Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EP478: Lynne Twist - How to Awaken your Unlimited Talents & Treasures
165 Plays2 years ago
“There was an integrity in our life, there is an experience of enoughness, no matter how much money we have or don't have, there is an experience of wholeness, sufficiency, and really knowing who we are.”
In this episode, we are joined by Lynne Twist, a renowned advocate for social change and author of "The Soul of Money." She shares her remarkable journey as a "pro activist" and her lifelong dedication to ending world hunger. She explores the transformative power of sufficiency, the connection between our financial lives and our souls, and her work with indigenous communities in the Amazon rainforest through the Pachamama Alliance.
Lynne Twist is truly an example of what a global thought leader looks like. She's using her thought leadership to make a massive impact in the world and to inspire other people to use their thought leadership to create success for themselves while making the world a bigger and better place. Join us as we delve into Lynne's inspiring insights and stories, and discover how we can awaken our unlimited talents and treasures for a more harmonious world.
Be connected with Lynne Twist by visiting her website soulofmoney.org or pachamama.org.
Support her book, The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources and Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself, available on Amazon or in any of your local bookstores.
Also, Lynne is doing a series of courses Sophia Circle for women from October 2023 to March 2024. Don’t miss out!
Expert action steps:
-
Listen to what breaks your heart and what makes your heart sing. Those two things will help you discover your calling.
-
Live in the profound experience of gratitude. Be grateful for everything.
-
Talk about language. What you love. Talk about what you love and use the words, “I love” wherever it applies. It deepens your capacity for love.
Visit eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
It's like stepping into the world of people who are oppressed or hungry or marginalized. Who you find there are whole and complete people. They're not poor. What's poor is their circumstances. People living in those kinds of circumstances are enormously strong. They exhibit more courage to live through a day than you and I are going to need in our lifetime. They have a powerful inner life, a faith that they can create possibility out of nothing. People thinking they're not okay unless they have way more than they need,
00:00:29
Speaker
is crazy. A billion people that go hungry all the time on a planet that was awash with food. Ultimately, it's said that there was a lack of integrity in the human family's relationship with each other in itself. A little individual can make a difference that can impact all humanity. They made a commitment larger than their own life. It's an extraordinary commitment that reaches back into your life and makes you into the person who can fulfill it. You make a commitment larger than yourself
00:00:58
Speaker
your life starring you sort of fades into the background and your life becomes used by the commitment you make and it reaches back into your life and turns you into the person you need to be to fulfill it.
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome to the Thought Leader Revolution with Nikki Ballou. Join the revolution. There's never been a better time in history to speak your truth, find your freedom, and make your fortune. Each week, we interview the world's top thought leaders and learn the secrets of how they built a six to seven figure practice. This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.
00:01:43
Speaker
Welcome to another exciting podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. I'm your host, Nicky Baloo. And boy, do we have an exciting guest lined up for you today. Today's guest is a personal hero of mine. She is somebody who has dedicated her life
00:02:00
Speaker
to the transformation of humanity and moving humanity in a positive direction. She is the author of the multiple best-selling book, The Soul of Money. She is the creator of the incredible Soul of Money Institute, and she has a brand new book out, How to Live a Fulfilling Life. I am speaking, of course, of none other than the one, the legendary, the only, Lynn Twist. Welcome to the show, Lynn.
00:02:31
Speaker
What an introduction. Mickey, thank you for having me and for saying such beautiful things. My pleasure. So Lynn, I happen to know who you are and that's why I wanted you on my show. But let me tell you about the people that listen to my show. They all tend to be entrepreneurs and they all tend to be the kind of entrepreneur that wants to use
00:02:56
Speaker
business is a vehicle for making a difference in the world. Absolutely, they want to make money and they want to take care of their families and all that good stuff, but they really want to make a difference. And the reason they listen to this show is not because of me, because I'm here every week. They listen to this show because they want to learn from you and they want to find out how you go about doing what you do and how they can apply it in their own lives.
Lynn Twist's Journey and The Hunger Project
00:03:18
Speaker
But before they can open their hearts to you, they need to get to know you. So tell us your backstory. How'd you get to be the great Lynn Twist?
00:03:26
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. Thank you for for having me and thank you for drawing the entrepreneurs that you draw to your show. People who really not only want to make it make a business happen, but make it happen in a way that serves the world. So I love talking to people like that.
00:03:46
Speaker
Um, so I've been a, what I call a pro activist my whole life, actually, probably since I was a little girl, but I, you know, could only express it once I got, you know, to be in a kind of a grownup body in college. And, um, so I've been involved in global issues my whole life. And, um, I really got my, uh, my feet wet, you could say, or my hands in the, in the, in the real world, when the hunger project was born, um, an organization devoted to ending world hunger.
00:04:16
Speaker
and making the end of hunger an idea whose time has come. And I became one of the executives of the Hunger Project way back there in the 70s. So I've been at this for decades and was privileged and honored to make the end of hunger my life's work, my raison d'etre, why I was alive, really, and my husband and my children. And we all got very, very deeply involved in ending world hunger, which took me too.
00:04:47
Speaker
Sub-Saharan Africa, places like Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau, Gabon, South Africa, and also India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, places where people are living in hunger and often also in poverty. And that work, as daunting as it sounds, is super, super, super inspiring.
00:05:15
Speaker
And it's like stepping into the world of people who are oppressed or hungry or marginalized. Who you find there are whole and complete people, not people who I would call poor and I would never call them poor now that I know them. They're not poor. What's poor is their circumstances, not them. In fact, people living in those kinds of circumstances are enormously strong. They need to be.
00:05:44
Speaker
incredibly creative. They need to be to survive. They exhibit more courage to live through a day than you and I are going to need in our lifetime. The circumstances that their life demands that they have a powerful inner life, a faith, that they can create possibility out of nothing. So I learned so many lessons from people that I used to call poor that now I would call extraordinary, whole and complete human beings
Insights on Money and Fundraising
00:06:11
Speaker
living in the oppression and tyranny of adverse circumstances.
00:06:18
Speaker
I've drawn for my whole life on the lessons I've learned from them. And then because I was in what's often called the nonprofit sector, I don't call it that, I call it the social profit sector because what we're always generating is a social profit, P-R-O-F-I-T, but also people living in and working in the kinds of work that I've done, you become a kind of social profit, P-R-O-P-H-E-T. In other words, you stand
00:06:48
Speaker
in the future you're committed to. And then from that future, standing in that future, that vision, come back into the present and do what you can to transform the present and unblock that future from being realized. So that's why I called the social profit sector. But for me in that sector, I became a pretty good fundraiser because it's that's how you survive. You know, you have to raise money. And in raising money,
00:07:17
Speaker
From hundreds of thousands of people and training 50,000 fundraisers in 57 countries for the Hunger Project, I learned a lot about money. I learned a lot about our relationship with money. I learned about the angst and anxiety and upsets and worries and fears that everybody, no matter where they are, no matter how much they have or don't have, have in their relationship with money.
00:07:41
Speaker
And I realize that it's not related to the amount of money or the lack of money. It's just in the culture of money to be upset and anxious and worried and fearful that you don't have enough money, even if you're a billionaire, because as a fundraiser, I've had the privilege and opportunity and challenge of working with some of the wealthiest families in the world.
00:08:03
Speaker
So that's how I wrote the soul of money, to really talk about our relationship with money and how far afield our financial life often is from our soul. And when we bring those two things back together, there's an integrity in our life, there's an experience of enoughness, no matter how much money we have or don't have, there's an experience of wholeness, sufficiency, and really knowing who we are.
00:08:31
Speaker
And so that's the soul of money journey that I've been on my whole adult life. And then more recently, I've been working with indigenous people of the Amazon, which seems completely different. But in many ways, it's the next chapter.
00:08:47
Speaker
of understanding our relationship with ourselves and money because the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, they didn't even know there was a thing called money. They live in a reciprocity, a complete reciprocity with each other. The commitment is the well-being of the community is the highest commitment and then they don't individuate the way we do. We kind of individuate at the expense of the community, whereas they are committed to the well-being of the community and then within that each person
00:09:16
Speaker
knows that they will be healthy and well and so will their family. And so that reciprocity, that communal way of living for many, many centuries has never really required money. They have everything they need. They're not poor. But in interacting in our world, yours and mine, the modern world,
00:09:36
Speaker
They need to understand that we're all kind of obsessed and hijacked by money. So they've had to learn about money and to work with people who knew nothing about money, didn't even know it existed. You know, they say, you can't hunt for it. You can't fish for it. You can't eat it. Why do people want it? It's like crazy to them. I started to see money from their viewpoint, which really gives you a whole another angle on our obsession, our craze, our
00:10:06
Speaker
Addiction our you know kind of weird relationship with money as if it's like a god
00:10:13
Speaker
And so that's really been enlightening for me and given me the opportunity, especially working with Indigenous people, to commit my life now to bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on this planet.
Pachamama Alliance and Sustainability
00:10:32
Speaker
And that's the mission of the Pachamama Alliance. Pachamama meaning Mother Earth. Pachamama Alliance meaning
00:10:39
Speaker
an alliance between the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest and conscious committed people in the modern world like you and all of your listeners for the sustainability of life. And so that's my work and it's a privilege to do it and it's not a job. It's a vocation. It evokes who I am. It gives me a reason for being.
00:11:05
Speaker
And it allows me to know that I can make a real difference with my life. So that's a long answer to your very short question. It's a beautiful answer. I want to unpack some of the things that you were talking about. I'd like to go back to you getting involved with the hunger project back in the seventies. And if, if, if you wouldn't mind, let's get into that a little bit. The hunger project was originally, um,
00:11:34
Speaker
the brainchild of a few people. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but one of them was Werner Erhart and another one was John Denver. Was Buckminster Fuller part of the Hunger Project as well? Yeah, Buckminster Fuller was part of it, yeah. So listen, I believe there are no accidents and I believe that God
00:11:53
Speaker
puts people together. And so this interview has been on the books for a couple of months. And just a few weeks ago, I ordered a book by Robert Kiyosaki, and I started to read it. It's called The Capitalist Manifesto. And you wouldn't know it looking at the cover, but he spends a good hundred pages talking about the work of Buckminster Fuller in this book. Apparently he was, yeah, he was a student of Bucky Fuller's, right? Yeah, for, for
00:12:23
Speaker
almost 10 years, you know, in the 70s, up until when Bucky passed in 1983, and I'm talking like I knew the guy, but I didn't, but you know, he seems like somebody I'd know, Bucky, buddy, Nicky and Bucky, but it was,
00:12:39
Speaker
the types of things that Robert talks about in this book, how Buckminster Fuller thought, and how in 1927 he decided he was never going to work for money again. That's one of the things that he said in the book, and you were talking about that, that in this society of indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest, there's people that don't even know what money is. That's like a foreign concept to them, and
00:13:03
Speaker
Buckminster Fuller in 1927 said, how I'm gonna work going forward in my life is I'm going to go
00:13:12
Speaker
and find out what God wants done and I'm gonna do it. And I'm gonna follow that impulse in what I do. And in 1927, he was a very ordinary man who had gone to Harvard and been kicked out twice because he partied too hard. He wasn't particularly well known in 1927. He hadn't done all the amazing things he'd become known for. And then he followed that impulse
00:13:40
Speaker
And he became one of the greatest thought leaders the world has ever seen. And, you know, he was part of the group that created The Hunger Project. And I'd love to find out from you what it was like to be around somebody who was that far thinking in their approach to the world.
00:14:03
Speaker
Well, thank you for asking about him. Bucky was one of my most extraordinary teachers. And Bucky, for people who don't know that name, a lot of younger people don't really know about him. He was trained as
Mindset of Sufficiency and Societal Impact
00:14:19
Speaker
an engineer and an architect. And he was called the grandfather of the future by millions and millions of people because he was way ahead of his time. He invented the geodesic dome
00:14:33
Speaker
which is a structure that heats and cools itself without any energy whatsoever. It's like a miracle.
00:14:39
Speaker
He knew that energy would be really an important part of the long-term future of life. He invented an electric car in 1949. He saw the end of fossil fuels. He saw the damage that was starting to be wrecked upon this earth in 1949. Nobody was talking about that then. I mean, it wasn't until the late 60s or early 70s that James Hansen and other scientists were starting to talk about
00:15:09
Speaker
you know, the oil industry being something that we need to just start working to complete. So, Bucky was just an amazing, like a seer. But he did it in the, what it was like, just to answer your real question here, being around him, I didn't actually understand what Bucky was talking about almost ever. He was so... Robert says in his book too. Yeah, I didn't understand him, but it didn't matter because
00:15:38
Speaker
I got him if I can put it that way. And I know you've taken the landmark work. That's, that's kind of term that I think sometimes comes from that work. I got him, I got who he was. And, and I didn't understand him. That was okay with me. He could be talking about the molecular theory of this and talking about, you know, the tetrahedrons and the icosahedrons and the
00:16:03
Speaker
the way cells were organized and all that stuff. And I didn't understand it, but there's a Emerson quote. I love this quote. Who you are speaks so loudly. I can't hear the words you're saying. Who you are speaks so loudly. I can't hear the words you're saying. And that's perfect for my relationship with Bucky because what spoke to me was not his scientific lectures, but who he was,
00:16:33
Speaker
was someone who loved the universe so much, who loved the way life organized itself, who loved the cellular structure of atoms, and I won't even get this right, who loved the earth, who loved the evolution of the natural world, and I was drawn to his love. And I loved him. I loved his love.
00:17:03
Speaker
I became a lover of life, of what I call the community of life, the natural intellectual integrity of the universe he used to call the, those were his words. He loved the intellectual integrity of the universe and that we could learn anything and everything we needed to know from that. It was just all right here in front of us. And I loved that about him. I loved, and he was the man who
00:17:33
Speaker
who declared that we were living in a mindset of scarcity and that we needed to shift to a mindset of sufficiency, which is different than abundance. He declared that we were living in a you or me paradigm, either you, Nikki, make it at my expense, or I make it at your expense because our belief is there's not enough for both of us. So we both try to accumulate as much as we can to keep, since we think there's not enough
00:18:01
Speaker
Both of us, we think there's not enough to go around. Someone's going to be left out. So that gives us permission to accumulate more than we need, because we think there's not enough for everyone. And somebody's going to be left out. And we want to make sure it's not the people we love. And that begins the us-them paradigm.
00:18:25
Speaker
And he said, no, there's enough for everyone everywhere to have a healthy and productive life. So it's a you and me world. You and I can both make it at no one's expense that we don't need to accumulate way more than we need. We don't need to get so much excess that we're safe from ever being left out. And you can see now with people approaching being trillionaires, it's obscene. It's like, no, no, no, that's so wrong. No one person or one family
00:18:55
Speaker
should control billions and billions of dollars. I mean, really, it's obscene and it's so not right. But that's because the system tells you you have to accumulate way more than you need to be safe. And then you can help people who are left out, but not until you have so much
00:19:14
Speaker
And that's the source of our environmental crisis. It's the source of our political divide. It's the source of our national deficit. It's the source of our obesity pandemic. It's the source of our addiction pandemic. It's the source of alcoholism and mental illness. I mean, the thing is, if you really look at it, it's people thinking they're not OK unless they have way more than they need. It's crazy. We should take what we need and no more.
00:19:45
Speaker
And that's really what I write about in the Soul of Money. That's what nature does. Nature doesn't take more than we need. Indigenous people don't take more than they need. So Bucky was my root teacher in the distinction of sufficiency. And sufficiency is distinct from abundance. Sufficiency, enough is not an amount, even. It's a way of being with life.
00:20:13
Speaker
that I'm enough, you're enough, exactly the way we are. And that we get exactly what we need, that the universe gives us exactly what we need. And sometimes it's a bankruptcy. Sometimes it's a climate crisis. Sometimes it's the death of a loved one.
The Influence of Thought Leaders
00:20:29
Speaker
We get exactly what we need to grow and develop into who we need to be.
00:20:38
Speaker
In Robert Kiyosaki's book, he talked about this game that Bucky invented called the Bucky World Game that they laid out this map on the size of a basketball court and there were 10,000 red chips that represented nuclear weapons. And Robert said that he and a group of people would take this game out into the world.
00:21:00
Speaker
and to see if people could cooperate enough not to destroy each other. And nobody ever won the Bucky World Game, ever. Always ended up destroying the world. Did you know about this game? What was your experience with it? Yes, yeah. Well, I played with Bucky a different world game, which was about hunger, where we would have, you know, a thousand people, really.
00:21:22
Speaker
And there would be, we would match it with the way the population of Earth is now being treated and fed. And so there would be a, it would be a lunch. And of a thousand people, there would be maybe seven people who would be sitting over here at tables with tablecloths and candelabras and silver in China, and they'd be having steak and caviar and champagne.
00:21:51
Speaker
and there would be a fence around them. And then there would be like maybe 13 or 14 or 15 people out of the 1,000 who would have maybe a few vegetables and some grains. And then there would be like 900 people who would be having rice and water. And that would be their lunch. And people would experience
00:22:18
Speaker
that this is the ratio of the world. This is the way the world is actually organized. And is this satisfactory? So that's a different world game that I played with him. So that people could experience how kind of distorted everything is. So Bucky really did some beautiful work to help people understand the magnitude of how we've lost our way, lost our soul, lost the path to a sustainable future.
00:22:46
Speaker
There was another thing that Robert Kiyosaki said he said in that book, which I just I wonder if you ever heard him say it. He said at the time the population of the earth was four billion people and now it's almost eight billion. And he said that he heard Baki say there are four billion billionaires in the world and Robert at the time was a broke
00:23:08
Speaker
guy would just come back from Vietnam and had no money. He wasn't who he is today. And he was like, he heard him say that. And he said, what are you talking about? I'm not a billionaire. I can't wrap my head around that. And now he says he thinks he's starting to understand what he meant by that. Did you ever hear him say that? I never heard him say that. But he always said something similar. And I think this is what he meant, that each and every one of us has
00:23:38
Speaker
unlimited talents and treasures that belong to us. We are uniquely, you know, there's only one person in all of history that has your fingerprint. There's nobody who'll ever have the same fingerprint as you. There's one person in all of history going backwards and forwards that has your eye pigment.
00:24:00
Speaker
That's why eye recognition is so effective. There's one person in all of history and one person on the planet that has your voice timber. That's why voice recognition works and fingerprinting works. I mean, really you are absolutely, you, Nikki are absolutely unique and you are a treasure and you have unlimited potential to make a difference with your life. And it's definitely yours.
00:24:28
Speaker
And yes, we're one with everything. And you have a gift to give. If you're born alive, you have a gift to give. That's why you're here. And it's almost unlimited. So in many ways, that's different than you're a billionaire. But you are in that way. And so everybody, there's no haves and have nots. That's silly.
00:24:54
Speaker
There's haves, not H-A-L-V-S, but everybody has talent and treasure and incredible gifts to give. But we've organized ourselves. Some people have talent and treasure and some people do not. And that's false. It's just not true. I know that from being in Ethiopia after the famine and dealing with mothers who lost every single child to starvation and then who had never learned to read and write and who
00:25:21
Speaker
who had never had the opportunity to go to school. And after they lost all their children to famine, they wanted to commit suicide and not live any longer. But then they made a commitment to educate themselves and to become viable members of the society and make a contribution. And these women that I'm thinking of right now went all the way through school after losing all their kids in the famine.
00:25:46
Speaker
got PhDs and are now playing leadership roles in their country. And they couldn't even spell Ethiopia when that famine took over their lives. But all they needed was a chance and opportunity and aperture and opening a path to make the contribution that was theirs to make.
00:26:05
Speaker
So there's no poor people on this planet. There's no rich people on this planet. They're just people living in different circumstances. And when we unleash and unlock the human spirit in every single person, everybody's a billionaire, a billionaire in their own right. So I think that's probably what he meant. And that's what I'm also saying. We're all extraordinary. We're all ordinary and we have the opportunity to be extraordinary.
Ordinary People Making Extraordinary Commitments
00:26:33
Speaker
So how was it that The Hunger Project brought such diverse people as Werner Earhart, Buckminster Fuller, and John Denver together to create this? I mean, can you help us understand how that came to be? Well, I had a little bit of a hand in introducing Bucky to Werner because I was working for Est at the time.
00:27:02
Speaker
Werner was my, you know, primary teacher, you know, in Buddhism, they say root teacher. And for me, I would say in transformation, Werner is my root teacher, Werner Erhard, who founded Esten, the landmark work, and the Hunger Project. And when we were, when I was working at Est, I noticed with my friend Ron Landsman, my buddy, we noticed that Buckminster Fuller's grandson was going through the Est training.
00:27:31
Speaker
And both Ron and I were huge fans of Buckminster Fuller. And when we realized that his grandson, Jamie Snyder, was going through the EST training, we decided to contact Jamie and see if we could set up a meeting with Buckminster Fuller and Werner Erhart. They had never met. And we both felt that these two men, if they met, a miracle would occur.
00:27:57
Speaker
And so we had a hand, I'll say, in creating an environment or a clearing for the two of them to meet. And when Bucky and Werner met, they were going to meet for, you know, my memory is that they had a meeting that was cleared on Werner's schedule and Bucky's schedule for two hours. But once they met, both of them canceled everything for the next couple of days and they spent two or three days together and realized that they were both
00:28:27
Speaker
destined to do something remarkable, earth-shattering, historic, together. And that's when they started talking about ending hunger. And Werner was already studying hunger as one of the things that he wanted to possibly have the EST graduates address. Because the EST training, at that time, there were 75,000 people who had taken that program. And they had become a little bit
00:28:56
Speaker
self-absorbed. We used to call ourselves s-holes. We were so enthusiastic about the transformation we've experienced that we went around talking about it to everybody else in a way that was a little bit arrogant. And Werner felt we needed a project or an initiative that was much larger than just transforming our own lives. And so he was studying the hunger issue as a possible
00:29:25
Speaker
pathway for the S graduates to take their transformation and their human potential and dedicate it to something larger than their own self-realization. And then he met Bucky and Bucky and Werner really coined this phrase, really came from Bucky, that a little individual can make a difference that can impact all humanity. And that was the beginning of really the idea
00:29:54
Speaker
that we could end world hunger, not just alleviate suffer, but actually take on an issue that is actually an integrity issue, not a food issue. An integrity issue in the way that we were relating to each other that we would allow on a planet, at that time four billion people, a billion people to go hungry all the time on a planet that was awash with food.
00:30:17
Speaker
And, you know, redistributing was of course important and, you know, irrigation and farming important. Yes, extension services important, but ultimately it said that there was a lack of integrity in the human family's relationship with each other in itself. And so the hunger project was born to address that and to transform that. And so Bucky had a huge
00:30:42
Speaker
huge role in the founding of The Hunger Project. The technical founders of The Hunger Project are John Danver, Bob Fuller, and Werner Erhard, because those were the three people who were in the room when Werner Erhard committed to end world hunger on February 14, 1977. But he had just finished a series of meetings with Bucky. So I consider Bucky a founder of The Hunger Project as well. And I was around
00:31:09
Speaker
and useful and an instrument of having those meetings take place. Wow, I really thank you for revealing those details to me and to the people that listen to this podcast because this is living history. This is something that really inspires someone like me
00:31:37
Speaker
to think about how I
Personal Reflections and Redefining Masculinity
00:31:39
Speaker
want to go and make a difference that's larger than myself. And I'm 55 years old right now and I still think that I'm not grown up. I don't have all the answers figured out. There are things that I'm working on that are very important to me. And when I hear about folks like you, folks like Buckminster Fuller, folks like Robert Kiyosaki,
00:32:04
Speaker
John Denver, Werner. It's just inspiring because it gives me impetus to keep going with the things that I believe are important. I run
00:32:19
Speaker
In addition to my business, I run a men's organization, and some of the work in that organization is based on the work Werner did back in the 70s on relationship and men and women. I think there was a course, I never took it, and I wish I had. What was it called? Money, sex, and power, or was it men, sex, and power, and women, sex, and power? Yeah, something like that.
00:32:45
Speaker
That work apparently, a derivative of it was licensed to a man named Justin Sterling, who then created programs for men and women called the Sterling Men's Weekend, which I did in the Sterling Women's Weekend. And for me, it's important right now to help men because I think today a lot of men are unsure how to be a man in this world.
00:33:09
Speaker
And I was talking to a fellow today who loves our group and is stepping away from it because he just can't commit the time that it's going to take for him to get what he needs out of it. But one thing he said to me before we ended our conversation was, what you're doing here,
00:33:27
Speaker
matters and it matters a great deal and it's important that you keep it up and he said there's a real need for it and he also said that I think you could before you know it grow this into an organization of a thousand men and five thousand men and my eyes kind of popped when he said that and the reason they popped was because you know right now we're
00:33:53
Speaker
18, 19 men, and it's wonderful. They're 18 great men. And I have a podcast for men separate from this that I do. But the idea of being able to make a difference for 1,000 men, 5,000 men, and what that's going to do to their families, what's that going to do in terms of their ability to be better providers? What's that going to do in terms of their ability to be better protectors of the family? What's that going to do to their ability to be better members of the community?
00:34:23
Speaker
And there's so many people out there that are putting themselves out as gurus from them these days. And some of these people have gotten a massive following, and I listen to what they have to say to men, and I just go, no, man, I hope young men aren't listening to you because you're wrong about what you think makes a high-value man. There's this statement that's going around that what makes a high-value man today is a man who makes a lot of money, has abs,
00:34:50
Speaker
and can sleep with a lot of women. That's their thing. And they've got hundreds of thousands of people following their work, watching what they have to do. And I'm like, no, no, this is nuts. Yeah. When I was 17, I thought that was great. When I was 21, I thought, yeah, great. But no.
00:35:10
Speaker
That's not what makes a high value man. And so this fella said, so Baloo, we call each other by our last names. Baloo, what do you think makes a high value man? And I go, okay, well, I think it's three things. One is he keeps his word and he doesn't take it back when it's inconvenient, when someone gives him a better offer than the offer he has on the table, he still keeps his word. That means he can be counted upon. And the second thing is he's loyal.
00:35:36
Speaker
You'll do what he said, and you'll stick with the people that matter to him. And thirdly, he takes personal responsibility for his life. That's what makes a high value. It doesn't matter how much money he makes. How much money he makes is completely irrelevant. And I love money. Listen, I'm a capitalist. You know what I mean? 100%. I believe in all that. But for me,
00:36:00
Speaker
On my tombstone, I wanted to say that I was a good father, I was a good husband, and that I did something to help other people, to help other men in particular. And so when I hear about what you've done, what Buckminster Fuller did, what Bob Fuller did, what John Denver did, what Werner did, it gives me the courage to continue with what I'm doing, so thank you.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. Well, I feel that in our lives, there's sometimes a misunderstanding that people that we consider great were born like that. And actually, one of the things that I'm trying to accomplish with the book I just wrote is that they were just born like the rest of us, but what made them extraordinary is they made a commitment larger than their own life.
00:37:00
Speaker
Bucky was suicidal when he was 27. He almost took his own life because he was an alcoholic. He had been thrown out of Harvard. He had lost his job. His wife had a baby and he couldn't support his family. Then he made a commitment to live a life. He considered himself a throwaway human. He thought, if I am a throwaway human and I can take this throwaway man and make a commitment that
00:37:30
Speaker
an experiment, can I make a difference that would impact all humanity? And that turned his life around. And when I think about Jane Goodall, she was just a young British girl who in her teenage years went to Africa with her mom and she made this big commitment and then she became a great scientist. But she didn't start out that way. When I think about John Denver, I knew him. He was
00:37:57
Speaker
He was a kid who loved playing the guitar and singing songs and then he made a commitment that his music would, he would create music that would stir the soul of people who heard it and that the words he would write would have them rethink the possibility of being human. And if you listen to his songs, they're all about that. So it's an extraordinary commitment
00:38:23
Speaker
that reaches back into your life and makes you into the person who can fulfill it. It's not like you're extraordinary and then you make an extraordinary commitment. No, you're ordinary. And then you make an extraordinary commitment. You make a commitment larger than yourself. Your life starring you sort of fades into the background and your life becomes used by the commitment you make that's larger than your own life.
00:38:47
Speaker
and it reaches back into your life and turns you into the person you need to be to fulfill it. And that's really how it works. You think about Malala, Amanda Gorman, Greta Thunberg, these three young women that for me are so inspiring. And here they are so young, so courageous that they found their commitment to a life larger than themselves early on.
00:39:16
Speaker
And we're humbled by their power. And it's the commitment that gives you the power. It's not like it's not in everybody, it is in everybody, but it takes something to unleash it, to unlock it. And that's what my book is about. And I think that's probably what your program is about, because we all long for that. But it's like we think
00:39:43
Speaker
that these people are different than us, but they're not. They're just like you and me, and they make a big commitment, and that changes everything. Well, that's a nice segue into your book, so let's talk about your book. What made you decide to write this book at this stage?
Living a Committed Life: Inspiration Behind the Book
00:40:00
Speaker
Well, I have a very fortunate
00:40:05
Speaker
I'm very fortunate to be a friend of Jack Canfield and he wrote the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and sold a billion copies of Billy with a Beat. And he and I are friends and he heard me tell some of my stories. I have a lot of stories with all the work that I've done. And he said to me, Lynn, you've got to write another book.
00:40:27
Speaker
You've got to get these stories out into the world. And I said to Jack, I can't do it. I'm an activist. I'm on the field. I don't have time to write a book. I'm not a solitary person. I'm on the playing field. I'm working on the Amazon with indigenous people. And he said, look, I'll make it easy for you. You come to my house in Santa Barbara. He lives in Santa Barbara. I'll get 30 people in my living room. You and I,
00:40:51
Speaker
We'll sit in front of them and I'll interview and you can tell story after story after story after story after story. We'll get a caterer. We'll feed and water people so that they can just stay there and be your audience until you're done. And if it takes one day or two days or three days, I'm going to get it out of you. And then we'll have it all transcribed and that'll be the beginning of a book. And so he did that. And I told 167 stories in three days.
00:41:19
Speaker
And they got transcribed. And then we, we being my collaborative writer, Mary Chase, and I shaped it into the book called Living a Committed Life. And we started to realize that some of the stories were distinguishing a particular set of principles. So the book is organized by turning breakdown into breakthrough, the distinction between change and transformation, how to find your calling,
00:41:48
Speaker
how to build an ecosystem that supports you so that you can fulfill a purpose larger than yourself. But it's all through stories, stories about Van Jones, stories about Jane Goodall, stories about people in the rainforest that I've worked with, stories about myself, stories about my heroes and heroines, stories about Oprah.
00:42:11
Speaker
So it's really a book of stories that demonstrate that anybody and everybody has within them the capacity to live a committed life. And so Jack Canfield deserves a lot of credit. I was just on his podcast yesterday. He deserves all the credit, really, for getting me to write the book. And then Mary Chase, my collaborative writer who helped me put it into
00:42:38
Speaker
something that people would read. So that's the answer to that question. Those two people made it happen. So Jack was on my show, got back in 2019, and he's a great man. He's a great man. He's a great movie. I've done, with this podcast, we're over 460 episodes in. Wow. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot.
00:43:07
Speaker
So I think his episode is one of my top 10 all-time favorites. He makes everything so practically accessible. He so knows how to speak to people so that they come away with, oh, I'm going to do a gratitude journal now, or, oh, I'm going to do step one, step two, step three, and I'll have a vision board, and then I'll be able to live inside of that vision. He's so practical.
00:43:34
Speaker
and I really appreciate that. He knows how to move people from ideals to action and I love that. He's a master, a master. He is, he is.
00:43:49
Speaker
Raymond has been on my show. He was my very first guest when I was nobody. Nobody had heard of me. I approached Raymond because I was his fitness coach when he did the North Pole race. I'm the guy who got him ready. Oh, you were? Yeah, that was how I got to know Raymond.
00:44:08
Speaker
up and down those lights and stairs. Oh yeah, that's me. That's me. Oh my God, you did that? I did that. Two years. Two years. Oh my God. It was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. That was incredible. Did you go with them to the North Pole? I didn't go with them to the North Pole. You know, the way the
00:44:31
Speaker
way the race was set up, you had to apply to get into the race. I had no idea of any of this until Raymond did it and he got back to me. Raymond was
00:44:45
Speaker
Raymond had a race partner already. And at the time, like I'm from Iran, okay? So I don't do cold. I know I live in Canada, but I don't do cold. I do the heat, man. Like my lady, she's a Canadian girl. And when she's at my house, she wants to open the window in the winter. And I say, are you nuts? I'm turning up the heat girl.
00:45:04
Speaker
I like it when it's 30 degrees centigrade. To me, that's comfortable temperature. Okay. So, you know, at this stage in my life, I might consider doing something like that. I'll think about it. But when I called him and I said, look, I'm launching this podcast. Would you honor me and be my first guest? He was an immediate yes. Like, Raymond is a yes 99% of the time to whatever I ask of him, which is one of the most amazing things. And it was a fantastic episode.
Value of Social Capital and Connections
00:45:32
Speaker
But
00:45:33
Speaker
Many years later, you know, that was in 2016. Our first episode came out, I think, in June 2016. We were recorded in April and came out in June. But many years later, we recorded an episode about the polar race.
00:45:48
Speaker
And that has got to be my second favorite episode of all time. And Raymond was amazing. He's the one who introduced me to Jack. He introduced me to you. He's introduced me to Joe Vitale of The Secret. He's introduced me to Jack's partner in chicken soup, Mark Victor Hansen, who came on twice with his wife and his son-in-law.
00:46:13
Speaker
And it's been great. It's been great. Incredible people make incredible things happen. That's one of the things that I've learned in this life. You know, have you ever heard of a young man who unfortunately passed away at 33, same time as Jesus? It was Arian. He looked a bit like Jesus too. By the name of Stephen Arneo, does that name ring any bells for you?
00:46:34
Speaker
No, I've never heard of him. No. So Stefan was one of Raymond's earliest book writing clients. He wrote his first book with Raymond, you know, when Raymond launched his book program and
00:46:46
Speaker
Stephan, by 1933, had built two multi-million dollar companies, and he also, in real estate and in coaching, and then he also started to write about men in manhood. He wrote a book called Hard Times Create Strong Men. And I'll tell you the story of Stephan and what he said, which was very powerful.
00:47:09
Speaker
was one night—it was Valentine's Day 2021—my lady and I had had a beautiful evening together, and she went back to her place. And I went to bed. I was tired. It was a lovely night, and I was ready to crash, fall asleep. For one of three times that I can remember in my life, God spoke to me directly.
00:47:33
Speaker
He said, wake up. And I was instantly awake from almost asleep. And he said, look up, Stefano, go on Amazon. Now, when I look people up, I never look him up on Amazon. You know what I mean? I maybe look him up on Facebook. I maybe look him up on LinkedIn, Instagram, never Amazon. It's not the first place I go to. But he said, look him up on Amazon. So I went on Amazon. First book that showed up was Hard Times Create Strong. And he said, buy it. So I bought the book. What's the name of it? Hard Times. Hard Times Create Strong Men.
00:48:02
Speaker
It's from a little poem written by a post-apocalyptic novelist named Jeff Michael Hoppe, who I also got to know. Because of Stefan and reading his book, I reached out to him and I asked him to come on my show and he came on my show two or three times as well.
00:48:19
Speaker
it goes something like this. It goes, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. And Stefan said, we're in the fourth turning, right? The last of the four, weak men, so it's time for like the hard times to create the strong men. But he wrote a book about sales called The Close, the seven level close. And in it, he talks about
00:48:44
Speaker
He was 30 years old when he wrote this. This 30-year-old kid was into making money as this crazy thought leader. It just blew me away. He talks about the three forms of capital. And he said, well, the first form is real capital, money, the good stuff. And he said, your money's important, but everybody thinks this is the only form of capital I should focus on. And he said, no, no, no, there's two other forms of capital as important as real capital.
00:49:08
Speaker
And the next one was intellectual capital. So what you know, your expertise, your thought leadership, right? So I'm in the thought leader game and you are a thought leader. So you understand that your expertise can help people can make a difference. Real intellectual capital is important. But then he talked about what I believe is the most important type of capital and that's social capital. And that's who you know, your network, your connections, the people you love, the people that love you and
00:49:36
Speaker
Raymond Aaron is someone that I love and who loves me and because I started working with Raymond and I was his fitness coach, he persuaded me to join his monthly mentor program. I got to meet you then when you came to speak there and I was very moved by what you did but
00:49:54
Speaker
That started my journey of success. And I went from a almost broke guy who was working for himself and at the time was newly married and had a baby and whatnot.
00:50:08
Speaker
Do a pretty successful businessman who then ended up writing nine books and has two podcasts and is doing a business. And right now that business is coming to a place where I think it's going to be a lot more lucrative and it's going to make a bigger impact, but also doing something that really feeds my soul. You know how you spoke about money.
00:50:29
Speaker
and marrying that with what matters to your soul and your book. That's why I thought your book, The Soul of Money, is one of the most powerful books in the world. I think that everybody should read that book. By the way, that book is listed in Patrick Bet-David's list of top 100 books. Do you know who Patrick is? Have you heard of Patrick? No. He has a channel called Valuetainment and
00:50:57
Speaker
Anyways, he's an Iran. He's like me. He's a Christian, Iranian, Assyrian, came to the U.S. as a refugee from Iran, ended up joining the U.S. Army, and then started a business and started the Valuetainment Channel, grew his business and insurance to a certain size.
00:51:15
Speaker
His niche was immigrants. He brought in immigrant agents into his business, people from Iran, from the Philippines, and he said, like he talked about this once, he said, the average insurance agent in America is a 54-year-old white man married with four kids, and the average insurance agent in PHP, people helping people, his agency is a 34-year-old Latina woman.
00:51:42
Speaker
who's about to have our first child. Like I was wild. Like that's how clear he was on that. And he sold that company. What's his name? Patrick Bette David. And his channel is called Valuetainment. So I got to find a way to get you connected with him. I'm trying to get on a show myself right now. So Patrick, put your book in this list of top 100 books.
00:52:09
Speaker
You know, he's on Instagram and maybe you get your, um, your, your, your assistant Mickey to reach out and say, Hey, you ought to interview Lynn on your channel. Cause he's got millions and millions of people that listen to him and he's brought people on his show. He's brought mafia kingpins on his show. He's brought basketball players. He's brought, um,
00:52:32
Speaker
People involved in the social profit world like you when he's brought multi-billionaires in the show like he just brings in all kinds of incredible people and To me social capital who you know is the most important capital in the world.
Accessing Lynn Twist's Work and Conclusion
00:52:45
Speaker
Yeah, really capital in the world and Frankly, if you have good social capital, you'll acquire great real capital pretty quickly and you're smart about it. So These are for me why I think your book matters so much and I'm so glad that you wrote it is because
00:53:03
Speaker
I think everybody needs a cause bigger than themselves. If all we're doing is living for ourselves, we're in the basement of life. We're in the basement of life. We can only go into the penthouse of life and on top of the roof and fly when what we're all about is so much more than us. My problems are really not very interesting or important or relevant.
00:53:31
Speaker
And when I get caught up in those, I'm nobody you want to be around. I'm an obnoxious, nasty, pushy, bullying kind of a dude, but
00:53:40
Speaker
When I'm thinking about the difference that I want to make, then I'm a really interesting person to be around and I'm somebody you want to spend time with and hang out with because it's not about me at that point. And so thank you for writing your book. I'm going to get a copy and I'm going to tell everybody here that they should purchase not a copy just for themselves, but 10 copies and give it away to the people they love and their clients.
00:54:09
Speaker
So Lynn, if someone wants to get ahold of your book and find out about the work that you do and engage with you and all that, what is the best way? Uh, well, uh, go to soul of money.org. S O U L O F M O N E Y.org or, uh, Pachamama P A C H A M A M a.org.
00:54:38
Speaker
pachamama.org is the work we do in the Amazon rainforest and there's all these beautiful courses that are free about waking up to the climate crisis and playing your rightful role and also learning from indigenous people of the Amazon. And then Soul of Money is where I leave courses
00:54:58
Speaker
on fundraising, on transforming your relationship with money and life. I do a whole series of courses called Sophia Circle for Women. I'm doing a summit, sorry, an intensive called Awakening Women on June 17th and 18th. I don't know if that's before or after this podcast is produced, but there's all kinds of wonderful things on there.
00:55:28
Speaker
And then I didn't write nine books like you did. I wrote two, The Soul of Money, which you've referenced. And then the most recent is Living a Committed Life. And both of them are available on all the different online bookstores and hopefully the bookstore is in your town or in your world. And that's how to find me. Thank you.
00:55:55
Speaker
We're gonna make sure we put all of that in the show notes and
00:56:00
Speaker
Offline, I'll connect you to some of the other podcasters that I know that I think might be fun for you to go on their shows and speak to folks about what you do. I think they're all gonna love having you on. So let me make sure that I do that. I'll connect with you and we'll make sure all that happens. And listener, Lynn Twist is truly an example of what a global thought leader looks like. And she's using her thought leadership to make a massive impact
00:56:27
Speaker
in the world, and she's using her thought leadership to inspire other people to use their thought leadership to create success for themselves and to make the world a bigger and better place. To me, as someone who left tyranny when I was a young boy in Iran and came to the free West,
00:56:47
Speaker
It's amazing and wonderful when there's good people out there that want to make a difference in the world because, let me tell you something, living in the Middle East, it was an honor to live among the wonderful people of Iran and it got fantastic, unbelievable human qualities. But unfortunately, the folks who lead that nation and lead far too many nations in the world don't, and they're more interested in
00:57:14
Speaker
being in charge and being in control. And so one of the things that I am very committed to is that one day Iran will be free. And the men and women of Iran are going to get to express themselves and live the beautiful life that they're intended to do. I don't know if you were paying attention last year, Lynn, when that beautiful young woman in Iran was murdered for the crime of being outside with her hair uncovered, Nassau Amini,
00:57:42
Speaker
And, you know, the world needs to do wonderful things to reshape itself as you're doing and the world needs people to stand up for for freedom and the freedom to be yourself and be able to go outside and have your hair uncovered for crying out loud. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And on that note, Lynn.
00:58:03
Speaker
What are your top three expert action steps? These are your best pieces of advice in bullet point form that you believe will make the biggest difference for my listeners. Okay. Uh, number one, listen to what breaks your heart and what makes your heart sing. And those two things will help you discover what is your calling.
00:58:32
Speaker
what you're being called to be and do in this lifetime, at this special time in history, so that you can make a commitment to something larger than your own life. That's number one. Number two is live in the profound experience of gratitude. Be grateful for everything, gratefulness or gratefulness.
00:58:59
Speaker
is the key to really understanding who you are and what your life is about. It keeps you from complaining or feeling put upon or being the victim of anything. If you really just drop into what are you most grateful for, really every single day, waking up in the morning, going to bed at night, really practicing gratitude. It's a muscle.
00:59:29
Speaker
And number three, talk about language, what you love. Actually the words I love, I love this restaurant. I loved that movie. I love being on your podcast. I loved our conversation. I love the sweater I'm wearing today. I love it that it's a little bit cloudy and that we might have some more rain. Talk about what you love and use the words I love wherever it applies.
01:00:00
Speaker
It deepens your capacity to love. It creates actual little, little, little rivulets in your brain so that you're more and more and more in love with life because that's who you really are. Someone in love with life. Um, so a purpose larger than yourself is number one, larger than your self, starring you. Number two, uh,
01:00:29
Speaker
go out of your way to express and give and feel grateful for anything and everything, gratitude. And number three, speak about, name constantly what you love. And when people hear that, it touches them. Even if you say, I just love the movie, Wakanda, even if they didn't like it, they love knowing that someone loved it.
01:00:54
Speaker
That's a powerful part of creating the life that we all aspire to have with us and around us and in the world. Those are three super powerful expert action steps. I wrote them all down. They're amazing. Lin Twist, an honor to have had you on the show. God bless your heart. Thanks for coming.
01:01:15
Speaker
Thank you too, Nikki. It was a wonderful being with you. Bless you and bless everybody who's listening. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Bless you too. And that wraps up another exciting episode of the podcast, The Thought Leader Revolution. To find out more about today's incredible guests, the one and only Lin Twist, go to the show notes at thethoughtleaderrevolution.com or wherever you happen to listen to this podcast, be it iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon, Google Play, or what have you. Until next time, goodbye.
01:01:46
Speaker
This episode has been brought to you by eCircleAcademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.