Living your purpose and ultimate destiny with Yanik Silver

Entrepreneur, Author, Adventurer & Pretty Darn Good Doodler – Yanik Silver

Yanik Silver is an entrepreneur and author. He has been called a Cosmic Catalyst, a Maverick Mischief-maker, and a Galactic Goofball. He redefines how business is played in the 21st century at the intersection of evolutionary growth, impact, and fun.

Yanik is the creator of the Cosmic Journal, author of Evolved Enterprise, and the founder of Maverick1000, a global collective of visionary entrepreneurs making a serious difference in the world, without taking themselves too seriously. In fact, it’s not unusual to find him dressed as a lemur, a showgirl, or even in matching mermaid tails with Sir Richard Branson.

“Trust that the universe has even more in store for you than you can imagine. Trust the divine timing. Trust your crazy ideas. Trust your wings will grow when you leap. Trust your nature. Trust you’ve been encoded with the cosmic alarm clock. Trust the signs, symbols, and synchronicity sent to you. Trust the co-conspirators catalyzing your conscious evolution. Trust the perfect unfolding of your understanding. And trust your divine connections.” – Yanik Silver

Episode Highlights:

What is Cosmic Journal
Tips and tactics on how to align your head and heart when everything is going down
How to live your purpose and your ultimate destiny
Learn how journaling helped Yanik evolve as a person
How to pay attention and surrender to your own language
How to deal with your intense period (And how to rest to get your energy back)

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime: Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters. And today on the show I am so excited to have Yanik Silver back. Now, of course, he runs Maverik1000, which are entrepreneurs making a difference in the world. But he also just came out with the Cosmic Journal. You can check it out at CosmicJournal.com. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Yanik: Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks Jaime.

Jaime: Well, what I love...

Yanik: Glad we ran into each other in Austin I guess a couple weeks ago.

Jaime: Exactly. I was like, "Shoot. I need to have you back on the show again." Especially because of this super cool thing that you have created which is very unique and different comparatively to what you've normally done. So, tell me a little bit about what the heck the Cosmic Journal is.

Yanik: Yeah. So, when I hand it to someone, I call it, This is your galactic instruction manual that you were missing at birth to actually re-remember your destiny here. I guess I could say, "Your destiny here on earth," and make it a little poem.

Jaime: That's awesome. How do people react to that by the way?

Yanik: They're like, "Cool. That sounds awesome." And then I tell them it works like an oracle. Literally you flip a page open and it'll have a message for you. And then they get even more intrigued. And so, it started off as just a project for myself really. Actually, I'll show you the original one since we're on video.

Jaime: Oh, awesome.

Yanik: Hold on.

Jaime: I would love to see that.

Yanik: Not that many people have seen the original one. So, check this out. Very non-descript looking black moleskin. So, I've journaled for years and years. I think journaling is one of the foundational skills for entrepreneurs, for leaders. It gets all the stuff out of our head and puts it on paper, and it helps us create a beginning, middle, and end. And it's been scientifically proven to make you happier. Huge, huge, huge proponent of journaling for anyone.

And so, I saw this little art challenge going on online where it's like 100 days of art. And I'm like, "Well, that would be interesting, but I travel around a lot. What would I possibly even do? Would I commit to it?" And so, in my journal I'll start just writing would I wanna do this? Just me processing my own thoughts around this intriguing idea. And I came to the conclusion that even, regardless of what happened at the end of it, I'd be really pleased. Who knows what the biproduct would be?

So, it was never intended as a product. Way, way, way back in my head I'm like, "Maybe I'll publish it. Maybe I won't. I have no idea." But it was really created for myself. And I'm like, "What would I love to do as art? I'd love to create a page... a journal art page every day." And so, literally for every day for 108 days, because 108 has more in the wisdom tradition I was intrigued by. That's why I created this little check box.

Jaime: That's so awesome.

Yanik: And so, 108 just blank check boxes. And literally every single night no matter if it was 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. I would just ? I would do one of these illustrations. And so, here's what one of them look like.

Jaime: That's so awesome.

Yanik: And so, that was the best feeling to get that little check box created. So, here's another one. Where is it? There's Ganesh. But sometimes they were from years and years of journals that I had. I'd pull something out. And sometimes they're literally just me meditating and then see what came through me. And there's no real rhyme or reason or order to the pages. It was just whatever was happening at that time.

Jaime: Have you always been artsy or no?

Yanik: Yeah. So, as a kid I wanted to be a professional hockey player and a cartoonist in the off-season. That was my dream.

Jaime: You're very pre-planned. I appreciate that.

Yanik: Yeah. I did not become a professional hockey player. And I do feel like in my journals over the years my art has gotten better. And I started drawing again and finding that creativity. And I don't wanna be a cartoonist anymore necessarily, but I do love this... I don't know. There's something that came out of this that has been really, really cool.

And then so I started showing all my friends. I started personally using it as an oracle. And then I started showing all my friends this little random notebook and they're like, "Dude, this is amazing." And one of my friends is like, "Okay. Well, I'm gonna pay you... pay to actually publish this." And so, we got these 888 limited edition vegetarian leather journals that got made.

And so, that also forced me to do something which is unbelievably different, which was I had all these pages scanned in from this journal. And then they were like little 2-inch by 2-inch squares that were across my kitchen island and I had to figure out what was the order of them. And then I also had to create these left-hand journal prompts. And so, I did that in this other journal, these little left-hand prompts.

And so, I guess when you flip to a page there's also a prompt on the left-hand page. And so, I literally finished both of those at 1:11 a.m. Putting together the order of it, putting together what the prompts were. I was like, "Wow." It's not like I had an alarm go off. So, there's a lot of magic that was happening in and of the assembly of it and the creation of it and it was just really showed me that there's something going on.

Jaime: Well, especially when some one of your friends actually goes, "Here. I'll publish it for you." Because normally these projects, sort of our self-fulfillment projects, sort of go to the bottom of the list.

[Crosstalk]

Yanik: Yeah.

Jaime: Like, "I'll get to it someday. Someday." And that really sort of pushed it up to the forefront.

Yanik: It did. It made it a real thing. And it's not like I couldn't afford to go pay for the publishing of it, but I didn't want to. And it's really cool because he this guy named Eric Lochtefeld, and he loves to invest in bliss, he says. And he came to one of our Camp Maverick and he really got clear that that's what he wants to do. And he's got a [inaudible] [00:06:01] and done really well. He's like, "I just wanna invest in people's bliss." And we had a breakfast meeting and he's like and I just showed him this as a random thing. He's like, "You just light up when you talk about this." So, he's like, "I'm gonna pay you to go figure this out as a real project."

And then from that that turned into a breakfast meeting with Reid Tracy, the President of Hay House. And Reid looked at it and he's seen everything. He's best friends with Wayne Dyer. And he's like, "This is really, really intriguing." And they fast-tracked a contract and a publishing schedule. And so, it came out last November.

Jaime: Yeah. So, we're gonna break that down in just a second. But tell everybody what an oracle is just in case people don't understand.

Yanik: So, an oracle is a way of getting a message from a more synchronistic and intuitive sense. And so, there's a bunch of these oracle card decks that are around. And they work really, really well for that. You might pick a card at a certain time or there's specific spreads. And so, it doesn't it's not a tarot, it's not like that, but it's done in a way that it might.. it's more in an archetypal energy sometimes. It's in just like... well, it could be something random, but it creates a meaning and a story that you build to into it and it usually connects in a really unusual way.

And so, I've had two people cry from getting the right pages inside the cosmic journal. So, that's been really, really cool. And to me an oracle's like it gives you the message that you need at the right time.

Jaime: Well, I think one of the biggest things that I want everybody to understand is that since belief is so, so important, and I know we know this logically, but in the moment, especially with the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, it's insane. So, even if we can just make ourselves feel a little bit better in the moment, which I use oracle all the time, to be able to just go, "I'm not in this by myself. This isn't such a shitshow." Do you know what I mean? I feel like entrepreneurship is so crazy that we need stuff like this.

[Crosstalk]

Yanik: Yeah. We absolutely do. And I think the more you believe in something bigger and the more you believe in magic the more you're gonna see it. And so, I have this little thing on my desk that Sophia, who works with me and my cousin, created for everyone at one of our last Necker trips and it was from my journal from a couple years back that was like one of the first things I ever shared from my journal, my actual journal.

And it says, "Trust that the universe has even more in store for you than you can imagine." It says, "Trust the divine timing. Trust your crazy ideas. Trust your wings will grow when you leap. Trust your nature. Trust you've been encoded with the cosmic alarm clock. Trust the signs, symbols, and synchronicity sent to you. Trust the coconspirators catalyzing your conscious evolution. Trust the perfect unfolding of your understanding. And trust your divine connections."

And so, I wrote that at a sunrise on Necker Island. And then I read it on the last day. And then it turned into this little block. And then it got turned into a gift. And then it made it into the actual cosmic journal. And so, that's actually Page 1 of the cosmic journal. That's how much I really believe in that piece. And so, it looks like this in the cosmic journal.

Jaime: So, one of the things that I found in almost 500 millionaire interviewers, especially coming from and I was telling you this in person, I was agnostic before. I had no connect I was like, "I think we're computers when we... when our hard drive goes away." And then I started interviewing all these people going, "Okay. Well, there's God mentioned a lot, but that's separate." And I keep going over and over and over again. And then all these sorts of esoteric meditation, we have science to prove that. Journaling, we now have science to prove that. So, I could get on little hooks. I inched my way like, "Okay. Science backs that up."

And then I started getting around more high-level people. The stuff that they don't say out in public and what they say to you when it's not being recorded, there was so many patterns. And you work with people on Necker Island. You work with the highest of the high, so we call. Financially, material world, all that fun stuff. So, tell me about the patterns that you see or what other things people are not really talking about when it comes to the science side of podcasting.

Yanik: Yeah. I mean it's really interesting. So, a lot of my work recently has been all around, "How do you help entrepreneurs and these high-level people connect to their head, their heart, their higher purpose. So, how do you bring alignment into that?" And it's like the to me, the head part is where especially the western world is really lived in and that's it. And it works to a certain extent. It works a lot. But that's only gonna get you so far. It's gonna get you the logical part. It's gonna get you the, "Here's what you need to do, step one, step two, step three." It's gonna give you maybe the business side of things.

But your heart is an incredible GPS navigator for us. And then this higher purpose is like what maybe just to spend disbelief for a second, but what were you brought here to do. That's why I say, "This is a galactic instruction manual for you to re-remember your destiny here." What were you meant to do here with your time here on earth? And what is our and even if you don't totally buy into it, but just imagine it and play with that myth. I really love this mythic story.

And that's why things like Wizard of Oz really tap into our collective memories in some weird way. And that's why all these superhero stories do. And it's like if you study any of Joseph Campbell's stuff with The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it's like you see these similar archetypes and hero's journey in stories because they're just encoded in us. And so, living your life in a way that you feel like, "Okay. I am the hero or heroine of my story and what is this mythic story and how does that really connect to this higher purpose," then it's more interesting.

And even if it's not true, who cares? It's more interesting anyway to live like that and see what happens. Same way with the magic in synchronicities. I always feel like there's enough of a, "Well, this could have happened because of this," that you can explain it away, but I don't really care. It's more interesting to see the magic. And that's what I try and teach my kids as well.

Jaime: Well, yeah. Because when we were little we actually still believed in that stuff and it was way more fun. But I think in general, especially for the hero's journey, it's getting your power back. It's not, "Oh, the world is happening to me." I can actually create how I'm feeling internally. And that's really all that matters regardless of conditions, regardless of how much money is in your bank account, you can actually still enjoy your life, which unfortunately is not a common occurrence or a common thing that we're told a lot.

With these ups and downs, do you feel like you can really be aligned, head, heart, everything, even when it feels like things are going down?

Yanik: Yeah. It's all about the story that you're telling yourself. It's all about the meaning that you make with anything happening. So, there's facts and then there's the meaning that we make or the story that we create. And it's like, "What happened? The stock market went down 1,000 points." That's a fact, but what's the meaning that we make around it or a story that we make or how quickly do we jump to, "Well, I'm gonna be homeless." Or, "I'm gonna live out of a cardboard box," or whatever. There's meaning and then there's also like one of the pages I flipped to when I was showing you some of the first ones was Ganesh. And since I don't have any page numbers on this one...

Jaime: I love it. Iteration 1, no page numbers.

Yanik: Yeah. I tried to make it as unusual and synchronistic as possible. And my publishers like, "No, no, no. We're gonna go with page numbers." So, Ganesh is about the thing is about embrace fully and Ganesh is the remover and placer of obstacles. And not many people know that. Some people know Ganesh, but they don't know him as the remover of obstacles. Like, "Here's where I wanna go. Help me remove these obstacles."

But there's also another aspect to it which is the placer of obstacles, which I find really, really interesting and we probably talked about some of this in our first interview about when things aren't going well. Looking at what's the story that you can be telling yourself around, "Hey, this is actually just moving me towards my true destiny or my dharma or my real path of connecting my head, my heart, and my higher purpose. And looking at it that way, it's a whole different story than, "Oh, this is not working out. How do I get out of this thing?"

Jaime: It's easier said than done though. So, let's talk about some tactics or some reprogramming. Because even if we have step one awareness like, Oh, crap. The stock market went down. And now this means... and then usually it's blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. Or family, old patterns, or whatever. So, how do you actually do that in the moment, as best you can?

Yanik: Yeah. I mean the processes that I use are a couple different tools. This is gonna probably sound similar to maybe what you've heard a lot of times, but meditation. That really, really helps because the more you are in a meditative state and just it really forces you to separate from stimulus and response. So, create more of a space between what's actually happened and how do you respond to it?

And if it's responding like this, it's not gonna be the same as like, "Okay. How do I provide that sense of stillness?" And then respond from that spot with just a greater grounding and a greater sense of, "Okay. Here's how I want this to how do I wanna show off?" And then it also allows you to bring awareness to what you're feeling and looking at those feelings as more of feelings are normal. Say you're gonna be like, "Okay. I'm scared." Or, "I'm fearful of this." Or, "This is occurring," but realizing that it's gonna pass through unless you don't let it pass through.

Like it can be a cloud. But you wanna feel it fully, not just push it away because then it's gonna get stored somewhere in our body or in a very holographic aspect of what we what's happened and it's gonna come back in a different way. But you want to actually feel it and then let it pass through and go ahead.

Jaime: I have some questions on that. I wanna excavate and dive a little bit deeper on this. Because especially for me who used to only live in my head. You'd say, "Heart, and I'm like, I don't know what my heart wants." I am very logical. Shoving every feeling down known to man. Like, Oh, as long as it's down here, I can't tell. So, it's been a learning practice for me. And for I mean clients and my kids. We should be good at this, and yet we're not.

So, how have you either evolved in your meditative states to be able to do this? Tactically, what sort of meditations do you do to try to get better at that? But also, how do you feel your feelings okay? Were you born feeling feelings okay? Or it's not a big deal?

Yanik: Well, no. [Audio cuts out] [00:17:10], but I think I turned them off because it's funny because I was again in this mythic story. I was in the sixth-grade play. I was a fourth grader and I was the only lead role. I was the tin woodsmen in the Wizard of Oz. So, the Wizard of Oz has always been a big one for me. It's actually here. Here's another one of the things I've got on my desk with me.

Jaime: That's awesome.

Yanik: So, it actually has and I'll be happy to share some of these with you that you can share with listeners. If you wanna see it, they can see it. But the Wizard of Oz has really captured peoples imagine because it's like the tin woodsman and he's looking for his heart and then the scarecrow looking for the brains and the courage from the lion. And the wizard. All these really cool archetypes. And so, I also feel like these synchronicities show up sometimes years and years later that you're like, "Oh. Oh, yeah. This is really, really interesting."

And so, the fact that I was the tin woodsmen, I feel like a lot of my life has been, "How do you open up your heart and find your heart?" And that's been a lot of the journey that I've been on is connecting to that. So, now I don't think it's been a natural piece for me. And I continue to I think explore it and wanna feel my feelings fully.

Two years ago, I set my intention for the year and one of them was feel fully. And so, that was the thing. And I'd listen to Michael Singer from Untethered Soul and Surrender Experiment and he's like, "Okay. Now, just relax into it and let your heart just naturally unfold. And that way the energy of it will all flow through that heart chakra and go up and down and not get pink anywhere." And so, I think it's just a process.

And the meditation, whatever the process of meditation that you use, I think it allows you to bring more subtleness to understanding to the feelings to all the awareness that you have. Because all of these things are subtle energies. And the more you're tapped in it's also a clarity too. And I feel like we get on a lot of different things. So, the diet is a big one. What you're eating, how you're taking care of yourself, if you're drinking or not drinking. All those things really effect how you can perceive subtle energies.

Because we could be using alcohol to kinda numb ourselves and I have a page in the journal that I wrote about is drinking derailing your destiny of greatness? Because I see a lot of entrepreneurs and amazing people just, I think, indulge too much. And I was one of them where it forces you to maybe not look at what is your real work here and what you're meant to be doing.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Coping. Yeah.

Yanik: Right? So, all is not feeling fully. It's a way of not doing it.

Jaime: I feel that you're talking about tuning an instrument. My dad was a guitar player and used to work on guitars. And everything matters. Humidity. So, the more we meditate and the more we fine tune, which is usually a good thing, but, no offence, as a business owner with ups and downs, highs are high, lows are really low. And I think that's what comes up as far as coping mechanisms.

I just read The Naked Mind, which is an amazing book about alcohol in general with tons and tons of data. So, if you've sorta been on the fence of this, I highly, highly recommend to anybody because it's going deeper into this fine tuning. But sometimes fine tuning is scary. Then I have to actually go out of my comfort zone more. Then I have no other excuses. We're using this to keep ourselves safe. And so, it's easy to just keep ourselves safe and stay smaller. It's way harder to actually live in your purpose. What do you have to say about that?

[Crosstalk]

Yanik: Yeah. No. It is for sure. And I heard Oprah on one of her podcasts recently say, "My ultimate fear is that I won't reach my ultimate destiny." This is Oprah.

Jaime: Wait, didn't you already do it? Check that box. No? No?

Yanik: Right. And to me that was a big one because that's what I have. And when I talk to rooms of entrepreneurs I always ask not always, but a lot of times I'll ask, "How many of you feel like you're destined for greatness?" And I'm like, "No, not in an ego way, but in a way that you have all these resources and connections and talent and incredible stuff." And majority, like 80%, will raise their hands. And then I'm like ? but I also have this little whisper in my ear like, "What if you don't quite live up to your potential? What does that look like?" And so, that's always been one of those feelings.

And then journaling to me is a process of moving through those things because there's a lot of ways of journaling. And you could spend hours talking about it just like, "I love journaling," but when you have some of those thoughts and feelings you can actually stop and bring awareness to it.

So, awareness is one of the first things because then you're able to actually give it a name, give it just an overall structure. And then you could even I mean there's lots of techniques to it. And I even love like you can even have a conversation with that thing going on. Or even just a Q and A. So, this conversation of, "Well, what if I don't reach my full potential," or whatever it is, and what would that look like? And then you could have a conversation with an archetype.

So, one of the things that's coming out next year with Hay House is an oracle deck called The Cosmic Journey that I'm working on. And it's a journaling cosmic oracle deck. And so, you would have a conversation. You could have a conversation with the universe. You could have a conversation with the galactic grandmother. With your 11-year-old self. With 111-year-old self. And so, you get these really deep insights by changing the frame of the where the answers are coming from.

And one of the other things, and this is kind of maybe an advanced trick, but it's super easy, is you use your dominant hand to write the questions and use your non-dominant hand to write the answers. And so, I'm right-handed, so I use my left-hand to answer from the universe or from whatever, my 11-year-old self, or whatever it is. And it's really, really powerful. And that just gives you a new perspective.

Jaime: So, I love how much you I journal ever single day, multiple times a day. People joke because I have books and books. Not that I'm ever gonna necessarily go back, but it's really cool to go back and see who I was back then. I started when I was 19 or 20. And I couldn't even get anything out before it was like, "I make this much money an hour." I just wanted it for posterity so I can remember how much money I made at what age. And it was all logical kinda stuff.

And now, one of the biggest things that I love about myself is I ask questions about I'm annoying sometimes, just so we're clear, that's why I do the show. It's way easier when someone's actually paying attention, but I started asking myself questions and I realized it was better than any business coach I hired. It's been better to know what I actually want versus what everybody else tells me. So, how did you evolve? Because it sounds like you've been journaling forever, how have you evolved as a person just because of journaling?

Yanik: Well, so let me ask you so, on those questions are you answering with your same hand?

Jaime: So, you told me last time, when we met in person, so I totally tried. But I suck at writing with my left hand. And it's slow.

Yanik: So what? It really does force... it creates a different neural connection.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Totally.

Yanik: It's a different part of your brain that's activated. And it really has a deeper wisdom. And then also if you start again, this is an advanced trick, but if you start tapping into being like, "Okay. What would the universe tell me?" So, and then find a little symbol for the universe.

Jaime: You do. That's a great idea. I feel like sometimes I can tell when it's me. When it's little Jaime, you know what I mean, coming from stories or whatever. And being like, "She's doing it again. Oh, there goes that."

[Crosstalk]

Yanik: [Inaudible ? crosstalk] [00:25:00] journal. I'll give you an actual example. I'll find one.

Jaime: I would love to see it. I know I buy at this point I buy these at Michaels because they're only five bucks and I go through them so fast. Everyone's like, "Are you kidding me?" I'm like, "Yeah. It's kind of a thing. It's kind of a thing."

Yanik: So, well, we'll have a Jaime therapy session here.

Jaime: I love it.

Yanik: No. If you're open to it, I would recommend going with something that you really, really love, like the journal itself. Like, you want it to be something that you're like, "Oh, this is worth my insights and thoughts and..."

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Oh, well, wait a second. So, the other thing that I have is I have these amazing magical really amazing ones. So, these are just for my current. And then for on all my higher-level, really, I have oh, you should see.

Yanik: Okay.

Jaime: You should come visit. We've got walls of them.

Yanik: Take a picture of those.

Jaime: Oh, yeah. I'm obsessed.

Yanik: So, when do you decide to write in those versus other ones?

Jaime: That's a great question. When I feel it.

Yanik: Okay. So, one of them is like more the posterity ones and ones the...

Jaime: I have different level this is how weird I am. I have different levels of journals. So, I have one for morning pages that I don't have to care about because I'll overthink it. And then I have level two and I have level three. And they're huge. And I use calligraphy.

Yanik: I love it.

Jaime: Anyway, it's a whole thing.

Yanik: No. That's super cool. I mean it's very much like... Carl Jung had his red book. I don't know if you've ever seen it?

Jaime: No.

Yanik: You need to check this out. It was like an oversized book and it got published after his death. And he would spend time with calligraphy, with art, and it was this whole download that he got from I think it was Philemon, which is his spirit guide.

Jaime: That's awesome.

Yanik: And he said that that was where he got every single theory that became the lifetime of his work. And it was for a small period of time. And so, that to me is like what's happening in your level three journals essentially.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: That's awesome. Oh, yeah. They're great. Well, that's the funny thing. You just talked about Carl Jung's spirit guide. All the science people that are basing everything on Carl Jung don't realize that he was very connected in his own way. And so, yeah, we don't talk about that stuff because nobody wants to hear. That's why I love having you on the show. We can talk about all the stuff that nobody really wants to talk about in the background.

Yanik: Right. And he was like... so, I think you have to merge all of it. It's not like you can only be one or the other. And that's where we're moving to is this real wholeness and this real integrated aspect of all of it.

And even your male and feminine energy. Everyone has both. And in this space that we're in right now in 2020 it's definitely moving much more into a feminine energy, but that doesn't mean that it's just female, it's your own feminine energy as if you identify as a man. That's more of the intuitive side. More of the receptive side.

Even my goal setting has changed a lot. You asked me, "How have things changed?" Intentionality has been a huge change. Where it used to be goal setting of, "I make this amount," or it's, "I want this much in the bank or whatever it is." Then I learned about, oh, if you say, "Or better or faster," then you allow more of the ways the universe can actually show up and play and give me more flexibility.

Now, to me it's more about intentionality. Everything is about what is the intention first and then everything else follows from there. And so, my greatest intention, the thing that I'm working on right now, is how do we nudge the consciousness of the world by one degree using the leverage of business. And yeah.

Jaime: I can get on board with that. That's awesome.

Yanik: Yeah. So, that's what I feel like I've been preparing for for 20 years now and that's what's next.

Jaime: I love it. Okay. Show us what you're gonna show us and then I have a million more questions for you.

Yanik: Yeah. I can't remember what I was gonna... I think I was gonna share a conversation with my left hand.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: The universe symbol. Yes. And the universe symbol.

Yanik: Yeah. Well, everyone would have their own, but mine's just like a little spiral. Yeah. So, one of the things that you can do in your journal is just have these little shorthand kinda symbols. So that when you draw that, you know what that means. But so, I'll have a Q and A with my right hand is asking the questions and then the left hand is the...

Jaime: How good is your left handwriting? That's what I'm wondering. Mine sucks.

Yanik: Yeah. But you'll get better at it.

Jaime: Really?

Yanik: And I guarantee you it's gonna give you some new insights. I'm trying to find a place that I have my left hand because I don't do it every night. It's not every single night that I'm oh, here we go. All right. So, this is a page that's asking, "What's the great cosmic joke?" See there.

Jaime: In different colors. I love this.

Yanik: Yeah. You can use different colors as the other.

Jaime: You're really good writing with your left hand. Yeah. I need to practice. I'll work on it.

Yanik: Work on it. But I think it's kinda funny. So, I was working on a comedy set doing some stand up comedy and I wrote, "What's the great cosmic joke?" And the universe answered, "Ha-ha. You mean what isn't" You're getting to be part of the punchline. You're made of starts, born of the earth, and co-created by plants.

Jaime: I like your face. Wait? What did I say?

Yanik: And then, "When you stop to think about those, that's funny. But even more hilarious is you're co-created by fungi and bacteria. What you think is your body isn't even close." So, that was one answer.

Jaime: See? I love how the science side of things like you're saying is catching up with some of this energetic-type thing. Which I know beforehand. And I was the biggest culprit. I would be like, "That's wo-wo and I don't agree with anything that it says whatsoever." And it took such 10 years to sort of recalibrate over and over until, "Okay. Well, I can believe in meditation. I can believe in this. I can believe in that." Now left handwriting. All that sort of stuff makes logical sense.

But if somebody's sort of starting at the beginning of this journey, can you walk us through an example of how you really working on the connection to your heart made a big difference to especially not just your success, but your feeling whole. Because it's one thing to have money. We all know that. But it's another thing to be in joy and happiness and have money, which we're looking for both.

Yanik: Yeah. I think that it's it really seems to happen when you run out of answers that work at the logical level. And so, it's like...

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: I can raise my hand on that one. Thanks for saying that. Yes. I completely agree.

Yanik: Yeah. And it's like you've kind of gone through all the permutations of, "What would I do with plan A, B, and C," or whatever it is. And then you're like, "All right. I surrender." And then you open yourself up to just different ways of thinking or the right book shows up in the right way or the right message shows up. And then you're like, "Oh, that's really interesting." And then I think that opens up the path a little bit more.

And so, you can just start I love experiments. Because it has a beginning and it has an end. And so, you don't have to be like, "Yeah. I'm all in on whatever Yanik and Jaime are talking about." You don't have to do that. You could just have little experiments. And I like having one thing that I focus on.

So, when I wanted to, I don't know, just experiment with not drinking, it was 33 days of not drinking. And I'd be like, Okay. So, I was having a drink almost every single night. I couldn't remember two nights in a row that I didn't have a drink. But it wasn't like five nights a drink. But I was like, "What's going on here?" And so, I'm like, "Okay. Let's just play around with it and see." And so, I did that. And then that worked out okay.

But then the next summer I did it again, and even more so it was a little bit better at bringing more awareness to what was going on. And then now it's more about intentionality again. It's like, "Okay. I wanna have a drink." I had a nice bison meal last night. I'm like, "Oh, I'm gonna have a glass of wine with my bison," or whatever. So, it's more about intentionality and bringing more consciousness to what you're doing.

And I think these experiments really help you. So, you feel like, "Okay. Well, let me try meditation. Let me see what that is." Because it's not a light switch thing. So, then you're like, "Okay. Well, I'm gonna give it whatever, 30 days or 60 days or whatever time period." And then by having it out at the end you're like it's not an always or never thing, it's like, "Okay. I know I can try this and see."

And the other thing that I would suggest is just playing around with just being a little more flexible with your world view. So, I tell my kids all the time like they're wearing purple glasses and they really don't like when I tell them that because it's like my son who's 14, my daughter is 12. She'll do something to him that's just gonna annoy the crap out of him and he wants to literally kill her. And I'm like, "Well, if your buddy Josh did that, would you feel the same way?" And he's like, "I don't know. Probably not." I'm like, "Okay. Then that's purple glasses."

And so, we're all walking around with these purple glasses in some way and it's like what if you, I don't know, did an experiment? Or anything that your natural knee jerk reaction is gonna be your same purple glasses that you have. Where you're like, "Oh, what would happen if I look at it from this point of view or this other person's point of view?" Because nobody's ever totally wrong. They can always justify whatever they're [inaudible] [00:34:13].

Like, "Oh, I can't believe this person did this to me." And then you wanna feel like the victim. And you wanna feel like getting the I don't know, the sympathy from your friends or whatever being like, "Yeah, that person, I can't believe they screwed you over like that." Most people unless they're a complete narcissistic psychopath are gonna be justified in their own head about what they're doing.

So, it's like, "How do we try on a different pair of glasses and look at it from that way?" Or even trying on the glasses of let's say purple glasses are so, in the journal I talk about purple glasses about the kids, but then I talk about, What if the purple glasses are like this cosmic destiny glasses. So, if everything you're looking at that happens how... wow. That was actually for my best.

And you start even going back. And a Steve Jobs quote, "You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards." And you start being like, "Oh, yeah. This really worked out in my favor." And then you start thinking all the times that things really do work out in my favor even though I didn't want in that moment whatever was happening, but it was a tremendous growth experience. And then that gives you more I think confidence to be like, "Yeah. This is gonna happen again."

Jaime: It's so easy to see it with your kids. Learning how to ride a bike you're like, "Yeah, you might fall over a handful of time, but you're growing. You're changing. You're doing different things with your body." And for us, it's easy to be like, "Oh, that's great. That's what you're supposed to do as a kid." But as soon as we get so old, our purple color glasses are like, "But I can't do that."

I mean I look at my parents and the biggest words they say is, "I can't do that. I can't. I'm too old for this." And so, preconditioned, it's hard to sort of put on different glasses. How do you practice that over and over again? I always feel like I forget. Like, "Oh, I should've... oh, man. I'm doing it again." You know what I mean? That first step of awareness is sometimes tough.

Yanik: Yeah. So, language is huge. So, as you catch yourself again everything that you bring if you can bring awareness to everything that's going on, it's like if you're slowing down I'll try and even catch people that I'm around and be like, "Did you...?"

So, I started as a copyrighter to me. So, words are incredibly important. And words are really, really powerful. The words that we tell ourselves especially. And especially after using the word, "I am," whatever. And then when you add emotion to it and you add feeling to it, then you're really doing something. And you can do it from two different ways.

One of the, I don't know, the Marianne Williamson kinda, "Everything is either fear or love." And if you do look at that and you start thinking about that language. And then, "Okay, that wasn't what I wanted. So, what was it?" And then you can even start asking again with your journal maybe. But you can go deeper and ask why five different times and then you'll get sort of the root of what's really going on.

And all this might sound incredibly slow, but when you can start digging into those real core root causes and motivations, then that's gonna impact everything. It's very holographic. By being able to open up that one part, that key is then opening up all these doors, not just one door.

Jaime: Do you feel like the high-level entrepreneurs that you're working with especially because I feel like business is the best conscious evolutionary growth tool that we have, besides children. That also definitely helps. Surrender is a very big thing for that too. But as you're going, do you think the high-level entrepreneurs that you work with already are paying attention to their language? They already know all this stuff and are using it. Or can you get really, really good at this and be completely unconscious about any of this stuff?

Yanik: Yeah. You could be really unconscious, but unconsciously competent. And so, I notice people that are just naturals at whatever they're doing. Some of my mentors for sure, business heroes, are very unconsciously competent. If you ask them a question, they can't articulate what is going on. And you'll be like, "Oh. So, did you actually did you do a dream board around this? Did you vision around this?" And they'll be like, "No." I just knew this was gonna happen, or whatever it was. They can kind of get to it, but not really.

So, some people then are consciously competent and are able to teach and share it. And I think you can just learn a lot by being around bringing more awareness to what did they actually do and what are their actions and how are they showing up? I don't know. I think you're never done. It's a constantly evolving piece because you're adding you're getting new distinctions and there's new subtleties that are added and you're like, "I thought I was done with that part. I didn't think I had this scarcity mindset in this spot," or whatever it was. And then it's going back.

And I really feel like so, I had this download the other day. And this is the first time I've ever shared it. Let me pull it up on my phone [inaudible] [00:39:15] put it in my journal. Let?s see. I feel like this would be a good place to share it.

Jaime: That's awesome.

Yanik: Maybe. We'll see.

Jaime: Of course.

Yanik: So, it was about and this might be I'm not even gonna set it up in the other way. But, yeah.

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Perfect.

Yanik: Hold on. Sorry. One sec. All right. Here it is. So, and this is like I felt like I had put together a lot of different modalities in a lot of things because it's like we're almost like we're at a buffet moment right now where you have this opportunity of all these different cultures and all these different traditions.

And it's like you, I really believe there's, I don't know, 7.7 billion of us or 7.5 billion or whatever it is. I think that there's 7.5 billion ways of doing whatever you wanna do, but all it all gets you to that one say spot, which is that wholeness and wellness. And so, whatever resonates with you, no matter what, don't even be like, "Oh. That's kinda weird." Or, "I don't know why I'm really into that." Whether it's oracle cards or whatever it is, I think it really it just speaks to us in whatever way it is.

So, I said, This is how to connect to the infinite wealth of love. And so, this is step one was, Select your frequency. And that could be either finding the right song or a chanting or toning or music or setting yourself up with gratitude. And then you dedicate an intention. So, this was right before a yoga practice. So, mine was that I fully consent to catalyze the cosmos playfully in service of one. And so, that was my intention.

And then I went into movement. And movement was yoga at this point. And one thing I've been playing around a lot with is effortless effort. So, as an entrepreneur how do we put our full selves into something and ? but it doesn't feel like effort, but it's truly putting your full self into it. That it's using all your skills. Everything that you've got. And it feels awesome. It's pure joy. It's not just this little happiness of fleeting moment. It's effortless effort. And I really got a new insight from yoga. I've been doing yoga for years. One of my challenges right now is 108 days of yoga every single day. But this effortless effort.

So, I had dedicated myself to a higher part for this yoga session. I'm like, "Okay. Could I go a little bit further in this one stretch," versus, "Am I stretching too much to make it painful?" And just to try and do it because maybe my ego says I should be a little bit more in this deeper pose or whatever. So, I got this really nice download. So, going into any kind of movement at that point.

And then step four was just releasing and surrendering and being open. And so, at that point I was on my back in savasana just breathing. But then I've been intrigued by different transformative breath work lately. I haven't done a lot with it, but just seeing how your breath really effects so many things. And you can change your breath and it really effects your emotional states. So, just breathing. And then I use this... the ho'oponopono technique, which is a Hawaiian forgiveness technique.

And so, I was sitting there, and something came up with an old relative that I hadn't heard about for a while, but then really was connected to that who lost everything right before the Russian Revolution.

Jaime: Wow.

Yanik: Basically, the stories were like he had an entire street of stores and things. And the jewels that his wife had are actually in the Kremlin now. So, that kind of level of wealth. And so, I felt like there was something going on that I wanted to connect to this ancestor.

And then just having thankfulness and gratitude of everything that had brought you to this point. So, for me at that moment I was like, "Okay. I could've kept going with the internet marketing thing or whatever. And maybe I would've been in a better financial spot." But I was like, "But where I am now is just a so much bigger place of wholeness and contentment and happiness and more awareness." And so, that was going back through almost like the connecting the dots.

And then step seven was this meditation where you're connecting to the cosmos in a way. So, it's like a like you're sitting in a meditation, but then you're imagining this torus around you and you're connecting to the cosmos and all the way down. And it's grounding to the earth and it's either coming up through chakras or it's coming down. So, you can do it either way. And you're building that. And then step eight was record it all, so in my journal, and then teach it.

Jaime: Nice.

Yanik: So, when you teach something you get better at it. You become consciously competent at it. And it also opens up space for what's next. So, this is like a little thing I've been playing around with. Kind of brings all these things together. And it's a lot, but I feel like you you start mixing and matching and you find the right things that work for you. And you're like, "Yeah. When I feel depressed, I can do this to bring myself out of it." Or just feel the depression and be like, "No, that's a little knock from the universe that things need to change in some way."

Jaime: Yes. Okay. I love that you taught this right here right now. You said you were gonna do it on the final one and now you just did. So, thank you very much. And I really appreciate the effortless effort that you were talking about beforehand because I think it's... we talk about it as flow. We talk about it as all these different things and how important it is, but to actually dive in and make change.

And I think this is the thing that easier said than done also. Make the changes of those things that the universe is calling you with. So, if you're depressed, there probably is something that needs to change, but it's scary. All these things are out of your comfort zone into the unknown. It's easier to stay safe than it is to start going and, like you said, doing the things that seem more in tune with your heart, but not necessarily material is good an all that sort of stuff. Especially because we're so preconditioned by what is success and what isn't externally.

Yanik: Yeah. Yeah. But when you start going back and finding all those spots where you're like, "Oh, yeah. I took that change, or what seemed like a chance, and look what happened." Or, "I did this." Or I really think that we're gonna be forced to change no matter what. We're in this very high level of just change going on. Like this disruptive change continuing.

I wrote a little report about the 20 predictions for the transformative 2020. And I feel like there's gonna be a higher level of change in this next decade than almost any other time. And so, you're gonna be forced into it by some sort of a catalyzing event or experience. And it could be a thing related to your wealth or your health or your relationships. That always forces you to grow at a higher level, even though you might not want it, but it seems painful. [Inaudible ? crosstalk] [00:46:18].

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Right. Yeah. Like, "No. Darn it. All right." All right. Go ahead.

Yanik: Yeah. Right? It's gonna be forced upon you or you can embrace it and lean into it and decide how you wanna go. But no matter what it's gonna be a growth period. An intense growth period. And you get to decide how you wanna play it out.

Jaime: I know we have to start wrapping up soon. What do you do though during those intense growth periods to rest? Because the thing that in general I know with my clients and stuff, it's like, "Well, we're supposed to work more. When things are not calibrating, then that's when you overachieve and you grit," and all those things that we're told. What do you do when you're dealing with an intense period? Do you rest? And how do you rest so that way you can sort of get your energy back? I mean this is stuff that we don't talk about energetically. It is intense. How do you manage yourself through it?

Yanik: I feel like part of it is having just a really good daily practice of whatever that is. And so, mine has evolved over the years now where I'll meditate twice a day typically. And more often than not. And that was never the case, but it's just a great way of beginning your day in some capacity. And even if it's five minutes to 10 minutes, whatever it is, it just really, really helps. I think slowing down is a huge one.

So, if you're feeling these very intense periods, it's like the faster you go is not always better. It's giving yourself permission to really slow down. And even setting an appointment for yourself to... whatever it is. It could be a massage for somebody. It could be acupuncture. It could be whatever is gonna help you go off into a sensory deprivation tank or something. But give yourself permission to go do that and make sure that you're not getting rid of the stuff that you know is gonna nourish you.

So, for me it's the yoga. The daily yoga. That is a non-negotiable. Like all these things start becoming non-negotiable and then you work around everything else. And there's a great I think to really embody this incredibly well there's a story about Gandhi when his advisor's like, "You have so much to do. We have a very busy day." And the famous story is they're like, "You have no time to meditate." And he's like, "Oh, well if I have such a busy day and such a... I need to meditate twice as much then."

Jaime: I love that story. And everybody that I tell that story to is like, "Yeah, but..." And then years later you're like, "Okay. Now, you're close to burnout. You probably should have listened to that before." And unfortunately, because entrepreneurs are really... I mean I know I can raise my hand, but I know too many of us that are like, "We can deal with pain. Pain is fine." So, selfcare and nourishment, all that stuff falls off our list first because we think we need to go into more pain. No pain, no gain. All that fun stuff. So, where is that line between going after pain and having these intense moments of emotions or whatever. What's what?

Yanik: Effortless effort. Effortless effort. It's recalibrating into that. And that's one of my intentions for this year. And it's like I think you're continually finding what is that spot. But because then you also know, "Am I coasting? Or am I overexerting? Am I trying to push too far into this pose?" The yoga pose because it feels like that's what I should be doing.

[Crosstalk]
Jaime: Totally.

Yanik: But really that effortless effort is that beautiful balance point.

Jaime: That's why I write everything down because I seem to forget. And then I'm like, "Oh, I said, I was smart the other day. I need to go back through that."

Yanik: I went back through one of my books. I'm like, "Oh, that was really smart." I was like I'm not doing that anymore. I need to go back and [inaudible ? crosstalk] [00:50:00].

[Crosstalk]

Jaime: Exactly. Exactly. Or finite games and really trying to make sure that, "Oh, I said I was gonna go out in nature more. And then I did, and it felt better. But then I completely stopped doing that because life got busy or whatever." And unfortunately, it's easy for us especially as moms or dads or business owners or especially if you have employees, it's easy to sort of put yourself last. And we know that that's not necessarily a good thing.

So, everybody that's listening right now, please remember that your health and your nourishment is way more important than anything else in your life right now. Because otherwise we're gonna have these burnout... especially I'm sure you see it all the time where entrepreneurs burnout and then they can't. Physically ill because of some of this and then they have a totally different thing that they have to go down.

Yanik: Yeah. But that's the right path for them because then it forces them to go do what they're meant to be doing.

Jaime: That's what I joke about. Yes. Well, I mean I think that's a... so, this is what I joke about. I'm like, "Okay. So, I'm really hard-headed." And I would rather not be hard-headed because I don't wanna have to go through the greatness of pain for me to actually pay attention. I want to learn the subtle nuances so that way I can go, "There's a little bit of a kink in the hose. A very small kink." And I'm gonna take care of it now until the hose is... instead of the hose being cut and being like, "Oh, crap. Look where I'm at now."

Yanik: Yeah. So, an easy think that I've thought about for that is joy. Joy is always pushing us propelling us forward. That's our GPS and we're always attracted to it. The guardrails for pain if you're in alignment are pretty narrow. So, you're like, "Oh, yeah." But if you need to get bumped on the head repeatedly, and I have in different times too. Our first interview you can go back to that and then the pain... the guardrails can get wider. So, then you're gonna get wider and wider just like these movements. And that's where the universe will bonk you on the head higher and higher. But then you're just... you're continually still moving towards joy.

Jaime: I love that. Yes. I need my pain metrics to go less. And I so appreciate this. I know I ask the same last question every single time and I know we have to start wrapping up. What's one action, out of all them. What's one action besides getting the cosmic journal that people should take this week to help move them forward toward their goal of 1 million?

Yanik: That's right. Get the cosmic journal. I'll give an unusual one which is I think do a Q and A. Do a Q and A with your, I don't know, let's pick let's say 111-year-old self. And write those answers from your left hand and write your questions with your right hand. Or switch it if your... that's your nondominant hand. But write with your nondominant hand the answers as your 111-year-old self and then see what happens.

Jaime: Yeah. I love it.

Yanik: And have a conversation. It's not just one question but have a dialogue.

Jaime: Yes. Ask deeper questions because you will get deeper answer. How amazing is that?

Yanik: Yeah.

Jaime: I wrote that on my little action item to-do list over here. Thank you so much for this. I know I was joking about how amazing our conversation's gonna be now because I'm a different person from the last time we talked too. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Where do we get the cosmic journal? Where can we follow all your stuff online? Especially for the new oracle deck that's gonna be coming out soon?

Yanik: Yeah. Go to cosmicjournal.com and that's where you can actually pick up one of these limited-edition ones are available there. Or links to all the other book sellers you can buy the regular edition. And you can follow me on Instagram, @YanikSilver, Y-A-N-I-K Silver. And I blog occasionally at YanikSilver.com.

Jaime: Thank you so, so much for coming on the show today. I appreciate it.

Yanik: Thanks Jaime. Yeah, it was fun.

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