In this episode, I’m honored to be speaking with a kindred spirit. Ryan Long is a remarkable guy with a big dream; to end the world’s suffering.

He’s taken this mission and turned it into a lightening rod for conscious entrepreneurs and socially responsible celebrities, raising millions of dollars to support difference makers around the world. As host of City Gala, he brings together A-List movie stars and world class thought leaders to share their commitment to a better world.

In this segment, you’ll learn the value to your business of thinking globally! 🙂

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Listen to the podcast here:

Live Inspired with Ryan Long

In this episode, we’re talking about being inspired. We’ve got a guest who lives a truly inspired life. One might even say glamorous, at least on the surface. Behind the scenes, the inspiration for him takes another form and it involves contribution. What I wanted to do before we invited our guest on board was to reflect on this idea of inspiration. I’d like to share a few examples of inspiration that have been present for me. I had the good fortune to spend a little bit of time at something called CEO Space. It is essentially an entrepreneurial think tank. In doing that, I walked into this experience with a specific outcome in mind. I was inspired by a conversation that I had with the Founder of that organization, Berny Dohrmann, whom we will be having as a guest in the future.

Berny has an interesting character. He’s Walt Disney’s nephew and he grew up with a lot of inspired people all around him. I shared with him where I was at in my career as a speaker, as an author and as a radio host. He asked me what was next. What I suppose might be the next logical step in my trajectory as a thought leader. I gave it some thought and he posed an idea, one that hadn’t occurred to me, something I hadn’t put a lot of thought into. He said, “Steve, you’re a great performer, you’re a great speaker. I’ve seen you do what you do. Have you ever thought about having a live show where people come to see in a fixed location like a Broadway show, a Vegas show or a Branson Show? He said he’d introduce me to some people in the performing space who he thought were worthy of what I do. One in particular was a country music star who had gotten a lot of mileage out of a couple of his earlier songs and had done quite well back in the ‘90s. He is still working pretty hard on the circuit. Having gotten this inspiration, gotten this idea from Berny, I did what I tend to do quite often, I take action very quickly. I don’t sit on my thumbs very long. I start thinking about how to make something go from a dream to a reality. The very first thing I thought was, “If I’m going to consider putting on a show in a place like Branson, Missouri, maybe what I need to do is to see Branson, Missouri.”

I booked a flight to Branson, Missouri. I’d be in Branson right now if the story that I’m about to tell you didn’t roll out the way it’s actually rolled out. I went to CEO Space with a very clear dream, a very clear inspiration for a new step, a new life, a new opportunity. In spending time at CEO Space and subsequently being introduced to Michael Peterson, a country music star, what came with that experience was that I had a conversation with Michael Peterson who discouraged this Branson idea and the Vegas idea for very sound reasons. Reasons that I agreed with and I was willing to give up that incarnation of the dream.

He then said, “What about television? There’s a lot of hunger out there in the world of television for content. I don’t know if you’ve noticed but when you put on a TV set, quite often what you’ll find is that any given network will be running reruns, sometimes back to back reruns on the same show over and over again because they just don’t have content to fill the airwaves. There’s a pretty receptive interest out there. People want new content, new ideas to appear on television.” He said, “For the same money it would cost to fail in Las Vegas, you could take that same investment and move it into the television space. If you’ve got an idea that will capture the imagination of the public, then you can very likely be successful there and come out of this thing with everything you want and more.”

Fear vibrates on the same frequency as greed. Click To Tweet

The rest of the week turned out to be a week about learning a little bit about television. How one might go about that and how to take the baby steps toward creating a show? What I’ve been about has always been this odd blend of entertainment and inspiration. That’s what I’m about. I like breaking people’s patterns, waking people up, helping them laugh, helping them see things a little bit differently but not stopping there. I don’t like the junk food entertainment approach. Rather, the idea that if I can entertain someone, if I can astonish them through magic or blow their minds with hypnosis, I can then take that moment, that experience and use it as a jumping off point as leverage for teaching people something important about their lives, something important about success, something important about how to live the life you want to live and how to relate to your own limitations.

We all have limitations and we talk about them all the time on this show. This show is called Executive Zen. What that means is we’re teaching leaders and aspiring leaders how to maintain a Zen-like presence. All the things that you would imagine from a Zen monk or a Zen warrior. Somebody who’s clear, who is coming from a place of compassion, who has something to contribute and understands that their minds are not always giving them the accurate information. They’re constantly cultivating their way of thinking. These are the things that I’ve been charged to present to the world. In having these conversations, asking these questions, learning this lesson and being inspired to go somewhere, I ended up going from having one goal, completely abandoning that goal, and finding an entirely different goal. Now I’m learning some of what it takes to make that goal come true knowing that even where I am now on the journey is likely going to cause me to come up against even more obstacles and even more blind alleys and turns in unexpected directions.

 

The reason I’m bringing all this up is for two reasons. Number one is because I’m in a very inspired place right now. I feel inspired by the possibility of what I’m going to create. I don’t even know what I’m going to create I just feel inspired to create it. Number two, this is what goes out to all of you who are particularly my regular readers who want to understand how to breakthrough your barriers and achieve great things in your lives and make contributions in the world. Every goal, every endeavor, every project is likely to have those obstacles and those blind turns and alleys. Part of being inspired is also being open-minded, being willing to fail, being willing to stop and start again and reconsider.

What I encourage you all to do as you listen to this next interview that we’re about to do with a remarkable person is to think about your life, your goals, your initiatives from that perspective. What can you do to stay motivated and inspired and not be pulled down by the obstacles that you might meet along the way? I’ll introduce you to Ryan Long who’s out in the world making a true difference. I guarantee he knows some people that you would love to meet. Our topic is inspiration, Live Inspired.

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I am thrilled to be introducing my next guest. I’ve been reading an article about this gentleman and I had the good fortune to see him speak at Secret Knock, a very prestigious business gathering. I was inspired by this guy and by what he’s doing in the world. The way that this interview has come to pass is that we didn’t do a lot of upfront writing up scripts. I don’t even have a printout introduction. I’m going to give you what I know in this wonderful article about Ryan that says, “Social Entrepreneur Ryan Long Uses Philanthropy to Resolve A Troubled Past.” That already has gotten my attention. Ryan Long is the guy who I know to be the Creator, the Founder, the inspiration behind a remarkable event called City Gala. It’s taking fundraising to a whole new level, an experience that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars. It raises some substantial money for some very worthy causes. The way it’s done is that this gala takes place on the night of the Oscars. Ryan has invited some remarkable people to participate in the gala, people come and they pay money to be part of the experience.

All your strength lies in your vulnerability. Click To Tweet

That money is all given to charity and it’s a tremendous experience. Some of the people who have appeared at City Gala are Sir Richard Branson, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, John Travolta, Quincy Jones and Russell Simmons. This is a remarkable thing. What’s very interesting about this is that Ryan has come upon this experience, has created this experience for us, for the world to create changes and make a difference from a very troubled past. Suffice it to say that what you’re about to hear is how somebody took a difficult life and turned it into something that not only inspires others but that also ends up creating a difference in the world, making a true difference in the world. I hope that I have done you some justice there with what I’ve just said, Ryan. Having said that, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the honorable and wonderful, Ryan Long.

Thank you. I appreciate that warm introduction and thanks for having me on your show. I love how you started off our conversation, how you started the show. I know Berny Dohrmann and the people at CEO Space well. I have to agree with you that it is a phenomenal place to meet and connect with like-minded socially conscious entrepreneurs. I admire you for taking steps immediately to start to create your show, so congratulations to you.

Thanks so much. I appreciate it. I’m more than happy to give shout-outs to Berny and to CEO Space because it’s a think tank. Anybody out there who’s considering doing something important with your life, that’s a worthy thing to consider, get among people who really care and those socially conscious entrepreneurs. The title of our show is Live Consciously, Profit Responsibly. We’re all in alignment here. Where have you been lately, Ryan?

I’ve been all over the universe. I’m doing my best to get the word out about what it is that we do. The City Gala is an annual event, but the work is year-round. Specifically, we help startup nonprofits gain access to funding and awareness. Each year, we choose new nonprofits to support through the City Gala. You have to think of the City Gala as almost a graduation ceremony for these startup organizations. The types of organizations that we work with are organizations that would like to cure or solve a global challenge. For example, eradicating poverty, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, liberating boys and girls from the human sex trade, climate actions and things that should not exist that we know we have to work on. If we don’t cure these issues, then humanity is in a dire place.

I love working with startups. I love working with them, but I don’t love that the work has to happen because why should poverty exist in any form? Why should people be hungry on this planet? Why should there be slaves and human trafficking? I don’t think that we should have these types of issues. The work does look glamorous and we come together for these big celebrations but the call to action is not very glamorous.

I’ve got a friend by the name of Jeff Hoffman. I think you might know Jeff.

Jeff Hoffman, the Co-founder of Priceline. He was a speaker at our City Summit. Before the City Gala happens each year, we get together with the best business minds in the world and we do a socially conscious business acceleration experience that’s absolutely world class. I’ve found that by serving entrepreneurs, by gathering entrepreneurs together and having them invest in themselves, it helps us raise even more money and awareness for charity because who can afford to write the biggest checks to charitable organizations but successful entrepreneurs. We’ll do the City Summit that leads to the City Gala and Jeff Hoffman is a very good friend. He’s a part of our board of advisors and I’m sure that your discussion with him was absolutely epic.

 

We are like-minded and he’s got a silly sense of humor like me. I want to highlight a couple of things you said. You used the word awareness a few times. When we talk about global challenges and why these problems even exist, why do we live in a world where there’s sex trafficking, and why do we live in a world where kids are abused in the way that they are. More often than not, it exists in an awareness vacuum. People are either not aware of it or they’re trying not to be aware of it. When people start to shine a light on these tragic occurrences, then problems start getting solved. Going back to what Jeff said, he told me about a conversation he had with the Dalai Lama. He said that the Dalai Lama said, “If you want to change the world, forget about the people who are in leadership now. Go to the youth.”

That is a wonderful statement and I think that the upcoming generation has got limitless potential.

It’s an interesting conversation because I know people who are in business are challenged and frustrated by some of the communication issues that they have with Millennials or the things that they describe as “problems with the Millennials.” Then you’ll look at what happens when you shine that light of awareness for them and you see how much compassion, resourcefulness and creativity you can draw out of people of the younger generation.

This conversation happens quite a bit in talking about Millennials because they’re growing up in this futuristic thing that we didn’t experience when we were kids, where answers are at their fingertips very quickly and easily. It’s the information age where you can go out there and grab information if you’re curious enough you can know about it. People tend to think that Millennials are lazy and I don’t think that. I think that the upcoming generation is the most socially conscious generation that has ever come to this world. In that, they look at injustices and they are following the people. The world is getting smaller and people are being exposed. I think that the Millennial generation is going to walk into their 30s and 40s with a good heart-centered space because the world is getting smaller. It’s becoming more difficult to “be a bad guy” in your private life and then, try to be an enterprise in business. We’re exposing the bad guys very quickly and the millennials get to see that.

The idea of the world getting smaller comes from the access we have to information everywhere. Click To Tweet

You’ve raised a few points that I don’t think I’d put in perspective until you said them. First of all, the idea of the world is getting smaller because we have access to information from everywhere. This idea that those who are not doing good or those who are doing bad, we know about them because there are very few places to hide anymore. The third part, you alluded to the fact that because this is a digital generation, they find answers very quickly. If you have a question, you can go to Google and get an answer pretty quickly. That makes you more likely to think that, “Shouldn’t we be able to solve problems that quickly?” Push a button and end poverty, “Why can’t we do that?”

That’s a great question and the simple answer is that we can but there is a lot that goes into it. If we’re going to talk about that, then we have to talk about why poverty exists or why hunger exists in this world. I think that there’s one simple answer and it’s greed. In examining fear or greed, you know that the world has been a certain way since our known or recorded history and it’s changing exponentially. The thing that has not changed is that there are still humans who are greedy. There are still humans who are fearful of empowering other people and that is a very difficult sensitive issue to solve. How do you solve greed? How do you solve fear? We create movements to empower people. By creating movements like the #MeToo Movement and the Civil Rights Movement, it breaks you into an awareness of solving a real issue. The legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King who gave his life in service of Civil Liberties or Gandhi. These people created movements and that movement became awareness. Those issues still linger on with us. You could see that. Has racism been eradicated? No, but have things gotten better? Yes. Do I think that things will get better? Yes. They will get better and they’ll get better exponentially as we improve our lifestyles exponentially.

This is a very philosophical conversation, at least the one I’m having in my head as a result of what you’re saying. I’m going to pick this all apart because I think we can go deeper into this. The first thing that I noticed was you used greed and fear in the same sense. That’s fascinating because is greed fear based? Are people greedy because they’re afraid that if they don’t get more than everybody else, then they’re not going to have enough or that they’re so empty inside that they need to fill themselves in order to feel like they’re worthy? What fuels greed?

Your next sentence you said, “How do you solve greed?” That got me wondering whether you do solve greed, can solve greed or do you just overrun it? Do you just get enough people who aren’t greedy or are more conscious and then, it makes those other people less relevant? Is there some magical formula by which we can flip the switch and help people who are greedy because it’s a disease? I’m thinking, “Is greed a disease? Is it something that some people have been afflicted by or is it sociopathy?” What is it?

If I’m being very clearly upfront with you. I don’t know why people are greedy. I think all emotions come from either love or fear. I’ve been taught that or at least that’s how I feel in reading books by Dr. Wayne Dyer. You’re either acting out of love or fear and you have things that branch off from love, like love vibrates on the same frequency as gratitude. When you have fear, it vibrates on the same frequency as greed. What I’m doing about it is what I can tell you. What I’m doing about it is I’m going from city to city hosting masterminds, talking to people live and in person and spreading the message of the global issues, the global grand challenges, and spreading messages of empowerment.

 

I’m doing it in a way where we’re asking people to get involved in civic duty. By creating this type of energy where they’re still getting together, anything that gets you out of the house, out of the office, in front of your laptop, from gazing at your phone all day. Anything that gets you away from that and surrounded by people who are very successful in business or socially conscious workers or just flat out humanitarians, that’s what I’m working on so I can speak to that. If I had a pinpoint answer on how to solve ending fear throughout the world, I’d tell you but I don’t know. I just know what I’m doing.

Do you have any memorable moments at the end of talks where you feel like you’ve gotten through to people in a certain way?

Yes, all the time. That’s the thing that keeps me going. At the smaller masterminds that we do, which are generally about 50 to 75 people, we interview some financially successful people who have created an amount of freedom in their life because they’ve been met with adversity and have had the ability to overcome. That’s important in talking about adversity because that’s one thing that we can all agree that we share. Humanity, adversity, that happens. That is the common thread.

Life is too precious to be perfect. Click To Tweet

One of the other common threads is the mindset. The mindset of the people that we’re interviewing and talking to at these masterminds, it’s a common thread. What’s your mindset? Are you congruent? Is every thought and every inspiration that you have taking you towards your calling and towards your inspiration? What inspires you? I can use one specific instance. One of our partners, Dr. Freddy Behin spoke at our mastermind. He revealed all of these amazing adversities that he had to overcome as a gymnast. He became world class. He broke bones and didn’t even want to become a doctor. He was studying computer science but he was so smart that they called him in to UCLA at the highest level.

There was this program back in the ‘90s of the pacemaker. The pacemaker then was in its beta stage. Freddy went and solved the pacemaker issue, saving millions of lives by going in there as a computer scientist, as a freshman at UCLA. We get to talk to people like this and then, out on the other side of it. He’s become this monstrously successful entrepreneur because all those adversities led him to this mindset. He grew so that he can give and that’s just a beautiful thing. That would be one short story of a thing that happens at one of these masterminds. Right after he’s done speaking, everybody rushes him with questions, “How did you do that?” It creates empowerment. That’s one of many stories that take place at these masterminds and help people.

I want to make sure that everybody knows how they could learn more about these masterminds. It sounds wonderful and I can’t imagine that there have got to be times during those experiences where people are tearing up where they’re seeing things differently. I was up against it. I didn’t think I could go any further and then I saw Freddy.

People do well up with emotion and that emotion is good. It’s a good emotion because it’s having people take an examination of who they are, their inspiration and what drives them. Hopefully, at the end of these masterminds or the summits or the Gala, anything that we do, it makes people reflect and then take action just like you did from your experience at CEO. You’ve reflected and then you immediately took action.

 

You make some a paradigm shift if you’re willing to look at the situation and look at it with an open mind and an open heart. I was thinking about an experience I had that I was looking at the curriculum of Wisdom 2.0. On their lineup, they had Monica Lewinsky as one of the speakers. When I saw her name there, my first reaction was to snicker. I read the title of her talk and it was Overcoming a Life of Shame. In that split second, in that nanosecond, I went from being a snide idiot to being a humbled and a grateful human being. I personally believe that we all have a heart. We all have the ability to have somebody shift our consciousness slightly enough that we could look at something if we’re willing to look at ourselves and be wrong. All this stuff that we’ve been seeing as bad, wrong or inadequate, we suddenly see opportunities, possibilities and we start becoming more generous people.

You can put yourself in Monica Lewinsky’s shoes and one mistake you make it. It’s good that she’s recognizing and confronting that vulnerability. All your strength lies in your vulnerability, recognizing them and shining a light on it, overcoming your vulnerabilities and knowing yourself. I’m happy to hear the name of her talk is Overcoming a Life of Shame.

This idea that vulnerability is such an important tool for growth, it’s an important opportunity to see what’s real. Yet most people are scared to death of their own vulnerability.

It takes courage to go within, but it all begins with one step. I think that going into soul searching, people have coins and terms of phrase. When you go inside, you take a look at what keeps popping up. If you have time to close your eyes and meditate and ask yourself, “Why am I so afraid of this? What can I do to overcome it?” You start asking yourself some powerful questions and powerful questions lead to powerful answers because the mind responds better to asking itself questions especially if you’re looking for the positivity.

It’s better than saying, “Why am I such a jerk?”

That’s not empowering at all.

I’m so appreciative of you and what you’re doing in the world and your level of mindfulness. The fact that mindfulness is even part of what’s producing the changes that you’re producing in the world, helping people be more self-aware, to look past their vulnerability, go a little deeper, sit in their discomfort, find answers and discover things that can make themselves and the world a better place. That’s a very rare trait. I honor you for it.

Thank you. I’m finding more people that do it by simply being out and around. I’m hearing it over and over again. I’m glad that we’re giving voice to people that are empowering because it’s spreading the word that people are gathering around that. These leaders that we see, we see powerful business leaders and some are more spiritually connected than others. I gravitate towards the ones that have that soulful mindfulness. It’s not just about the money, it’s about waking yourself up. Then after you’ve experienced your own transformation, your own awakening, then how do you help as many other people wake up as possible.

Becoming more socially conscious isn’t just a good thing to do for yourself, but it actually makes for better business. Click To Tweet

Put on your own mask before you help your child with their mask. We’ve got to do our own work. One of the reasons I started this show and named it Executive Zen was because I truly believe that being mindful, that being self-aware, that doing the work, working on yourself and becoming more socially conscious isn’t just the good thing to do for yourself, but that it actually makes for better business.

You’re seeing it over and over again. There’s an organization that we helped called Conscious Capitalism and you know the term Socially Conscious Business Acceleration is what we use to frame our City Summit because we’re seeing more that businesses are thriving when they’re giving. I’ll use Toms Shoes as an example. He dedicated that if you buy a pair of shoes, he’s going to donate a pair of shoes over in India. He’s never had to market. He’s never had to pay for advertising or at least not in the way that traditional shoes do. All people flock to Toms Shoes because they know that some child in another country that doesn’t even have access to shoes are met. That’s a fantastic business model and he’s made himself a lot of money doing it. You can make money by helping others. Entrepreneurs are helping people, solving problems for profit. That’s what entrepreneurship is. You have an issue, people need something and you solve that issue, you meet that need. It doesn’t matter if it’s in a for or nonprofit space, it still helps someone else.

It’s such an optimistic recognition that people will gather around a good cause. That’s empowering for everyone. All this stuff is contagious. You as a business leader, you as a businessperson out there thinking about how you’re going to build your business to a higher level, take some serious lessons from this in terms of how can you be a socially responsible global citizen and watch how people rally around that? Watch how people want to come in and become part of that with you. We all have a heart. You’ve got a backstory. You didn’t grow up without challenges yourself.

I was born to a mother out of wedlock. My father rejected me because I had a clubfoot, which if you don’t know that means, you’re born with your one foot all the way turned backwards. My mom had to take me in as a baby and had to put this cast on my foot. I had this bar between my legs in order to straighten my foot out. Ultimately, my father reappeared in my life. He was very abusive both verbally and physically and then disappeared. He went off to prison. I was looking at this as, “This is my dad,” to that point where I had met him, I didn’t know anything about him. I only knew my grandfather and I thought he was my dad.

Getting my heart busted at such a very young age. When I look back at it, it caused me to very much act out. I shut down my heart space. My mom raised me, my brother and my sister by herself because my stepdad, the guy who came along right after my dad was no good either. I like to say sometimes is that if a crippled freckled face, a kid from the ghetto can rise up, look inside, take a look at what’s going on and decide that he’s going to use all of his resources to help the world, so can you. My run-ins with the law, my adversities, my entire way through my grandfather who was my hero, committing suicide, all of these things are pieces of a puzzle that made me know exactly who I am. I was put on this earth to assist other entrepreneurs and other leaders.

On behalf of the world, I thank you for that.

It’s my pleasure.

What a beautiful and moving story. I can relate to having a difficult upbringing that I have come to believe that it’s a big part of what has made me who I am, made me more compassionate, generous and willing to try to help. Do you know Jason Freeman by any chance? He has cerebral palsy and a speech defect and he’s a motivational speaker. His work is so heartfelt and so tear jerking. He says life is too precious to be perfect. He’s embracing the imperfections and the power of embracing imperfections. He has so much to say about that. Those of us who have various imperfections and various wounds, those wounds are gold. It’s like the cracks that the light comes through.

 

There’s another illustration and I believe it’s over in Japan when they break a glass, when they’re putting it back together in pottery they fill the cracks with gold. That’s just a wonderful illustration of going through things and those uniquely defined adversities that you’ve overcome. It’s your currency because your voice is your only currency in this world. I’ve been a promoter now for sixteen years. People ask me, “How do you promote your business?” I say, “I find out what my currency is.” My currency is my voice and my voice comes from my mind and all those experiences that led me to be me.

A lot of that has been the overcoming of the challenges. Make no mistake about it, there are new challenges daily. I’m still going through challenges, I just have a different mindset about it. Those issues that I dealt with as a kid, they still give me things. The guilt of this or that scenario still come into my mind. I’m just a little bit more aware now of how to overcome when guilt decides to show up, how to recognize it, put it back and use it as a slingshot, put it back into the world and overcome that challenge.

When I speak, I’ll often say that we don’t necessarily lose our demons, we just change our relationship with them.

That’s an amazing concise way to say it.

Do you want to say a few words about the Gala event itself? That’s the glamour piece and I know it’s not the underlying cause of what you’re celebrating but I think that people want to hear the glamour piece too.

What that does is it just helps us grow the awareness. We had Matthew McConaughey who was our inspiration honoree and Ashton Kutcher who was our keynote speaker. Having people on the platform that they have to shine a light on what they are doing in the philanthropic and humanitarian world is absolutely incredible. Matthew McConaughey has his Just Keep Livin Foundation. He focuses on health and wellness and education for youth. He’s actively involved in it. It’s a deep passion and not many people know about it. When he comes and speaks, he gives us that raise and elevation of energy in the room. It is fantastic to have him. Of course, the media loves talking about him. When we’d go out and we do media and press surrounding the events, it captures a lot of attention around something that’s very positive.

The same thing with Ashton Kutcher. He’s passionate about eradicating slavery. His organization called Thorn works directly with the CIA and the FBI in order to eradicate this slavery. There are over 40 million slaves in the human trafficking network. It needs to be eradicated and he’s working on that every day. He says it publicly, “My day job is working on Thorn to eradicate slavery.” You get socially conscious big, top level people who are willing to come out and say, “This is what I’m working on. You should too.” That’s what the City Summit and the City Gala are all about. Anybody that would like any information about it, you go to CityGala.org and click join and you can attend our City Gala for $9.99 a month. It goes directly to charity.

We don’t necessarily lose our demons. We just change our relationship with them. Click To Tweet

I’m fortunate to have been surrounded by people who have gained fame and fortune and have given it back to the world, like the people that you’re describing. It makes us all feel good to know that somebody of Matthew McConaughey’s fame or Ashton Kutcher’s fame cares enough about the world to give back. You’re doing something remarkable. Would you mind sharing about how this all came about or what was it that fueled the idea?

When I hit rock bottom, I noticed that I was at my most unfulfilled. Tony Robbins talks about The Art of Fulfillment, that it is an art and you have to work on that art. When I hit rock bottom and I was reading personal development and self-help books, they made me feel good. I made a decision. Decision comes from the same Greek or Latin word as incision. Decision in my mind it means to cut off from all other options. I made a decision that I was going to live my life in service of other people as opposed to the way that I was living at before, which was in service to myself and myself alone. When I made that decision, doors opened up like you wouldn’t believe. That was the basic start of it. Also, Jack Canfield in The Success Principles book says, “Big dreams attract big people and it costs you the same amount of time and energy to dream a big dream than it does to dream a small dream.” I took that advice. I said, “Let me dream big. Let me see how we can serve more people.” That’s how it started.

When you first decided, “I’m going to create an event that involves celebrities.” I would imagine that was a little daunting. How do you even reach out to a celebrity to invite them to be part of something of this nature?

Prior to being a fundraiser for charitable purposes and then ultimately a business conference leader, I was a promoter in the nightclub business in Hollywood. I was familiar with agents, managers and publicists so I started reaching out to them. That’s how I began to say, “We have a big idea and we want to serve more people.” Lucky for me, it resonated with them that they would like to come and take part in an event that’s positive and will uplift people.

I like to end my shows with a metaphor of the day, a quote of the day and the challenge of the day. I’ll share my metaphor of the day and the quote of the day and then we’ll let Ryan share his challenge to you for the day. The metaphor that came to mind and I usually just let them come to mind is the image of the woodpecker. I live in a place where there are a lot of woodpeckers and I hear them outside with a very interesting sound when they hammer away a tree. They’ll pick one spot on that tree and start hammering away at it. You’ve got to figure it takes them a while before they break through to what they’re looking for.

While they’re working on that, I’m not sure exactly what it feels like to them, but we know that it takes a lot of effort and a lot of repetition to break through to the good stuff. The metaphor is, “Be the woodpecker. Be willing to hammer away until you get to the good stuff. Don’t let discouragement stand in the way of your inspiration.” The quote is from Vincent van Gogh who said, “If you hear a voice within you say, ‘You cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” I’m going to turn this over to Ryan who will share a challenge for the day.

I’d like to challenge people using the title for our talk now, Inspiration. I’d like to challenge people to take a thorough examination of who they are. Get in silence and understand yourself and understand that you’re going to be more successful by knowing exactly who you are with absolute clarity. I challenge people to take a look within and there will be a voice and that is your voice and your inspiration. Literally, the word means in spirit or the God within. Your inspiration will be your calling. It’s not that you’re calling will be something out there that you have to go get that you won’t let go of, your calling will be something that won’t let go of you.

Mark Victor Hansen used to say, “Whatever you want, wants you.” I hope you all will take that to heart. Some people are so left brain that they have a hard time believing that there is wisdom in the silence, but that’s where it all lives. Take that challenge everyone. Thank you so much, Ryan. Thank you for a remarkable conversation. Share this with your friends, subscribe to my podcast, visit Executives Zen on iTunes or find replays. Next episode we’ll be joined by Todd Falcone, one of the most influential teachers in the network marketing space. Thank you to all for joining us. Live consciously and profit responsibly.

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• Social Entrepreneur Ryan Long Uses Philanthropy to Resolve A Troubled Past article
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