was episode 187. I met him a decade ago through the Foresight Institute, which is a really great nanotechnology think tank, all about future stuff. He’s just really impressed with them. I saw him again recently at another conference and asked him to be on the show and he said yes. That was a huge coup because he’s a big deal in the longevity and anti-aging community.

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Just looking at your guest list, so many of them are a big deal. It’s like one after the other, after the other. The topics work in their field.

If you want to live to your 150s or whatever, he’s the guy to listen to for sure. Also, Dr. Eric Braverman, that was a big longevity episode with tons of stuff. His concept that is worth repeating is that you’re only as young as your oldest part. It’s like if you think of yourself like a machine and one organ is the oldest organ in your body, it doesn’t matter how young the other organs are, that’s your single point of failure. You need to think about what’s your oldest part in your body and address that because that’s where things are going to break down.

How do you know what’s the oldest part of your body?

All sorts of scans and analysis. I just did a full-body MRI scan at Health Nucleus. That was a really interesting process. They did also a full genome sequencing. That company is called Human Longevity.

Your genes are great.

I was really happy with my results from the genomics testing. That was really cool. Not a single gene that had a high propensity for disease. Oftentimes, they’ll find at least one or two genes. They didn’t find any of that or highly correlated to disease state, so that was awesome. If you just think in terms of – like you need to treat your car as if it’s going to last for hundreds of thousands of miles and not just for the next 10,000 miles, you should do the same thing with your body. If you go and do this Health Nucleus scan, get in the habit of doing it once a year so you will be the first to know that something is off and get it addressed. The best kind of way to deal with something like cancer is to have super early detection rather than wait for some symptoms to show up.

Another biohacking episode that was amazing, actually two of them, episodes 126 and 128 were with our friend, Luke Storey. He is such a cool guy in person and he taught us a lot. What are some of the things you learned from him?

We deep-dived into things like EMF exposure, cold therapy and all sorts of stuff. He jumps in the ice bath, he does infrared saunas.

We get really special water.

We get Live Spring Water now instead of just regular alkaline water.

We’re water snobs.

We are. Only the best water for us.

Only the best water for me. I don’t drink alcohol, you don’t drink alcohol. Our water needs to be really good.

This is Live Spring Water from springs where it’s not been pasteurized or treated. It’s living water. That’s the best kind because it’s got all these healthy things in there.

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Minerals and lots of good things in the water.

Just Google for Live Spring Water.

Luke said it’s good.

We’ll include things like the Live Spring Water. If you’re in Southern California like we are, that’s something that you can just order online and then they deliver it once a month; all these water that you use over the course of the month. It’s really delicious and really healthy. Pretty cool.

Let’s talk about something that is a little darker, that is coming to us whether we like it or not, and that’s the 5G EMF exposure.

It’s not just 5G. It’s also WiFi.

It’s all the EMF, but 5G is going to be the most destructive one to our health and our mindset. There’s so much research around 5G and scientists from all over the world are being silenced because there is a lot of money in doing the 5G and the internet of things and all that, but it can definitely affect our health. We definitely need to learn about it, be aware, and protect ourselves to the best of our abilities because by the time 2020 will come, it’s going to be worldwide. We really want to be able to escape it unless you go and you live somewhere really far, far away.

Most of us don’t have that luxury of being able to live out in the middle of the wilderness.

Or the desire. What am I going to do? Hunt deer?

Live off the land.

No, thank you. I like my fancy juice bar.

What do you do about 5G? First of all, you’re going to get people who are going to be naysayers that say, “5G is non-ionizing radiation. It’s not a big deal. It’s all hearsay or just nonsense.”

I even had a Facebook mini argument with somebody who’s like, “I’m an engineer and I worked for the companies. There is zero danger to 5G.” I’m like, “Okay, you’re an engineer, you’re not a scientist. You don’t know the effect on the human body. You know the electronical part of it.”

I’ve posted about 5G before. I’ve gotten some people hating on me for it. A couple of episodes that I highly recommend, one is Brian Hoyer, episode number 132. Brian Hoyer talks about reducing your exposure to EMFs by doing simple things like unplugging your Wi-Fi router at the time you go to bed and then plugging it back it when you wake up in the morning or even just wiring your house with ethernet and not doing Wi-Fi at all, painting your bedroom with Wi-Fi and EMF blocking paint, using special devices to reduce your exposure, switching out things like smart meters and stuff that is really damaging.

EMF exposure affects your cellular membranes, from my understanding of it and cellular messaging. It’s definitely problematic. This isn’t just wackos or something. This is real scientists and health professionals who are saying, “It’s essentially the largest medical experiment ever done on humanity at a global scale.” The jury’s out on what the health impacts are, but the studies have shown, there is something to be very worried about. You need to take some proactive actions.

It reminds me, we watched Avengers: Infinity Wars the other night. Spoiler alert, please fast forward if you haven’t seen the movie. It ends where the evil guy, Thanos, kills half of the universe’s population. If you look at the conspiracy theory side of it, it’s almost like, “Is that what they’re trying to do? What the hell is going on? This is crazy.” You know what, Stephan, it creates fear, anxiety, and depression in me. Let’s talk about those episodes, 133 with Kristen Ulmer about fear. Andrea Petersen, 146, about anxiety, and then John Romaniello, he talks about depression.

John Romaniello goes by Roman. He was so vulnerable and open about how he was suicidal and very depressed, how he made it through, and what it’s like to go through that. A lot of people don’t get what somebody who’s suicidal needs in order to feel supported and to not want to just continue on with the suicide. Powerful episode number 172.

Some people do get suicidal and this is an amazing episode for them. Let’s talk about depression, there is minor depression, there are people that suffer from more depression. I feel like depression and anxiety is something that everyone experiences, even if they don’t talk about it, even if their Facebook posts are perfect. Lots of people feel fear, anxiety, and depression. Stephan, how do you handle anxiety and depression? Have you ever experienced it?

I have. What took me out of feeling depressed, when I was going through a divorce a decade ago, was getting into a Tony Robbins event and massively changing my state, having some sort of paradigm shift happened. For me, it was doing the fire walk that really knocked me out of that depressed state.

It doesn’t have to be that solution. There are plenty of ways that you can help yourself. EMDR, for example. Eye movement desensitization and reprogramming is one thing that you could try, or CBT which is cognitive behavioral therapy, or DBT. There are lots of different options. But if you listen to that episode 172 with Roman and get a sense for the depression science and what to do about it, that is a good starting point.

For anxiety, panic attacks or acute anxiety, for somebody who doesn’t know what it’s like, they’ll mistake it for having heart palpitations or just a feeling like they’re going to pass out. They’ll think something is wrong with them medically and it’s actually an anxiety episode. Andrea Petersen, episode 146, she’s the author of On Edge: A Journey Through Anxiety. She was inspired to write that book because she was having severe anxiety and decided to research it, the ways to handle it, treat it, and in the process, wrote a best-selling book.

I think the secret to success there with anxiety is to, first of all, identify what an anxiety attack is like. I actually had one and I didn’t know that it was an anxiety attack. It took going to the doctor, explaining it, and having him tell me, “These are all the symptoms.” That was a huge surprise to me. One, identify it, and then two, take some positive action to reduce your anxiety levels like meditating, breathing exercises, measure your HRV—your heart rate variability. Then, work to improve those HRV metrics through meditation and breathing exercises. There are a lot of options for reducing anxiety but first, you’ve got to identify that it’s an issue.

You’re a science geek but you’re also into the woo-woo stuff, which I like. What are some of the craziest energy healing techniques you’ve experienced from guests on the show?

One of my favorite energy healers in the world is Donny Epstein.

I love you, Donny.

He is amazing, that was episode number 149. We’ve gone to events of his that have been incredible and life-changing. Ultimatum is one of them. The Transformational Gate is another one. He’s just an amazing gift to humanity and I feel so blessed to have him as a healer who has worked on both of us.

Can you describe some breakthroughs you had with working with Donny? What did you experience? What was it like for you?

There is a time where he had done this entrainment which is a healing process on me and I’m just totally blissed out. I’m lying on the table having just gotten the entrainment, people lift me off and set me on the carpet to be blissed out and come back to reality. I don’t know how many minutes I was out essentially in another dimension. It was probably 30 or 40 minutes.

What happened while I was laying on that floor was incredible. I connected with all these different people, I had this experience of transferring healing energy to all these different people I had thought of giving Deeksha, a oneness blessing to all these different people. Some of them I hadn’t thought of in years. One guy, in particular, I hadn’t thought off in 15 years and hadn’t seen or heard his name or anything.  He had sued me back in 1997 or something for wrongful dismissal. He used to work for me. He was talking about me behind my back to other staff. I was young and reactive back in those days. So, I’ve made an example of him. I fired him on the spot once I heard about it, walked him off the premises.

It was really humiliating for him, so he filed a wrongful dismissal lawsuit. It was work at Hillsdale, Wisconsin. he didn’t have any grounds for it but he filed it anyway. I eventually paid him off even though I would’ve won the lawsuit just to reduce the expense in the time that was taking. This guy disappears from my life. Fifteen years later, I’m laying on the floor, blissed out at a Donny Epstein event. He’s one of the people that come to my mind and I’ve sent him a Deeksha. He calls me out of the blue four days later on my cellphone to apologize.

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That’s really amazing.

Crazy stuff.

I was there when he called you. I’m your witness.

We are all connected. It’s woo-woo stuff, the energy healing and all that, but we are energy beings.

The most interesting thing is that a lot of this woo-woo stuff is lately being proven by science and by quantum physics. A lot of ancient principles that have been here for thousands of years and sounds woo-woo actually are not that woo-woo because there is more to this world that we can see. Even the most advanced science is far from knowing the greatest secrets of this universe.

I actually interviewed a quantum physicist who is deep into the spiritual side of things and all the woo-woo stuff. Amit Goswami. That was episode 151, by the way. He was interviewed in the movie, What the Bleep Do We Know? Great movie. The documentary came out a number of years ago. This guy is just such a gift to humanity, loved the interviews. I think you’ll get a lot of value out of it.

There’s a lot to spirituality, it’s not just religion. Religion is maybe a dogma and a lot of beliefs, maybe there is power and control in some of these religious organizations. Whereas spirituality is about our oneness, it’s about our connectedness and about our deeper meaning in our higher self, and elevating our consciousness and all that. Some of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned spiritually have come from Kabbalah and from oneness. Orion, why don’t you talk a little bit about Kabbalah because you knew about it before I did.

I’m Israeli, I grew up with the values and principles Kabbalah, which are beautiful principles. It’s about being a better person. It’s about taking care of others. It’s about just trying to be a better person, that’s the gist of it. What you do is you open yourself to receive the light of the creation, to receive spiritual downloads, to get yourself to be less reactive – which is hard for me; I am reactive. But we are all human and Dr. Wayne Dyer used to say, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” A part of our human experience here, a part of our Tikkun or soul correction is to learn how to better ourselves as a people, as partners.

What’s nice about Kabbalah is that in the past, it was only allowed for only men after 40 years old to study it. Now, the Kabbalah center here in LA and worldwide really opened it for not only men, not only the age of 40, not only Jewish but to the rest of the world. Yes, it’s based in the Jewish faith and it’s about how to be a better person. It’s about ancient self-development. It’s quite funny because we took so many self-development seminars and then we go to Kabbalah which is so ancient, the same principles and more.

So much more, so many distinctions that I’d never heard before from a Tony Robbins seminar or from anything else. We’ve done Alison Armstrong, we’ve done Mary Morse. I could just go on and on like dozens of different personal development.

That’s in the hundreds.

No, I don’t know about hundreds.

I think so. Yes, hundreds.

Maybe 80.

Hundreds.

I’ll tell you what, we’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, that’s for sure, on personal development. It’s the ancient self-help movement, I think, that started with Kabbalah. It’s so mystical but so practical, to learn such concepts as restriction and Tikkun. It’s just mind-blowing and amazing stuff. We had various Kabbalah teachers over the years, through the last four years or so. All three of them actually have been on the show. Two Kabbalah teachers that we love who have been very impactful for us, David Ghiyam, episode 140. I can’t recommend these episodes enough. They’re game-changing. Also, in addition to Kabbalah, there is Oneness.

I love Oneness. We both went to India, that was 2013. We went to India and we did a whole course. We studied with the Oneness Monks and had really profound spiritual experiences. Oneness is the idea that we are all connected, how to get to the place where you and me we’re not separated, and how to get into a state of being more awakened. Being awakened doesn’t mean you get awakened and then boom, you’re awakened for the rest of your life. I feel like awakening comes and goes, it’s got some stages, and some days you’re better than others. But slowly, slowly, you climb the ladder of awakening and you become a better person for yourself, for your partner, for your people around you by connecting with this sense of oneness and divine love. There’s also a feeling of loneliness which is an epidemic in our society.

You go from a suffering state to a beautiful state by utilizing Oneness. This is important too, to understand that awakening, as Orion said, can be just a state that you’re in and then it drops away or you lose it or it can be a permanent shift. When that’s a permanent shift, you are climbing that ladder and you don’t regress back to being non-awakened but it is a progression. You might have a level five of awakening, that’s a permanent shift but there’s so much farther to go. When you get to level 10 or level 15 or whatever, then you feel so different.

I think I had a permanent awakening in the sense of the way I connect to others and connect to my clients. Before I went to Oneness, I was quite ADHD. I was quite scattered. It was hard for me to focus on someone’s eyes and I would be more all over the place. After going to Oneness and having that spiritual awakening, what I noticed until today is that I was able to really be there with my clients, almost like we are both in a bubble. I can totally zoom in and focus on them. That’s beautiful because it helps create this amazing connection, helps me get intuitive downloads, and helps me really be there for somebody else. That is something that I haven’t had before.

It’s pretty amazing to experience this awakening. I had Doug Bentley, a oneness Monk, on the show, episode 141. He was one of the Monks who was, in 2012, at the event in India where I went, where I got my first experience of God, of the divine, of the creator. I was agnostic, almost atheistic, my whole life. I was a skeptic, maybe even cynic. I just didn’t believe in anything until I got touched by these Oneness Monks.

One of them, it wasn’t Doug but another one named Ooma, when he touched me, I had this incredible, not out of body experience but this psychedelic type of experience. I saw the most brilliant colors. I remember going outside afterwards and seeing the grass, the trees, and everything, and it was the most brilliant technicolor green I’d ever seen like in a cartoon. I felt this deep sense of peace and connection like I was part of the bigger picture, the connectedness of all creation, of the fabric of creation. I felt total love and acceptance.

The Monks explained that God or the divine is an experience, not a belief. That sounds like a pretty cool bumper sticker, but when you actually experience what that experience is, of an awakening or a divine experience, it is life changing. I’m a totally different person from that on touch, that one Deeksha, that oneness blessing. Definitely, you got to listen to that episode, 141.

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Going on those journeys together, I think, brought us closer together, helped us be better partners, helped us with our relationship, and dealing with some relationship struggles. We’re not perfect. We’re human. We both have our strengths and weaknesses. Learning those practices really helped, but we didn’t only learn spiritual practices when it comes to relationships.

When you’re born, nobody gives you a manual for a relationship on how to attract love, how to be in love, how to be in partnership, how to be in a marriage. People are dreaming about, “One day, I want to get married or I want to find my true love.” Then you find your true love, there is the next stage which is how do you live with your true love and how do you handle some bumps on the road. Who are some of your favorite relationship experts?

One of my favorites from the last 100 episodes is Dr. Pat Allen. I’ve been doing a number of her events. That was episode 111. Some of the concepts I got from her that were game-changing for me, one was this concept that a lot of men are, what she calls, Peter Pans. The Peter Pan is not ready for a meaningful relationship. He uses the women. The kind of woman that he attracts is a Wendy. She says that she wants a long-term meaningful relationship but she doesn’t come prepared to give that.

This dynamic between the man and the woman, bringing your masculine energy and the woman bringing their feminine energy. It’s an energetic thing that can certainly be a feminine man who attracts a masculine man or a masculine woman. It’s a dance. It’s like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. If you get that yin and yang energy in a compatible way and not a relationship of convenience but it’s one based on the feminine being cherished, the masculine being respected, and that you can’t be both. This was just mind-blowing stuff. She said that if you expect to be cherished and respected, you’re a narcissist.

I don’t always agree with everything that she said because I don’t think somebody who’s cherished shouldn’t be respected. Just cherish me but then don’t respect anything that I do or who I am. Sometimes I feel like when gurus or experts come up with a saying or a statement, I think you need to take everything with a grain of salt and adapt it to your beliefs and your values.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think the concept that she was trying to convey is that to expect both of them equally is narcissistic. If you are a masculine energy type of person like I’m masculine in my core, then I desire much more to be respected than to be cherished. I agree with that, that resonates for me. The feminine energy person, so in this relationship that’s you, much more desires to be cherished more than respected.

But I do want to be respected as well.

Yeah, but it’s secondary.

I like respect.

That’s secondary. It’s not your main driver whereas it is for me. When somebody disrespects me, I hate it.

The truth has different faces and truth is very individual. Whatever concept you’re hearing, I think in any podcast or in any seminar, always make sure that it is aligned with your values and with what you believe in. There is no truth that is set in stone because we can look at the same item from two different angles. We’ll see the different angles and we won’t see the same item.

Sure. And if you’re not in a relationship and you’d like to get in one, not only is the Dr. Pat Allen episode helpful but also the Ross Jeffries episode which is all about pickup and how to be irresistible to the opposite sex, to your potential mates. That was episode 109. Lawrence Lanoff talking about things like Tantra and all kinds of things. That was episode 119.

Let’s talk about productivity and outsourcing because you had many episodes about that.

I’m a real productivity geek and life hacker.

And you do achieve a lot and you work really hard.

I’d like to work smarter than harder but sometimes it’s the other way around. I’ve had a lot of productivity experts. In the last 100 episodes, we’ve had Nick Sonnenberg. We talked all about outsourcing and systems. We’ve had Ari Meisel who was Nick’s business partner. He’s also the author of Less Doing, More Living. He cured himself of Crohn’s disease, which is really unusual, and he talks about that in the episode. That was episode 118. Nick Sonnenberg was episode 114. Trivinia Barber, I had her on talking about outsourcing and virtual assistance. That was episode 145. Todd Herman, it’s a great episode as well. A big productivity expert, he’s got this program called the 90 Day Year, we attended his event.

I’m telling you, that was hundreds of events, you just stopped counting.

That was a great event. He is episode 148. Imagine trying this program and accomplishing in 90 days what normally would take you a year. It might sound like a fantasy but it can be done.

Fanciful but possible.

And probable, maybe. Jonathan Levi, a good friend of both of ours.

I love Jonathan.

He’s a memory expert and a learning expert. We geeked out about memory palaces.

My memory is not that great. I need to listen to this episode again.

We actually talked about how your mindset and your beliefs about your memory can actually color how good your memory is. If you believe that your memory sucks, guess what? Your memory is going to suck.

Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re probably right. Henry Ford.

You nailed it. Also Chris Bailey, the author of The Productivity Project – where he did a year’s worth of productivity experiments. That was a fantastic episode, 176. Tiago Forte, he’s got this whole concept called the second brain, that was episode 184. That was fantastic as well.

What’s the second brain?

The second brain is like having your trusted system, it could be Evernote, anything, things. That’s what I use, Things by Cultured Code or OmniFocus or whatever. Having that system that is so accessible, optimized, and tuned into you that you don’t have to remember everything, it’s all there in that trusted system and you know how to get it so quickly that it’s just an extension of your brain.

We talked so far about financial mastery, health, mental health, woo-woo stuff, spirituality, dating and relationships, productivity and outsourcing. After we learned all this, we got to step into leadership.

Tell me more. What would you like to know?

Do you see yourself as a leader?

I do and I also see myself as a work-in-progress. I’m constantly learning leadership skills and techniques. Consequently, I’ve had a ton of episodes on leadership.

I know you. You helped so many people. You meet people in conferences, you meet people in person, and just a conversation with you totally changes their lives. I’ve seen it over and over again in people in your circles and you have many circles. I do look up to you. It’s almost like whatever circle you step into, you’re becoming this bright light and shining star. People do see you as a leader.

I want to ask you frankly, after studying from a gazillion gurus, having a conversation with just on your podcast, 200 experts, learning from the best of the best in the world, taking the best seminars and mastermind in the world, when does good is good enough? When are you prepared to really step into leadership?

Every day is an opportunity to step in the leadership whether it’s communicating with my kids or with my staff or with clients or prospects, it’s all an opportunity.

Good. You didn’t say me.

You’re my boss.

Let’s talk about leadership and mastery. What is a leader? What does a leader do?

A leader inspires and takes the arrows because he’s in the first position and is an example to others. You lead by example, by being your best self and being the change in the world that you want to see. One of the really impactful leadership seminars that we went to was Bettie Spruill. She was a guest on the show, episode 173. The whole concept was around five keys to mastery.

One piece that made a world of difference to me from that seminar—we talked about it in the show—was characterizing others. When you characterize others, you collapse all their infinite possibilities of who they could be and who they are into one. You manifest the very thing that you believed to be true. You think this person’s lazy, you think this person’s conniving, or manipulative, or not trustworthy, you create that in that person. If you think of this person as a trustworthy individual, maybe in other cases they don’t exhibit that but they’ll exhibit that for you because that’s what your reality is. You manifest that reality. Once you stopped characterizing them and you just think that they are infinite potential, they show up like that, it’s a game-changer.

My friend sent me a message on Facebook yesterday. He was like, “Oh my God. Jay Abraham just sent an email about Stephan to his list.” I was like, “Yeah. Jay and him, they’re buddies. Jay really likes him.” He was so psyched about it. Tell me about your connection with Jay Abraham. What happened when you had him on the show?

I’ve had him on this show and on Marketing Speak. I have two shows if you’re not already aware. The first time I had him on Marketing Speak, that was talking about all of his marketing genius like the Law of Preeminence and the Parthenon, and all this amazing marketing genius. Then we did another episode where he interviewed me about SEO, that was amazing. Can you imagine getting interviewed by your hero or your mentor about the thing that’s your area of expertise?

Jay is a really nice person.

He is a beautiful soul.

He’s a sweet person. I don’t think people see him that way.

If you listened to his episode on this show, you would know. He is a deeply philosophical, spiritual, amazing multilayered person. That episode was 163. We waned philosophical about not just marketing but life and meaning. It’s incredible. That’s one of my favorite episodes, really, of the last 100, is the Jay Abraham episode. It’s such a different episode. I asked him questions that he had never been asked in an interview. He loved it so much, he decided to republish that interview that I did of him on his podcast, the Ultimate Entrepreneur. You might have heard that episode already if you’re a follower of Jay’s.

There are so many amazing episodes about retaining clients, leading employees, selling your business, creating impact, negotiating. If you heard a number of an episode and you’re like, “Oh my God, there are so many numbers going on,” don’t worry. You can just go there, just take a quick look, and click on the episode that you need to hear, that resonates with you, that resonates with your heart. Stephan, I’m going to finish with a question I ask my guests on Stellar Life Podcast. What are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

Great question. I would start by being intentional in everything you do. If you are intentional, then you show up more powerfully, you bring more presence and meaning, and you get a better outcome. You’re just your highest self so be intentional.

Number two is to focus on your gifts. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to shore up your weaknesses. Your strengths are where all the juices, even better if you can identify your unique ability, as Dan Sullivan calls it, and really honing on that. Some of us are doing the jobs that are not our unique ability, that is not our gift. You got to get out of that job. It’s a dead end.

The third is to always be learning, I’m constantly in a learning mode whether I’m interviewing a guest for a podcast or I’m going to a seminar or I’m just spending some time looking online at articles, blog posts in SEO or whatever. Every day I’m learning something new, something that’s useful and valuable to the world and not just to me.

Thank you so much, Mr. Stephan Spencer, that I love with all my heart.

I love you with all my heart.

Thank you. Thank you, listeners. This was a different episode. You had to hear me and my accent. I hope it was great, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got a lot of value from this episode. Thank you so much for listening, thank you for bettering yourself, thank you for being the delight in the world that you are. Remember, be intentional, focus on your gift, always be learning, and always be getting yourself optimized. This is Orion.

And Stephan.

Bye.

See you on the next episode.

 

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