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Preston Smiles on Overcoming Trauma, Finding Purpose, and Becoming a “Spiritual Millionaire”

Episode 49 · 13 November 2025 · 1 hr 46 min

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Preston Smiles on Overcoming Trauma, Finding Purpose and Becoming a Spiritual Millionaire

Preston Smiles knows what it means to start over. Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen talk with the coach and author about overcoming trauma, the blockers that keep us from abundance, and what it means to be a Spiritual Millionaire.

This episode first aired as Episode 15.

What does it mean to be truly rich? Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen sit down with transformational coach and author Preston Smiles, who shares his incredible journey from gang life in Los Angeles to global spiritual teacher. Preston opens up about surviving loss, confronting shame, fasting alone in the wilderness for four days, and rediscovering the “spiritual millionaire” within himself — the version of us that finds abundance in love, purpose, and presence, not possessions.

From his near-death heart condition at 25 to building a thriving family and coaching practice that has changed lives around the world, Preston reveals how trauma can become a teacher, how forgiveness unlocks abundance, and how to listen deeply to the divine guidance available in every moment. This is a raw, transformative conversation about faith, healing, fatherhood, and what it really means to live fully awake.

Overcoming Trauma, the Spiritual Millionaire, and Preston Smiles' Story

What you'll discover:

  • What a four-day vision fast alone in the woods taught Preston about what matters
  • The abundance blockers: unprocessed grief, fear and shame
  • Cleaning up your side of the street, and forgiving yourself and others
  • Gangs, the night his friend was killed, and the words that changed his path
  • The heart diagnosis at 25 that turned into his life's work
  • Being a living demonstration for your kids, and where to find the Spiritual Millionaire Academy

This episode is for educational purposes only and isn't medical advice.

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Welcome: Dr. John Oberg and Randy Lorensen with Preston Smiles
  • [02:15] A four-day vision fast alone in the woods
  • [05:52] The 2005 heart scare, life coaching and becoming a "spiritual millionaire" again
  • [09:30] What the fast revealed: 10 years sober and vegan, then slipping, then returning home
  • [11:50] Can people really change? What it means to be a spiritual millionaire
  • [14:59] Abundance blockers: unprocessed grief, fear and shame
  • [17:20] Shame, porn and learning to self-source your power
  • [21:14] Loneliness, the "nuclear family problem" and why you can't legislate love
  • [26:33] Cleaning up your side of the street: the list of "withholds"
  • [28:19] Forgiving yourself and others
  • [29:53] How people change: the four aspects of being human
  • [33:00] "You can't disown what you've never owned"
  • [35:53] "Am I bad with money?" Coaching a client through her story
  • [37:42] "You can't spin around fast enough to see yourself"
  • [39:08] Preston's childhood: learning struggles and feeling like a burden
  • [40:48] Gangs, weed at 11 and his dad's 24-hour challenge
  • [43:58] "You're a leader": the words that changed his path
  • [45:32] Intuition, and the night his friend Scott was killed
  • [50:10] Fear, grief and changing schools
  • [51:50] The only Black male at an all-white school, and impostor syndrome
  • [54:49] A mystery skin disease in college
  • [56:34] His mom's call, and auditioning for the lead role
  • [59:42] Graduate school with straight A's, and an urgent trip to the cardiologist
  • [1:01:17] The heart diagnosis that changed his life, and how it became his career
  • [1:04:19] Marketed to believe in lack, and the "inner roommate"
  • [1:07:15] Coaching through grief, and speaking for your father
  • [1:10:43] Being a living demonstration for his kids
  • [1:12:12] Being direct with love, and not knowing you're "supposed" to feel poor
  • [1:14:48] Austin, Barton Creek Mall and the macro of the micro
  • [1:18:24] Human design at a Venice Beach party
  • [1:21:34] A message from London and the blind-date story
  • [1:29:17] Listening beyond the personality, and "the fruit does not belong to the tree"
  • [1:32:17] Where to find Preston, and the Spiritual Millionaire Academy
  • [1:35:43] John's question about self-talk, and "joy alarms"
  • [1:40:15] The ant mounds: what the woods taught him about what matters
  • [1:43:17] Being present for his kids, and becoming an elder
  • [1:44:53] Thanks and wrap-up

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About Preston Smiles

Preston Smiles is a transformational coach, speaker and author. After growing up around gang life in Los Angeles and surviving a heart condition at 25, he built a coaching practice and community around what he calls being a Spiritual Millionaire, including the Spiritual Millionaire book and Spiritual Millionaire Academy.

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:07] John Oberg and joining me as always our co-host Randy Lawrenson. Randy, how are you today? — Doing great. Yourself? — You know, I feel like a little extra energy today. — Little extra energy. — All right. You've recovered. Yesterday you weren't you weren't so healthy. — Yeah. Yesterday was a mess. We can get into that some other time, but that was I did I I man it was evident to everyone here. Hopefully not to the listeners, but it was not not not a it was 100% day. Today's 110% day. How about that? — There we go. — Joining us today, Preston Smiles. Preston, I can't tell you. I may you might be the reason I have the extra energy today. I've been looking at the content you put on the web. I you know, we've never met before today, but super excited to have you here. Welcome. — Thank you. Yeah, I'm pumped. It's It's cool to be in the midst of um how do I say this without offending? um elders. You guys aren't that much older than me. — Yeah, we are. It's okay. We'll take it. — We're talking about five, six years. that's not that much older, but um I love when someone can can spar and has some life under them where it's not just surface conversations and it's clear you guys actually like each other and like it's there's a a beautiful essence in this room and and that feels good to me.

[01:24] — Wow. Great. We need — I like Preston. — This is the Preston Smiles episode number one. We'll be doing number two — This feels great. — That's awesome. Well, we, you know, we were talking before the show. I think there are so many things that I want to dive into with you. Like you have such an interesting life. Uh so full already and you know, not even not even at the halfway point in all likelihood. And so I want to hear about the, you know, how you went on an 8day kind of experience for yourself that but I also want to know about this idea of being a spiritual millionaire. Like these two things both grab at me like like flip a coin. Take me one direction or the other, but let's let's dive right into it. Like let's just go straight in. — Yes. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. There's a lot of overlap in both of those conversations. So they'll find their way to each other. But I'll start with uh we were speaking off camerara about how we ended up in this room together and I was sharing with you that I did what you could call a vision quest or a vision fast where I went into the woods for eight days. Uh four of those days uh I was alone, no tent in the middle of nowhere um with two gallons of water and myself and a journal. And it was one of the most uh transformative lifealtering things for me for a multitude of reasons. One being I'm an LA kid. So I grew up not in the woods, not doing stuff like that.

[02:56] — The concrete jungle, not correct. Yeah. A different kind of jungle. And so there was just immediate fears that I had to overcome to be able to sit in the darkness and hear the coyotes, you know, at at night and and to to be with the spiders and the ants and the things the mosquitoes trying to murder me all night. That that took a lot. Where were — Yeah, that that's exactly my Where were — Yes. So I was in uh what is it called? Sam Houston National Forest, the biggest forest in Texas. — what time of year? — Uh, it was, — let's call it — Okay. Okay. — It was wild. — Was this like, was there someone watching from afar? Were you supervised? Did anyone know you were there? — Yes. So, there was a small group of us that went together. We all went to do the same thing. And so the first four days we were just acclimating and finding our spot. And so they knew the general area that I was going to be in and we sort of mapped out, hey, you don't leave this area. Um, and if there is an emergency, we had exact uh ways to contact each other and all of that stuff. But the the point was to find your space and not leave that space. And so over the first four days, we're just acclimating and understanding where we are. And then eventually you pick your spot and or really the spot picks you and then that's it. Now we're you know you're in.

[04:31] — I'm fascinated by this. So wait four I want to make sure I heard this right. Four days. — The f eight days total but the first — No tent. — No. The whole time you and Oh the whole time no tent. — Well yes I had a tent the very first — After that they take it all the way. Do you have cooking supplies? Do you — There's no food. — So you're Okay, so you're on a total water only fast and frankly not much — No, because they give you four gallons. I only drink two. I came back with two extra gallons. — Wow. I'm trying to get my head around this because I've done — I've done one, three, five, seven day fasts, but I drink a lot of water. — Like a lot of I'm I'm sure I drink a couple gallons a day. — Yep. So for clarity sake, the fast doesn't start until you're by yourself. So it was only four days for me, not — Prior to that, I'm eating beef sticks and doing things and and so the moment — 5:00 a.m. we walk out of that camp and I go to my spot. From that point forward, — four days, four nights, — I had two gallons of water, no food, no contact with other humans.

[05:43] — All right, I'm more intrigued. So, what's the takeaways from all this? — Oh my god, there was so many. Um, well, I think one of the most important ones for me was, uh, you know, over the so just to give you a little bit bit of backstory, in 2005, I had a heart condition come up and out of a fear of death, I changed absolutely everything about me at some level. And what came forward was this uh deeply spiritual, tapped in, tuned in version of myself that then became a magnet for other people. And I became a life coach before this was a popular word, before there was Instagram, before there was influencers. And I was still in LA acting, modeling, um surfing, and doing my thing. But people kept coming to me and they said, "Hey, I knew you before this moment and now you know 6 months later you're levitating. What are you doing?" And so I started coaching and supporting without knowing that it could be a calling, right? And that turned into something bigger and bigger and bigger. And you know, at this point, I'm a multi-millionaire and have all the things and all the toys and all that stuff, but I got intoxicated by the success and I leaned out of the thing that got me to the dance and I began to be much more calculated and use the king archetype and the warrior archetype more than I used the the mystic. Um, and so while I was out there, it was as if to me God was saying and and speaking through the trees and the wind and the birds at dawn, this is who you are. You want to go to the next level, it's actually a returning home. And so the biggest lesson I got in there was to to come back to the part of me that is ancient and um deeply spiritual and guided and guarded and protected by something deeper than the materials of this world.

[08:04] And so in that moment I became a spiritual millionaire again. Does that make sense? — So now a friend of mine was a hermit. He was he's a Catholic priest and he lived in a Catholic hermitage for a while. And he said one of the most frightening experiences was that when you're a hermit, the first person you meet on the journey is yourself. — And and it I think it really spoke to me when he said that. Did you have that moment of fear facing yourself in the darkness in in the quiet? Was it was there was it a because it sounds great looking backwards, right? But there was hard work in that in those moments, I'm — 100%. Um, I've been really good at self-reflection — um for a quite a long time. So, that wasn't the fear. The fear for me was um what I would be asked to do. — Yeah. I I I I knew going in, hey, you're you're opening up a portal again and you might be asked to let things go. You might be asked to walk away. You might be asked to cuz you know, I've been teaching for years, elevation requires — So, okay, that sounds awesome as an Instagram quote, but are you willing to actually separate from things that are no longer serving you? And here's the crazy part.

[09:30] One of the things that was spoken to and through me during that that uh vision fast was, "Hey bro, you did 10 years um no alcohol. You were basically a vegan and you were on it and slowly but surely you you're eating bacon and drinking beer and having margaritas and you've become sort of in some ways a regular person." And that the two don't mix. You can't ask for something big. You big life, big challenges. And so the the message was, hey, you know, to to much is given, much is required. And for you and the path you're taking, it's going to require you letting go of these things that are like poison to you. And guess what? I didn't listen. way, bacon's a food group. I mean, bacon wrapped bacon is one of my favorite — So, I didn't listen for basically a year. And uh I went to Aiza recently with some friends.

[10:47] — Oh, yeah. The home of like bacon and beer and margaritas and maybe a couple other things. And by the time um we were leaving the hotel, I started counting and I was like, I think I've had about 58 drinks in this three days. And I just had a moment. I was like, done. — I may be done for life, but I'm definitely done for the year. And that was August. And here we are today. And you know, I was in Vegas last week and doing all the things and it's just done. — And so I' I've slowly but surely I'm returning home. When was when was this 8 day visit to the forest? It wasn't recent. — No, it was two years ago. — Yeah. That's amazing. You know what's inspiring about that too is, you know, there's that old idiom about old dogs and new tricks that people can't learn. And you know what I talk to my kids about is like lifetime learning is a thing. Like you can be a lifetime learner. You can get better and grow at every stage of life all the time, but you have but you have to that's a skill. You have to you have to learn how to learn. And so I really believe now that that leads me to a place where like people can change, right? And some changes are harder than others, but but you're a coach. You're a life coach, so you know, like change can be very — And so um you've talked about things that get in the way of that. So when you're guiding people toward whatever their path is, — does everyone have a a path to be a spiritual millionaire? Like can everyone do that on a different path? And and what how do you define spiritual — Yes. Um, so in short, it's loving what is and what you have like it is the best thing that's ever occurred to me. That's a spiritual millionaire.

[12:28] — No, I love that. — And that and that's that's your kids, that's your house, that's your current car, that's your current partner, that's everything. So that's why I said I became a spiritual millionaire again. — Because when I was teaching surf lessons, I had a moment where I was like, I'm living the dream. Like I literally get to wake up, teach these lessons, then I surf, then I play Scrabble with my buddy Josh, then I skateboard down Venice Beach, then I go read Conversations with God or whatever book I'm into at the point, and then I go hang out with whatever girl I'm dating at the time. And like it's I was like, "Yo, I'm winning. — That is winning." — And then like to to know that I was winning made me a spiritual millionaire. And to me, a lot of people get caught up in numbers, right? Some people are so poor that all they have is money. And I've gotten to the point, especially when you get to the other side, you realize, okay, you could be making 30 million. I could be making seven. We both are going to fly first class. — Okay. So, okay. Uh, we both get a big house, right? Like, what? More numbers just makes me a sophisticated addict.

[13:37] Now, I'm just chasing the next high. So, I'm no different than the meth addict. It's just socially acceptable. And so, it's not that we don't chase, it's where you do it from, right? Context determines the content of our lives. So, my context is God. Yes, and thank you. Let's do it. And this isn't my God. I will not make the numbers my God. I will not make the the the adoration my God. Because if it all went away, I'd still be dope. I'd still be such a beautiful — That's the piece to me. That's that's what makes someone a spiritual millionaire and and therefore everybody can be one. — So you could drive through any you know I' I've been to parts of the world that are well we were traveling with our family to Jamaica at one point. We went to some of the harder parts of Jamaica to drive through with them because we wanted them to see that not just the place we were staying and and they you know they they immediately jumped out of the car and started playing with the local kids and we had these games. We're jumping off bridges into the river and all this stuff. And the the lesson we came back with like happiness, man. Like what did that what what did it cost for happiness today? And it was a bridge and a river and and we were swimming with our shoes on, you know? It's like and and and it was like like that was like real joy.

[14:48] And so I think I think what you're saying is just f you got to find that path for everyone is you find that gratitude with what you have. — I love that. — Yeah. That's amazing. — Okay. So spiritual millionaire. Now you also talk about there's things that can get in the way. — What are the abundance blockers you talk — Oh, there's so many. Um, I think one of the most important ones is not dealing with unprocessed trauma, shame, and guilt. I think those that's that kills everybody. Um, unprocessed trauma, guilt, and shame. And um, I was doing a discovery call with someone recently and uh, this person was saying how, oh yeah, I've had a perfect childhood. No trauma And I said, "Okay, let's see. Let's find out." Right. And I explained that — I'd like to meet them. — Yeah. Exactly. You know, it it's some people don't know, they're they're like a fish in water. And the moment someone has enough awareness and how to lead them and how to do it in such a way that it doesn't feel jarring, then they can start to see what's really occurring. Because you know in my workshops uh we often say that's not who you are. It's who you became. Most people identify as shy or I'm just an angry person or I'm just bad with this and no that's not who you are.

[16:15] That's who you became. That's a strategy that you took on as a child to stay safe and now that strategy and that mask no longer serves you. And yet you don't know how to take it off because you've been wearing it for so long. And so the fear becomes if I take this off, who what what what will be left? What if? Right. What if I fail? — Right. That's an abundance blocker. What if I what if I mess everything up? If I stop being this person, what if what if I take it off and and it works? Then I'm on the hook. — I'm more responsible. Another abundant abundance blocker, right? Fear of success. What if I take it off and I can't stop crying and feeling and there's too much grief and it overtakes Abundance blocker, right? So to me, the most important one is the sort of elephant in the room of what happened, right? What happened to you and what did you do? What' you do to people that you've been trying to hide?

[17:25] you know, we know most dudes jack off to porn. It's a thing. Um, and I like to look at the symptom, but I also like to look at the root. And if you grew up in a western culture, there's more than likely you grew up in a household that unconsciously taught you to outsource your power. So when mommy's happy with me, daddy's happy with me, I'm getting good grades, everybody. I get the love. If I'm um outside of the sort of like Christian ideal, good boy or good girl, then the love gets taken away. Okay, well, I'm four. Easy. I'll just turn into a chameleon and do whatever they want. And then I because I'm four and five and seven and 10 and 15, I can't beat my biology. So my dick's going to come online. My the part of me that the urge to merge is going to be there. But I will hide those parts from mommy and daddy and play the game. Okay. But I can't beat it.

[18:34] Which means it has to come out Oh, okay. Now I'm in the digital age where I can just get to porn or get to something that makes me feel alive. Oh, I got my little secret over here. Well, we can judge that and go, "Oh, those guys are sick and those people are this and those people are that." We don't understand. The root of it is this is a person who's never been taught to self-source their own power and feel their thump and their their backbone and their masculine vibrational energy in a healthy way. So it comes out in unhealthy ways. And um to me not a conducive way to feel free. Again, I've worked with people and I've had I've had clients who make a hundred million and I've literally looked them in the eyes on a Zoom call in the middle of our first conversation. I'm like, "You realize that I'm richer than you, right?" And then this [ __ ] is like, "Holy [ __ ] you are right. And it's because of your secrets. You're trapped by your [ __ ] secrets."

[19:54] — You realize that I know I know the secret. Everybody else praises you for that money, but it's not enough. It's not enough because you're not free. That to me, there's so many people. If we walk out this door and we walk and we walk in and and stand in front of a thousand people, to me, 98% of them have guilt and shame and things that they have not addressed. They have tucked them away and they said, "Nope, no, no, no. I won't look at that thing. I'll just be a better human over here." No, it sits in the room. It sits in the room. It sits in the space. — And so, you can have it all, but you don't have it all. But as a society, we we choose to like treat that after the fact. And now we talk about not enough therapists, not enough whatever. And I but we don't talk as a society about what to do on the front end other than things like, you know, and look, I'm not I'm not defending the porn industry at all, but but but I I get there. — And I'm not a I'm a pretty devout Catholic, by the way. So you're talking to the guy who and I'm a I'm a Catholic that converted, you know, a few 2007. So if that gives you an idea of who I am, right? Yeah, — but at the same time that like regulating this stuff is not the same as loving people into where which is what you're talking about. It's like that's like you can't make a policy about this.

[21:14] — Like we've got a nuclear family problem right now where people aren't loving people and the surgeon general's calling it out. He's like, hey, the number one health problem in the country today, isolation that — and that's in the home, parents without fathers or I'm sorry, kids without fathers, you know, um policies that are sending people to jail when maybe they should. There's all kind. But the real the real issue if we say, "Hey, look, — the policy problem is a policy problem. We know we need to solve, but we don't know how. How do you solve it today? It's finding a way to love people, — So, you've got kids. We talked about this before we started. You've got young kids. They're not at the place where they're quite to the place you were talking about. What are you going to do as a dad? What are you going to talk to him about?" — Well, it starts now. — This is the thing. Like, um, one of my sons right now is really into his penis, right? like just it's out every day, seven times a day. — Kids kids are all less than eight right now. Just to give listeners Yeah. Okay. — not talking an 18-year-old. Just — Yes. Exactly. — You wouldn't need I just — So, these are my young kids. They're all under under seven and I got four of them. And one of them is just super into his penis. And we never shame him about that. Yeah.

[22:31] — They say, "Yeah, bro. That's it's awesome." Right. Um each of them has had a moment where they're like, "Ah, it's so hard." And then they'll just keep hitting it. And I'm like, "Bro, yes, that's going to happen." Um and it's going to feel good at times, but you got to take your hand off of it if you don't want it to keep going, right? And like, um to me, this is the stuff that most of us didn't get as children, you know? Uh, I have a sematic based nervous system training called the bridge experience and I've been doing it for over 10 years with my wife all over the world and we have an exercise that we do that is very confrontive and very revealing and I'm going to ask you guys to answer this. Um, we've done it in Costa Rica, we've done it in London, we've done it in all over Canada, all over Australia, all over the US, done it in Africa, done it a bunch of places. What do you think the percentage is of people who have sexual abuse in those rooms. Oh, — it's a big number.

[23:36] — That's big. It's over 50, I think. — Yeah, I think it's probably like um in all those areas. I'm going to go north of 67% more than 2/3. — Anybody else want to guess? You want to guess? Yeah. for everybody else rooms. We're at 90%. just it just everybody and there's varying degrees of it, right? There's like rape. My grandfather raped me when I was four and then again at seven, X, Y, and Z. And then there's like, oh yeah, me and my cousin were in the bathtub and I was discovering my my stuff and I looked at his and I touched his and and then my mom walked in and she yelled and screamed and and shamed us and and that imprinted the body, right? it. There's so many degrees. When the Me Too movement happened, I had a moment where I was like, I'm going down. I had a moment. And the interesting thing was was every woman that I felt like I had done wrong in some form or fashion. And there was one in particular at LSU that we had an agreement to go to this particular bar, drink, and then come back and have, you know, relations. And in the middle of those relations, she just fell asleep. And whether she knew it or not, there was a part of me that was like, I I went too far. I kept And it's things like that that just sit in people's consciousness.

[25:12] — That haunted me for years and and especially now that I have a daughter, it it it just takes on a new level of like, oh [ __ ] that was to me it was a violation. I have since spoken to her and cleared the air and all the things and she's like, we both were young drunk kids going for it. Um, but there's so many things like that that block people's abundance because they don't feel worthy of it. They feel like they must be punished for the things they've done in the past and it just sits in their energy body and and the body of their affairs and and they move around from this particular space. This is why to me personal freedom is the most important thing on the planet outside of health. — Well, it's hard to clean up your side of the street and that's the language we use in my family. We talk about cleaning up your side of the street. — You know what what are the things you think that get in the way of people clean like cleaning up their side of the street because that that does seem to be the hard part. Like everybody want my experience people want to clean up other well they want other people to clean up their side of the street and they want to tell them how to do it. Yes.

[26:28] — You know that's the whole like the log in my eye versus the splinter in your thing. So it's like what — what do you think stands in the way in your experience the most with the people you've worked with? Like why aren't people cleaning up their own side of the street when they know it? — There's a few things. Um, one of the biggest abundance blockers, and I have my clients do this all the time. I have them make a list uh of all the withholds they have with people they love. So, I'll say, "Hey, list, — you know, the top five people that are important to you." And say, "Oh, it's my mom, my dad, my, you know, my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law, or whatever." And I say, "Okay, I want you to make a list of all the things you have not shared with them that is true for you, but you haven't shared out of a fear of fighting, hurting their feelings, or it could be really beautiful when you just don't know how to say it." And they'll make that — like, how how about telling the top five they're in your top five? That's — Yes. Exactly. Right. So So I have them make that list. And then once they made the list, I'll say, "Okay, I want you to pick one from each person that is the safest thing you can share." I'm not asking you to share, "Hey, Dad, you know, I felt like you were a shitty dad my whole life." Like, that's that's kind of hard to start with, right? But what's what's a safe thing that you can bring to your dad to to build a bridge so that there is compassion and space, right?

[27:53] The other thing I have them do, one more list, is a list of all the people and things they haven't forgiven. And then we just spend time forgiving. And then I have them include themselves on that list. — And we spend, you know, 10 minutes a day just sitting with one or two of them and just like, how can I release myself from like Jesus said when he said, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." Yeah. — Right. Like how can you forgive yourself? Like I was I was dumb. I was young. I had no direction. My parents didn't teach me. — So, can I have compassion for me? And the moment I can have compassion for me, I can have it for other people. And so, to me, it's again, it's about getting this stuff on the table and and not pretending like it's not there. Everybody wants more money, more success, more adoration, all the things. And they don't understand that one of the fastest ways to that success, adoration, and freedom is by addressing the stuff that they've been hiding.

[29:00] — Well, you don't always need you don't need everything you think you need along, right? I mean, that's it. You know, what was the research? Like, if you have hundred million dollars or hundred billion dollars, you can't buy more. Like, as long as you're willing to rent, you can't. and and then $80,000 you've declining, you know, declining utility for happiness, everything past $80,000. So, — Like, yeah, it's such a powerful message. I didn't mean to cut you off, Randy. Sorry about that. — No, I was just I I wanted to follow. So, I think there's a lot of power here. Uh — and and the people forgiving themselves, I think for most people, is the hardest one, right? like they just they're they're it's easier for most people to forgive others, have compassion for others, and deal with this. So, how do you get people like we're talking about this an abundance blocker, but I think this is hard for people, right? And — like what have you seen work? How do you get people to go through these steps? — this is imprinted in our subconscious, correct? And the example you gave, if you know that the two kids playing with each other and the mom comes in, they stop doing that or at least getting caught doing it — as a defense mechanism and it's your subconscious saying, — "Hey, this is what's safe."

[30:20] — that's hard like like what have you found that's worked? What do you tell people or how do you how do people get by that? — Yes. So, one of the core sort of statements and principles that I live by is you can't intervene in a world you cannot actually Said differently, we can't disown that which I' we've never owned. And so, a big piece of my work is showing them how they got where they are. And and there's four aspects of what it means to be a human being according to me um and my wife. Number one, we're biological beings, right? It's pretty clear. We're in these physical bodies. The bodies react and respond to our thoughts, feelings, actions, and the outside stimuli, the things we put in our body. Perfect. Number two, we are linguistic beings, which means we build worlds with our language. We without the the the the the language of door and door knob and room it would be challenging to get out of this thing. But but with language we open world. Okay. Fantastic. Number three and this is the one that touches all of them. And I'll skip to number four for a second. Number four is we're quantum beings. Right? There's something beyond our current understanding which is a part of why we have religion and things of that nature because we're like what the hell is this? Right? But let me go to number three because this is the one. Number three is we are social and historical beings.

[31:57] Social and historical beings. Meaning we were all born into interpretations and beliefs. Born into them. So social being I come from a womb right into a family structure. Whatever that structure is. The people in that structure have their own beliefs, ideas, interpretations. Here's what a woman does. Here's what a good man does. Here's what a x, y, and z. This is how you do are with money. Whether we say it or or they just experience it, these are imprints that are just overlaying. We're swimming in this soup. Well, we also know biologically, scientifically that our prefrontal cortex does not come forward until about 12 years old. So, I am basically a sponge from zero to 12. I'm just taking in everybody else's stuff. in a world you can't see. You can't disown that which you've never owned.

[33:03] So, some of the biggest work is to go, okay, well, what was I born into? Because I can't beat the game if I don't understand what what what the game is. I don't understand if I don't understand I'm in water. Then I can't make a choice about anything else. I'm I'm a fish in water that doesn't know. You take me out. Holy crap. This is different, right? So I'm I'm in the business of taking people out of the water that they're in and having them from an empowered place, us look together and go, "Okay, all right. You got the whole money story thing mainly from your dad because he was a big spender and he then lost it all or X Y and Z. Okay. The whole quick to anger thing. I can see. Can you see that you got that from your mom? Okay. Awesome. Your idea about what a a good Spanish woman is, you got from the culture, right? you you went to Catholic school, so you got this idea that you are ex or or you and and again, I'm not here to offend anybody. Everybody's God is perfect and beautiful, but just just sit with it, right? You got this idea that you are a dirty sinner. You were born in sin and you're bad from the beginning or whatever the case may be. Um, all of that is a part of your programming.

[34:26] Now, together from responsibility, from adulthood, let's look together and decide what we want to keep and decide what we want to let go. The moment I have that choice, oh, I am instantly empowered because now I have an option. Okay. All right. Well, I kind of like the competitive thing that I got in sports and growing up in in LA and that I'll take that. That feels good to me. But the whole like scarcity thing that my mom sort of operated from because she was born in the ghetto and she had this experience and my grandmother had this experience and her grandmother had this experience. I'm done with that cuz that can only get me so far. — Now, there's there's a step here though about self-awareness. Like you just went right over. Like you're great and you're very self-aware, but I got to imagine some of your clients don't come in that — No, I I walk them through it. This is — So when you see something they can't see, do you just you just hold the line? — I ask them questions. I It happens all the time. I I have um a boot camp called the Spiritual Millionaire Academy. Every Tuesday I'm coaching. People will come in and they'll say, "What?" Like for instance, I had a woman from Arizona and she was like, "Why am I so bad with money?" She was in her 50s and I said, "Now, I'll make her name Susan." I said, "Susan, um, let's talk about that. Let's find out cuz I don't agree with what you're saying, but let's just see." So, I'm going to ask you some questions and then you let's you and I discuss and figure out if you're actually bad with money.

[36:01] So, I said, "Hey, Susan, you're 50 something years old. How many times have you lived on the street?" Well, none. Okay. Um, Susan, you're 50 something years old. Um, at what point in your life have you not been able to watch movies, do entertaining things, go to concerts, have a good, you know, have an iPhone, things. Well, never. Okay, Susan, let's go deeper. You're 50ome years old. If you never lived on the streets, that means that a mortgage or rent has been paid for quite a long time. Give me a ballpark average about how much money has gone through from your account or someone's you manifested it to pay for you to live. Now light bulbs are going off. She's like, "Well, if I'm really sitting with it, at least a million dollars." So, Susan, I'm going to ask you again because you came to me and said, "I'm bad with money." Given that you've manifested at least a million dollars to pay for rent, given that you have iPhone 78 and you have a car and all the other things, — is that still true to you?

[37:15] — Now, she's having her own light bulb moments. Are you guys following? Yeah. So I I challenge their paradigms and worldviews and then but I do it as a team. It's not me versus them. It's like that's why they're here. — It's really hard to do alone for somebody. I guess for the listeners I say like you know it it — I tell people all the time like the best professional athletes have the most coaches. The best professional musicians have the most coaches. The best actors most coach like it's if it's hard to perform at your peak without and I had a therapist once who was great. He he said, "John, you can't spin around fast enough to see yourself." — Like I was just like, "That's amazing." And so what you're doing is you're holding up a mirror for people, right? — That's great. — Yep. Yep. That's really cool. I have coaches. I have a men's group I'm in. I get challenged by so many people. Anything I you know, it's it's just common sense. If I want to be a firefighter, the best thing I could do is hang around firefighters. I want to be a police officer, best thing I could do is hang around police officers. If I want to be good at business, hang around epic business people. One of the biggest uh abundance activators is being in proximity of that which you desire.

[38:26] — Yeah. They say you're you're the average of the or you're the Yeah. You're the average of the five people you hang out with the most. I've heard that before. — So smart. I love that. — Right. Nope. — I mean, you started as a kid in LA riding your bike to the mall as we talked about. I mean, what I mean, take us through the journey of how you got this wisdom. — Like, like there has to be more there. — And maybe the journey before the wisdom, too. That sounds like a fun story. — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's been interesting, man. Um, my parents used to argue when I was I think I was about five when they started going back and forth about whether I was special needs. They were trying to figure out if I had Asberers or something of that nature. And uh I went to President A in in uh Harbor City and uh I think it was first grade that uh I maybe got 12 days into the the the the semester and they came and got me and they walked me from upstairs in Miss Herk's class downstairs and I thought my parents were picking me up early or something of that nature. Um, but they walked me out of the building and they started to tell me that I was going to have a new class. And as we started walking towards the bungalows, I had a realization and no longer heard anything they said because I realized that they were walking me to, and this is 1987, to uh the [ __ ] kids class. And so I went from the class with 30 kids with all my friends to the class with the kids who have Down syndrome and Aspberers and all the different things.

[40:11] And there was like five of us. And in that moment I died a little bit because I had this realization that I was I was different. Um, and and clearly the way that special needs classes were set up, especially in the ' 80s, was you you're clearly off. And I — it was it wasn't neurode divergent back then. That's for sure. — Correct. I interpreted as I'm dumb. And so that was like a mini death for me. not long after, I ended up joining a gang and started smoking weed when I was 11. And I had all these things sort of circulating because I felt like I was a burden to my family at that point. Now I'm the dumb one in the family. I have a hard time learning, etc., etc. My sister's straight A's, perfect, all the things. So — older sister. — So then I become this out of the way kid. Now again, this is what we talk about when we talk about strategies. My strategy was, I'll be so out of the way and have no more needs because I'm so — Because I messed this up for you guys. I will make sure that I don't add anything, ask for anything, need anything. My mom would say, "Do you want $5 for lunch?" I'd say, "I'm I'm okay.

[41:32] Give me 250." I just always undercut it. Just, "No, I'm good." Well, of course, that's a thing that people praise me for even now, right? this sort of generous no need thing, but it came from a deep wound. Right now, fast forward to um 11 years old, my dad catches me smoking weed. He sits me down and you know, my dad had been a functional drug addict my whole life and it got worse as life went on. Um and he still ended up dying from that thing that I didn't want him to die from since childhood. But uh my dad did a lot of really epic things and here's one of them. So he catches me smoking weed. Um sends all my friends home, brings me upstairs, sits me down and he says, "Okay, let's talk." I'm 11. He — "And stoned at this point." — Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. He says, "I want you to take 24 hours and think about everybody you know who smokes weed and then I want you to think about the life you say you want because if you do what they do, you're going to have what they have.

[42:45] — You told me you want to be like Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson and and that was the thing you wanted to do. But if you do what those boys on the corner are doing, you're going to have their life. So you think about it. Don't talk to me. Just go into your room." So 24 hours goes by. I'm in my room. I'm like, "This dude's about to take all my toys. My bike's gone. I'm not going to be able to I'm on punishment. He's going to whoop me." Like, I am going through it in my head. But I also think about what he said. And I think about some of my uncles. I think about some of the little gangsters on the corner. And I'm like, I don't know if I want their life, like genuinely, right? So, he comes back and he says, "All right, what you what you choose? Because whatever you choose, I'm gonna I'm gonna um I'm gonna uh take care of you no matter what. You're my boy. I love you. Right. No, just ninja. This is ninja parenting because he's instantly like calming my nervous system cuz I'm in hyper vigilance. I'm like, "Yo, I'm going to die. Like this is it." So he's I love you. Got your back no matter what. What do you choose? I said, "Well, I don't think I want those boys lives. So, I think I'm probably just not going to smoke anymore. He said, 'You know what? That's a good choice. He said, ' Let me tell you something else about you. You are a leader and you're such a leader that if everyone else is going left, but something in you says go right, you go right. That's who you are, Preston. You're a leader.

[44:13] So, that's it. I'm like, that's it. He's like, that's it. Go. I get up. He puts his arms up, hug it out, and I leave. That was it. 11 years old. So, I stopped smoking weed at 11 in that moment. Now, fast forward, 15 years old, my friend Scott calls me to go do these things called runouts. Uh oh, one of the things my dad said to me in that time, he said, "I know you're going to be a boy and I know you're going to do dumb things, but you're such a leader that if everybody else is going left, you'll go right." That was it. That was the exact statement. So Scott calls me to go do these thing called runouts, which I used to do. I have done I've uh since went to every liquor store and paid what I stole. So a run out in LA is you pull up to the liquor store. We're all 15, 16, 17, and you pretend like you're 21. You grab beer, alcohol, and then you get to the counter and then the thrill is how fast you can run out without getting hit by the store owner. So we do that. I did about 20 of them this night. Scott calls me. Same scenario. Let's go. We're going to jump in Rudy's blue Astro van and we're going to go do a run out. We all have basketball tomorrow. Um but we're going to do it just for a little bit.

[45:34] And I could not have spelled intuition in that moment, but something said don't go. And I literally just like a wave was like don't go. And I was like no man I think I'm going to chill tonight. He's like, "What? Hell no. You going in. Don't be a bitch." And I'm like, "No, I think I'm going to chill." And my dad's voice running through my head. You're a leader. — 15 years old. — You're a leader. Everybody else is going left, but something doesn't feel right. You will do whatever you need to do to go in the opposite direction. So, I don't go. I hang up the phone. Scott and I used to fight over front seat, shotgun, shotgun, that whole and they pull up to a 7-Eleven in Gardina, California, and there was a gentleman who had just got out of jail whose uh partner had broken up with him. I think she was cheating or whatever the case may be, but he's sitting in his car next to the blue Astro van. So, here's these high school students pulling up and this guy's sitting in his car and he's going through whatever he's going through and pull up and they're looking in trying to figure out how they're going to do it.

[46:50] And Scott looks over at him and the guy says, "What the [ __ ] are you looking at?" And Scott being a 16 and a halfyear-old dumb kid, he says, "I'm looking at you, bitch." Turns back, talks to Rudy. Emanuel's in the back. I would have been in there. And guy gets out with a gun. Point blank. Boom. Shoots him in the head. Reaches across. Boom. Shoots Rudy. Shoots in the back. Shoots Emanuel. Everybody shot. Scott dies in that moment. Obviously gets shot in the head and my life is never the same. — Other two people shot, killed, shot and — They live. — They live. That was such like survivors guilt. Like it just layered for me. So I'm 15. — Oh man. it hit me so hard that I didn't even cry. T — take us through that. So how did you hear about I I don't want to be too but this is I mean amazing story.

[47:58] — It was tough. Um I went to the basketball game the next morning. I still didn't know anything had happened. Um, as we're driving to the game, um, my dad had one of those, he had a a 750 BMW. I was I was like a semi- richch kid at that time. Eventually, we lost everything and they boarded up the house and they took everything. He lost it. Drugs took it all. Right. But at that time, my dad had a 750 uh BMW and he had one of those big giant phones in it. — Right. You guys are old enough to remember this stuff, right? Yes. I'm old enough to have had a pager. — Yes. Yes. I had one, too. So, uh, we get a call in the car and he picks it up and I could just feel the room in the car change and he hangs up and he says, "Hey, P. Um, Scott was killed last night. That's all we know right now. Do you want to still go to the game or do you want to go home? And I said, "No, I'll go to the game and I'll play for — I don't cry. I'm just kind of like Game starts. Maybe two plays in. I go to the basket. I get fouled. I'm on the free throw line and he just pops into my consciousness and I just break down and fall on the ground and cry.

[49:20] And they run out, grab me, put me in the car, drive me. Uh, my mom was there. My mom took me because I had a stepmom at that point, too. My mom puts me in her white Camry and we drive straight straight to Scott's house. And this is the eerie part and especially as a parent, this really [ __ ] me up now thinking about it. We're driving to Scott's house, which is in the projects in Carson, California. And as we start to turn the corner, I have my window down in the back seat because we live in LA and the weather is always good. My window down in the back seat. I'm just sort of looking out and WE HEAR and grieving and screaming. This is blocks away. I can hear her. And as we get closer and closer, you see her and the whole community's around her and she's just losing it. — This one messed me up, man. I uh I just kind of went internal and uh I ended up uh asking my dad could I leave that school cuz I just was in fear of everything like I'm next. Other people had been shot and killed in my neighborhood and around but nobody was my best friend right that like hit different. You hear about oh yeah — I hold just I don't want to blow past that like the number of people who have to say other people have been killed — Yes. But now it was my like that's — First. Yes.

[50:51] — Like I mean just like I don't want to normalize any of that. — And and other people in your school this happened to — Yes. It's a thing. It's a thing. And like early uh because remember this is 80s 90s. This is the height of gang activity. LA is not a safe place at that point, right? Um so you have to be uh extra hypervigilant. This is why I do this work. I do cuz I know what it feels like to be so hypervigilant. Now we're going to I'm going to fast forward to the story where my heart decides we're just going to give out, right? Cuz you're so stressed that as a 25year-old, you basically are a 70year-old right now. And I've I've reversed my aging by removing that level of stress and understanding what's really happening in any given moment. So I ask my dad, could I leave? He sends me to a high school in Pennsylvania where his high school sweetheart is uh Shirley Russell. She takes me in. I'm instantly go to this all-white school. Uh I'm one of the most popular kids cuz I'm the only black male there. And I have this realization and this kid uh Brad's BMW.

[52:00] We're going to a party. Sitting in the back seat. All of their seats are like laid all the way back because that's what you did back then. We're listening to Outcast, Tupac, and Biggie. that at this point it's Outcast playing the wheels of steel. I have a 40 in my lap. They all have 40s. They're smoking weed. I don't smoke weed anymore. And I'm sort of looking out the window and I have this moment where I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] these kids are doing the exact same thing as the kids in LA, they're they're expected to go to Yale. and my old friends are expected to go to jail. And I sort of like pulled back again. You can't intervene in a world you can't see. I instantly saw the world. Holy [ __ ] They listen to the same hip-hop. They're smoking weed and drinking. They're listening to it. But the expectation is this group. This group, this is a phase. And so I went, "Oh, life's a game. I got to win the game."

[53:02] — You saw the rules that day. — I saw it instantly. Don't have to like the rules, but knowing them sure helps. — It changed everything. — Right. So now I enter back into the world with like a different lens. And now it's how do I win at all cost? So I go to I go to I get into college, but I still have the the nervous system and the and the paradigm of you're dumb. You shouldn't be here. You're an imposttor. And a lot of people have that right now for specific things, right? You're an — But you got into school. I got in. — Which school did you go to? — Southern University. Yeah. Which is all black college in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And I ended up getting an MFA from Louisiana State University. Graduating straight A's and all that stuff. So I — Hold on. You blow past that again. I just want straight A. Like I mean it's a lot about narrative. — Correct. Correct. Hear this. So I cheat all the way. When I say all the way, I cheated through all of college. BA, my I have a moment going into my master's degree where I say, "Okay, I just want to see. I just want to see if I'm not as dumb as I think I am." Cuz I would study my face off and then I would still cheat. Because remember, life's a game.

[54:19] And this whole thing isn't set up for me to win. But I'm going to win at all costs because I need to save my dad who's still on drugs. I need to save my mom who's extremely stressed out and has no exit plan. I need to save my sister who's awesome but will never blow up like I possibly can. And so I have a strategy. I'm not just a college student. I tell friends all the time, I never broke a bone as a kid. Not because I didn't want to do dumb [ __ ] It's because I was so calculated because it was riding on me. — So you're like still less than 25. Heart problems still building right now. — Yes. Yes. — So watch this. The first year of college, I get a skin disease that nobody can explain. I went to like five dermatologists. Nobody could explain it. And the last one said, "You have something called photoermatus. That's all we can do. And we'll give you some steroids." And what photoermatus meant was you're allergic to the sun. Huh? What was really happening because the body remembers what the mind forgets. What was really happening was my stress levels, my entire body was on fire from stress. And the body will send signals. It'll say, "Hey, you don't listen, I'm going to give you cancer.

[55:35] You don't listen, I'm going to give you this. You don't listen, I'm going to shake you awake or I'm going to kill you." So now I'm an 18-year-old. I have scabs and scars all over my face, which is this is a whole another beautiful story, right? Because I I already felt ugly as a kid. Then I start I I'm allergic to the sun and everywhere the sun hits I get boils and and hives, right? So now I have it all over everywhere, fingertips everywhere. I took one two pictures in in a span of two years and I still have them and I keep it as like a holy crap, bro. Like if I think about my children at 18, like what I had to hold, I'm about to cry right now. Um, it was [ __ ] a lot. whole world in my [ __ ] hands. them. I wear gloves when I'm driving. I'm like, I wear hats all the time. It's like a whole thing.

[56:39] By the grace of God, um, my mom calls me. She has a moment of maybe guilt, but she calls me when I'm in college. I'm about to graduate in 3 years, and she says, "Hey, baby, I know you went to college for me. If if if you were to just do what you wanted to do, what would you do?" I said, "Oh, I'd be an actor." I was studying journalism at the time. She said, "Baby, I want you to do that. I want you to do exactly what you want to do and I will support you no matter So, I'm 20. Um, I'm 20 years old and I hang up the phone and I literally that moment I can see it right now. In that moment, I walked to the theater office. I'd never even been in the building. I walked in and there's a guy named Dr. burger back in his office and a secretary with a little thing across and she said, "Can I help you?" And I said, "Yeah. Um, my name's Preston and um there's a part of me that thinks I'm supposed to be an actor. My mom just gave me permission.

[57:55] I'd love to just figure out how to audition for something and she said, "Oh, well, here we're we're doing a play called Love Letters and we're auditioning for the lead role." Um, could see Dr. Burgerer in the back sort of taking me in. Um, here's the here's the play. You can get the book right there. And I bought the book from them. I went and I think it was four or five days later I auditioned and I booked the lead role over all the theater kids, everybody. Just straight to the top. Dr. Burgerer, his son was on Ali McBill, um, Greg German. and uh he just sort of took me under his wing and he said, "I see I see what you are. There's this thing in Chicago. I want to sponsor you." There's this thing in Chicago where you audition for grad schools, for Yale, for NTC, for Cow Arts, for all these big schools. I want to sponsor you and send you. You have a talent and something that's different than what I see in this off in in this theater department. So, he sets me up. I go there, I audition. I get into five or six schools.

[59:10] one of those schools was Louisiana State University, and all of them said, "We'll give you a partial scholarship, but LSU said, "We'll give you a full scholarship, and we'll pay you $1,000 to teach at our school." So, okay, we don't have money. We got to figure it out. I take it. I take the scholarship. I go back to I graduate. I spend a year at LSU working in the theater department for free, not even in school, just learning. Then I get in, I become, there's eight of us in that graduate class. Um, only two graduate with straight A's. I decide not to cheat on anything. And I do so well that I'm like the star of LSU and I'm booking all these things. I'm doing Colorado Shakespeare Festival and I'm just everywhere. Move to LA. This is where I'll end the story and I'll let you guys jump in. I moved to LA. I get a job at Abberroy and Fitch. Uh, instantly this manager discovers me.

[1:00:15] Now I'm at Willamina as modeling and I'm I'm in these big agencies and it's happening and I'm sitting there in front of Abbercrombie with my shirt off and I keep telling the girl who I'm sitting with, I'm like, "My heart keeps doing this funny thing." She's like, "What do you mean?" like I don't know. It just kind of goes really fast and then extremely slow and it just feels like something's off. She's like, "Oh, you go to the doctor." I'm like, "No, I'm I'm black. I don't really do doctors, She says, "Hey, I think you should probably go." So, I go to my childhood doctor and she runs a couple tests and she says, "Pre, today you need to see a cardiologist. This is at from what it feels like, you're at an emergency." And I'm like, "Today?" She's like, "Today?" So, she writes a referral. I go straight to a cardiologist office and they run some tests. Uh, one thing that they found over the days was I had mold all over my heart, which was like, what?

[1:01:26] Number two, and this is the one that changed my life forever. He said, and then remember this is before influencers, before healthy eating, before any of that stuff, he says, you know, as a doctor, I'm supposed to give you these pills to regulate your heartbeat. we got to figure out how to get this mold off, etc., etc. Um, but as a concerned citizen, as a father, as a husband, I think you need to look at your diet and your stress levels. And I said, "What do you what are you talking about?" He's like, "Tell me about your diet." I tell him, like, "Oh, I still, you know, I eat McDonald's. I Burger King, Popeye's." He's like, "That's not food." I'm like, "Brother, man, you can't tell me that's not food. It's on the commercials. Everybody eats it. My whole family does. this is not like that's food. He says it's not food. So I have a moment where I'm like okay tell me about your life. I start explaining some of this and he says young man you are highly stressed out. And um I don't know if this is still the case but uh he said that uh stress which leads to heart failure is one of the leading causes of death. And he put enough fear in me at 25 that I walked out of that office and made a decision that I would not be pill on pills for the rest of my life and that I would get under all of the lies that had been sold to me that had me like that.

[1:02:54] And little did I know that would become an entire career and I would serve and support hundreds of thousands of people over the last 15 years from that. So all I got to say is wow. I think it's a good time for a break. — And we'll come back and and rejoin this — Yeah. Preston talk to everyone after the break. Thanks so much. — All right. We're back and uh oo that was a uh powerful powerful first half. Preston, I think there's again I feel like we could have you on for eight or 10 hours rather than the limited time we get with you today. Um you know, we started by talking about some abundance blockers and what it's like to be a spiritual millionaire. You've taken us through a lot of your journey, but I I think a really interesting part of your story we haven't really even touched on uh we've touched on it, but not deeply enough, and that is how you help other people. like you've you've taken your journey and you've found a way to like create a lever and a fulcrum and and push people where you can say, "Hey, I can now take what I've learned and I can help you in in in terms of what you do and forgiveness and creating hope and and so we talked over the break about — Tell us about how you're helping other people kind of create hope for themselves and for the world. We're we're we need more of that in the world.

[1:04:12] Yeah, I think um it's just to sort of go back to it all day every day we are being marketed to to believe in lack limitation and scarcity all day every day. And so what I do when people come into my space is I create enough spaciousness with the voice in their head which we call the inner roommate or the inner critic and the invisible opponent. This is we're talking some deep stuff here between even those two and the social and historical programming that created those two things. So I'm constantly helping them and creating spaciousness. Okay, my mind tells me I'm so fat, I'm so dumb, I'm so stupid, I messed up again, why am I here? I'm in my 30s, I'm in my 40s and I'm still struggling. X Y and Z, this debt, blah, blah, blah. Whatever the stuff is saying. I help them create spaciousness with that voice so that they can go ah this is not who I am. This is the voice of marketing. This is the voice of the machine that wants to keep me striving for the next thing that next carrot that will partially satiate me. It's like it's like eating the menu instead of the food. And I think a lot of people are fed up. That's why they even come to me.

[1:05:37] Um, any program I have, I say, "You must be nuts." Because for you to come to someone like me, I'm a very direct, heavy-handed, straight through the middle type of person. Very loving, but also, we're not going to do fluff. And fluff is awesome and important, but that's not my lane. My lane is shake your tree with your help so that all the stuff that does not belong to you falls off and your tree is healthy and pruned because I say and this is true for me, spirit can only do for you what it can do through you. So our job is to become the most available lighouses possible so that all our desires can come true because this whole thing at some level is stupid and meaningless. You're going to die. We all do. Everybody you know is going to die. Your dog's going to die. Your cat's going to die. Everything's going to go away. And before that date and that moment and that minute, how much of life can you take by the horns and actually feel it? And most people are so entrenched in um trying to get there that they mess around and get to that last minute, that last moment, and go, "Holy shit." You know, this is a really hard story. Um and I'm reticent to share it, but I do want to share it now. I just won't use her name. I have a student who recently died like recently um who she was a close student and she decided that she was going to take a pill with her partner uh before 2025 happened. So, she sent her kids to her mom's house and she was going to do this one last pill to feel good and party with her friends and her brain hemorrhaged and she died.

[1:07:40] And now, um, two years ago, I coached her through the grief of losing her husband. So, the kids lost their dad. Two years later, mom doesn't know that she's going to die from this innocent thing that a lot of other people do and she dies. And so for me, I had been already talking to her and all my students. It's going to come and it's not going to come when you think it is there. Just imagine if there was a clock right here and it had as many the the hours and and the days and when that thing is at zero, you're done. And it'd be nice if we're all 89 and and laying in bed holding our partner's butts, but more than likely it's going to be some stupid [ __ ] that you don't want to happen. And so to me, I'm I'm the like reality check. I'm the like, oh, I came when I found my way to Preston, that's when I wanted to actually live in abundance, not just get — I want to feel abundant. I want to be alive. I want to cross those bridges. I have a client right now who grew up in a Chinese culture. Chinese culture is about success, achieving, achieving. Oh, you're the firstborn son. You have to be this. And I said, bro, how does it feel to not really know your It's like when I let myself feel it, it's it hurts. I said, how do you think it would feel to be able to bridge and to share some of those withholds? What do you think the gift would be? and he spoke about it for himself and I said, "Now speak about it for your dad because your dad had a had a dad and a mom and a Do you think it would feel good? Do you think it would feel good for him to feel his son reaching across that divide? Do you think he wants to? Yes, he wants to.

[1:09:29] Do you think he knows how? No, because it feels like Mount Everest to him. Okay, so then you've been passed a baton. And the baton is, yes, for your kids and the future generations, but it's also to look back at your dad and go, "Thank you. I see you. You [ __ ] up, but you also did a lot of good. I love you so much. That moment when I was 12 and I fell and you picked me up and you kissed me and you said you love me, that meant the world to me." Right? What does that do to a man whose heart has been hardened? I think you guys get this cuz you are these kind of men. But like again, I hang out with really rich people and I always feel like the richest in the room because of this stuff, not because of what's in my bank So, so my work is the like, uh, let's do the ugly stuff so that we can have the most beautiful. — Break break breaking the cycle, man. That's that's so heavy, so important, — I mean, and it's hard. Yes, — it's hard. I mean, some of the cycles are good. We don't want to break them.

[1:10:33] — Correct. Correct. — But a lot aren't. — You know, there's uh information, there's transformation, and then there's demonstration. And for me, um just personally, I want them to say and my kids to say, "Daddy was a walking, talking, living demonstration of the stuff he talked." He didn't just he didn't just know stuff. He was he was living it, right? Um I kissed my kids probably 20 times a day. And now it's the whole game where they're like, "Oh, you can only get your daddy hug, but you can't get your daddy kiss or you got to tickle us first or you got to throw us or we got to jump on the trampoline or whatever the thing is." But like for me go well what what would I have wanted what would I have desired if I had the consciousness and the understanding to to speak to it as a child and my dad really he was really good at saying I'm proud of you I love you and you know my dad kissed me on the lips till I was 15 years old um and until my friends were like oh your you guys are [ __ ] like you know and then and then I became self-conscious of it and I'm like Oh yeah, maybe he shouldn't be doing that.

[1:11:49] Um, but like I want my kids and their nervous systems to be built in such a way that they they feel safe in the — Safety is the key to creativity. It's the key to love. It's the key to — It's that unconditional love you want them to feel, right? That's Yeah, — it's a hard one, too. It's uh — big. You know, one of the things you said a minute ago when you were talking about being direct with people was about you you help them see the world as it is and then and they get to separate and you said this before the break too. They get to separate and decide what they want to keep and what they don't want to — And you talked about marketing and how we like I think a lot of people they they hear a message enough times and they assume it's true. Burger King, McDonald's, like you were saying earlier, right? Like we and not to, you know, I don't want to call anybody out in particular, but marketing broadly, that's their job. their job is to sell something and and so but we don't always take it in through that filter particularly when you're young. — Yep. It's that's the Okay. So, um clean water wells with my wife for about 10 years. And one of the things that I love about being in the bush and seeing how they operate is that they don't have all that marketing in their space. They don't have billboards. They don't have things telling them what they aren't.

[1:13:18] And so, um, I'll never forget it was like the fifth village we went to, deep deep in the in the bush. They have no water. Um, but they greeted us singing this song. s asante asante sana which is like thank you for coming you are welcomed here in our home and it was so beautiful because they had their clothes were all tattered and stuff like that but I was looking at them and I'm like you are richer than me — you stand in a regalness you don't know you're poor you don't know you're you're supposed to feel a certain way about yourself you don't have imposttor syndrome because that hasn't been introduced into your culture And you know, I was watching regular TV the other day in Vegas because I don't gamble. And we just had a moment where we're just in the hotel and I swear to God in like a probably a 30 minute time frame I saw about maybe 10 to 15 drug commercials, right? take ozylic and it's like the person and then the next commercial is like take this and side effects are you could die and maybe you'll bleed to death and all these things and I'm like the whole thing is marketing even Vegas is a uh a a big outward show it's it's the macro of the micro that we have here one of the things and I know you live there um that I loved when we first moved here I moved and lived on the lake on Lake Austin in Westlake. So, we lived off 360 and there's this big uh church and then the elementary school here and we lived in the back. Um Matthew McConna lived right here and I lived right here. It was beautiful and I didn't even know like literally we were there for a month and a half and I was like something's different and I was talking to a friend back in LA and they were like what isn't it? I'm like I don't know. I just feel calmer and and you guys have driven down 360. There's no billboards. It's just a lot of trees. There's even a mall, an entire gigantic mall that I did not know was there for like six months because there's no big sign that says Barton Creek Mall.

[1:15:36] — Think about it. Yeah. — Drive by there again and see if you see a sign. — There is none. It's trees. You kind of just blew my mind because I've literally never there's signs for for businesses. — Even that is pushed back. — Right. But there's no You're right. There's no billboards. And I never thought about that till now. — Huh. Did you know that you lived over there, did you? — Yeah. I lived I lived just across I lived on the inside of the part of the loop. You were on the outer part of the loop. I was on the inside of the loop just over. So yeah. Yes. — But yeah. No, the only thing that bothers me now is the construction. Like it's like LA now. That's like the next 10 years of construction. It'll be soon before it get but Yeah. No, you're right. There's no there's no billboards at all along that road. — Uh-huh. Yeah. — And I didn't realize what was happening to me, but but it was the pollution that that was missing. I was like, "Oh my god, I'm just seeing trees every day." And like interesting. Did you ever see that movie Ready Player One? — Yes. There's this one little like cut scene that you just it goes right past you and the guy the the evil villain guy is like we figured out in the glasses how to maximize advertising just before the point you give him a seizure we can get 70% coverage or whatever it was and it was just like — oh man like it it just it's just a really quick like little snippet but I was like wow that's like ouch — that's it that's it so it's again you can't intervene in a world you can't You cannot disown that which you've never owned. And so once you start seeing yourself and then and then you start to look at the other worlds, right? Even marriage, marriage is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, harder than all the things we already talked about. And the big piece is how how can I find her and and like rem 12 years in just see her differently.

[1:17:29] — 12 years in right now. — That's great, — right? and and to like rediscover my wife and take her out of the box and the history I have for her and to reenter the room when I'm mad and and all the things even just emotionally, right? A lot of times we we stay in the room but we're not in the room, right? And I'm doing the thing and like marriage has been the biggest workshop for me in the whole world. — you guys work together. — Yes. And we work together. Yeah. It's a whole thing. — That's hard. Yeah, it is. — How long you been work? You've been working together a long time, it sounds — Since 2013. — How did you guys meet? — Oh man, this is the craziest movie story ever in the history. Everybody who hears is like, "What? Oh my god, it was ridiculous." But I'll give you the cliff notes. I um was at a party in Venice Beach and this is this new thing comes out. There's 14 of us at the party and this woman at the party says, "Oh, I just started doing this new thing called human design." And everybody's like, "Oh, what is it?" So, they all do it and then I text my mom. I'm like, "What time was I born? Let's see." Right? So, the woman does my human design. I'm the last one. She's like, "Oh my god, this is interesting." One, you have all of your brain lines lit up. This is very unusual for people because most people just have like one line in their brain, but yours can move really fast and take a lot of information and do stuff with it. She was like, two, and this is even more interesting given that you're Preston Smiles, the guy who runs the love mob and I was doing these organized acts of love and I was already popular and like on my path at this point. She says, you know, the way I'm interpreting this, it's basically saying you won't be as powerful and as um big as you could without your counterpart that you are meant to have a counterpart.

[1:19:25] — Is this your future wife telling you — No. All right. I — Okay. I just checking. I was just — This is this random person. Okay. — Right. So, I take that in. Right. Like I take most things in and I'm I'm really like, "Oh god, that was interesting. I wasn't thinking about having a wife in that moment, but okay. I'm 30, 31, 32. Interesting. Okay. So, next day, skateboarding down Venice Beach. I see this guy out with a digery dude. Just classic Venice Beach stuff. And his name is Richard. And I pull up and he's like, "What's up, Pete? What's up, Richard?" He's like, "Man, what you been up to?" He's like, "Oh, man. I just got certified in this thing called human design. Have you done it?" And I'm like, "Nope." I lied. So I wanted to see if it was bull crap, right? So he says, "Oh man, do you know what time you were born?" I'm like, "Yeah, I can give it to — Happen to know right now. — Yes, I know exactly. Just talk to my mom about it. — Yes. So he does the thing and he's like, "Oh, oh." He's going through the thing and then he's like, "This is interesting." Like what? He's like, "Well, the way I'm kind of seeing this and these things are all up to interpretation is that like there's a person out there for you." I'm like, "Okay, bro. Thanks for sharing.

[1:20:37] Interesting. So, I go about my day. At that point, I had been reading conversations with God religiously over and over and over again. And I got to a point where he was talking about relationships and the utility of them and all these different things. And I'm like, "Okay, that's three. That's three." So, — do you need a 2x4? — Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So, now I'm like, "All right, what are you doing? What are you doing?" Right. My whole life has been guided like this, including when my friends got shot. Like, there's all these things where I'm like, "Why are these puzzle pieces moving their way into the space?" And so I make a decision that I'm going to do six months of celibacy and I'm going to open myself to calling in the one. So I take off all masturbation, everything. Everything's off the table. Me, my smoothies, my surfing, my mission just in. And six months go by. I come out of it. I start dating people here and there. And while I've uh going on dates, I get a message on Facebook from a dude who I have not spoken to for years. And he says, "Hey, Preston, I'm in London.

[1:21:42] Um, and I'm meeting up with my friend's She is awesome. You do all of these things and help people in the name of love and do flash mobs and all that stuff. She does clean water wells in Africa and is awesome and a powerhouse and she's dating my friend. So, this is not that, but I think you guys should work together. Can I put you in a message? I said, "Oh, yeah, of course, bro. Put us in a message." So, he puts us in a message. I click on her profile. I'm like, "Oh, she's beautiful. Interesting." Right? But she's in London and she's dating this dude, so it's not my girl. So, I message her, "Hey, nice to meet you. If you're over in LA, hit me up." She writes back, "Yeah, thank nice to meet you." and I send her my number and I'm like, you know, X, Y, and Z. She ghost me. Not a single word. So now, let's call it a month goes by and I have a blind date set up with this girl named Eva. So the morning of the blind date, the morning 6:00 a.m. I'm sleeping. Bang, I wake up and I instantly know I'm going to meet my wife soon. So I go on Facebook and Instagram.

[1:22:49] And this is still to this day, this is still on both of those pages. I I I screenshot a picture of two wolves kissing and I put it on there. I have no clue who this is going to be. And I say I can feel her coming. #wifey #thequeen is on her way. No clue. 6 a.m. Now, I had bought tickets to a show um uh a poetry show in Venice Beach. I was living in Hancock Park at the time, so these are not close to each other. And Eva comes. It's now the show starts at 7:30. She shows up at my door. Let's call it at 7. Knocks on the door. I'm like, "Oh man, is this the moment where I meet my wife?" Knock knock knock. I go down. I open the door. I look and I'm like, "Nope, that's not my wife." Instant. I'm like, "Wow, — that ain't it." So I invite her upstairs and I was in a a class called the power of prayer at that point because I was studying to be a minister under uh church of religious science at that time. I have a lot of overlaps crazy stuff. So in the class we were taught to before any decision to just ask. So I leave her in the living room. I go in my room. I say hey God am I supposed to go on this date? Resounding yes. Yes.

[1:24:07] Now I go back. Hey God. Now I'm reasoning. Hey God, but for real because this ain't it. Like why am I going on this date? Like come on. Right. Yes. Again, clear. I know. You know, we all know you have hits in your body and moments where it's like this is not even negotiable. This is a yes. So like damn. Okay. Get dressed, jump in the car. And we're driving and every red light on Lincoln Boulevard I hit. And I'm like, "What is happening?" So now we're late. Every single red light. And I had done a video on YouTube talking about the people at 911 who missed their flights, the people who uh the trade center because they were sick and they didn't go to work that — And so I had this moment. I was like, "Oh man, something's happening. Something is happening. I don't know what it is, but I surrender. So, we get out of the car, we run over to the thing. They say, "Hey, we're sorry. We sold the oversold the show by 10 seats.

[1:25:11] you we can give you your money back. You can come back tomorrow or you can go in." I look at her and she says, "Let's go in." Okay. We walk in, they pass us to another guy. The guy starts walking us in. The whole thing is packed. Um, there's people all on the side of the wall. He walks us past those people to the front and he says, "You two right here." He takes two steps. He stops as if a lightning bolt hit him and he says, you two, come here." He takes two seats and he puts them. He says, "This is a fire hazard, so if anything happens, I need you to jump up really quickly." Okay? He puts two seats down on the front row. Puts my seat here, my date seats here. I sit down. She sits down. I look at the stage. I look at my date. And right next to her, my wife. And I have a moment where I'm like, She's like, "Pre?" And I'm like, "Yes." I'm like, "But you live in London." She's like, "No, I live in LA. I just moved here."

[1:26:15] And I'm like, "Wait, what?" And then instantly my mind goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." And I see the wolves kissing and I'm like literally the show happens. Now the a little bit of backstory. She the dude she was dating who is a superstar actor right now. He's been on HBO shows. He was in Top Gun. If I say this person's name, you might know him, but if you look him up, you would definitely know him. This guy missed his flight. And so his his friend, his best friend, picked her up from the airport, who was my college roommate. He missed his flight. They hung out. He put us in a message. Because he missed his flight, I got a wife. And so that's even deeper into the like rabbit hole. And then she had tickets to the Saturday night show, but her friend Felicia booked a role on TV and said, "Can you switch me?" So now it's like the whole world put us right next to each other. Did you switch seats with Eva?

[1:27:17] — Just had to ask. — She tried to kiss me at the end of the night. Um, and I said, I I genuinely think I just met my wife and she was like, "Okay." And I did. — I wonder what story she's telling today on a podcast. — She's she's a influencer and she's like she we've talked before. She follows me. She follows my wife. She has three kids. Um, she got her person. I got mine. — That's great. Yeah. — It's great you guys keep up about that, too. Like what a great story. — It's crazy. Absolutely crazy. She didn't even think I knew it was my wife. Alexi did not know that we were supposed to get married. She thought it was a business deal. So like even — how long until you started dating after — Uh it took about two months, but we just were hanging out with each other every day. She had three different guys including there was this superstar model back in the day named Tyson Beckford. Do you guys know who that is? He was the name sounds familiar. — Ralph Lauren. Yeah. Model. He's been on Oprah and all those things. So he, this other superstar actor guy, and then this other dude, all three of them, and me, the skinny broke dude who had just moved in with his mom. All of us wanted her at the same time, and each of us knew about each other. And I just was like, "This is it." And like, she could have went with the money and the spam and all that, but she felt it. We knew. And you know, at some level, I'm richer and more you know, it happened anyway. She got everything, you know.

[1:28:44] — So, you have a history. I mean, there's a thread through this of following God, your heart, your instinct, whatever you want to call it, right? All the above. — I mean, is this back to your dad saying when everybody says go left, you go right? Is it I mean, tell where did this come from? How how did you get this, I guess, faith? Yes, that that's the origin of listening personality. My dad taught me something indirectly that he did not know he was teaching me which is listening beyond the personality and what's occurring in the moment. He taught me to globally listen to like listen with the with the heart, listen with the body, listen with the because there's we know that we are not that voice because we can't stop the voice. And so I can to this day distinguish between the wounded part of myself that says you are this and you're not this and you could be better at this and x y and z and the still small voice that is the truth of my being and when that thing comes forward it's not halfway like I can you know this is a muscle too I've trained a muscle to be able to listen to it and um you know if you've heard my story before I I've it's happened so many times that there's no way it's not a thing for me.

[1:30:18] — And so now it's just about okay, how much am I willing to listen? Again, we started this by me saying I didn't listen. I got I it got me to the dance. And then once I got to the dance and I started seeing all the fame and the money and all that stuff, I got intoxicated by this part of me that wanted to control it from the from the personality and like wrap a business around it and make it something. And that's not wrong or bad, but the thing that is the magic was the other thing. And so I've been slowly and powerfully in reintroducing that aspect of me back into the space. And it it the proof is in the pudding, you know, because to me, this is the a big message I have for everybody. The fruit does not belong to the tree. The fruit belongs to the Our job is to produce the fruit for the sake of this beautiful dance and these happen stance. If if if you come under my tree or I come under yours, out of 8 billion people in an entire world, I get to to to swim in your energy and your gifts and talents and abilities. Oh my god, that's a that's a miracle.

[1:31:36] And so, okay, so I really have one job and that is to make my tree as healthy as possible and to trust in the seasons of life because the farmer never, you know, gets, you know, a season and goes, "Oh, it's over. Let's burn the whole thing down." The farmer knows exactly what's going to happen. If I keep watering, weeding, and feeding these crops, it will produce again and again and again. This is the story of the golden goose, right? like I got to get it out now. — Yeah. So, there's a lot of people listening and some of them are probably thinking like how do I get under Preston's tree like and it sounds I mean we talked at the break a little bit there's there's a number of ways to do that you know if they want to whether it's read your book or if they want to listen to your podcast or if they want to be a part of one of your groups or talk to you individually like any like anything's on the table right and and so how how does someone find you? — Yeah. at Preston Smiles on anything, but the the the best place would be Preston Smiles.com because you can kind of be directed anywhere from there.

[1:32:41] — And it's really for anybody. I mean, it's it's a it's not a lot to listen to the podcast. It's time, right? And to read the book, which — um and and there's more coming, — Yes, sir. — Yes, sir. Yeah. — Yeah. H — what what is it like to be a part of the you talked about the spiritual academy a couple times like take me through it. What's that like? — Yeah. I'm asking for a friend. — Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Um it's beautiful because um — we are social beings. Y — so a lot of people think they can just listen to podcasts and read books and their life will be different. Yeah. — But left to our own devices, we will always go back to homeostasis. — We'll always go back to the devil we know and and where we're comfortable. — The the the times where that doesn't occur is when we are in scenarios where we are held accountable and we are in proximity to people who are moving in a direction that we desire. So, um, in the Spiritual Millionaire Academy, I have, you know, a curriculum, an 8week curriculum, but outside of the curriculum, there's the community, there's the the weekly coaching and accountability, right? I coach people on stuff and and we'll put them on challenges, 7-day challenges. Um, and then we say, "Okay, next back we we'll meet back here on Tuesday. Did you do what you said you would? And if you didn't, what got in the way? And what do we need to do to support you?" Right? We had a woman um this past Tuesday, Anna uh in Argentina, she's been smoking for 30 years and she's on week two of no smoking. And the reason why that's working is because she still has to come back to the class. And if she comes back and says, "I smoked a cigarette." We say, "Okay, Anna, what we need to do here?" Because that's not who you are.

[1:34:23] That's who you became. And that's the marketing. [ __ ] those cigarettes. Are you gonna let the cigarettes win? What we need to do, right? I I had her post a picture of herself eating a vegetable for seven days in a row every day. A vegetable or a fruit. And that level of accountability inside of this group produces. That's how I got where I am. I didn't do this by myself. Every step of the way, I have put my money into things. I moved in with my mom at 33 so that I could use the money to invest in That's why I moved in with her. — Because I didn't I I was like, "Oh, I'm spending 2,700 on an apartment in Hancock Park. What if I take that whole 2,700 and every single month I'm in somebody's space who knows something?" And I started gathering and then I became my own environment like all of us in this room. — And then you bought your mom a house and brought her into your environment which was a really great part of the story. — Correct. Yeah. I brought my mom at 70 year old 70 years old. My mom got her first ever brand new house.

[1:35:30] — And it was quite the feeling to to walk into a place and say, "This is yours — That's amazing. That's awesome. — That's awesome. — What from a We have to wrap this up soon. I think we have time. But from a selfish standpoint, — one of the things I've been working on somewhat successfully for months is asking God, asking the universe — what I should, this is probably my single biggest takeaway from plant medicine and Iaska journeys — is everything came down to, hey dummy, if you just ask, — I'll tell you what to do — and all you got to do is do it. Like life's pretty simple if you just do — But that's much easier said than done. — Right. So you seem to have figured this — So I have experimented. I've played. I've been asking this question for months as Joey could attest to — and I haven't quite figured out. I'm better at it, but — I'm looking for tips. I'm looking for shortcuts, cheat codes, the 8020.

[1:36:38] — How do you h like I don't know. You you get this feeling. You listen. You're open to it, right? Some of it's just being open to it. I think I'm open to it, but I'm not I'm not very good at the at asking and slowing down. How do you do that? — Yes. Okay. Well, the short answer is you schedule it into your life. It's not just a convenient thing that occurs when it occurs. It's no 9:00 a.m. Let's go. Um, that's one. Two, uh, again, some people come to me, a lot of people come to me, they say, I want to go from here to here. And I say, "Okay, well, let's talk about where you currently are so we know what we're dealing with." And a lot of times, and I'll use the sort of example of a lot of times people are in the ocean capsized. They can see the land, but they are capsized. And they come to me at the capsized moment and say, "How do I get over here to building a mansion on the land?" And I say, "Let's just get back to shore." — Yeah. sure is the is the goal for right now. We know we know we know the mansion's coming, but right now you are doggy paddling and running out of breath. So, in such a high vibrational state that whether you get it or don't, you're good to go.

[1:38:05] That is the key is good with good without because I'm so full. I'm so high on my own supply that it doesn't even To me, that is the crux of what I'm sort of supporting people. And and then what happens, which is crazy, is when you don't need it, don't care anymore, it makes it a thousand times easier to just flow into your space. So, okay, next question. How do you do that? Okay, I have my clients do something called joy alarms where you put an alarm, three to five alarms in your phone. Every time the alarm goes off, you burst into spontaneous joy. Now, one, it just feels good and it's awesome. Two, it reccalibrates and tells your nervous system that there is something to — That is cool. So, just five times a day, I'm being grateful, — just bursting. Now, I've had clients the the goal is reasonless joy. However, I've had clients who had five, you know, three kids, a wife, and a dog. And I say, "Okay, perfect." Each alarm is a kid, a dog, and a wife. Okay? Alarm goes off, you go to that kid. Oh, Jason. Oh, my sweetheart. He's so crazy. Oh, he's so beautiful. And it's not just thinking because we are uh in-n-out beings, right? We take water in, water comes out. We take food in, food comes out. We need to use our voice, our bodies, everything needs to emote because we're recalibrating the nervous system to something that is healthy. From that baseline, now we're on shore. Now I'm here. Anything I build from here is going to be magic. And even if it isn't, I'm magic. So it doesn't matter.

[1:39:51] — Does that make sense? — Like you have to get to the point where you don't give a [ __ ] because you're so — I love it. or you don't know any better, which is the people you talked about in Africa who just they were wealthier than any of us because they didn't know any better not to be. — Correct. Because their baseline is already there. — So, it's like a lot to learn there. — Yeah. We can go get some stuff, but it's — Let me just say this last thing. I was when I was in the woods by myself, there was these different ant mounds, and I would observe them all day. And I had a moment where I was like, first of all, there was so many cool things that happened. Like um at one point I watched this little baby worm uh come up and then there was like one or two ants over here and one of them sensed sensed they did not see the worm, they sensed it and you could feel they're like, "Oh, there's food somewhere." Uh, and they're going around and then he he found the worm, but but he's not big enough. But whatever signal he sent, another one sensed it. And I'm watching this. I have nothing but time.

[1:41:01] So, I'm just sitting there like, "Oh my god." Right? Then the whole army, nobody goes back to get each other. This is literally they're all sensing together, right? Somebody signal goes off here. Signal, signal, signal, signal, signal. Boom. Everybody's eating the ant, right? But while that's occurring, I'm also watching all these different mounds and I'm like, "This is us. This is They're in this mound and they got their Gucci purses and their nice clothes and all the things, but all it takes is one of these branches falling. Bam, they're all It's stupid. It's meaningless. They think that those bags and that thing mean something." And they can because it makes it not boring. But like let's be let's be real with each other. That's stupid. So then what is what matters in this thing, right? That what matters is how I'm living moment to moment because that can that can ripple into eternity. And I just started going, okay, this is us. So I'll take all the toys, right? I got a G Wagon. I got a um 68 Stingray. I got a 65 Chevy C10. I got the big house. I got all the toys. I'll take it. Let's freaking go. It's going to be trash one day anyway or it belong to someone else or I'm going to pass it to my kids. I don't give a damn in that sense cuz it's going to not matter when I'm in the grave. What matters is how I'm being in those things. Those cars and those things don't make me awesome.

[1:42:37] I'm the awesome thing. I bring the life into them. That that to me makes someone rich. It makes them a spiritual millionaire because when I had the Prius, that's how I felt, right? Teaching surf lessons, winning. Look at me. I eat every day, hang out with friends. So for a guy who's so focused and you do a great job of being present right here in the — what does the future have for you? Like when you look out ahead and you look at, you know, your source of hope in the — what are the things that you're thinking about 5 10 years from now? — You know, it's all the small things for me. like I I want to be the basketball coach and I want to be in at ballet and I want to be, you know, in the details of my kids' lives and I'm in the process of setting up a scenario where I have so much FU money that I just make everything free and um and I set up pods where I can be an elder. I think a lot of people just never got the conscious dad that they needed.

[1:43:39] — Yeah. And the older I get, the wiser I get, the more I'm like, that's my job, right? I know I still look look young, whatever you want to call that, but like I'm closer to 50 than I am 30, right? Or even 40. So I'm in I'm I'm heading in a direction. And so — you look closer to 30 than 50, you — I've been working on it. man. It's nuts. Yes. That's the the That's the piece. I've been working on it. Right. The everything we're talking about here is not theory for me. — People come to my house, they come hang out, they're like, "Dude, you actually live this [ __ ] all the time. — Jacked up stuff happens, right?" — Like my my life isn't quote unquote perfect, but it's it's perfectly mine and I see the beauty in it. — As people get to the end, they're like, "Yo, I just wish I just I argued more. I cried more. I played more. I just was full. Oh, I'll just do that now. I'll listen to your wisdom and do it now. — Preston, this has been amazing, man. I got to tell you, like just absolutely amazing. I hope we can have you back at some point. I hope you as a listener get a chance to go check out the book, check out the website, check out the social media, check out the programs. Uh, I mean, just amazing. You know, obviously day one meeting you. Looking forward to a hopefully very long relationship of getting to know each other. And, uh, what a what an honor for us to have you — Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you so much.

[1:45:06] — Been really cool, man. Thank you so much. Again, it makes a difference who you are. Again, I've been on hundreds and hundreds of podcasts and everybody's on their journey and they're all doing the best they can. But because you all in this room have so much lived experience and you can tell you love yourselves and your lives, it makes a difference in the quality of question. It makes a difference in in in the conversation. We can only go as deep as somebody can actually hold, right? And so, thank you to every single one of you. I I know the listeners get it, but just hear it from somebody outside who's stepping in. You've found the right people, right? When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And birds of a feather often always flock together. And so, um, I'm sure you're subscribed. I'm sure you've left reviews, but if you have not, do so because this is the type of podcast and the type of transmission that needs to go everywhere. — Thank you. — Thanks, Preston. — Been an honor. — Yeah. prestonmiles.com for more of this — and we're going to work on the calendar. Bring him back. All right, everyone. Tales of abundance.com. You can find the show notes. You can find links to all this stuff. And uh you know, like, subscribe, check us out, and uh click through to Preston. Thanks, everyone.