Intro

You're listening to episode number 76 of the Transform Your Life From the Inside Out podcast. This is the Monday Q&A episode and I answer Vivek's question. And his question is, “How can I be rich and spiritual at the same time?” The reason that I picked this question is because even beyond his question, so many of you are dealing with money issues, that I thought I could help many of you with this particular episode, so, keep listening.

Hi, I'm Jim Fortin, and you're about to start transforming your life from the inside out with this podcast. I'm widely considered the leader in subconscious transformation and I've coached super achievers all around the world for over 25 years. Here, you're going to find no rah rah motivation and no hype because this podcast is a combination of brain science, transformational psychology, and ancient wisdom, all rolled into one to take your life to levels you've never thought possible. If you're wanting a lot more in life, to feel better, to heal, to have peace of mind, to feel powerful and alive, and to bring more abundance and prosperity into your life, then this podcast is for you. Because you're going to start learning how to master your mind and evolve your consciousness. And when you do that, anything you want, then becomes possible for you. I'm glad you're here.

Stop Equating Money With Morality

So the question is, “How can I be rich and spiritual at the same time?” So obviously, in his mind, he thinks they are not compatible. And, you know, I don't get that. I don't and the first place that I go is, what is the relationship between spirituality and wealth? Meaning that, you know, if you look at the Great Grand Design with the Great Grand Design being that you know what all of you on that planet are going to be, you know, you're going to be spiritual, but you're all going to be broke. Or you're all going to be wealthy on the planet, but you're all not going to be spiritual. I mean, the argument doesn't work. And, you know, then when I look at it, I'm like, “Where did people even get that?” You know, the notion that you cannot, you know, be wealthy and spiritual at the same time. If I had to guess that notion comes from the Bible, and I don't know, I mean, I'm sure some of you probably have read different things or, you know, heard or know different things than I do. But, you know, I think the Bible says something like, and I honestly, I've heard it bazillion times in my life, I didn't go Google it. I didn't go look it up. I didn't look for the exact verbiage. But the Bible says something like, “Money is the root of all evil.” So I'm assuming that many people think that “Oh, if I have money, then I'm evil,” or “I'm not a good person” or whatever. And yeah, a little levity here, I saw a meme once. And the meme said that if money is the root of all evil, then how come so many churches and TV preachers are asking for it? So and by the way, I myself, consider myself you know, more cosmological, which I've talked about in other episodes before, but I have a lot of friends from college that are preachers and they even got a kick out of it as well. So if they didn't get offended, why would anyone else? And when I look at the relationship between spirituality and wealth, to me, it's the opposite of what Vivek is postulating. The way he poses the question is that the two are not compatible. And the way in you know that they're diametrically opposed. And the way that I look at it is that they are the same thing. They are absolutely compatible.

You know, the way that I look at it is, if you're truly spiritual, you would embrace that and you would understand. And I want to be careful of dogma here, but if you're truly spiritual, and of course, it depends on what degree and how you define that. But you know, spirituality is connection with the essence, the Divine, the Great Grand Design, the Great Grand Mystery, the quantum field, and if you're truly spiritual then you're wanting to connect with that. And all those the things that I just said God, or the Great Grand Design or the quantum field or whatever, these are all very wealthy things, entities not entities but wealthy beingness because we live in an abundant universe. So to be truly spiritual, and I don't mean in a dogmatic way. And when I say dogma, I mean just the stuff that people put in books and all this kind of stuff over the millennia, but to truly be spiritual, is to be one with the cosmos and the cosmos is wealthy. So if we're truly going to be spiritual, then we're going to actually allow wealth into our lives.

You know, when I read the question here, and by the way, my customer service person this morning, this afternoon, Toni, she said that we've gotten a new influx of really good questions, so I'm looking forward to getting to those as soon as I can for the Monday calls. And thank you guys for sending them in. But when I read when Vivek's question I was thinking about Wallace Wattles. And Wallace Wattles was a man who wrote a book I don't know, about 100 years ago. I read it many, many times, many years ago. And the book is, “The Science of Getting Rich.” And one of the things that he says in the book is that the universe is always expanding, which is true, at least the universe that we're living in.

The universe is always expanding and I started thinking about a concept in NLP (neuro linguistic programming) is that humans are always expanding as well because they want to go to higher states. And if you're not expanding, I use that word a little loosely, but they're always wanting to go to a higher better state. And if you look at a baby, for example, a baby you know a baby might be crying, or you know, for a couple of reasons. One is because the baby is hungry or it wants you know, love and to be held. Or, you know, he or she wants their diaper changed. But notice they're wanting to go to a higher state. And when I look at that it's kind of akin in my mind, the universe expanding, we want to, you know, we want expansion as human beings. And to demonstrate that to you. And I guess what I was saying there, it's kind of akin to wanting to go to higher emotional states. I mean, if you look at your own life, seriously, no matter what your position in life, and I don't think it's universal, because it doesn't apply to everyone, but if you're listening to this podcast, as a matter of fact, it does apply to you. Because see, you're listening to this podcast because you want to transform and expand your life. I mean, I'm sure you're not saying “You know, huh, we got 30 minutes to kill that, you know, this Jim guy, I don't believe a thing that he says. And I don't even like the guy. I don't know him. I don't like him, but I think I'm gonna kill 30 minutes.” No, you listen, because you're seeking expansion. And then what I look at is we can expand all areas in very positive ways in our life.

So I look at, you know what bringing wealth into your life is creating expansion. And the reason that I say that is, well, I'm going to get to that in just a moment. I'll say that. But where I want to go right now, is I want to segue here and I want to talk about what precedes the expansion. And I'm curious about Vivek and many people I see this because I've coached so many people over the years is what keeps so many people from wealth and a lot of abundance is matters of worth. So many people believe that they are not worth the money.

I don't know I think I'd mentioned in a recent not recent, but one of the podcasts. I was walking outside the supermarket one night about 10 o'clock, and this guy had stopped me in the parking lot. And I knew he's gonna ask me for money, and I'm very generous when people ask, and no, I'm not enabling people when I give them money, I do it, you know, I share money judiciously because I put it out there. But I know that when I put it out there, I'm creating expansion in the world and that's the reason that I do it. But the guy asked me for money, and I didn't have any money on me. And I went and looked at my console in my car, and I had $1. And so I walked by him, and I'm like, “Well, here you go, I have a buck.” And then I went inside to the ATM, and I got him money, and I brought it back out. And I don't remember how much it was, it was $40 or $60, or something I don't remember. And I gave him the money. And he looked at me and he goes, “Are you sure?” And I'm like, “Well, of course, I'm sure. I mean, here, take the money.” He's like, “No, I can't take the money.” And I'm like, it's, and by the way, guys, I'm driving a Porsche, and he sees me get in and out of it. And he's like, “Well, I don't want to take your cash. I don't want to take the last of your money.” Dude, I'm driving a Porsche. Do you think the $40 or $60 bucks is the last of my money? No, but notice, that's what so many people do is they actually say “No, I can't take that” and they'll say things like, you know, “Are you sure?” Well, the course i'm sure. But I want you to look at your own life, how you cut off your own supply by feeling that you're not worthy or you can't accept or you can't allow something into your life. So where I'm going here is that so many people do not feel worthy of money and material success.

I want to point out there also is when I was young, I'm 54 now and when I was young, I obviously wasn't on the path that I'm on now. And I started making a lot of money very quickly out of college. And one of my business partners, my predominant business partner was a sports celebrity. He was a first round draft choice into the NFL, the National Football League here in the US. And I was always around a lot of very, very wealthy, well-known people for a few years of my of my life in my 20s and doing a lot of air quote “jet set” things and playing golf with celebrities and celebrity golf tournaments and fancy cars and all that stuff. And back then that stuff even though I was a kid, back then that made me feel or made me think that I was successful. And this day and age where I work from, is that I do not use wealth to define me. I allow wealth to come into my life. And I'll tell you why in just a moment. But I do not allow wealth to define me. It's simply a tool. And I'm going to put that on the side burner, and I'll come back to that in just a minute.

But something I want to share with you please listen very carefully. Your level of wealth in your life is directly related to your self worth. There's been research on this, and even in one of my programs, one of the modules I ask a question, will you be wealthy? And I ask you that question. Will you be wealthy? And what I look at is you will be wealthy to the degree that you allow it in and feel like you deserve the wealth. Let me give you an example here in business. What you think you're worth will determine especially if you're an online marketer, a coach, a trainer, anything like that. I mean, some of you are in businesses like mortgage and obviously you can't control mortgage rates or maybe real estate and you can't control home prices, but look at you guys that will let me go here for a second. Let me say this and well, I'll come back to real estate is what you think you're worth determines your offering in the marketplace. So the way that I look at it is you know, let's say you're a real estate agent. Are you selling $250,000 homes or are you selling 10, 20, 30, 40 $50 million homes? That's all directly related to your self worth.

Many years ago out of college when I was getting my NLP (neuro linguistic programming) training, I remember that I was working in a restaurant. It wasn't high end. It was probably I don't even know, guys, you know, I mean, the value per person that ate there, I forgot those words we used to use in the industry. But maybe it was $12, $15 to eat there. And one night after my shift, I'm like, what, you know, I mean, I made, I made $65 tonight. Now, again, this was like 30 years ago. But I'm like, I made $65 tonight, and I've been working for eight hours for $65. Now, of course, I had two college degrees and went to a good school. And this wasn't applicable to what I was doing to my college degree or any of that. I was in limbo in between finding my way and also getting my Neuro Linguistic training, etc. And I said to myself in that moment, I said, you know, if I'm going to sling hash, and that was just the word that I used. If I'm going to sling hash, I'm going to go to the most expensive restaurant in town and work there. Why? Because I'm still going to work eight hours or nine or whatever it is. But you know, what, if I'm going to do the same behaviors and run my butt off and work for all these hours and be on my feet and serve drinks and all this, then why wouldn't I work in the most expensive restaurant in this town, which back then was Atlanta, Georgia. And so I did, I left this seafood house that I worked at, and I went to one more place that wasn't most expensive. And then I hopped up to the most expensive a few months later. But I've always, not always that's incorrect. For many years, I've worked from the place that you know what, I'm going to actually put high value on my worth because what I do for people creates transformation or sales or business or things in our life. Why wouldn't I charge for that? Why wouldn't I compensate myself for the expansion that I create in the world? So where I work from is I go out in the world, and I say, let me create as much expansion in the world as I possibly can. And also let me receive compensation for the expansion that I create.

So I give you all of that because I know there's many entrepreneurs that are listening to this podcast and you want to charge what you're worth and so many people under charge. And the reason why is because they have low self worth, they think that “Oh, if it's expensive to me, then other people wouldn't pay that investment.” And that's not true. I'm going to actually come back here and I want to go too far, because I could do a whole podcast on marketing and self worth, and sales and self worth and all of that. But what I want to share with you is, will you be wealthy? Well, that will be determined by the value that you hold for yourself.

And you've heard me many times talk about identity. Now, let me give you another example here a true story. I'm going to not mention some names to and I'm kidding here, like on TV to protect the innocent, but I'm just kidding here, but many years back, I used to speak at the same events as Donald Trump, well when I say many years back it's probably 15 years ago. And it was let's say this, it was a real estate event that had many high end speakers there and then many breakouts sessions for people to learn things about investing in real estate. And I obviously because I spoke at the event as a representative of the company presenting the event, and so I was the representative of the event to well, anyway, I'm going to leave it at that. I'm being a little clandestine here for a reason not to mention names. But anyway, so the headliners of this event were Donald Trump, Tony Robbins, George Foreman, Susie Orman, Robert Kiyosaki, and some other significant names. And Donald Trump and this is a matter of public record. I mean, you can find it in the news, Google it whatever. Donald Trump was paid $1 million per speech. And he would usually close out the Sunday session. He was like the last speaker that would close it out. And he made a million dollars per speech. Now, I was talking to one of the principles that sponsored these events. And he said, Donald, he and I were having lunch and he goes, Donald wants more money. And this individual conveyed to me he said, but “You know, hey, Donald, we have Tony Robbins and Susie Orman and Robert, these other big names.” And Donald Trump said, “I don't care. I'm worth more.” Now. Interesting, I don't care. I'm worth more. These are real estate events. I am a real estate, well, he's really a licensing billionaire to be honest with it, all these buildings that have his name are simply he doesn't own the buildings, its licensing. But most people think that his wealth is in real estate, and it's not but the point is this is that he thought he was worth more.

So when it comes to your products or services, or what you do, whether you're a real estate agent or a mortgage broker, or whatever you do, what is your worth about what you do? I know in episode number nine, and by the way, episode number nine is also about money and if you've not listened to it, I highly encourage you to go back to it, is that you have to value the value that you bring to the marketplace. Consider that for a moment. And this is even for people that air quote, “work jobs” is you must, or you have to value, the value you bring to the marketplace. Because if you bring great value to the marketplace, but you don't value your value, you will undercharge for the value that you bring to the marketplace. So hopefully that makes sense to you.

Okay, so back to a conversation, a loop I opened a few minutes ago is I've never held the belief and I have been, I would say, metaphysical, spiritual, cosmological open for many years. Even in my early, even in my teens, I was reading things about the Rosicrucians, which is an ancient society. I've never ever held the belief that money is not compatible spirituality, because I've always recognized we live in a very, very abundant world and you know, there's abundance everywhere. And that's a whole different podcast I could do on abundance. So many people feel like they don't have any abundance in their life and oh my gosh I mean, you might have an abundance of health but not have money or you might have an abundance of look at this: I mean even water here in the US, we have an abundance in many places, other places not so much. But there's so much abundance in the world.

Now, I've never held the belief as I said that I couldn't be spiritual and wealthy at the same time. But, you know, I mentioned it in many places about identity and how I grew up and working class and all that. I did struggle with money for a lot of years. I learned long ago. And this is where I live from is that and I got this foundation from Wallace Wattles many years ago, is that I have a right I have a right to be rich. Seriously why not? I mean, I'm part of the cosmos. I live in this universe. I live on this planet. This planet, you know, even though we're destroying it is very, very wealthy. I have a right to be rich. And unlike when I was young, which I started telling a story earlier, and I said I'll get to it. When I was young. I used to use money to define me because I wanted other people to say, “Oh, look at Jim. He's successful,” which by the way, was a lack of self worth, because I was actually looking for other people's opinions, or, you know, other people to validate my worth. And I thought if I was successful, then guess what other people would validate me. I no longer work from that place, and I haven't for decades. And that, where I work from now, is that having money is a tool. And to give you an example of this, okay, so this podcast, and I think you guys last week, seriously, and if you haven't listened to last week's episode, is that we're on track in our very first year to hit over 1 million downloads with this podcast. And for the most part, I mean, maybe the team doesn't send it to me because any of you that email then it goes to the team. I don't see it unless they forward it to me. But for the most part, people will message on Instagram, they'll share the podcast, they'll send a quick message on Facebook, they'll send emails about how the podcast has helped them. Now, we're going here is that overall, this podcast helps many, many, many people. Now, where I'm going with this is that if I didn't have money, and I didn't bring in a lot of money, I have an entire team. I couldn't afford the entire team to do what they do to do, you know, everything with my website and our all of our marketing and our Instagram and, and all these things. I mean, I have multiple employees, and trust me, they all want to get paid. Now, if I did not bring in wealth, I could not afford to pay these people. So the way that I look at money is money is a tool. And it's a tool for me to help more people. It doesn't define who I am.

I mean, if you knew me, for example, if you know me, personally, quite literally, I've run around in flip flops, shorts and T shirts. When I was at 20 something year old guy, I was the one “Oh I have to have the Brooks Brothers suit and all the suits and all these kind of things and the nice cars and the high rise condo, and all that kind of stuff.” This day and age, I have a few nice things, a couple of nice homes. I drive a Porsche, which I've mentioned before. Just I drive it because it's fun. And to be candid, I even really, I mean, I went to look at a watch a while back is $12,000 bucks couple of months ago. And I don't even wear a watch. And I'm like, you know, why would I buy a watch for $12,000 bucks if I don't wear a watch. And there was a reason that I wanted to buy it because of the metal and because of the properties of the metal. And I'll leave it at that. But when I share with you is money doesn't define me, because you all heard we're not taking it with us, right? So I look at money as a tool.

Now, there there may be a little bit of a loophole in here, but I'm going to tell you this. If you're poor, you can't help a whole lot of people. And I've mentioned this in the podcast before and people will say well, Mother Teresa was poor. Oh no, no, no Mother Teresa herself might have been poor, but she had ait quote the richest corporation in the world behind her, the Catholic Church, which I believe they're also the largest landowner in the world, I've read somewhere could be incorrect, but I read that somewhere. But if you're poor, you can't even help yourself for the most part. If you're poor, how can you help other people if you can't even help yourself? And a good metaphor there is if you're looking at a homeless person who has no money, they're living on the streets. How many people can they help as opposed to Bill Gates? And how many billions of people can he help? So the way that I look at it is I have an obligation. I have an obligation to continue to attract wealth into my life, not so that I can have gold toilets and eat bonbons and truffles and private jets and all that kind of stuff, which I don't do anyway. I don't do any of that anyway, but I bring the wealth into my life so that I can reach more people so that I can do more Facebook ads, run more programs, and have more team members on my team so that we can all serve to help make the world a better place.

So what I want to share with you is that we are worthy of wealth you me, we're worthy of wealth. And when we use the wealth to create more expansion in people's lives, by the law of reciprocity, the universe returns that and creates more expansion in our lives. A little food for thought here. If you look at Vivek's premise, notice in the way that he asked the question, and the way that he's asking the question is that literally the exact question was, “How can I be rich and spiritual at the same time?”, which means by the way, he asked the question, he's holding a belief that they are not compatible. He cannot be rich and be spiritual at the same time.

What I want to point out here in segue just a little bit, is you hear me talk about this a lot on this podcast. Vivek learned those beliefs as a child. He learned them when he was 2,3, 4 or 5 years old. And also Vivek, I believe is Indian, the name. And then I asked well, how has culture affected his perhaps lifelong beliefs about money? So what I want to share with you and I want you to look at maybe this will bring it home, whatever or however you're dealing or bringing money into your life or not bringing money into your life right now, is not something you learned the last 24 hours. It's something that you learned when you were 2,3,4 or 5, up to eight years old. I know you've heard me say many times before is that we become who we are before about the age of eight years old, because the analytical part of the mind and the way the brain develops, is not developed before about the age of nine years old. So whatever is said to us goes right to the unconscious mind.

You know, I'm sure I've mentioned before also that and it's attributed a couple of things, a German psychologist, and also I'm sure he got it from Plato. But, or Aristotle one of those Greek dudes. But he said, “Give me a child until the age of eight and I will own him for a lifetime.” And so whatever beliefs that you got from your parents prior to the age of eight, and most of you, I'm going to tell you what you got, which I talked a lot about in episode nine, is “you've got to struggle” and “you got to work hard,” and “you got to put in the hours” and “you got to roll up this, you know, your sleeves, and blood, sweat and tears and struggle” and all this stuff that you learned. And it's all a bunch of nonsense. You know, to carry this a little bit further before we move on is look at your own life. What is your name? Bob, Susan, Mary, Jane, Vivek, Leticia, Jodi, you know, what is your name? The question, did you pick your name? No, there might be one of you out of all the people that listen, there might be one of you that said you “Heck yeah, I didn't like my name. It was Harold and I changed it to Stephen” or something. And of course, I'm just making that up. But, you know, one out of I don't know, every I don't know the numbers but wanted every lot of people change their name, but everyone else's keeps name they're given. What a lot of people do is they don't like the name they're given so they shorten it in some way. And they will actually tweak it in some way to to make it more appealing to themselves and other people. But the point I'm sharing with you is did you pick your name? Well probably no, and a lot of where you are in life right now, you didn't consciously pick. You actually air quote “picked it” when you accepted the beliefs which you didn't know you were accepting the beliefs from your parents when you were a child. So I just wanted to go there for a second. But I want you to look at your life and I really want you to understand that you are where you are, like Vivek about money, because of your earlier suffering. I'm sorry, not suffering of your earlier programming. And speaking of suffering, because I didn't want to ask, that's why I had suffering on the brain so to speak, is that you know, Henry David Thoreau, what was the exact quote something like “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.” And that is so accurate when I look out in the world, and we bring it to modern day here in the US. 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. I mean, that is daunting for me to even think about how the average American family even survives.

But I want to go the opposite direction there because Vivek had talked about spirituality and I call it cosmology, because many people turn spirituality into dogma as well. But you know, there's a video go look it up. It's on YouTube. And it has nothing to do with money or any of that, but it's just a really good perspective. And the video is by Carl Sagan, and the title is called “The Pale Blue Dot,” and the pale blue is planet Earth. And when you look at Planet Earth, it's just so majestical. I call it Pachamama. When you look at the planet from space, at least in pictures, there's no boundaries. There's no national flags, there's no religions. I mean, it's just this pale blue dot. And what I want to share with you is this where I'm going, is that there's no rules. There are no rules on this planet. I mean, you're going to live and die. And you know, you don't die. You know what I mean by that you've listened long enough, most of you. But you know what, there are no rules. So you can have anything that you want, Vivek and the rest of you. And actually, you're more spiritual when you open up with an open heart and allow the abundance to come in.

A metaphor that I give my students a lot of times is this. I have not been in a lot, this is back when I used to think money was a big deal when I was younger, I live in Dallas, and I live in Sedona, Arizona and I remember that many times we would have lunch at the Four Seasons, and many of you have heard of the Four Seasons Hotel. I think it's a four star hotel. It's very expensive. The buffet was $75 a buffet per plate, and you got to the buffet and it's like, whoa, man, this is some food here. This is some like expensive stuff. I mean, they had crab legs and all that stuff. But imagine this. Look at your life. And imagine this. So let's imagine that I take you guys to the four seasons. And I say, Hey, you know what? Look at this buffet. It's 75 bucks a head, and you can have anything that you want on this buffet, knock yourself out. And then I go back to the table and I sit down, and then I watch you walk back. And candidly, when I watch you put your plate down. You just walked away from a buffet that had king crab legs and lobster and all this fine food. And what do you come back with? You come back with a bologna sandwich. No lobster, no caviar, no king crab. You come back with a bologna sandwich and you don't even have lettuce and tomato and mustard and mayonnaise on it. You have a bologna sandwich. So I want you to look at your wealth in your life and your abundance. Are you living on bologna sandwiches? Are you living on mac and cheese like we did in college? And most of us, many of us did back in college. Or are you having the king crab legs? So anyway, that's a matter of your consciousness. Go back and listen to number if you have if you haven't already. And if you have, go back and listen again to episode number nine, where I talked about how people actually use a law of attraction to repel money and abundance from them.

Now a question I have for you is. I alluded to it just a couple of minutes ago, and when you really let it sink in, you will find that it is true. Now I'm going to actually create a distinction here. When I say there are no rules about what you can ask for, there are no rules. Now there are laws. There are laws of physics that determine, you know, what we create and what we don't create in life, which I alluded to, you know with the law of attraction, episode number nine. But when it comes to there are rules or limits on what you can have, there are no rules. There are no limits on what you can ask for, and what you can attract. So consider that. So, the takeaway is just plain and simple. You know, Vivek asked “How can you be rich and spiritual at the same time?” And my answer your transformational takeaway this week is easy. Just be rich and spiritual at the same time, because they are the same thing.

Conclusion

Okay, that wraps up this episode and next week's episode, it's going to be a big episode for a lot of you guys. And I do believe I have to go back and look at notes. I do believe that we've already created a version of this episode. And to be candid, I have a marketing team,a video marketing team and they want all my podcasts to correspond with six months where the videos we shot. The reason I tell you that is I'm sure I've already created an episode like this but I will actually make this one different and give you some different perspective and different ways to look at it. But the next episode is about why control is an illusion. And I want to share some food for thought, from the buffet with you. Here's the thing. Are you ready? Control is an illusion. And when you get into control, you are controlled by the illusion of control. Okay, thanks for listening and I'll catch you over on the Wednesday episode, “Why control is an illusion.” Alright, stay well and talk to you later or catch you later. Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to this entire podcast. If you're the kind of person who likes to help others, then share this with your friends and family. You know, if you found value, they will too. So please share via your social media channels. Also, if you have questions, I'm here to assist. You can email me questions to support@jimfortin.com. And I may even use your question for a future podcast episode. Also, if you want transformational content like this daily, connect with me on Instagram, my Instagram name is @iamjimfortin. Finally I do have a personal request. I believe that we're all here to help others and to grow and evolve ourselves. Together, you and I, let's help more people. If you would, please leave a review on iTunes and a good one by the way. I'd be grateful and through your assistance together, we can transform more lives. Thanks for listening.