How to Actually Surrender (And Why It's Not Giving Up) | Ian Lopatin

I think for a while, I was afraid, fear, right?

You, when you kinda shut down and… I've built a lot of things in the past.

We talked about, I built a chain of yoga studios.

I sold the Lifetime Fitness.

We built Spiritual Gangster, which was a global brand, but

I was never the face of it.

I was behind and we would always put out people out front.

Yeah.

And I realize now with the launch of my book and what

we're doing, I have to be the voice of it and, and share the message.

I'm just learning as we go.

But I, for 53 years, I didn't post anything and over the last couple

months and putting it out there.

And I think it's improving.

I'm enjoying it.

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Let's talk.

Ah, welcome back, Mike Lindstrom.

My man, Scott Leese.

"What's Your Story?" this is gonna be a fun one, man.

Now, we're gonna have to call ourself out a little bit.

The last time we had this guy on, episode five, by the way, if you go back to

Apple, Spotify, this is on episode five.

And I'll let him talk about this in a second.

We were all brand new at this thing.

Yeah.

This was almost a year ago.

It was Wednesday.

Almost a year to the day.

It was Tuesday.

Tuesday this year, it was a year ago that we sat in the same studio.

This gentleman was sitting in the chair and I believe we were on the couch.

We were on the couch.

It was the opposite.

Yeah.

And he's a longtime friend of the show.

We came up with a new term.

It's called Friend of Mike and Scott.

It's FOMAS.

So you're part of the FOMAS crew.

So without further ado, Ian Lopatin, the original spiritual gangster, founder of

the clothing line Spiritual Gangster, that's only one moniker, by the way.

I'm gonna let him talk about what he's working on today.

So when we bring people back, Ian, people can go back and watch episode five.

They wanna hear the whole story.

UCLA, law school, med school, law school, undergrad, how you started the clothing

line, hip hop, now, if we wanna go back to that, some of them, that's fine.

But we wanna talk about the book, what you're working on with your

retreats, working on number two, that shirt you said, Stress Sober.

Two years of sobriety coming up, right?

I want you to speak to that.

You got lots to talk about.

So what's been going on in the world of Ian since we spoke?

Welcome back, my man.

Glad to be here with you guys.

Scott, Michael, thanks for having me back.

It's great to see first off how much you guys have really grown in

the last year and all your success.

It's really awesome

- Scott Leese: Appreciate that!

…to come back with you and see it at the beginning and

now see it how it's really just, you're doing some awesome work.

Thanks brother.

So thanks for having me.

Thank you.

So what's hot on your dashboard these days, man?

So I have my first book called The Way of a Spiritual

Gangster coming out 10-10, and it's taken me like eight years to write.

But I'm really excited about it.

So that's launching 10-10.

So go out and buy the book.

You can pre-order it on Amazon.

I've also created, live events business called Of Course Sanctuary,

where we're really bringing high frequency people together.

And we're creating high frequency containers to teach

people really how to live life.

We call it Stress Sober, but, there's really only two states

you can experience life from.

One's a stressful state, which 99 of the people are living from.

And the other ones we're calling a "stress sober" state.

And just like when you stop drinking, you don't manage your

drinking, you abstain from it.

So there's a way to really live life free of stress.

And in the stressful state, anxiety, fear, disease, all these things,

but in the stress sober state, miracles, serendipity, synchronicity.

So we're teaching people, one, how to move from living in stress to living

stress sober, or a beautiful state as my gurus call it, and teaching

people how to make that transition.

So it's not about, you can't achieve your way out of stress.

No, no amount of achievement or… And it's also not about managing it,

but it's really learning how to live life and enjoy it in the moment.

I think, we have a lot of friends who are very successful and they're some

of the most stressed-out people I know.

It's interesting because, when you walked in with this shirt,

your description of it right now is not what the first thing I thought of was.

The first thing I thought was, you can be stressed and still be sober.

Like you don't have to turn to substance when you're dealing with stress.

But I like the actual definition and description, the way you described it

so much better than the one I had in my head, which is like, "No, man, I'm totally

free of stress." That's so much better!

And I think, it's beautiful.

So I'm coming up on two years

Congrats, by the way.

And that's next week.

Yep.

And, it's been a huge thing for my life.

But, what you realize is the drinking is, it's a symptom.

It's not a drinking problem, it's a thinking problem.

And, another thing that I've realized is the opposite to addiction and

all this other stuff is connection.

And that's what we're doing here.

But a lot of people even, who aren't sober, but even people who get sober,

they still have tons of mental noise.

I spent six weeks in India over the past two years, learning

from some enlightened masters.

And what I realized that the root of all my suffering and my stress was my

own obsessive self-centric thinking.

And I've really learned how to, like, think differently

as a different way to put it.

So I think that the whole idea is: life's meant to be enjoyed, not endured.

And when you're in a stressful state also, it's kind of works two ways.

The stressful state is a downward spiral.

So any solution you try to come up from a stressful state just

creates more problems than stress.

But if you could actually learn to change your state and, move to the

stress sober state and live in joy, it's going from "nowhere" to "now

here" and being connected and present.

And you can enjoy life.

And life's really meant to be enjoyed.

So that's what we're all about now.

And, even like Spiritual Gangster, I'm a, I love taking things that are oxymoronic

or things that don't seem to fit together.

And so we've really coined the phrase "stress sober".

Great.

Love it.

I love it.

You'd be proud of me, man.

The other day I was having a rough day.

Had some bad things happen.

Someone got in front of me on this, coffee had spilled.

It was one of those mornings.

It was just life.

No, it wasn't a big deal.

But it was like four or five things happened in a row.

And I took this back way to get to where I was going.

So I was in a hurry And I literally said out loud, you'll laugh at this.

I see this thing, I go, "Of course, of course." And I immediately said,

"Wrong, you said of course because you've already strung together these negative

events and now you're, this, you're welcoming these 'of course' things.

You have to flip the script, Mike, starting right now." The of course, Ian

would say would be the positive, not of course bring more negativity to me

because I had a bad string of events.

Talk a little bit about this 'of course' concept because

your spin on it is beautiful.

So 'of course' is a frequency.

Everything's frequency, but 'of course' is the frequency when you have an

expectancy of things to work out great.

And another thing I'm up to is I lead a meditation on Zoom every morning.

Hopefully you'll join us one day.

It's free.

And when I start my day, we meditate.

But then when you get in the right state, all these wonderful things happen.

And a friend of mine, I'm in YPO Young Presidents, and a friend of mine in

my forum when, things would happen, like incredible things would happen.

We'd get first row seats for this or, something would land in our lap.

They'd say "unbelievable." And I said, "why do you say 'unbelievable' when

something is awesome happening to you?" So first it started being totally believable,

but then it became 'of course'.

So if you're doing the right things, you expect wonderful things

happen, miracles, serendipity.

And it's a frequency 'of course.' But also the thing is the, there's also

a frequency of 'off course', right?

So if you're moving and things aren't working out for you,

it's usually the inputs, right?

And then you go on this downward spiral like you were the other morning.

And, some people expect bad shit to happen to them and they get a lot of bad stuff.

Like you get on this roll.

But the 'of course' frequency is one, we're gonna do the right inputs.

You had a doctor on earlier and she's, you said she's kinda like you,

but she loves to medicate people.

And I said, I love to meditate people because that gets you

on the 'of course' frequency.

But it's interesting, part of what we're showing people to get the

frequency of 'of course', you just need to remove one off, one F. I say

it's like unfucking your life, right?

You get rid of the "F" and now you go from 'off course' to 'of course'.

But I'm a big believer in if you do the right inputs, if you have the

right mindset, you shift your state.

Your state is everything.

Yeah.

And then you can rely on, I live miracles all day long

every day, but it's the frequency 'of course' that we're living on.

And I also expect them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about the, event you have coming up?

There's a lot of story behind that because you're talking about the

location where you wanna do these, the people you're bringing in.

I've had a chance to meet your partner.

Kyle.

Kyle.

Kyle.

So I want you to speak to that because there's a lot more heavy

lifting than, hey, we have this thing.

I'm really leaning into live events right now.

I think there's a frequency that happens to connection.

We do also events on Zoom and we do stuff like this.

But I also really believe that transformation happens

when you get people together.

And when you get enough people in the room and you have a clear intention

of what you're doing and you raise the frequency, everyone benefits.

So we're really l leaning into live event business.

We've done some in Utah.

We've done some here.

We got some in California.

I was just telling Scott, we're taking a whole group next year.

We just had the eclipse yesterday.

Next year, the longest eclipse of our lifetime is in Egypt, visible

directly from the Giza Plateau.

So we're taking a bunch of people there, but we're taking people to

incredible locations and really high frequency people and places and we're

creating community and transformation.

Love it.

And I just, I feel like now with AI and all this other stuff, more

and more people need to come together.

And you know, for, for thousands of years, whether it was for

ceremonies or prayers or people came together, they congregate, right?

And that's how you really raise the frequency.

So for me, you, I can't do it.

I don't know how to do it unless we bring the people together.

And that's, it's just magic happens.

Yeah.

It's great.

Yeah.

You talked last time you were here a year ago,

about the concept of surrender.

And that, actually like really impacted both Mike and I.

Yeah.

When we had other people throughout the course of the last

year who would bring up that term and we just look at each other,

Mike and I, and be like, "Surrender, that…" And we nod our head and that

I don't know if I have that.

I have a new definition for surrender.

You can tell us about that.

Let me finish my question first.

You could tell us about your new definition.

But what I was gonna go with was, at the time, you were talking about surrender in

terms of sobriety and things like that.

I'm wondering what have you, else have you surrendered this

year since we last spoke to you?

I think the biggest surrender is the Ian, the idea

of Ian, this old personality.

You know, a friend of mine, teacher, Joe Dispenza says, "Change your personality,

change your personal reality." So a lot of the old things that I was stuck in

my personality, I've surrendered to.

But the best definition I've heard of surrender is

"switching to the winning team."

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Which I love because a lot of times, surrender's not giving

up, it's getting to a higher frequency.

So like, one of the biggest things I believe is that all suffering

is tied to this I, my problems, my money, my job, my this, my that.

My mom, blessed memory, it's my mom's yahrzeit and Jewish and

it's the eight-year anniversary coming up of her death.

And my mom had a great saying.

She said, "Ian, there's a reason why illness starts with I and wellness starts

with we." So I'm gonna say that again.

Like

Yeah.

Wellness starts with we, illness starts with I. So I

think a lot of what I'm working to surrender is separation and focusing

on the other, not focusing on the I.

I've never heard that one before.

No, I haven't either.

No.

That's a new one.

That's a new one.

I just

- Mike Lindstrom: But you're, but she told you this one, how long ago?

A long time ago.

This guy's a marketing machine.

Yeah.

Everything just comes up.

"Spiritual Gangster," "Stress Sober," "I => Illness, We => Wellness."

We already got eight brands coming out of it.

"Of course."

It's only been 20 minutes, man.

I gotta get one of these trucker hats too.

You got one.

I'll bring you the next one.

I gotta get it.

This guy's fashion guru.

Yeah… we dress the same.

I know.

I love it, man.

It's great.

I'll be oddball today.

But she's been saying this to you for a long time.

My

- Mike Lindstrom: But you weren't hearing it.

I, it's obviously stuck with me.

She's been gone eigh years.

Yeah.

I feel her all around me.

But it's just, something that I remembered, right?

You forget a lot of things, but it just came back into my consciousness.

Yeah.

And I just think my life now is focused on the 'we'.

That's why we're doing the live events.

That's why I'm coming to do stuff like this with you, to

get the message out there.

I feel like, you know, really now my role is to be a messenger.

There's, you can have it all.

You can live life.

You can enjoy it.

But it's not, you're not supposed to bust your ass and not enjoy it and

delay to some time in the future where you think everything's gonna work out.

It doesn't work that way.

Mm-hmm.

We know a ton of people who are massively successful and

wealthy and they have drinking problems, they're on their third marriage,

as you achieve more and get more, a lot of times you get more stress.

Yeah.

So I think the whole idea is, teaching people, one,

your state determines everything.

So whatever state you're in, that's gonna determine your decisions,

that's gonna determine how you do.

Another thing, phrase, "how you do anything is how

you're gonna do everything."

Yeah.

So I think what I've become to realize, it's about

community, it's about connection.

And the more you can connect with others and you get what you give.

So the more you can put out there and help, the more flow that comes back.

Yeah.

I give you a lot of credit.

Yeah.

You know, a year ago, again, you had virtually no

social media presence whatsoever.

I think we were the first podcast that you ever In the new world.

Yes.

Yeah.

I was telling Ian, Mike, you were tied up.

I was telling him before the show, I'm starting to see your

content, pretty regularly, man.

Yeah.

I was giving him some, some props.

Yeah.

I keep seeing your Instagram reels and stuff like that, and you're

doing more of these kind of shows.

Talk a little bit about the

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

The development of that muscle of, Producing content

and putting yourself out there.

I think for a while, I was afraid, fear, right?

You, when you kinda shut down and… I've built a lot of things in the past.

We talked about, I built a chain of yoga studios.

I sold the Lifetime Fitness.

We built Spiritual Gangster, which was a global brand, but

I was never the face of it.

I was behind and we would always put out people out front.

Yeah.

And I realize now with the launch of my book and what

we're doing, I have to be the voice of it and, and share the message.

I'm just learning as we go.

But I, for 53 years, I didn't post anything and over the last couple

months and putting it out there.

And I think it's improving.

I'm enjoying it.

And, we're just working on it.

But it's like anything else, what you guys are doing here?

It's like you just, you do it and you'll figure out.

My dad

- Scott Leese: You just iterate on it and you try to be consistent with it and

Yeah.

And just figuring out what messages that people, one, what are the messages

I wanna share and then how do I get better at delivering the message?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What about socially?

I've seen this with some clients where, and I've learned this, by the way,

from, one of our mentors, Tony Robbins.

He used to say at one, a day with Destiny, you probably remember the script.

I love it.

I've been there twice.

He would say to people towards the end, he's like, "How many

people are in here are as couples?

Raise your hand.

How many people are here that are married, but you're alone, but your

couple, your spouse is at home?

Raise your hand." A lot of people, right" And he goes, "Here's what's gonna happen.

You spent four days in total immersion.

You surround yourself with amazing people.

You're gonna go home and your wife or husband's gonna look at you like,

what the F has gotten into you?

What Kool-Aid are you drinking?

They're gonna think you're crazy." And he goes through the whole script, remember?

He's preparing us mentally.

And then he goes, So I'm gonna tell you how it works.

In your transition back home, when you re-land back at home

with what you're gonna try to do, and I'm gonna try to coach you on

how to do it, here's the reality.

You're either gonna, grow…" He had the Gs, right?

"You're gonna grow in that relationship, so you're gonna reach down and help

that person up to where you're at." And then he goes, "This is harsh.

Some of you are gonna graduate and they're not gonna go with you.

Your business partner, your spouse." And that's true in a lot of things in

life. Now, I heard that when I was in my late 20s. I'm like, "Yeah, whatever.

I wasn't married, didn't have kids, I didn't have that problem." But I

totally see that now in my coaching.

I'm trying to coach someone a certain way, or if they go to one

of your retreats, but only one person's there, not the other person.

So when there's that massive shift, which you've gone through

in the last two years, how has that impacted the people around you?

Cause you had people that you partied with, hung out with, go to The Sphere

with, enable that, and now they're like, "Whoa, that's Ian of old." How

has that affected some of the s the, the friendships, the graduation or the, the

growing of the friendships in your life?

Great question.

And a lot of you, I think you realize that, you know, we're constantly changing.

Tony also says the hardest thing to get rid of is your identity.

Right.

You know, my wife, Vanessa, she's… Like I came home from a retreat

I was at for 10 days and she's like, "I don't even know who you are. Like you

come back all the time as a different person," but I am a different person.

So it's real, and especially I think the people at least at home, your

kids, your wife, they're probably the last people to get on board.

I think a lot of my friends, look, I'm a very social person.

I have a lot of friends all over the world.

A lot… Some of them are, they're all interested in what I'm doing.

Some of them are, even getting sober.

Others of a lot of the ones I party with, I don't really hang

out with that much anymore, right?

I still am friends with them, but those activities and the way we

connected, we're not doing anymore.

But for me, I'm really committed to my growth and I

know that I'm always evolving.

And then, a lot of it is, on the cover of my book is a butterfly, right?

And a butterfly starts as a caterpillar, and it's gotta absolutely melt into this

goo, and it goes in this crystalline.

And now I'm, like, getting my way out of the crystalline, two years later.

Yeah.

And then you become, this incredible, beautiful creature.

I'm experiencing, a lot of these relationships.

What I realized is I was… I've always had, been very sensitive, had

a lot of, access to things that I used drugs and alcohol to numb myself out

to and related on a much lower level.

Now I'm showing up as my highest version of Ian, and I'm able to relate from

that place and connect with people way better, deeper, be way more resourceful.

But things change, and you are the five people you surround yourself with.

And, a lot of my people are still the same people, but some relationships, like,

people who are super close to me, when I was going through trauma or addiction or

I was in a really suffering state around the end of Spiritual Gangster, some of

my friends were scared by that and they Because they couldn't deal with suffering.

Like they… It just, maybe it was a mirror and it reflected back on them.

But, that's a real thing.

People are gonna fall away, you're gonna find new people.

Some relationships you're gonna get way closer and deeper with.

I'm a believer that you gotta continue on the journey, on the path, right?

And different… Sometimes people come for different periods of your life

Yeah.

And sometimes people evolve with you, right?

Yeah.

Some programs have you go through a rating system.

You kinda rank your friends.

Like ones are gonna be the people who are A's that support you in your

sobriety and they're sober as well.

The B group or two group is people who, they're not addicts.

They'll, you can be around them, they'll support you and love you, but

they're not all in the way you are.

And then the lower level are people who are trying to pull

you back into the old world.

Yeah.

They're enabling you trying to fight what you're battling.

I don't know if you ever had to go through that process.

I didn't go through that, but, naturally, it's just like the

people who are, like, pulling… I just don't hang out with them anymore.

Right.

And I have a different… I'm doing different things.

My interests are different.

Yeah.

And that, and one, I wanna circle back on one thing on 'of course',

because the same thing with Tony Robbins, and I've spent millions of dollars and

30 years of going to, some of the best teachers, gurus, people around the world.

And what I realized, it's wonderful to get the realization, but there's

a lot of times you go to these things and then you crash afterwards, right?

Yeah.

And what we're doing with 'of course', if it… We're gonna… We share

a lot of the teaching and the realization, but it's all about the install.

To me, my mom, I'm gonna go back to her again.

No one cares about what you know, except for maybe your mom.

People care about what you do and who you are.

And the best thing about, 'of course', is we, we give the teaching, but when we

install the frequency, and then we give you ways to keep it up and maintain it.

So you don't go home and crash, you continue to… It's who you become.

Right.

Yeah.

That's good.

That's the word BE, right?

Behavior, become, being.

Be.

That was what an ontology, when you look at, Frankl, Viktor Frankl.

Yeah, the best.

Man's Search for Meaning, one of the greatest books ever.

One of the greatest books of all time.

And I, that's where I really started sinking my teeth into that, the words

B-E, and how many words start benevolent.

You can go all lots of words and start there.

But that's where I think a lot of people miss, is they don't work… It's the whole

thing about who you be versus who you do.

And, I've been spending a lot of time lately with Joe

Dispenza, who's doing great work, but it's "believe, behave, become."

Mm-hmm.

So what are you doing with him, by the way, if you don't mind me asking?

I've been r… I've read his books for years, and I,

honestly, I, when I, people would be like, Oh, you gotta check out

his medita- His voice, annoyed me.

I couldn't even listen to his meditation.

And then I went and did a live event within Cancun.

It was incredible.

And then I went back, did a 10-day event with him on an advanced

retreat, and then I just did some more stuff with him in Colorado.

But it's incredible what he's doing.

He's creating a field in there, like 2,500 people and raising the frequency.

And he inspired me a lot for what we're doing 'of course', of really

creating a collective field.

There's a collective intelligence that we all get smarter by

coming together and connecting.

And also to all the teachings that I've learned from India or Tony Robbins or

Robin Sharma or all these other great teachers, it just… He helped me s see

things a little bit differently to tweak

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

What I was doing already.

Do you remember when he came, when he was in

What the Bleep Do We Know?

I do.

Do you remember when it first

- Ian Lopatin: Yeah.

…came out?

And this was around the same time as The Secret, around that time.

The Secret took, you know, Gurus of the time and took it more

mainstream, Oprah-ish, if you will, because she picked up on it.

And that one never took off in that way because people were

like, Oh, this is metaphysical."

Mm-hmm.

This is like this guy, Joe, he wasn't big at the time, right?

And wasn't… not globally, maybe in his breath.

I think he's reinvented himself a ton since then.

Yeah.

I think he had a big crash after that, too.

Yeah.

Of who am I?

Who do I wanna become?

But what he's doing is top.

Yeah.

So if I was gonna go to one of your events,

what is the event consist of?

We do different formats.

We do some, we do one days, we do three days, we do a week.

But the normal, like, we have a three day coming up, so I'll just

talk about that here in Arizona

- Scott Leese: Yeah.

On Monday or on Sunday.

And the first day is I'll lay a lot of the content out.

So we'll explain what we're doing, how it works.

A lot of it's activating the electromagnetic field of the

body, learning how to… You know, it's all this stuff.

I was teaching yoga for 25 years all over the world.

It's taking a lot of the stuff that I learned from teaching yoga, but

learning how to really move energy from the base of your spine to the

crown of the head, getting energy up to the pineal gland, activating it, and

then the body becomes a transponder.

So there's a signal that happens once the electromagnetic field turns on.

The analogy I like to use is like a cell phone.

So if you have a cell phone, it's great.

You can store whatever amount of information, but the cell phone

becomes really powerful when you connect it to the cloud.

So the way the brain works is it's not stored in the brain.

The brain is a receiver.

And when you activate the pineal gland, it's interesting too.

I just figured this out the other day.

So the pineal gland sits at the third eye, right?

What are these two pla… And they say in all the ancient cultures, the pineal

gland is where God sits in the body.

What do they call these two places?

Temple.

Temple.

Of course.

Yeah.

But then we switch to very experiential.

So we do a lot of breathing, we do meditation, and then we also do frequency

healings where you're actually using the energy of the field to heal other people.

It's incredible.

That's great.

And when did you launch that?

Cause you've done those as participants many times in, over

years, but when did it click?

You like, "Hey, why am I on this side of it? I need to be bringing this to a way

that I can message this in a way that's palatable from the Ian perspective."

It's interesting.

So I've been, a student for a long time.

And, but as a yoga teacher, I led retreats all over the world, but

I would just be teaching yoga.

And yoga, what I was teaching at that point was more like one limb of the eight

limbs of yoga, asana, physical asana.

Now I do some physical asana, but I really, my focus is meditation

and enlightenment and all the other limbs, the eight limbs of yoga.

And, I feel like I'm a teacher at heart.

Like even when I was law school, the way I would do the best is I'd get the outline

from the smartest guy in the class.

I'd teach him the outline and I'd finish top of the class.

So I believe that mastery comes when you can teach and explain it.

And I'm also really good at taking things that are complicated

and making them simple.

Most people aren't gonna go spend six weeks in India.

Most people aren't gonna spend a couple million bucks to go all over

the world to figure these things out.

So what I've done is taken everything that I've learned and really in the

last nine months we've been starting to put these events together and they're

evolving just like, you guys are evolving.

Yep.

Everyone is different and better.

Yeah.

What's the vision for it?

The book's out, this is gonna continue.

Let's go to the next year, like a year from now, because it's been

a year since we've revisited.

Where are we gonna be a year from now?

The book's out, all this things.

You're building momentum, man.

So you gotta put it out there.

Where are we gonna be?

We're selling a million copies of the book.

Okay.

Doing a lot of these live events.

I see us filling arenas.

I had a vision of myself, like, filling arenas and doing this.

So doing it on a really large scale and using all that energy.

I've also been playing with a few ideas.

You know I love The Sphere.

I've seen 32 concerts at The Sphere, 25 company, but also creating like

an enlightenment experience around music and meditation at The Sphere,

like a multisensory experience.

But I see this as going very mainstream and using massive collective energy.

Do you think that the society's more open to that now than

they were say five or six years ago?

Everyone was freaked out during COVID.

No one's doing anything.

Now people are going, "Hey, there's, social media's helping that.

There's more gurus

I think Instagram's a great way to get content out and

you can learn so much so quickly.

You know, when I started the yoga studios 26 years ago, people

were like, "Yogurt," right?

No one knew about yoga.

I'm always ahead of the curve.

It's part of kinda how I live.

Meditation is the next yoga.

It's real.

People are really interested.

It's coming more mainstream.

And I think people are bel you know, what's happening now is that science and

spirituality are starting to connect.

All this stuff with quantum physics, it's all teaching and proving the same

stuff that these mystical teachers have been teaching for thousands of years.

So I think people are getting awake and then other people

are just not getting awake.

There's, there, there's two states.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Most people are in this disconnected, stressful state, but

also they're, and even too for, for me dealing with addiction, all the other

stuff, most addicts are spiritual people.

They're seeking something.

They know there's something different.

They just don't know how to change their state.

Yeah.

And the things that they used in the beginning, drugs and

alcohol stop working, and then you just [blows out] start going down.

How do you balance between the mission and the business side of it?

Are we doing it for the mission and to impact X amount of lives

or are we also doing it to

- Ian Lopatin: I do everything for the mission.

My dad, bless his memory, my parents are coming through a lot today, but my dad

would say, "Do what you love and the money will come." So I always figure out what

I wanna do and how I can be of service.

And then I figure out how to build a business around it.

And that's what we're doing now.

But I always start with, what do I love to do?

Yeah.

What do I wanna get up and do every day?

And how can I have the greatest impact in the world?

And then, okay, how can I build a business around it?

So now I'm working on building a business around it, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So what sets you back?

When you have a bad day, when does Ian have a bad day?

What gets you, what sets you back?

You know, I really don't have bad days.

I might

- Scott Leese: "Bad day sober."

I might have bad hours or two, and then I'll go meditate.

I'll cold plunge.

But part of what I've learned is how to you know, when the meditation

I, part of I lead every morning is, it has three parts to it.

So the first part is noticing your thoughts.

Are you stressed out?

Are you anxious?

Or are you grateful?

I mean, it's that simple, right?

Yeah.

And then it, don't judge it.

And then how do I get to being grateful versus being stressed out?

And then the other piece of it is like coming back to the present moment.

So 99.9% of you are living either in the past and you're dealing with a regret

and no amount of regret is gonna change the past, or you're in the future.

Mm-hmm.

And in the future, you're worrying about this.

Most thoughts of the future are unpleasant thoughs.

Yep.

So what I realized is, I told someone the other day, is worry

is the worst use of your imagination.

Mm-hmm.

And the present moment is the portal to the infinite.

So my two practices are one, return to gratitude, return to just

the beauty, figuring out things.

I journal every day.

I, have a gratitude list, but I'm constantly looking for things to

be grateful and thankful for and building those neural pathways.

Mm-hmm.

And then the second part is am I off ruminating?

When I went to India the first time after Spiritual Gangster, I was

like, if I get rid of this guy and that lady, my life's gonna be great.

And I realized after like 10 days there, I'm like, wait a minute,

it's, when I'm pointing my finger at you, I got three fingers at myself.

I'm the source of all this stuff.

And it's, that was like a really tough pill for me to swallow.

But realizing that I'm the source of everything, my own frustration,

and it's my own obsessive self-centered thinking illness, right?

If I can think, how can I contribute?

Like what can I do to help out?

What can I… And if you're focused on how you can be a contribution to the

field, it's tough to have a bad day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can have a bad moment, but then you catch yourself.

Awareness is the key to it all.

Yeah.

It's hard for people though.

I've been teaching that too, catch it in real time.

But catching things in real time, the majority of people, that's

good in theory, but they don't

- Ian Lopatin: Well, that's

- … Mike Lindstrom: get to that next step.

Well, that's what we're teaching now, right?

Yeah.

So it's like, one, everything's hard if

you don't do it, right?

And first of all, the first level is having an awareness around it.

So the awareness is the first 10 of it, but then actually learning

the techniques and the practices to do it and then doing it, right?

And you get better and better.

Like you're a surfer, right?

The first time you surfed, you sucked.

Probably for the first bunch of times.

Now it's, I'm a golfer, Become a great golfer.

But most people, golf is hard for people, I love golf.

You love surfing.

So it, the more you do things, the better you get at them.

And also too, if you get a great teacher, like one of my golf teachers,

he was Mickelson's golf coach.

I was with him, he taught my mom and my kids to play golf.

When I found him he was 60 bucks.

And then Mickelson hired him and now he's like 1,000 bucks an hour.

[laughing]

But I'm like, Andrew, I knew you were the best golfer.

[laughing]

But having the best teachers, Tony Robbins is one of

them, Joe Dispenza is one of them.

My guru's from India.

To me, I like to get around the best teachers and then learn.

And then it becomes easier.

And then you put it in a practice.

But, just having the realization doesn't do shit.

Yeah.

It actually, you need, a daily practice.

There's a reason - so the meditation that I lead on Zoom, I got it from

my, I reached out of my gurus and I said, I gotta quit drinking.

And they said do, and I was hosting an event here and I had all the YPO there

and I did it at my temple and they said, just do this meditation every day.

We're gonna be here.

And then I was going to India again afterwards.

And I started doing, it was just me, a friend of mine who's a doctor,

Gracie Lyons, incredible lady.

And then after that, when I came back from India, I started inviting people.

But I have not missed this meditation in two years.

But I do it because it works, it changes my life.

If I don't meditate and I wake up and I check my phone and the default

frequency is suffering, stress.

Yeah.

And the, the reason why most people are suffering and

stressed out is because if you want the 'of course' life, you have to

put the right inputs in, right?

And if you're putting in the wrong inputs, you're 'of course' is

gonna be shit because 'of course' the bad stuff's gonna happen.

Yeah.

Because you're putting in the inputs that get that output.

Yeah, that was me the other day.

And by the way, the night before I didn't watch good things on the,

I was watching stupid crime shows.

Didn't have a great sleep score.

Woke up

So it started the night

- Mike Lindstrom: it started the night before.

And you're a smart guy.

Yeah.

You're wise and you know all of this stuff.

So, you know, again, it doesn't matter what you know, it matters what you do.

And then too, I bet you don't turn on those crime shows again, right?

Yeah, but also I caught myself in real time though.

When I saw that tractor pull out and walk the road and I said 'of course' out

loud But that I caught myself in real time and said, "okay, this has to shift."

But that's an 'of course' moment.

So these things are like, wow.

Then the thing is, do you have a practice or something that allows you to shift?

So I'll tell you in a story.

My guru Krishnan, he was speaking in Korea to like all the top doctors.

And I learned the two states from him that he calls it the suffering

state and the beautiful state.

And there is no third state.

And when I say state, I'm not talking about,

Yeah.

Florida or New York or I'm talking about states of consciousness.

But there's only two states.

And the doctor said, "Hey, we've been scanning two million brains.

And it's funny because we call it an off state and an on state." And then

he said, "So what do you do with, how do you tell people to do it?" And they

said, Oh, that's what we wanted to ask you about." [laughing] So most people do

not, even if they know Hey, I'm having an off day," they don't have a practice.

They don't know what to do to change their state.

Yep.

And that's what we're sharing with people because when I

realize, look, if it works for me, it's gonna work for other people.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm a believer in.

Yeah.

Success leaves clues, man.

Yeah.

Give us some, good Ianisms or what are two or three

tips that people out there can do just day in, day out routines?

I, I think a daily meditation practice would be the

number one thing I could share.

And how long?

Mine is 23 minutes, the one I lead in the morning, but

sometimes I'll do two or three minutes.

But the one I do every morning, it's 23 minutes.

I put that out there with not having a drink, you know?

Like those are things like I want… Alcohol to me is poison.

Like that.

And I didn't realize for me, I did everything with alcohol.

Every, every social event.

I wasn't like a fall down drunk, but I drank every day.

I didn't realize the toll it was taking and how I was misperceiving.

It distorted the field for me.

So now that I've gotten a lot clearer, like that's a huge one.

But meditation would be incredibly important.

I think getting out of nature every day, I meditate outside.

When I meditate, I have a fountain there.

I have 30 hummingbirds circling my head.

[laughing]

You know, it's incredible, right?

It's beautiful.

I'm a big fan of cold plunging.

I did a cold plunge today before I came.

We live in Phoenix.

It's 100 degrees outside.

But that, you go in a cold plunge for two minutes, three minutes, you're

not thinking about all your problems.

You're just breathing and breath work is key too.

Like breath work is the biggest hack to changing your nervous system.

So there's all these different breathing techniques, but you

know, meditation is number one.

If I had to tell, if you could choose one thing, it would be meditate.

Yeah.

So how does this change your belief because we did rapid fire on each

other, Scott and I. I've known you for a long time and you like nice stuff.

You like nice cars.

So now you go through this transformation last year of your

life and some of the things that you, we were asking each other about.

Here's a question.

Rate these ways people show off wealth.

Rank them one through five.

So one would be amazing.

Five would be a shitty way to do it.

Number one, first thing is watches.

What do you rank that?

Watch is a great way would be one, five would be a bad way.

What do you rank it?

One to five.

I think, look, I love nice watches.

I'm not wearing a watch today, but I don't wear my watch to show off my wealth.

But I think it's, probably a pretty good way if you like it.

If you're doing it to impress other people, it's a shitty way.

So what's the number?

Two… one or two.

Cars.

You're a car guy.

I'm a car guy.

I love nice cars.

I think, you might as well drive a car you enjoy, so I'm gonna say one or two.

Okay.

Real estate.

I think real estate, you wanna love the home you can be in.

For what I realized, I'm, I just sold our second home.

I'm downsizing.

I'm probably gonna… It's a lot to upkeep.

Yeah.

It's a lot of work.

And I think, it's important to have an incredible space that you love, but I

think it, to do it as a way to show off, it's probably like a three or a four.

It becomes a burden.

Okay.

Private jets.

I love private jets.

I love rides on private jets.

I'd love to manifest my own private jet.

I have the luxury.

I fly on a lot of private jets, but right now it's other people's jets, so

- Mike Lindstrom: I get it.

I'm a big fan of private jets.

Okay.

All right.

Here's the last one.

One, I'm gonna say.

Just not showing it at all,

You know, that's an interesting one.

I think that some people as a way to show off their wealth is like, "I'll

drive a shitty car because I don't care about a car." So it's almost just

another way of saying, "Look, I'm so wealthy, but I drive a shitty car."

Right.

So I think, it just depends.

It's less of… I think, one, that list isn't the same for everyone

Sure.

Because it's the intention behind it, right?

I believe you can, in abundance.

I believe there's more than enough.

I like nice stuff.

I, I think I deserve nice stuff.

I'm worthy of it.

But I'm not doing to show off.

Right.

I think there might be a point in my life where I was

Yeah.

You know, but it's

- Mike Lindstrom: That's what I was asking.

Yeah.

Cause I know "Ian of old"

Yeah.

And I know "Ian of new".

I know you're gonna not, I know you're gonna like these

things because I know you know.

Yeah.

But at the same time, where do you reconcile that?

Cause like I used to want that so bad, but now I may want it for a different

reason because I have a different focus

I think that's

- Mike Lindstrom: …and look at my life.

I think that's the key.

It's your intention.

Look, I enjoy nice things.

I have great, wonderful vacations.

I have a lot of friends who are extremely wealthy, who share their wonderful things.

I'm very generous.

I believe that you might as, you wanna enjoy life in the moment now.

But if you have all this stuff and you're worried about it and

- Mike Lindstrom: Yeah.

Then it becomes just some, you know… I'll tell

you a little bit about spirit.

For me, I built this great business with spiritual gangster and it became something

that instead of being creative and everything else, I was like fighting with

partners and it wasn't enjoyable for me anymore because I wasn't building anymore.

I was protecting.

Yeah.

So I think that happens with a lot of wealthy people.

You build this.

And also too, no matter most wealthy people, almost everyone, there's a

story about, it's like this guy gets given seven jars of gold and six are

full and he says, Okay, the only deal is you gotta fill the last bucket."

And he keeps going to fill the bucket and he can never fill it, right?

So they're always trying to fill the last bucket.

I know many billionaires who are like living in lack

and scarcity, which is nuts.

Yeah.

But so I think that can you appreciate what you have and can you

use your resources to help the field?

Wonderful.

If you're just trying to accumulate all this shit and then

you're gonna die with it, it's

Yeah.

What are you doing?

So I think that that's a miss.

I love it.

That's good stuff, man.

As always, he's definitely a friend of the show.

We got always bringing it back.

Let's just not make it one more year, bro.

I'm happy to come back anytime.

Thanks for having me.

Congrats on two years coming up.

Thank you.

I appreciate you coming on.

I know we always enjoy it.

Very much different conversation that we had today than last time.

Yeah.

Very different.

It's awesome.

And it's always inspiring.

Thanks everybody for joining us on another episode of

What's Your Story with Mike and Scott.

I'm Scott Lease.

This is my good friend, Mike Lindstrom.

Thanks to our guest for joining us today.

Make sure you follow them on all the social platforms.

Make sure you follow us on all the social platforms as well.

And check out whatsourstorypod.com for future episodes, past episodes,

upcoming events, along with, a way to follow our newsletter.

Big shout out to our friends at NectarFlow who host us here in studio,

and we will see you next time on What's Your Story with Mike and Scott.