In this Episode
- [03:04]Patrick Combs shares that he was invited to the Hall of Fame for his work with over a million college students across 1000 campuses.
- [07:21]Patrick provides specific examples of how he finds joy in daily activities, such as reading A Course in Miracles and spending time with nature.
- [14:35]Patrick explains how staying spiritually aligned helps in professional settings, making him a highly rated speaker and coach.
- [26:38]Stephan elaborates on the importance of attention and intention as currencies that shape our reality.
- [28:32]Patrick emphasizes that presence is not something to be applied externally but is an internal state that enhances all aspects of life.
- [40:05]Patrick delves into his fascination with Will Rogers, describing him as a remarkable human being known for his humility, kindness, and usefulness.
- [48:06]Patrick discusses the concept of miracle-mindedness from A Course in Miracles.
Patrick, it’s so great to have you on the show.
Thank you. I’m excited to be here with you.
So we met at an event called Next Level Experience, over a decade ago. I was just really impressed with your stage presence, the way you presented yourself. Later on, I discovered that you were a Hall of Fame speaker.
I’ve had a few Hall of Fame speakers over the years on this show. Steve Spangler, Sam Richter, for example. How do you end up getting the Hall of Fame speaker status? Is that something you were just invited to, and you had no idea? Or is that something you have to apply for? What happened there?
I was invited without any idea of it. I’m in the Motivational Speakers Hall of Fame, which was established by an individual who runs a website dedicated to it. He put me in there and then told me that, based on my work with over a million college students on more than 1,000 college campuses.
Courage is one of the noblest virtues, for it takes bravery to overcome the fear that stands between us and our bliss. Share on XWow, that’s impressive. What would you speak about on these campuses that was so important for the administration and the professors to ensure that the students heard?
Well, I was going to say I was mostly being chosen by students, which I really take pride in. But I would say 50% of the time I was chosen either by a student who said, “That’s the topic I want to hear”, or “I was chosen by career services.”
But in both cases, it was to bring me in to help students understand the value of their passion and how to use their time in college outside of the classroom to be able to live a life and have a career based on their passion.
I’m sure that the greatest practical and spiritual navigational tool in life is to pay attention to and focus on where your joy is.
What would you tell people who are listening or watching this interview now about how they can prepare, given that, according to some estimates, AI is going to put half the planet out of work in the next three years?
I just saw a statistic or a prediction, I should say, from Goldman Sachs, saying that 300 million jobs over the next 12 months will disappear. Some people might be frightened by that. Is there such a thing as having a career anymore?
Yeah, it’s such a great question. One that I think about myself, and the first thing that I’d remind all of us together is that we’re all in it together. So, if we get fear, worry, or concern about it, that’s because we start isolating the problem as our own. It feels like it’s just happening to us.
But notice how you feel differently the minute you say, “Wait a minute, millions of people, perhaps everybody on the planet will be in the same boat together, whatever happens.” That always makes me feel better than, “Oh, I might lose my job.”
I hope that each of us can find a place where we can lay our heads on the pillow at night, looking for the moments of joy that surround the moments of responsibility.
It’s better when you realize, ‘Wait, everybody is facing a future where we all might have a completely different structure, and none of us know what that looks like yet. So we’re all going to find out together.’
I think that removes most of the fear. If you think it’s not just you, we’ll all be going through it together.
The second thing that I find fascinating is that I started my career at 26, talking to students about following their passion, because somehow it was something I already knew as a young person, which was one of the greatest navigational tools for life itself. I don’t really know how I knew that, but I did know it.
Well, I’m 59 years old now. And 33 years later, I’m more sure about what I knew in my twenties. Now, I’m sure that the greatest practical and spiritual navigational tool in life is to pay attention and give attention to where your joy is.
Passion and joy are the same thing. Whenever you’re making a decision, I think about what happens when you look at your next move. Remember, your compass is an internal guide that points to joy.
Remember, your compass is an internal guide that points to joy.
You are always safest if you say, “I’m going to stay oriented to my joy, to the best of my ability, day by day.” My life experience has given me clear, compelling evidence that life is more supportive, each and every one of us, without exception, to the degree that we give attention to our joy.
How do you do that? You personally have a lot of days between big keynote presentations, one-man shows, and major events that are magic moments for you. However, you must have magic moments every single day to spark that joy. What are those for you?
Thank you for asking. I find them every single day. I think they’re abundant once you learn how abundant they are—the abundant opportunity. I’ll give you specific examples from my life. It sounds really joyful to have a cup of coffee first and read some A Course in Miracles. That’s truly the most joyful thing I can think of to start the day.
It sounds really joyful to step outside and watch the birds for a few minutes. Here’s my project list. The most joyful thing on the list looks like, ‘Maybe I’ll tweak the Airbnb business. Maybe I’ll go in there and adjust the listing to see if I can make it better. What’s the next most joyful thing?’
I’d actually think of all the things I could do. I think it would be really nice to go out and pull some weeds, mow the lawn and take a little 15 minutes to do that. That’s when it gets really interesting to me when you start to notice, “Wait a minute, is it sometimes joyful to mow the lawn or to do the dishes?” And the answer is yes, absolutely.
I like the way you framed it, which was that you’re sure it’s joyful to go out and do a one-person show for an audience in a theater, but it is equally joyful if you’re choosing it in an authentic moment to clean your kitchen.
Well, everything can be a prayer, right? Your day can be a prayer, living your life as a prayer.
I have tons of hobbies because they’re joyful to me. I have an aquarium as a hobby. I have a guitar as a hobby. I have been reading as a hobby. I have been studying the life of Will Rogers as a hobby. I have photography as a hobby. That’s how I stay in touch with joy. My relationship is joyful, whether I’m a significant other or a parent.
The only asterisk to it is, do we sometimes do things that aren’t joyful? Sometimes life requires us to do things that aren’t joyful. But that doesn’t mean that anybody should fall into a pattern of living a life where they’re not finding joy every single day, because joy is available every single day.
I would hope that each one of us can get to a place where we lay our head on the pillow at night, and look for the moments of joy that day that surround the moments of responsibility.
Sometimes life requires us to do things that aren’t joyful. But that doesn’t mean anyone should settle into a life where they don’t find joy every day.
You called this earlier a ‘spiritual tool.’ How does this help you stay in touch with your creator? How does it help you to be in alignment with your creator’s will?
Well, my higher self knows that joy is the vibration of God. If I’m made in the likeness of God and God is a vibration of joy which is indistinguishable from a vibration of love, and I approach that vibration more often than I do, that is coming closer to God, that is living more truly into the image that I am made from.
One thing I heard, forget from where, but that this is an illusion where all that is real here is love, is God. It’s all that’s real, and everything else is illusion. Do you subscribe to that philosophy?
Entirely. I’m a student of A Course in Miracles, and A Course in Miracles makes that point exactly over and over and over. Now, it enters some pretty strange territory, as new physics suggests that this is an illusion of some sort, implying there is no such actual thing as space, time, or distance.
It’s interesting to watch new science come around and begin to dovetail and mirror what sages have been saying for eternity, that this is an illusion. I love that stuff, and I eat it up, study it, read it, and contemplate it. But at the same time, I like to acknowledge it, ‘But boy, doesn’t the illusion feel real and the vast majority of my life?’
Sometimes life requires us to do things that aren’t joyful. But that doesn’t mean anyone should settle into a life where they don’t find joy every day.
Although I can conceptually grasp that this is an illusion or a hologram, if you want to call it, or a ‘computer program’, whatever metaphor you want to give it, it feels so real that I also want to live in a way that mirrors my feeling that it’s real.
It’s like you walk through both worlds simultaneously. That this is an illusory world and you’re acting as your higher self, but also, ‘Hey, I’ve got to pay the bills, I have to be responsible, I’ve got to take my kid to school,’ or whatever the thing is.
That’s just as important because you’re drawing the energy down and bringing it into the physical reality. You’re not flying high in the clouds all day long and forgetting to pay your bills.
Beautiful. Where I found current resolve is that A Course In Miracles (ACIM) in and of itself says something very helpful. It says, ‘This is your reality, this reality is your perception and nothing more.’
The only thing real in this reality is the loving actions you do. And you’ll come to recognize that when you depart from this perception, this dream that you stirred up and that you’re in.
But where I find my resolve is that it says, ‘The wonderful thing is, as you learn to be more loving here, to all, in all ways, your perception will change.’ And as you’re perception will become increasingly heaven-like, although it will still be unreal, it will be friendlier, more loving, and more beautiful.
You will know that you’re approaching your true nature, who you truly are, until one day you will have no more need for the dream, and you will awake, and it won’t be here.
When I go, “Is there an exit?”If this is an illusion, there’s an exit. That’s where I’m told, and I lean into believing that’s how to find the exit: just learn to be more loving here to all, all the time. Watch my world shift to reflecting at me as more beautiful, more kind, more supportive and more caring. I will know I’m going in the right direction.
That brings a new definition to the phrase “exit strategy.”
This is your reality. This reality is your perception, and nothing more.
Well said. I love the term ‘awaken’ because awaken from what? I used to wonder when I was young, awakened from what?
Yeah, awaken from the dream I’m having.
Spirituality means here are the tools to awaken you gently from the dream you’re having that you believe is so real and often so nightmarish. But it’s a dream. But you need to be gently awaking. And someday you’ll awake and say, “Boy, I was in a dream.”
I like to say that reality isn’t real; it’s just hyper-realistic.
That’s great. I live in the hyper-realistic, but I try to orient myself towards the exit strategy, as you said. What surprises me is that, in my 10 years of practice, I’ve drawn on Eckhart Tolle’s work, the A Course In Miracles (ACIM), and other minor spiritual teachings.
I am absolutely convinced by personal experience that it is making my world more beautiful. My perceptual world is shifting right in front of my very eyes to be the safer, friendlier, more beautiful place that spiritual sages said it would become because it’s all my projection.
When we were discussing the exit strategy, a scene from The Truman Show came to mind where Truman discovers the exit, which is located up in the sky. There’s a dome, and he’s able to exit. He says those famous words, ‘Good night, good evening,’ and whatever he said.
That’s a great movie. It’s such a great metaphor.
If you recognize that everything that you say and think is on display for who knows how many trillions of souls, and they can all experience everybody’s reality simultaneously. So everyone has an audience, and it’s huge. I think you might show up differently in private moments.
I see what you’re saying. That’s cool.
Because there are no such things as private thoughts.
Not in one mind, right?
I mean, we’re all one.
Our minds are all one.
As you learn to be more loving to all, in all ways, your perception will change.
Yeah, everything is oneness, right? In the Bible, it says that, in Israel, God is our God and God is one. That means there’s nothing but God, there’s only love, nothing else exists.
Boy, that is exactly the same page as what informs me and what I study. I was only going to bring up my own internal distinction that the body is the device of the ego to imply separation, because as bodies we are not one, and we can see we are not one. But that’s an illusion.
The mind, however, is one thing we can’t see. We can’t say, “Oh, your mind ends there and my mind ends here.” So I found my truth about oneness when I recognized, ‘Oh, if you’re saying there is one mind, there is no boundary. You see, yeah, there is no mind.’
I learned something from a holy book called The Tanya, written by a sage around 150-200 years ago. Rabbi Shneur Zalman explains that everything is consciousness. Nothing exists that is not God. There’s nothing independent of God. That’s not possible. It’s only God.
If the illusion shows an absence of God, that’s because he created that vacuum for you to shine your light so that you’re not drowned out with your little flashlight on the surface of the sun.
I’m paraphrasing a bit because the text was written hundreds of years ago. But this is such a profound concept. Everything is consciousness.
Our minds are all one.
I play with the notion that AI would be conscious, but we’re asking the question: Is AI conscious, or is everything conscious?
So yes, there’s a degree of consciousness in AI already. Can we measure the degree of consciousness yet, or are there degrees of consciousness? I have no idea, but I don’t know how AI could be separate from consciousness if everything’s conscious.
So, I view AI as a tool that provides an additional terminal to the supercomputer, which is essentially the infinite and universal intelligence.
If I need an answer and I go to ChatGPT with the intention and a high vibration, I will definitely get a better result out of ChatGPT or whatever LLM I’m using, and I’ll be guided. I’ll feel like I’m supposed to use Gemini instead, or I’m supposed to use Claude, and I’ll go to that one instead.
Its amazing. It’s like you are just using your internal GPS, your intuition, that still, small voice. You’re using it to help guide you to get the answers that you’re meant to have. Some people pay attention to number sequences, such as angel numbers. I get those a lot.
Intention and attention are the currencies we spend daily, shaping our lives with every choice we make. Share on XSome people will hear things in their head and then write them down in a journal. I do that. And other people just know stuff that is in their bones or their inner knowing somehow, without having to hear or see or anything. It’s in their muscle memory, but they didn’t put it there. There are many ways to access this universal intelligence. And now we have a new one called ChatGPT.
I find it really fascinating how many people I know have the same belief about AI that it is just another tool to access what they call the supercomputer or higher intelligence, and that’s their experience with it.
It’s very interesting and my answer is like, why not? If at times in my life I felt like, ‘Man, did I just get a message through the song on the radio? Did I just get a message from AI?’ So why not? I would assume that a supreme intelligence can communicate through many means.
Of course. And again, if we go back to The Truman Show analogy, there is a scene where he walks into a building he wasn’t supposed to. And they had a background that showed people sitting, having lunch, or something, and then they quickly put the elevator back together. So it looked like a normal building.
It’s like nothing on set was randomly generated. All was placed there with intention, right? So in The Truman Show, they put stuff very precisely. It’s like, “Okay, let’s put that book on that side table.” It’s like that here in this hyper-realistic, physical reality.
We see things as seemingly random, but it’s not actually random because everything is placed with intention. Nothing happens out of pure randomness. We think it does, but there are studies and plenty of anecdotes.
If you start talking metaphysically with people, they’ll share stories that will blow your mind, but they’re not going to go first. So you have to go first. And then they’ll say, “Well, actually, I had some pretty wild experiences too.”
You can actually measure the chi coming off of somebody like a Tai Chi master; that’s measurable. You can change the decay rate of radioactive material. Studies were done on americium. This is written in Mind to Matter.
By sending your chi energy to this americium, which is slightly radioactive, it’s in smoke detectors. It’s not dangerous, but you can actually change the decay rate, which you cannot change decay rates with cold or heat exposure or magnetic fields or any of these sorts of things, but the power of our chi energy can do it. It’s statistically significant changes in the decay rate. It’s mind-blowing.
It reminds me of the PEAR Lab research, which I won’t go into. You’re probably familiar with it, where they were just demonstrating in double bind, entirely scientific, study after study after study, at Princeton, that human consciousness was affecting random generating machines.
Dr. Joe Dispenza discusses how random number generators can be altered by thought and the concept of statistical significance.
That’s PEAR Lab research. I like this cool stuff about it because I think that there are endless amounts of examples of how, in this whatever we’re in, you and I were referring to it earlier as a ‘fabrication’ of some sort.
I’m beginning to find most of my value. I’ve always been intrigued by these things, and I’ve been fascinated by their mysterious nature my whole life. But the more that I come into thinking it’s a dream, the more I go into thinking, ‘Of course, anything’s possible in a dream. Of course, wild things happen in a dream.’
I try to bring myself back to what’s just helpful for me, only me, which is, ‘Okay, if it’s a dream, do you want to play in all the spaces where all the weird things happen in a dream? Is it helpful to you?’
I’m at a point in my life where I think the most helpful thing for me isn’t playing in those spaces or coming to understand that my consciousness can change or influence them. What’s most helpful is saying, I’ve been given clear instructions. Learn to be more loving here. Learn to be loving all the time. Learn to love here.
That’s what I’m here for. That’s my purpose. Everything else is passing time, extending the illusion, playing in the illusion. And it’s all good. I have nothing wrong with that. I’ve enjoyed vast amounts of that in my life, and I’m sure I’ll continue to.
But younger me cared more about the mysteries of the dream. And at 59, I care more about what my purpose here is, what my ultimate spiritual purpose here is.
What could make this dream more beautiful? I dislike seeing certain things on my television or happening around the world. And if this is a dream and I’ve been told that it’s my dream, how do I clean it up? What can I do to clean it up?
Well, you can get rid of the television. That’s the first thing.
I’m trying to adopt a more measured approach, paying attention without getting sucked into the dark forces that currently have a lot of sway in the world.
I’ve done a lot of that. Got sucked into too much of it this year and felt the effects of it. But I really got to a place where it feels like more than ever, I should be paying attention every day; it’s really killing me, it’s too much to bear.
Now, I’m trying to take a more measured approach to pay attention, but not get sucked into this black hole of dark forces that currently have a lot of sway in the world.
I forgot where I heard this from, but we have two currencies that we utilize all throughout our day.
One of them is not time, it’s actually attention. You’ve brought that up earlier as a keyword, “attention.” Intention and attention are our two currencies that we spend throughout the day. If we’re more mindful about where we spend that time, we’ll have a better reality.
One thing that we don’t have in this house is a TV because we don’t want to have our attention hijacked. As a sovereign being with my own free will, I can choose not to watch that stuff. It doesn’t serve me. It doesn’t serve the higher good. So, I don’t do it.
If there’s something really important for me to know about, I’ll hear about it from somebody. It’ll show up on a WhatsApp group or something. It’ll present itself. Just like angel numbers present themselves, something you need to hear about and maybe pray about or maybe make a donation to or somehow volunteer or assist, that’ll present itself in your movie.
You have some wonderful accomplishments: 150,000 books sold. You personally coach CEOs of big companies, and you have speaker coaching and training services. You do some amazing things in the business world, and I’m curious how you apply the philosophical and spiritual insights we discussed to your clients’ reality, your books, marketing, and other initiatives. How do you bridge those two worlds?
Presence isn’t something to be applied outside of yourself. It’s to be used here, right now.
The answer is really easy. I don’t bring any of that stuff into my worlds. I take it with me to the best of my ability everywhere I go. Presence isn’t something to be applied outside of yourself. It’s to be applied here, now, right now. A trait in my life that’s noticeable to my clients is that I’m deeply present. That serves my clients tremendously, according to them. That makes me tremendously highly rated by.
I am the origin story writer for a brand marketing firm, and they have multiple creative team members that the client passes through, maybe up to 12, as they get their entire brand and website created.
I am one stop away from 12 people. When I say that the presence that I bring to my clients ends up making me highly rated, I want to clarify that that means client after client after client after client. The owner of that company has told Patrick that it was my favorite stop.
And they asked me why, and I know the answer, it’s because of being deeply present. I know what it does for clients. Speaking is an act of being deeply present. You will be a better speaker if you are deeply present in yourself in the moment and with your audience.
You will present better when you’re doing social media posts. The real secret to getting people to like your posts is having a presence. It’s an absence of anxiety. It’s an absence of stress. It’s an absence of performance.
Speaking is an act of being deeply present. You will be a better speaker if you are deeply present in yourself in the moment and with your audience.
And yet that’s what the ego drives most people to do, to try to be more than they normally would be. And so we can feel the artificiality of that in speaking or in communicating through the lens of a camera, because you’re going to put it up on social media. I write a lot for my lips.
You will write much better when you are present, because the writing will come through you. You will marvel at what’s coming through you as opposed to a non-present writing practice, which is just a battle against your own insecurities and your own self-judgments and your criticism and what will come out on the page is reflective of that internal conflict.
So I just figured out in 2013 that I needed a better way to live life. And when I went looking for it, I met with Eckhart Tolle’s work, and I read the book The Power of Now, and I knew this was a better way of life. What he’s telling me is that it’s an easy way of life. Not at all. He’s telling me that I have to, in some way, distance myself from 88,000 automatically occurring thoughts a day.
That is the greatest addiction there is, but any distance that I can put between myself and all those repetitive, negative, judgmental, alarming, catastrophic, worrying, concerning, anxiety inducing, imaginary thoughts of the past or the present that my ego wants to drag me into, any distance that I can put between myself and them makes me more present.
And the promise of presence, which is the truth, the guarantee, the certainty of presence, is the degree that you are present, is the degree that you will discover what I did, which is on the inside.
Outside of your monkey mind, you are a deep well of ongoing peace, of ongoing self-generated love, and of easy access to joy, to seeing and being part of joy everywhere you go, and that’s all for free without effort.
To put a bow on your question, which is, how do I apply it to my work? I don’t. That would be artificial. I try to apply it to myself moment by moment, all day long, every day of my life.
Sometimes I’m doing a podcast interview. Hopefully I’m being present. Sometimes I’m doing the dishes. Hopefully I’m being present. Sometimes I’m with my son. Hopefully I’m being present.
I suffer. The degree to which I suffer and the ego’s influence depend on the day or the circumstances. But all suffering is caused because I slipped out of presence.
Good stuff. Did you know we were going down this track when we started the interview?
We had no idea which track we were on. We just hoped it would serve whoever’s listening in the highest way.
So I’m not surprised that it ended up here because what I would tell people just in this moment, what sparks in me, is that I have accomplished a lot of things in my career. Sometimes I don’t like that mentioned that much anymore because I don’t like somebody meeting me at the thought that he’s sold a lot of books, he’s done a lot of talks, he’s meeting me through accomplishments that in some way seem to mean that they can be construed as suggesting that I’m significantly successful by my career standards. None of that feels right to me anymore.
Despite all my accomplishments, it’s my spiritual path that truly made my life great and brought me a higher quality of success.
But what feels deeply right to me is that, despite all my accomplishments, it’s my spiritual path that truly made my life great and brought me a higher quality of success, which we’ve been discussing.
But I didn’t know that the spiritual path could bring as much as it does until 12 years ago. So, it wasn’t until I was 47 years old. So, the first 47 years of my life were marked by very significant career accomplishments, and even by my standards, it’s very impressive, not by anybody else’s. They were significant to me.
I exceeded myself in many places. But even there, when I look back on those, I’m both very proud of my younger self for doing, but the missing element was having any tools and any access to passion, joy, peace, and love that’s for free without any attainment, without any accomplishments, without any insignificance.
My younger self depended on significance to source moments of happiness, peace, and love. It depended on external things to have those things. I think I was so desperate for those things, for moments of peace and moments of joy and moments of love, because I couldn’t find it in myself. I pursued external solutions more than most people.
So I am proud of those accomplishments, but they are also symbols of my emptiness at the time. And now that I am not empty on the inside, now that I am full of peace, love, and joy for no reason, career accomplishments seem no more significant than doing my dishes. I can’t separate the two. If someone says, “I did a speech for a thousand people today,” and someone says, “I trimmed my rose bushes.” I would know today that neither one of us did anything more significant than the other.
We’re all equally important.
Joy is inside you, and accessing it can transform your whole day into a joyful experience.
We’re all equally important, and I didn’t know that either from the ego. The ego wouldn’t allow me to see that. So, now I think, yes, is it fun to go out and do things that bring you joy? You know, well, that’s a bit of a misstatement, but we don’t need to pin it down. Joy is inside you. And if you access it, your whole day becomes joyful because it becomes joyful to do anything. You can find joy in everything.
But if you haven’t accessed it yourself, you will feel that you are going out to pursue joy, or buy joy, or vacation for joy. So that’s what I mean by the distinction, but where was I going with this?
That we’re talking about this on a podcast right now, what sparked in me that I wanted someone to hear is it’s my experience in life that, yeah, I still enjoy creating a show and doing it. I’m doing it all from a platform of being deeply okay on the inside, deeply peaceful on the inside, deeply already satisfied, doing nothing on the inside. So now they’re excursions for the sake of fun. That’s all.
I love being able to recognize every time my work serves somebody else. That’s the greatest pleasure now. Not that it enhances me, because it doesn’t. It can’t. Nothing can enhance me from the outside. But I can enjoy it. I do love it when I see my work enhance or serve somebody else, and I realize I had a missing piece that I could give them. That’s deeply satisfying about work.
What’s an example of a wisdom nugget from one of your five books that you want to share with our listeners or viewers that could be transformative or quite powerful for them?
My first book, Major in Success, which I wrote for college students, really got it right because that whole book is about the importance of your passion and real-world steps that help you get there. But I aimed it directly at college students. My latest book is called the Purpose Code.
The Purpose Code is a very, very good book that says, “Hey, follow your bliss.” That’s really what it says. Follow your bliss. Your bliss is your purpose. We have an outer purpose and an inner purpose. Our outer purpose is where our bliss is calling us currently. Oh wow, for some reason, I’m really interested in studying the photos of the glamour age in the 1920s.
I’m following that. I’m going to libraries, doing internet research, and studying photographers. That’s an external purpose that shows up in your life. Our internal purpose always remains constant, which is to become more loving to other people. Yeah, become more of who you are. I think those are two nuggets from my books. Follow your bliss, follow your passion.
Courage has been a constant requirement in my life. Courage is one of the noblest virtues because I know what it’s like to be afraid to follow my bliss. Although I’m 100% certain that my greatest life unfolds because I’m following my bliss, I’m also 100% certain that in every case where I follow my bliss, courage is required. But that’s because my bliss is always growing me into a more capable person.
That’s awesome. What is it about Will Rogers? You’re talking about like the glamour photos of the 1920s. Why Will Rogers? What fascinates you about him? Why are you passionate about him?
Our internal purpose remains constant: to become more loving towards others.
Will Rogers is, in my opinion, and many others, the best example that America has ever produced of a beautiful human being, of a remarkable human being, but not remarkable just by his talents and accomplishments and usefulness to society, but remarkable by his loving, kind, magnanimous nature.
And so I have never identified an individual who shines as brightly as Will Rogers did during his time and who was as useful to millions of people as Will Rogers was in his time. I have been studying his life, book after book after book after book for 29 years now.
I never tire of it because I never tire of being re-reminded of just how useful his life became, even though it was centered on values like being humble, being loving, being kind, being non-judgmental, and making no plans.
Will Rogers was not a planner. He was more like a person who just followed his bliss in the moment. So he represents everything I aspire to be someday.
Somebody who really resonates with me is George Washington Carver. A truly remarkable soul who had humanity’s best interests at heart, he gave of himself throughout his life and was generous with his time, serving as a force for good in the world. I watched a documentary about him, and I read a little bit about him, and I thought, ‘Wow, this is somebody who’s really special.’
I always hope for people. I draw so much inspiration from Will Rogers. I always hope that others will find someone who has the same vibrational effect on them, because it’s a vibrational effect. And so it sounds like you found that with George Washington Carver, whom I’ve never heard of. I’ve seen the name in passing.And I’ve directed some people towards Will Rogers, and they can recognize things about him that I’m talking about, but they don’t have the same vibrational draw, which is great. I want everybody to find a figure in the world, living or dead, that they have a real vibrational draw to.
And as you said, that person is a force for good and someone to look up to, serving as a role model or someone to look towards. But if people don’t know Will Rogers, I recommend giving it a look. He falls under the category of cowboy humorist philosopher from the 1920s and 1930s. But I would want to say this to people just because I think it says the most about Will Rogers, why you might want to look deeper at this guy, that at first appearance just seems like he’s kind of a gum-chewing hick that’s not that funny.
He was tremendously funny in his time. I’m not sure if it translates to a hard time. But what I would want people to know is, isn’t it interesting that when he died, this country mourned more than any individual it has ever mourned? That is evidenced by the newspapers, by the radios going silent, by the government response from the president down to millions of people crying because they had lost a family member.
How does an Indian kid from a farm in Oklahoma grow up, not get a college education, not plan to be successful, and end up being beloved by an entire nation because he felt like family and was so useful during his time? How does that happen?
People have not stopped writing about this man. Year after year after year. I just did a compendium talk about following your bliss. I dedicated a month of my time, including all my spare time. I created the first compendium, year by year, by year. How has Will Rogers’ legacy been sustained?
There has not been a single year since 1935, when he died, that someone has not built another monument or written another book or another article or done something to keep this man’s legacy alive. That’s a lot of legacy that continues based on just who he was when he lived.
I tell you what doesn’t create that: success. Success doesn’t create that. It has to be more than success. It has to be usefulness and love.
You know the expression, “People don’t remember what you tell them, they remember how you made them feel.”
I think there’s a lot to study there. You’re going to say, “Well, I’m planning on writing a book about Will. I think what is left to contribute, when there’s been 40 biographies written about him already, is a book called ‘Beloved’, and try to explain why Will Rogers was so beloved. His career accomplishments aside, he was very accomplished.
But what is it that creates Beloved? I’m interested in the question because I’ve noticed that when some people pass away, regardless of their success, the response is often something like “That’s too bad. That’s shocking.”
But when other people pass away, it’s very rare. The response is like the loss of someone you loved, even if you didn’t know them. I like to think that all of us would like to be beloved, that our imprint on this planet is that friends and maybe strangers beloved us.
But that takes a special set of actions. That is not accomplished because you ended up rich. That is not accomplished because you ended up in the Hall of Fame. That is not accomplished because you had a big house or a big title, or you were president of the United States. That is an accomplishment of the heart, the spirit, and the soul.
Creating distance from repetitive, negative, and judgmental thoughts brings you into the fullness of the present. Share on XAnd it requires courage.
I know we’re running out of time here. I want to acknowledge a little fun fact here that you don’t know. But one way you made me feel good or a little joyful was by handing out a business card at the event where we met, which I believe was over a dozen years ago. And it was a comb. Do you still hand out combs?
I don’t. I have the remnants of them, but I’ve been writing for a decade. My name is Patrick Combs, and I would hand out combs with my phone number on it.
I have your name on it, too. Yeah, it was memorable. It was really cute. And it’s funny what people remember when I can’t tell you what the main topic was of your talk at that event, but I remember the comb.
Right, there you go. My topic at that was the art of speaking, which I care very much about.
Yeah, which is a good segue to our closing pitch. If our listeners or viewers are interested in working with you, especially in the area of speaking and proving their speaking ability, as a Hall of Fame speaker, you offer coaching services. If they’re interested in the CEO coaching or just want to learn more from you, where should we direct them?
Well, I think the first one up is patrickcombs.com, which doesn’t really advertise much. It mainly focuses on my speaking engagements, but you can still reach me easily through there. Same thing on Instagram, since I’m easily reachable there. One is a spiritual Instagram feed, and that’s called @now.awakening.
My personal one, where I just kind of really keep it super personal, is called @bemiracleminded. I’m easily reachable through Facebook, although I don’t take friend requests from people I don’t know. Once I know someone, I will.
However, I wanted to mention speech coaching, although we didn’t discuss the art and mastery of it. I will just drop this on someone because I love doing it so much. In case they’re listening, go speech coach.
You didn’t say a word about it.
No, we talked about something deeper and more meaningful. But I’m always helping somebody. I’ve been working with one or two clients at a time for years now, helping them identify their keynote speech topics.I’m helping them craft the entire keynote. I’m helping them become a better performer on stage, removing things like stage fright or anxiety before the talk. I often have high-level speakers who want to improve their skills. I’m considered by many to be a speaker’s speech coach.
However, I’m overjoyed that I can easily serve beginners who are just starting out. I’m really helpful there because beginners often struggle to pick a topic and don’t know how to turn it into a keynote speech. They also have tons of fears.
Whereas advanced people come to me and they say, “How do I tell these stories better?”
“I need better stories,”
Or “I need more humor.”
Or “How do I make this talk more corporate?”
That’s why I’m helpful to advanced speakers.
That’s great. All right, so patrickcombs.com and Instagram are two ways to reach you. Now, you mentioned that one of your Instagram accounts is bemiracleminded. How did that phrase come to your mind? Did you read that somewhere? Did that just pop in or what?
A Course in Miracles is a spiritual text about becoming miracle-minded. What miracle-minded means in A Course In Miracles is learning to think in accordance with God. That God is the doer of miracles, for sure.
If we want a thin slice, A Course In Miracles suggests that the Holy Spirit is the mediator and the one who can take your thoughts and guide you to be miracle-minded. But I’m just bringing it up because it’s informed by A Course In Miracles, and any mention of a miracle, I feel compelled to say, you know, a student of A Course In Miracles learns, I do not conduct miracles. Individuals here do not conduct miracles. It would be a mistake to think that I found a miraculous healer.
If we allow ourselves to be miracle-minded, there is no order of difficulty to miracles.
If we allow ourselves to be miracle-minded, there is no order of difficulty to miracles.
You know, I read a book that espoused being a delivery person for God’s miracles. And it mentioned a phrase or a piece from the Bible, Isaiah 6.8, where Isaiah is saying, “Here I am, Lord, please choose me, please pick me.”
Essentially, it is interrupting a board meeting where archangels are getting their miracle assignments. Here he astral travels to in a dream or a vision, and he’s there hanging out on the sidelines, and he’s like, “Hey, here I am, Lord, please pick me. Send me, I wanna do an assignment.”
We can do that. That’s one of the prayers that I oftentimes incorporate into my morning, asking God, “Please send me. Here I am, please send me.”
You can be a pizza delivery guy for God’s miracles, too, but you gotta opt in for it.
That’s wonderful. Right here on my whiteboard is the phrase that I say to myself every day: “What would you have me do and not do today? I will oblige.”
And that, to me, is miracle-mindedness, saying, “Show me who brings me, who tells me what to say.”
Stephan, I had no idea we’d never discussed our shared spirituality notes before. But boy, what a beautiful conversation. I really see how deeply into your spiritual path you are.
Well, thank you. We’re all just walking each other home, as Ram Dass would say.
Wayne Dyer said, “We’re not human beings having a spiritual experience, we’re spiritual beings having a human experience.”
I love that.
Well, this was a fabulous and inspiring conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your bliss with our listeners, and have a blessed rest of your day.
And listener, viewer, please go out there, make the world a better place by finding your joy and being in your joy. We’ll catch you in the next episode. I’m your host, Stephan Spencer, signing off.
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